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SERMONS Sean Gilbert This is the Uniting Church John 17: 1-11 I want to begin this morning with a personal story of sorts, yet one that primarily concerns another minister within the Uniting Church (who by the way has kindly given me permission to recall it). About 6 or 7 years ago, the then Fleurieu Presbytery – that is, the regional body responsible for the oversight of congregations and ministers - deemed that all ministers in placements participate in a peer support group on a regular basis. Consequently they put us in localized groupings, and basically said, “Folks, go to it!” And it seemed to a good number of us that this was a very good and timely idea. Collegially we were, and I honestly think still are to a certain degree, a real mess. The theological divide, exacerbated by the long-running sexuality debate in the U.C. and the formation of conservative and liberal factions, had left us clergy with little respect and trust, time and sympathy for one another. And whilst I’ve been no small player in defining lines of difference, I’ve always wanted to keep the dialogue opportunities open, hence my willingness to help the peer group work as well as it might. Well, work it did. In fact it is still going, whereas others quickly faded from view, and much of its success was due to the leadership of John Blanskby, the soon to be retired minister down the road here at Ascot Park. Now John and I are very different people – that’s probably an understatement – but we were both determined that this would work, so much so that we met and nutted out an official charter for the group, and emphasized its role as being about friendship, mutual support and encouragement, We also inserted a line that when we met we would always endeavour to have and I quote, “a bloody good time”. And it may surprise you that this was John’s sentiment, not my own. I was merely the scribe who was happy to edit it in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we gathered about a month ago to farewell John – the group now made up of folk from all over the place – and in his parting speech at the lunch table he told us that this group had been of major importance within his 20 or so years of ministry. He then recalled moments of honest and vulnerable sharing, of laughter, and great concern for each other and went on to say, that in an openly factionalized environment of distrust or indifference, we somehow found a way within the life of the Uniting Church to bring our differences to the meetings and yet to maintain our care and respect. He looked around the table and surveying the considerable diversity of gender, theology, background etc, and then said, “This is the Uniting Church”, the church we’ve always hoped for, not the sameness of opinion and theology some would like us to adopt in our own small and separate groupings. This is the Uniting Church, a people who, in the strong words of our Basis of Union, are called to bear witness to a unity of faith and life in Christ, which transcends cultural, economic, national and racial boundaries. And if it were written again today, may very well include theological, gender and sexuality, boundaries also to be transcended or overcome in and through that same Christ. For such is the nature of this unity of faith and life in Christ, it has little to do with the differences in our humanity, other than that they be held deftly within the greater given of our commonality. For in the end, the union that John’s Gospel speaks so eloquently and poetically about, so far as Jesus and his Father God are concerned, is relational and open to the core. It expresses the prior reality about love, intimacy and respect, and not what we are first agreed on, dare I say, matters theology and ethics! And friends it is to this union of spirit and heart we are called, a union which goes beyond tolerance, understanding and even acceptance. For as Hugh McKay said recently in Adelaide, healthy communities are dependent upon a certain curiosity or respectful interest in the other person. A respectful recognition of the other’s sanctity, irrespective of opinion or creed; where we celebrate diversity by actually being interested in the other, and not simply pay lip service to acceptance as an ideal. In the words of Iris Murdoch, a well-known writer on spirituality, “Love is the difficult realization that something/someone other than oneself is real.” That my own reality, however preoccupying and pressing it is at times, has got to be balanced and even tempered by the lived realities of my friend, enemy or neighbour. That the reality of the Muslim’s faith is as real to them as is my Christian faith, that the love of the homosexual person toward their partner in life is as real as my own love within a heterosexual relationship, that the grief of parents of a child killed in Iraq or in Sudan is as real as the grief I would feel after the loss of a loved one. For friends it is only at that very human, yet divinely empathic level, we find something of the unity that Jesus is talking about. In fact the rest is but dross and slag - including religious statements or belief. For if anything, the grace of God, however special and loved it may make us feel (and rightly so), does not then encourage a feeling of superiority or separateness. Genuine grace has the very opposite effect as it numbers us with the whole, all being special and loved, i.e. along with every other aspect of God’s creation. Christianity was never meant to feed the human ego, but to diffuse it and by doing so setting the human heart free in the mutual love, respect and service of others. My old mentor of the authorship kind, Thomas Merton, once described a pivotal experience he had on a crowded corner of 4t and Walnut St in downtown Louiseville, Kentucky. A member of a monastic order for some 17 years, steeped in prayer, worship, learning and Christian piety, Merton came to a shocking realization that his practice of religion had actually blinded him to a more important reality as far as his vocation and faith were concerned, that being his prior membership of the human race. He writes: “This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: Thank God, thank God I am like other men (and women), that I am only a man among others. It
is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it
is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes terrible
mistakes; yet with all that God himself gloried in becoming a member
of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should
suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic
sweepstake.” After John Blanksby’s farewell speech, he needed to leave early and made his way toward the door. Being the last remaining original member of the group, I felt moved to see him out. “Can I give you a hug,” he said. “You certainly can,” was my choked reply. It was a wonderfully moving and fulfilling moment. And at that moment I felt in a small but significant way, this dream and vision of the Uniting Church is still possible. Difference, division and even rancour can always be transcended in Christ if we hold on to our faith in him as One who takes us well beyond our need to be right, or to be better, or to be unique, above and beyond another’s uniqueness; for he is the one who takes us, if we would dare allow him to, into the very heart of our humanity (which is our divinity) so as to find the dance of true community itself, if not the dance of abundant life. Well, speaking of Thomas Merton, a prayer of his with which I’ll conclude: Let us pray: Fill us then with love and let us be bound together
with love as we go our different ways, united in this one spirit which
makes you present in this world and which makes you witness to the
ultimate reality that is love. The beautiful vision of what life is and might be is always more drawing and powerful than thousands of words… “By beauty we are won…
By beauty we are won… (Tune – Carlisle, highest setting 449 TiS) By beauty we are won, For wonderment is given Truth cannot stand apart, A people of our time, Through beauty we are one, Words © Sean Gilbert 2006
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