Exploring Ecumenism: Exegesis

Exegesis

Thursday, 07 April 2011

The Greatest Must be Like the Youngest

This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Luke 22: 24 - 30

This passage and the last both cover ground preachers address regulalrly. The need for humility has been addressed several times in this blog. The power of church hierarchies is an obvious target and so it is difficult to imagine what can be said that hasn't been said many times before.

There is a distinction between saying something and meaning it. This passage invites us to question the use of power in the churches.

"A dispute arose between the churches as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. They could see that kings, politicians and tyrants lord it over people and like to be thought of as benefactors. The hardest thing for them to see was that the greatest must become like the youngest churches, the leaders as ones who serve. They could see Jesus' example as the one who serves, and yet somehow the churches couldn't quite make the connection."

Does this work? Possibly not. In part, the problem is many Christians believe their version is the one true faith and all the others fall short. This is not a problem residing solely with those in authority.

What does humility mean if you are a senior person in a church hierarchy? In what practical ways can a leader serve which shows the way of Jesus Christ? Power accrues power.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Ecclesiology, Exegesis | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, 06 April 2011

You Should Wash One Another's Feet

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John 13: 3 - 15

Michael Scott was a Church of England vicar. When he was in his forties, after a substantial time as a parish priest, he had a vicarage next to the field in Knebworth that hosted a pop festival. His teenage son wanted to go but Michael objected on moral grounds. His son suggested he was being unfair and challenged him to go and meet the people himself.

And so Mick the Vic became known as the priest who visited pop festivals during the seventies and eighties. He became a hippy and washed festival go-ers feet.

Mick was one of the founder member of the Christian Praxis Group and once washed our feet. I don't know whether you have ever had each toe individually unscrewed, washed and then screwed back on, not necessarily in the right order? I swore never again as I hobbled away.

I wanted to tell Mick's story, or at least this small part of it, because it illustrates the importance of this story, found only in John's Gospel, of Jesus washing the disciples' feet.

We have lost touch with the reality of dirty feet in an age of shoes, socks and showers. Until a few decades ago, most people had dirty feet. I remember an exhibition in London a few years ago, with paintings by Raphael and Caravaggio. Raphael was the last of the artists who drew stylised devotional pictures, where angels and saints were all impossibly clean. Caravaggio normally painted only the top halves of people because then he didn't have to show their feet, which as a natural painter, he had to paint dirty.

The thing is we cannot ignore the fact that Jesus had dirty feet. It was usual for a guest to have their feet washed when they entered the home of their host. Many New Testament stories revolve around this custom, from the wedding of Cana in John, to the story of Simon the Pharisee in the Synoptics.

It is hard to imagine what the modern equivalent would be. Perhaps it is the vicar with his sleeves rolled up washing hippies' feet at a pop festival.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Exegesis | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, 05 April 2011

God's Gift of the Spirit

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Ephesians 3: 14 - 16

The author prays for the church, that according to the riches of God's glory ... you may be strengthened ...

God's glory is the means by which we know God is present. God's glory is in the united community. To overcome divisions and function as a community, despite very real differences, is a sign of God's real presence.

We sometimes expect God to be manifested in miracles, defying the laws of nature. With these expectations, we lose sight of what God is actually saying or doing. When belief in miracles or hell becomes more important than the love we have for one another, something is wrong. When I criticise someone for being literalistic about the Bible, I am forgetting the pre-eminence of love.

The challenge, and the reason we all need to be strengthened, is learning to love with integrity. It is easy to feel I need to compromise my beliefs for others. Our challenge is to love others whilst remaining faithful to the vision of God each of us has experienced.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Diversity, Exegesis, Theology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, 04 April 2011

The Gift Each One Has Received

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1 Peter 4: 8 - 11

Again this passage emphasises mutuality. 'Maintain constant love for one another'. We forget this is something understood by many traditional communities. It is essential for survival. It is natural to practice it.

But this passage goes on to suggest wherever we do love one another, we are expressing the reality of God. God is manifested in the community where people love one another. God speaks when someone speaks, God's strength is used in service.

It is easy to forget this command to love one another applies to all Christians and all people. The church is supposed to show the world how it is done. This is why the church is divided, so that our ability to love each other across the divisions can be seen.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Exegesis, Mutuality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sunday, 03 April 2011

One Body in Union with Christ

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Romans 12: 3 - 5

What does it mean to be 'members one of another'? We are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought because we need each other.

This passage is about mutuality. Unfortunately this concept has fallen out of modern political discourse. Arguments are usually around altruism and selfishness. 'Scratch an altruist and find an hypocrite'.

Like everything else, we can absolutise altruism; turn it into an ideology. No one is purely altruistic but this does not mean all actions are selfish.

'Love your neighbour as you love yourself' is a single commandment, not two. We're not being told to both love our neighbour and ourselves or that loving ourselves is an essential prerequisite to loving our neighbours (true as these positions might be).

