Sermon for the 7th Sunday of Easter
31 May 2025
Oneness of the Church
Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21;
John 17:20-26 (White)
“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that
they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved
them even as you have loved me.” John
17:22-23
“I made your name known to them, and I will make it known,
so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them” John17:26
“Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the
foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were
opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.”
Acts 16:26
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the
Beginning and the End.” Revelation 22:13
Message
“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”[1]
Let us pray. “Let the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you, O Lord,
my rock and redeemer.”[2] Amen.
Good evening. Today’s
gospel couldn’t be more relevant today for all of us here gathered. We live in a fractured and ever more
fractious world. I’d like to tell you
that all the craziness and partisanship and anger we are living through is new
and a portent that leads to a better world on the other side. If you will, it’s just an earthquake, as we
hear about in today’s lesson from Acts, and it’s shaking our very foundations[3], which will result
in us being set free and unshackled from the pain, anxiety, and chaos that is
being wrought in our world today. But if
I did that, I’d be lying to you. No, in
my message today I am not going to commit the error that all too many in the
past have committed and tell you the physical second coming of Christ is going
to happen on X date at Y hour in the not-too-distant future. To quote scripture, “For you yourselves know
very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”[4] and “But about that
day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only
the Father.”[5] While we, “must be ready, for the Son of Man
is coming at an hour you do not expect,”[6] and that Jesus is
“… the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End,”[7] what we are seeing
today in our world is not new nor a sign any more or less than any other moment
in the history of the world.
So, what are we to make of our reality, especially in the
face of the Gospel that speaks of oneness in all things. It implores us to “be one, as [the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit] are one.”[8] What does it mean to be “One”? Today, I hope to help us grasp at a few
answers to that critical question.
I will first start with a personal story. As you all know I am a retired Army veteran
who served in Iraq. My first combat tour
was during the conflict that started in 2003.
When I said earlier that living in an era of conflict is not new, this
period of my life certainly comes to mind.
You see, up to that point, the events on September 11, 2001 and then the
fateful call I received on Valentine’s Day 2003, the reality of my service
being in an actual combat environment was a far-off concern that I had never
thought would happen. Afterall when I
committed to serving back in 1993 by signing on to an ROTC scholarship, the
Army was being used as more or less a peace keeping force in places like Bosnia
or Kosovo or an emergency action response team to address natural disasters
like in Florida following Hurricane Andrew or political crises like were
happening in Haiti. Being part of a true
shooting war was not what was anticipated, even as its possibility was
certainly explicitly part of the job.
This “first time going to war” experience, was, to say the
least very trying on both of us, but especially Jackie. When we met at Clarkson, first as friends and
then when we dated, there was not a question of the fact we were going to start
our post-Clarkson lives, should we stick together, as a military family, at
least part-time. When the Army chose
that I was going to serve on Active Duty, contrary to my desire and our plans,
that became even clearer. And when we
got engaged during my graduation in 1997 and then married over Memorial Day
weekend in 1998, there was really no turning back. Let’s just say, despite these realities,
embracing, in a full-throated way, the Army family life was something that
Jackie was not going to do. She loved me
and knew this was the course I had chosen, and would support me, but she wasn’t
going to be heading up the family support group any time soon, or ever.
And the other thing was that up until this first deployment,
I was a regular church goer and Jackie was not.
As some of you are aware, my first stint as being a part of the Lutheran
Church of the Holy Trinity was when I was an undergraduate student at
Clarkson. When I moved to Fort Leonard
Wood, Missouri, a basic training installation with a sizable clergy population,
there was a weekly Lutheran service each Sunday on post. By the time we moved to nearby Rolla there
was a Synodically Authorized Worship Community with an Army Lutheran Chaplain
offering services weekly, so my continual habit of church going never really
stopped. During this time, however,
Jackie was not active in her local parish, and frankly things related to faith
and church was not a healthy part of our relationship at the time (mainly
because of me).
This background is offered to say that this first deployment
to a war zone massively changed some things in our lives. Not so much on the “Jackie loves the Army”
side of things (she did come to embrace it a bit more), but 100% when it came
to matters of our faith lives together.
I left in May 2003 to a wife who rarely would beckon the door of St.
Patrick’s Catholic Church and came back to a regular daily mass attendee. Jackie was on fire in her faith journey and
it was awesome. To say I was overjoyed
would be an understatement, but it did bring into specific relief the stark
reality of the Catholic-Lutheran divide that was going to inevitably confront
us.
