Sunday, January 25, 2009
Come, Holy Spirit…help us hear a word from you tonight…and help us put the word we hear from you into practice in our lives, through Jesus Christ out Lord. Amen.
I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to join with you, my sisters and brothers in Christ, with my bishop colleagues and with Christians around the world as we pray for Christian unity. All of us are grateful to President Cesareo and to Assumption College for making this Ecumenical Prayer Service possible.
Our gathering here tonight may be more significant than we recognize.
Our simple act of worshiping God together actually brings joy to the heart of God. As we heard in the reading from John’s gospel, Jesus prays that all of his followers might be one, as he and the Father are one.
Given this yearning in the heart of God for us to be one…and given the reality that there are over 23,000 different denominations of Christians in the world… the heart of God must often weep at our divisions. All around the globe, people see the divisions and conflicts among Christians. So the fact that we are here, praying together tonight, is more significant to God than we may recognize.
Our gathering tonight is also more significant for Worcester County Christians than we may recognize. God has blessed us with an extraordinary ecumenical heritage in Worcester. Let me sketch just a few highlights.
In 1937, the Worcester Council of Churches began as a network of Protestant churches in the city of Worcester. By 1952, the membership expanded and the name was changed to the Worcester Area Council of Churches. As Orthodox immigrants from many countries came to Worcester County, the Orthodox churches grew and joined the Council of Churches.
After Vatican II, Bishop Flannigan was eager to initiate deeper ecumenical sharing. In 1973 the first Roman Catholic parishes joined the Council and the name was appropriately changed to the Worcester County Ecumenical Council. Our Ecumenical Council became one of the strongest local Ecumenical witnesses in the country.
Assumption College has also contributed to our Ecumenical heritage in Worcester by bringing leading Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant biblical scholars and theologians to the Ecumenical Institute, which they hosted for many years.
But the social and religious realities of Worcester County have changed significantly. Most denominations have watched with pain as some of their churches have closed. As a result of the economic challenges of churches, the Worcester County Ecumenical Council closed in 2007.
Yet Christ’s call for unity in prayer and witness among Christians in this area has not changed. So the question before the ecumenical community of Worcester has been…what will the future of ecumenical relationships look like in this area?
The fact that Assumption College has brought us together tonight may be more significant than we recognize. Perhaps this gathering is the seed from which a new chapter of ecumenical partnership will be born. Perhaps God is inviting us to develop new patterns of ecumenical worship, study and action in Worcester County.
Our ecumenical calling from Christ is to develop unity in our relationships with God and each other… and also to follow Christ in living God’s mission in the world. Jesus made it clear that he wanted his followers to live in unity “so that the world may believe.” We followers of Jesus have both an evangelistic commission from our Lord and a commission to love our neighbors, especially those in need.
Because of the profound changes in the world and in the culture of Worcester County, we have three major challenges before us in our ecumenical ministry in Worcester County.
First, we face the challenge of a more ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse society in Worcester County. Several years ago I heard the former mayor of Worcester, Tim Murray, say that in the Worcester Public Schools there are students from 115 countries who speak 80 different languages. How can we who are followers of Jesus welcome and integrate the people God has brought to Worcester from these vastly diverse cultures, races, languages and religions?
The Gospels tell stories of how Jesus related with compassion and respect for people from different racial and religious cultures, like Samaritans and a Syrophoenician woman who needed help. God sent Philip to baptize an Ethiopian from Africa and guided Peter to take the gospel to people of all nations. And Christ calls us to develop more authentic and mutual relationships with our African, Latin American, Asian and Eastern European sisters and brothers in Christ who often have difficulty connecting with the ecumenical Christian community here.
We also have an interfaith challenge. As we Christians in Worcester County relate with people of other religious traditions, like our Jewish and Muslim neighbors, how can we demonstrate the quality of respect and compassion that Jesus demonstrated in his relationships with people of other religions and cultures?
A second ecumenical challenge is that we live in a much more secular culture. Blue laws are gone. More people are devoted to the religion of consumerism and shopping malls… than to deepening their love of God and neighbors. Some Christians experience hostility from our society when they speak about and live their faith in business, schools and government.
Recently I read a paragraph that addresses our challenges with jolting clarity. Let me quote: “Most people throughout the western world have seen what the church has to offer and they have found it to be wanting. The current credibility gap has made it hard to communicate the gospel with clarity and authenticity. Paradoxically, this is the case even though it is currently a time of almost unprecedented openness to the issues of God, faith and meaning. This is a time when the need for, and relevance of, the gospel has seldom been greater, but the relevance of church has seldom been less. If ever there was time for innovative missionary efforts in the West, it is now.” (from the back cover of The Shaping of Things to Come, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsh)
God is inviting all Christians to discover new ways of living and talking about the Good News of Jesus in this secular and self-focused generation. We need each other as ecumenical partners as we discern how God is calling us to live as followers of Jesus… in contrast to the values of our secular culture.
A third challenge before us as an ecumenical community is the poverty and injustice that threatens our county and world. With the increasing gap between rich and poor, with the crisis in our economy, with the lack of good jobs, with continuing wars around the world, with increasing domestic and civil violence in our society, with crises around immigration issues, with major global health care problems and the threats to God’s gift of our environment on this planet…we are living in a time of enormous social need and injustice.
As followers of Jesus, this is the time and this is the context in which we are called to be Christ’s Good News people. Yet none of us can impact these complex issues alone. For the sake of Christ and a world in need, we must learn to work more in partnership with each other to embody the mission of compassion that is in the heart of God.
Of course there are differences among us as Christians that will influence the way we respond to these three ecumenical challenges. Each tradition of Christian churches experiences tensions from the diversity within its own people. As the global society changes, we Christians are forced to wrestle with how to remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ given in Scripture and our Tradition… and how to connect this life-giving faith with the changing global culture in which we live. We can expect to have differences over some theological and social issues. But in our differences we need each other. We need to be in conversation with each other. We need to both respect and challenge each other as we all seek to be faithful to Christ.
God’s call to live the ministry of Christ through ecumenical partnerships is not just a nostalgic longing for some glorious days in the past. This is Christ’s fresh call to us in this generation, with our unique challenges. The way forward will not be to simply repeat past programs and organizations. The vibrant missionary heart of God will need to guide us. The wisdom and empowering love of the Holy Spirit will need to inspire us. It is only as we all deepen our intimacy with Christ, and live more fully under the guidance of God’s Word and Spirit that we will be able to produce the fruit of God’s Kingdom in our generation.
I wonder what will emerge after our worship tonight to open up a new chapter in ecumenical partnerships in Worcester County? What next steps is Christ calling us to take together so that the Light of Christ can shine more brightly into the challenges and anxieties of this generation?
Let us pray: O Christ, breathe the fresh wind of your Holy Spirit upon us to deepen our unity with you and with all our Christian sisters and brothers, so that together we may live and proclaim your Gospel in the needy world of our generation for the glory of your name. Amen