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Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:8-14, Luke 20:9-19
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Rev'd W. Lee Shaw
Every once in a while, one of the prophets from the Hebrew Scriptures
speak to our day in unexpected ways. Isaiah, writing about 700
years before the birth of Jesus speaks to us today: I am about
to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Our House of Bishops, meeting last week in Texas began a new
thing.
They began the conversation with the Anglican Communion
of where we are and how we do church. We will no longer let others
set the agenda for our call to ministry, our proclamation of the
Gospel, how we follow the Christ. Their document is full of yearning
and passion. I find it incredible to come from a bunch of middle
aged, and older, Episcopal bishops!
They use language of: declare our passionate desire to remain...in
the Anglican Communion
; deep longing of our hearts
;
our Anglican Communion partners are vital to our very integrity
as Christians and our wholeness
; with great hope we will
continue to welcome.
There is a certain passion that comes
from our relationship with Christ.
I hear the same passion and hope in St. Paul's elegant letter to
the church in Philippi. You can almost hear his voice rise and
fall in emotion as he describes his relationship, his faith, and
his hope in Jesus Christ. I regard everything as loss because
of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord....I want
to know Christ and the power of his resurrection...I press on to
make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own....forgetting
what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press
on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in
Christ Jesus.
I can just hear his voice as in an old fashioned
tent revival meeting with emotion choking his voice, and I know I
do not do it justice in the staid tradition of the Episcopal Church.
Paul knows and shows that the way of Christ is in pressing forward.
The way of Christ is worth the loss of worldly goods and honor.
The way of Christ is the way of love of your neighbor. The way of
Christ is the way of the cross. We are not called to be successful,
we are called to be faithful. This is the message of Paul to the
Philippians and to us: the life that comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God based on faith.
This is the faith of the church handed down through the ages. This
is the faith of the church found in the apostolic office and
succession of the bishops of the church catholic: East, West and
Anglican. This is the faith of the church our own House of Bishops
is now proclaiming as the expression of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
once delivered. For some it may be a new thing
as Isaiah
prophesied. The Episcopal Church has been a church of the Holy
Spirit's prophecy and promptings in moving into new things:
equal standing for women, the equality of all races and ethnic
groups, respect for gays and lesbians, care for the environment, a
dogged sense of peace and justice, conversations between faith and
the sciences, inter-faith dialogue, and in so many other areas we
have been a voice of prophecy and a voice of hope.
I encourage you as we enter into the last days of Lent to read
through our Bishops' Communiqué. You can link to it through
the St. Stephen's website and Episcopal Life Online. In the middle
of their document they proclaim the Gospel,
the good news
we have to offer the world. Let me share it with you:
We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God. The [Primates'] Communiqué is distressingly silent on this subject. And contrary to the way [others] have represented us, we proclaim a Gospel that welcomes diversity of thought and encourages free and open theological debate as a way of seeking God's truth.
This is the Gospel, the good news, our bishops proclaimed from
Texas, of all places. It carries in it the spirit of St. Paul's
call of forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what
lies ahead.
The bishops then concluded their statement with a ringing declaration
of what our faith compels us to do: With this affirmation both
of our identity as Church and our affection and commitment to the
Anglican Communion, we find new hope that we can turn our attention
to the essence of Christ's own mission in the world, to bring good
news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery
of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim
the year of the Lord's favor (Luke 4:18-19). It is to that mission
that we now determinedly turn.
With all that is swirling about us in our own country, in the
Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, this was we are called
to, the essence of Christ's own mission in the world.
I commit
myself with our bishops to be about that, the business of Jesus.
That is what we are called to do. That is who we are called to be.