Father David Cox of St. Patrick’s and the community there
embraced both of us rather fully. I was
even able to be a reader occasionally at daily mass, help participate and lead
(with Jackie) in the faith formation group, and was even discussed as becoming
a Knight of Columbus until they figured out that you have to be Catholic to do
that. Similarly, when we moved to
northern Virgina and Jackie joined St. Mary of Sorrow’s, after some initial
steps, I became one of the facilitators of the small group ministry Bible study
along with Jackie in their Parish. But
the fact that when we went forward to receive holy communion, that I was not
able to receive in her church, and that the teaching of Roman Catholicism that
they refrain from receiving eucharist in churches not in “full communion” with
the papacy, means she doesn’t receive at the table with us. Thus, when it comes to the Christ ordained
nexus point of where he says we can and do confidently meet his real presence,
there is division, a stark and incontrovertible fracture, not oneness. For my part, I scripted some time ago a
personal post communion prayer that laments and, in part, asks for us to
resolve this: “Thank you Lord for your
gift of love and grace, may we never forget to thank you, may we never rent you
asunder, and may we be your instrument of peace. Amen.”
Now I am not going to belabor the history of how this has
become today’s reality, hopefully some of you learned that in confirmation
class (or soon will), but I will say this ought to break all of our
hearts. Today’s gospel lesson is
emphatic on the point that when it comes to all those that believe in Jesus as
the Christ, there should be no division.
As Jesus prays to the Father, he makes it explicit why he has been
glorified and that is “… so that they
may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved
them even as you have loved me.”[9] The separations we have in Christianity is a
rather scandalous part of our current reality.
The new Pope, Leo XIV, acknowledged this fact in his first
public mass. He stated, “brothers and
sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a
sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world. In our time, we still see too much discord,
too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference,
and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes
the poorest.”[10] For all Christians, a least for all who
confess the Nicene Creed, this division stands in contrast to our profession
that we “… believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”[11] Our current separation as fellow brothers and
sisters in Christ, especially in communion, is a huge stumbling block, a chink
in the chain if you will, for the world to be able to see Jesus as savior and
Lord for all.
So how can we fix this rift?
Well, we probably need to understand what oneness in the context of the
church really means. Back to our time in
Missouri: Jackie and I joined some of
our friends with family and games and discussions one evening. Matt McLaughlin, one of the permanent deacons
at St. Patrick’s, Paul Hamacher, and I got into a very long, exceptionally late
into the night, conversation on this very subject. Paul for his part, laid his case heavily on
“the rock of church” being St. Peter and to the oneness of the church being
found in and through the only “Church” that has stayed true from the time of St.
Peter until now, without break in lineage to Peter’s successors, as the
promised true church for all: Roman
Catholicism. I of course pushed back on
several aspects of this line of argument, offering that the true one church was
first and foremost found in Christ himself, but it went on for hours. It having gotten to be exceptionally late, I
essentially conceded his argument as valid for them both, not ever really
agreeing but desiring to move on. Having
often reflected on this faith discussion, however, what I have come to
reconcile about the reality of the oneness of the church is that it is not in,
through, or with any human institution or organization that we find the one
holy and apostolic church. It is somewhere
else, and it can be seen, but it isn’t the organizations we call the ELCA or the
Presbyterian Church USA or the Church of Rome.
You may recall from your confirmation classes some
discussion about this, and how our understanding as Lutherans can be found in
our confessional documents, especially the Augsburg Confession. In Article VII, entitled “Of the Church,”
Philip Melancthon, and the other reformation writers of this confession, offer
that in Lutheran churches, “… they teach that one holy Church is to continue
forever. The Church is the congregation
of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly
administered. And to the true unity of
the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the
administration of the Sacraments.” “As
Paul says: ‘One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all’[12], etc.”[13] Oneness, for us, is right there in the Big
“G” Gospel and in the sacraments.
Luther, in the Smalcald Articles, picks this up and emphasizes further
that “… a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the holy
believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd. For the children pray thus: I believe in one
holy catholic church. This holiness does
not consist in albs, tonsures, long gowns, and other … ceremonies devised … beyond
Holy Scripture, but in the Word of God and true faith.”[14]
We strive towards unity, without hesitation, as Lutherans,
because we hear this call from today’s lesson, and the broader Gospel, to be
one. We can get past a lot of the minor
points and drive to the big picture thanks to our confessions. As the ELCA webpage puts it, “We understand
to be Lutheran is to be ecumenical – committed to the oneness to which God
calls the world in the saving gift of Jesus Christ, recognizing the brokenness
of the church in history and the call of God to heal this disunity.”[15] During the reformation period, the goal for
Luther, Melancthon, and the reformers in the Wittenburg camp was not disunity,
but reforming back to the core of the Gospel.
