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The Second Sunday of Lent, March 12, 2006
Genesis 22:1-14, Romans 8:31-39, Mark 8:31-38
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT

The Rev. W. Lee Shaw

Yesterday a group of us gathered to begin the via media discussions again. Even though I have seen the first sessions a few times before, it was good to view them again in another context with other voices around our tables. One of the things that I find the most moving and interesting is hearing your stories of what brought you to Christ, brought you to church and to this church, and what brought you to where you are now. There is an old Jewish saying that God created humans because God loves stories. Well, I love your stories of what brought you here and into our common life at St. Stephen's.

Likewise I never tire of the stories about the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. We have a rich and varied history and tradition. It is one that we can all learn from by revisiting from time to time. So even though we have started via media, it is not too late to join us next Saturday.

The stories we have from the Hebrew scriptures and the Gospel today are troubling on several levels. I am always in awe and shock at Abraham's faith and Isaac's acceptance. I find this to be a disturbing story and one full of nuance and power. In the narrative Isaac asks where the sacrifice is and his father replies, “God himself will provide....” Then the writer simply notes: “So the two of them walked on together.” I cannot imagine what was in their minds as father and son made their way up the mountain. They each walked on in faith, despite the unknowing of the son and the dread of the father, they walked on together.

Our Gospel also has a particularly hard reading: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” We sometimes make light of the saying, “to take up the cross.” But when read in its original context, in the voice of Jesus, it brings us to a hard and startling shift of reality. There is a price to be paid to follow Jesus. This will not always be an easy journey. There is a personal price that may be exacted to follow the Christ in deed as well as in faith.

This is the “costly grace” that Bonhoffer writes of, as compared to “cheap grace.” This is a grace that comes from our participation, our active following of the Christ and our willingness to pay the price of our faith in him, as he paid the price of his love for us. To take up the cross, for me, is to follow the Christ as I see him leading me and to accept the cost of my discipleship as what I offer to him for what he has given to me. Not offered to gain anything, rather offered in thanksgiving for what I have already received from my God.

There is considerable talk of late of walking: walking together and walking apart in the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church. There are voices that say our fellowship as Anglicans is doomed. There are other voices that say so what? Let them go. (Whoever “them” is.) And there are other voices who continue to seek the via media, the middle way of reconciliation and comprehensiveness that have been the hallmarks of Anglicanism.

Some of this will be decided in June at our General Convention in Columbus, Ohio. I will be there as the chair of our deputation and one committed to the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. That commitment to church and communion, however, is founded on my commitment to Christ and finds its marching orders as it were in my Baptismal Covenant. My prayer and my hope is that the genius of Anglican comprehensiveness will see us through in finding an understanding of our shared faith for us to walk together in some way, even though I see us now in a state of schism. I don't know. We walk by faith, in hope with love. We cannot force others to walk with us if they have no desire to be with us. Our commitment fundamentally is to walk with God as we hear God's call to us.

And in that I take great hope and faith in the words of St. Paul: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I would just add to that, neither bishops nor archbishops, nor priests nor canon theologians can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Yes, our church and our communion are at a point of change and evolution. None of us can see into the future as to what the change will ultimately look like. But as for me, I will continue to live my life grounded in my baptism as expressed in the Baptismal Covenant and to take up my cross to follow the Christ. I will continue to seek the via media as Anglicanism's great gift to the Christian faith. I will continue to help St. Stephen's Church to be a welcoming and gracious community for all who enter our doors. I will continue to invite all people to share in the sacrament of our Lord at this altar. This is who we are.

And I will hold in my mind the image of Abraham and Isaac as “the two of them walked on together” faithful that the Lord would provide. May we, in all our callings and in all our capacities continue to seek to walk on together, even—especially—in our doubts and fears, and our anxieties of the unknown.