As we learn of God's love, we discover God loves all people and I am one of the people God loves. God expresses God's love for us through our neighbours and love for our neighbours through us.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Exegesis, Mutuality | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Saturday, 02 April 2011

For Building Up the Body of Christ

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Ephesians 4: 7, 11 - 16

This builds on the previous passage. The point of disciplined listening and sharing is to attain maturity and the full stature of Christ. Note unity here is not something imposed through church structures but something which grows from genuine sharing of faith (v13).

The experience of unity flows from sharing between Christians of different traditions. In such sharing we learn of the ways we are deceived by our doctrines, tricks and schemes.

And as we overcome out delusions we find the body is joined and knitted together. The body builds itself up in love.

One problem ecumenists have is ecumenical reception. The councils of the churches make an agreement but have difficulty passing it on to local churches. The problem is where a formal agreement is imposed on others not party to it.

It is no surprise formal conversations have had a high degree of success. Of course they have. When Christians get together and share they will find common ground. The problems start when successful leaders impose their findings on others.

The body builds itself in love.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Conversations, Diversity, Exegesis, Theology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Friday, 01 April 2011

Not Disorder, but Peace

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1 Corinthians 14: 31 - 33

This passage tells us we are indeed different and so need to organise ourselves accordingly. If we prophesy one by one, then we will hear something new, we will learn and be encouraged by the breadth of faith expressed.

Peace is not a result of uniformity but of a disciplined approach to faith. Our call is to learn to listen to others and in turn share our own experience of God.

Much talk of unity ignores the impossibility of knowing God fully. No one tradition can possibly embrace all there is to know of faith. Indeed, if we put every tradition's understanding of God together we would still not know God.

The task is to perceive God in the here and now. To do this we can pool our experience. We need to do this in a disciplined and so peaceful way.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Diversity, Exegesis, Theology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, 31 March 2011

All Together in One Place

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Acts 2: 1 - 6

It is a fallacy to believe this story illustrates the unity of the Church. Pentecost is always seen as the birthday of the Church but what do we find?

A flame divides into a number of flames. The people speak in different languages; although from all over the known world, they hear their own languages. They do not all understand a single language.

This reads to me as an affirmation of diversity. I cannot see a mandate for unity as a single organisational structure.

Organisational unity is a lazy way of understanding unity; 'if only we all agreed, then we would have unity'. It is much more rewarding to be united with those with whom we disagree.

The assumption is God seeks unity in the sense of a single structure but where is the evidence? The challenge is to love one another, not to become like one another.

There is another thing too. What about the dissenters, the marginalised? Where do they fit into the single full, visible and unified church? The static model of unity does not take into account the dynamic of love.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Diversity, Exegesis, Theology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

Let All the Peoples' Praise Him

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Romans 15: 10 - 11

This final passage, from the section of 'one light: one world' headed 'Christ's work in bringing us into unity', is something of mystery.

The burden of the message seems to be now gentiles are admitted into the faith, they can join all peoples in praising God.

Churches Together in England has selected these passages to encourage us to reflect upon how we may all be one. Some of them don't make any especial connection to ecumenism for me and this one in particular seems to be something of a space filler.

One thing I can do is use the opportunity afforded by the last line 'let all the peoples praise him' to reflect upon one theme that has emerged from this section of passages.

That is the theme of 'glory'. As I understand it, the glory of God is the means by which we are made aware of the presence of God. God is not accessible to our senses and so we need signs of God. These signs represent the real presence of God.

In a way the halo is one way artists have tried to depict God's glory. It is a metaphor for something more difficult to define.

What John 17 seems to be saying is unity is the glory of God. It is the ultimate reconciliation of all things. It can be prefigured in the church and the divided church is our opportunity to demonstrate the glory of God, being united despite our differences. Ecumenism is the laboratory in which the churches experiment with unity.

When we are prepared to take responsibility for unity, by being prepared to risk our own integrity in order to embrace the other, then we see God's glory. This is what the early gentile Christians experienced and what gave them cause to praise God.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Diversity, Exegesis, Theology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

He Has Broken Down the Dividing Wall

Ephesians 2: 13 - 22

In this passage, the author describes the church as a place of reconciliation. Recently I have indulged in some negative descriptions of the institutional church and this passage is an opportunity to consider the church in a more positive light.

Our primary experience of church is the institutions and this has advantages and disadvantages. What we are invited to do here, is to perceive the church behind the institutions. Fundamentally, church is not an insititution but an event. It is where people who are otherwise divided are able, through Jesus Christ,to be reconciled.

The 1986 Inter-church Process was known as 'Not Strangers but Pilgrims' (see verse 19) and this vision of the church being somehow bigger than or behind the institutional expressions of church, was how many understood it.

People united in Christ is evidence of the glory of God. It is the breaking down of the walls our institutions create that shows us the power of God. Church institutions might point to the apostles, prophets and Jesus as the foundation of their particular version of the way but what is important is where the divisions created by the institutions disappear.

The dynamic of reconciliation generates a sense of the glory of God. As others are reconciled in a widening circle, as humanity is able to extend and deepen conversation across religious and political divides, we see the reality of God's intervention in the world.