And this remains for us today and was in 1999, when the Lutheran World
Federation (of which the ELCA is a part) and the Church of Rome signed, on 31
October, in Augsburg, Germany, a Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of
Justification.[16] This was a part of a long and continuing
dialogue with Rome to build towards the oneness that Christ implores of us in
the prayer he offers in today’s gospel lesson.
This drive for unity of the church, is also being seen very
starkly in the beginning of Pope Leo’s pontificate, albeit from a new approach
and more humble place than has been Rome’s modus operandi in the past. Again, in his inaugural homily, Leo asserts: “The Apostle Peter himself tells us that
Jesus ‘is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, and has become the
cornerstone.’[17] Moreover, if the
rock is Christ, Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the
temptation to be an autocrat, lording it over those entrusted to him.[18] On the contrary,
he is called to serve the faith of his brothers and sisters, and to walk
alongside them, for all of us are ‘living stones,’[19] called through our
baptism to build God’s house in fraternal communion, in the harmony of the
Spirit, in the coexistence of diversity.”[20] As if to echo the Augsburg Confession, he
quotes St. Augustine where he states, “The Church consists of all those who are
in harmony with their brothers and sisters and who love their neighbor.”[21]
What was even more amazing to me to hear from the new Pope
was this part of his sermon: “For our
part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within
the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ!
Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to
his offer of love and become his one family: In the one Christ, we are one.
This is the path to follow together, among ourselves, but also with our sister
Christian churches, with those who follow other religious paths, with those who
are searching for God, with all women and men of goodwill, in order to build a
new world where peace reigns!”[22] For those of us who find the disunity of the
church so painful at the Communion Altar, these were amazingly warming words to
hear. To have a Bishop of Rome simply
acknowledge without caveat or nuance, that “in the one Christ, we are one,”
makes my heart leap for joy. It is in
this simplicity, this ultimate truth, that we can and will be one as, the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one.
As the Apology of the Augsburg Confession states when we say this
clearly as Leo has, “[w]e are speaking of true, i.e., of spiritual unity, [we
say that those are one harmonious Church who believe in one Christ; who have
one Gospel, one Spirit, one faith, the same Sacraments; and we are speaking,
therefore, of spiritual unity], without which faith in the heart, or
righteousness of heart before God, cannot exist.”
Now I will not pretend that next year, or even a decade from
now, that the entirety of Roman Catholicism will back away from its closed
communion practice. But I do hold out
hope that in my lifetime, as a member of a “sister Christian church,”[23] as we are, that we
will do more than pulpit exchanges, dialogues, holding a shared baptism, and
agreeing on points of doctrine. I hold
out hope that the unity that is spoken about in the Gospel will be seen at the table
of Christ’s real presence in this world, when Lutherans and Roman Catholics,
Episcopalians and Others, will receive the eucharist together in joy and love,
as a normal expression of the truth of “in the one Christ, we are one.”[24] Then we will have fulfilled Jesus testimony
when he said that he “ made your name known to them, and I will make it known,
so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them”[25] May you too have hope and confidence that the
love that God has revealed in Christ, is in us, as Christ is in us, for the
sake of the whole world.
Amen.
[1] 2
Corinthians 1:2
[2]
Psalm 19:14
[3]
Cf. Acts 16:26
[4] 1
Thessalonians 5:2
[5]
Matthew 24:36
[6]
Matthew 24:44
[7]
Cf. Revelation 22:13
[8]
Cf. John 17:22
[9]
Cf. John 17:22-23
[10] Pope
Leo XIV, 18 May 2025
[11]
Nicene Creed, Article 3
[12]
Ephesians 4:5-6
[13]
Augsburg Confession Article VII, 1-4
[14]
Smalcald Articles, Article XII. Of the Church, 2-3
[15]
Source: https://www.elca.org/about, accessed on
31 May 2025
[16] https://lutheranworld.org/resources/publication-joint-declaration-doctrine-justification,
accessed on 31 May 2025
[17] Acts
4:11
[18] Cf.
1 Pt 5:3
[19] 1
Pet 2:5
[20] Pope
Leo XIV, 18 May 2025
[21] Serm.
359,9
[22] Pope
Leo XIV, 18 May 2025
[23] Pope
Leo XIV, 18 May 2025
[24] Pope
Leo XIV, 18 May 2025
[25] John17:26
