A sermon by Fr. Davenport ©
Church of the Ascension and S. Agnes, Washington, D.C.
27th January 2002
Amos 3:1-8
1 Corinthians 1:10-17
Matthew 4:12-23
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
About ten years ago, Walter Sundberg, a Lutheran Church history professor, advised his denomination not to seek full communion with the Episcopal Church. He said, "Going to bed with Episcopalians is like ecclesiastical necrophilia." (1) Although I would differ with him, unfortunately, his wit was unconvincing to his fellow Lutherans, and now the two denominations have a fatuous full communion. Episcopalians claim participation in the Apostolic Succession and identify themselves by the institution of the episcopacy, and the Lutherans have grave doubts about Apostolic Succession and have full communion with Presbyterians who utterly reject the episcopacy. The shocking incoherence of the so-called union receives extremely little attention. Instead, the warm fuzzies intoxicate us and diminish our ability to be intellectually serious or honest about the issue.
Please understand that I am all for real ecumenical progress. The divisions of the Church are a scandal. The Episcopal Church's bed-sharing with the Lutherans, however, is premature; the union appears based upon misunderstandings. While we pray that we can work out our differences, we may take comfort in the very significant ecumenical progress that has been made in the last half century. Besides substantial accomplishments with the Roman Church, the Anglican Communion has made great ecumenical progress with the Old Catholics and the Swedish Lutherans, both of whom revere Apostolic Succession and never rejected it. The big ecumenical picture is good, even though the little picture of American Lutherans and Episcopalians needs improvement.
I wonder that our attempts to promote communion, even at the cost of logic and integrity, result from more fundamental problems that the Church faces. Perhaps, we desperately seek companions because there appear to be so few of us. Might these insipid displays of unity be really a sign of despair? In the First World, the Church has steadily become weaker, more and more relegated to the margins of society. Sure, there is some lip-service about the importance of the Church, and many who even believe her and submit to her, but in the big picture the Church in the West is far, far less significant than it was a couple hundred years ago. The Church still has not figured out how to make herself more credible and convincing. Public reverence for the Church as a divinely established institution, proclaiming eternal truths, continues to fade. More and more the Church seems foreign to our society and does not seem to transform or permeate our culture.
In recent centuries, a variety of well-known forces have steadily eroded society's belief in the catholic faith. Philosophers generally deny that there is objective truth; instead, it's "what's true for you is not necessarily true for me." We hold truth to be largely a function of our own individual perceptions and experiences. Consequently, everyone has his own truth, a truth that he, at least in part, creates and controls! Psychologists and psychiatrists lead us to believe that human beings have no free-will. While environment and chemistry are significant factors in our behaviour, they are not absolute dictators. Anthropologists and sociologists assume that religion is primitive and illusory, a coping mechanism, a crutch. Historians remind us that the Church sins, and sometimes heinously. We are supposed to understand that her crimes and foolishnesses invalidate her authority and her message. Since at least Darwin, scientific inquiry has led us to assume that God did not create human beings, but rather human existence is accidental and unplanned, and so without meaning. Medicine tells us that human beings are merely flesh and blood, without spirit. Since science examines only the material, we have allowed the material to become the only part of reality that we acknowledge. If the material is the only thing that is real, then the Church has little utility, other than doing charitable works. The mass, the sacraments, are a waste. The Church, therefore, is mostly unproductive, an inefficient user of resources, a drain on society. The economist would prefer the Church not exist because she distracts people from production and material interests. As our society becomes wealthier, as luxury becomes ever cheaper, we become more and more worried about material things, about increasing our enjoyment and pleasure, about being entertained. As life becomes less physically demanding, we worry less about eternity; our souls seem less real.
In such an apparently noxious culture, it may seem nigh impossible for the gospel of Christ to grow. But it isn't. The world can not defeat Christ and his Church. The mission of the Church is not doomed in our culture. When I say 'mission,' I do not primarily mean taking the gospel to different shores. Quite frankly, the gospel is doing better in distant lands than it is in our home. I mean domestic mission, mission here, mission in the city , in the suburbs, in the neighborhood. That ought to be our concern, our primary concern. For mission is the surest way to help our society and our fellow human beings, to offer them life and hope and meaning. No one can follow Christ and not be a missionary. Everyone of us has the responsibility to participate in his mission, that is showing all people the faith, the freedom, the peace, the life of Christ. So we try to live as our Lord lived: a life of obedience to God, of service to one another, of self-sacrifice. It is a life of humility, of not drawing attention to oneself, of promoting our Lord and his Church, not the self.
Last Tuesday, at our theology book club, we discussed the Pilgrim Continues His Way; it's about an anonymous Russian peasant who constantly prays the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." This is the prayer that should shape our hearts and minds; this is the prayer that leads us to follow Christ, and so to proclaim his gospel. For the most part, whether we are evangelicals, or trendy Episcopalians, or Anglo-Catholics, or whatever we are, we assume the proper question to be asking is: "What would Jesus do?" The left and the right, the high and the low, the traditional and the contemporary argue about how we ought to behave on the grounds that they know what Jesus would do. It is the opposite approach of the pilgrim who cries and begs for God's love and mercy. In today's gospel we heard the core message of our Lord's preaching: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Repent, seek mercy, grow in humility, follow Christ - do not try to lead him. We have to be very cautious in declaring what Christ's mind is, in declaring what our Lord would do. We can be sure, however, what a creature of God ought to do: beg for his mercy, not just in Lent, but always. The mark of Christ's followers is humility, not presumption. That is what we must show our world. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner."
It is a sure bet that S. Peter, S. Andrew, S. James, and S. John did not know that Jesus would call them to follow him. In ancient Israel, disciples sought a teacher. Our Lord reversed that. The teacher took the initiative. The teacher choose his disciples. The first thing that Jesus told them was, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." In essence, this is also the last thing that Jesus told us before he ascended into heaven: "Go and make disciples of all nations." (Mt 28:19) From the beginning to the end a disciple of Christ has the responsibility of mission. We must do what Jesus and his disciples did.
Everyone of us has to be a fisher of men. Everyone of us has something to offer. At Vatican II, the Roman Church declared, "The principle duty of both men and women is to bear witness to Christ, and this they are obliged to do by their life and their words, in the family, in their social group, and in the sphere of their profession. . . . They must give expression to this newness of life [through Christ] in their own society and culture." (2) People hear the gospel and recognize Christ through us. So let us take to heart the metaphor of the fisherman. First, like fishermen taking their small boats out into the dangerous waters, we have to be brave and courageous, willing to stand up for our Lord. This does not require us to be obnoxious, but we do have to be resolute and unashamed and fervent. We have to have passion for Christ. Second, we have to have good-timing. Sometimes the fish bite, and sometimes they do not. People do not always want to hear about the Church and about purpose and meaning in life, but they are hungry for it, and we have the sustenance to share. Third, we have to be patient and persevering. Developing an interest in the Church may take moments, or a lifetime. Conversion may happen instantaneously or not at all. Fourth, the bait is Christ. The goal in getting people into the Church is not our own; it does not serve our purpose; it does not glorify us. We want all people to have Christ, regardless of how they come to him. Fifth, and most importantly, what fisherman as he casts his hook and reels his rod does not pray? So most of all, we pray for the mission of the Church, and so of this parish.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
1. James B. Simpson, Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, 1997, p. 334. Quote from Newsweek, 4 March 1991.
2. Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, Vatican II, Ad Gentes Divinitus, 7 December 1965, 21.
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