Sermon preached by the Reverend John E.
Kitagawa at the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Sunday,
I IN YOU
AND YOU IN ME
Today, we celebrate the Feast of Saints
Peter and Paul. Those who pay close
attention to the liturgical calendar may find it odd that the Church has set
aside a shared feast day for two luminaries who have their own calendar
days: The Confession of Saint Peter the
Apostle on January 18th, and The Conversion of Saint Paul the
Apostle on January 25th. One
would hardly call Peter and Paul two peas in a pod. They were very different men. Peter was an uneducated Galilean
Fisherman. Paul, on the other hand, was
a “well educated and cosmopolitan Jew of the Dispersion”[1]. With brother Andrew, and friends James and
John, Peter was one of the first to leave everything in order to respond to
Jesus’ call to “Follow me” (Matthew 4: 18-22; Mark 1: 16-20; Luke 5: 1-11). Paul, in contrast, was a persecutor of the
followers of Jesus before his conversion (Acts 9: 1). Not surprisingly, their ideas and opinions
differed and clashed. Yet, we commemorate them together on the 29th
of June. This is because each discerned
the importance of witnessing to the Good News of God in Christ in
Author Sam Portaro has an interesting view
of what Peter and Paul had in common.
Noting their ministries were in the context of the
The far greater threat to the gospel, and to faith in God, is not evil
cloaked in darkness, but evil cloaked in light.
Christianity was not nearly so likely to be swallowed up in darkness as
it was to be eclipsed by the overwhelming vigor of its competition[2].
I believe we have
something in common with Peter and Paul.
With the economy in recession, it may be difficult to argue the “vigor”
of the church’s competition. But facts
do not lie. Every part of the Church,
including the so-called mega churches, is losing membership. Congregations are aging, and young people are
generally underrepresented. In many
ways, St. Philip’s is doing fairly well, but our past and current financial
concerns are indicators that being faithful witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ will be an ongoing struggle.
When you gather to worship next Sunday, I
will be driving to
o
Whether or not to establish a Standing Committee on the
Environment[3].
o
Whether or not to take positions in relationship to
international situations such as in the
o
Whether or not to establish a Committee on Strategic
Planning[5].
o
Whether of not the Episcopal Church should develop a
strategy for Establishing New Congregations[6].
o
Whether or not to adopt the Theological Statement on
Interreligious Relations as the basis for our Church’s interreligious
(non-Christian) dialogues[7].
o
Whether or not to rescind the 2006 Convention Resolution
B033, which effectively set a moratorium on the consecration of gay and lesbian
bishops, and on the authorization of liturgical rites for same-sex unions[8].
o
Whether or not to enter into full communion with the
o
Whether or not to adopt a Charter for Lifelong Christian
Formation, and its transformational vision for individuals, communities,
congregations and dioceses[10].
o
Whether or not to adopt a resolution intended to raise
consciousness of the ways Christian Scriptures and liturgical texts stir
anti-Jewish sentiments[11].
o
At what level to fund our overseas missionaries[12], in the
midst of a large gap between anticipated income and expenses.
o
Whether or not to modify disciplinary Canons for the
clergy[13].
Unfortunately, legislative processes by their
very nature yield winners and losers. At
times like these, I am disturbed by what Jesus said to the disciples:
… it is to your
advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come
to you: but if I go, I will send him to you.
(John 16: 7)
These words disturb
me because they mean Jesus has entrusted his work to you and me. God has given the Church all the necessary spiritual
gifts and the Holy Spirit to carry out Christ’s ministries in the world. The cynic in me wonders whether we will
exercise good stewardship of these gifts.
On the other hand, despite its shortcomings, I trust the General
Convention has been and will be a vehicle for doing God’s work. So, I ask you to pray for the Spirit to show
the way forward. What happens at
Convention matters to members of the Church as near as the person in the pew
with you, and far as the other side of the globe.
Before I went to the 75th General
Convention in 2006, part of my sermon was on guidance I had found in Archbishop
Desmond Tutu’s book, God Has a Dream: A
Vision of Hope for Our Time[14]. In it, Tutu writes about the Africans term, ubuntu.
Three years ago, I said: “I
believe ubuntu shows us some of the
qualities of people who experience and live in the power of the Holy Spirit in
their lives”[15],
and I shared this quote from the book:
The first law of
our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our
fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation. [Ubuntu]
is the essence of being human. It speaks
of the fact that my humanity is caught up and inextricably bound up in
yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness; it speaks about
compassion. A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm
and generous, willing to share. Such
people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of
others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a
proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong to a greater
whole. They know that they are
diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed,
diminished when others are treated as if they were less that who they are. The quality of ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge
still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them.[16]
Perhaps, I was a bit of a prophet. The official theme of the 76th
General Convention in
To the
Bantu-speaking peoples, a phrase, such as “Mary has Ubuntu,” would mean Mary is
known to be a caring, concerned person who abides faithfully in all social
obligations. Mary is conscious not only
of her personal rights but also of her duties to her neighbor. In fact, Mary is conscious of her personal
rights only in relationship with the rights of others[17].
Please join me in praying for the Holy
Spirit to be at work within the fractured pluralistic community of the
Episcopal Church. Pray with me that the
Bishops and Deputies of General Convention will have reflected on and prayed
about Ubuntu sufficiently to begin
living it, and be open to the power and promptings of the Spirit to lead us
through barriers and selfish agendas.
Let us pray for God to help Bishops and Deputies to remember that the
power of the Spirit is given to set the world aflame in witness to new life in
the resurrection. Please pray that the
Holy Spirit will free Bishops and Deputies from fear, and be empowered to
proclaim boldly God’s self-giving and self-sacrificing love for all.
While significant decisions will be made at
the General Convention, you also have a significant role in the future of the
Episcopal Church. Who we are, and how we
try to live in the power of the Holy Spirit matters. Whether or not we here at St. Philip’s and in
parishes across the country can draw insight, understanding and wisdom from Ubuntu will make a difference in our
ability to incorporate new members, and continue to send people into the world
to do God’s work. I think Ubuntu can lead us to powerful new
understandings of what it means to be the Eucharistic community of Christ. The Convention will debate and pass
resolutions about a host of significant matters. Strong feelings may stretch and stress our
sense of community, or our sense of belonging to one another. To be a genuine community of the Holy Spirit,
we must develop practices to affirm and embrace our diversity, to discover our
oneness in Christ, and to find common cause in proclaiming by word and deed the
Good News of God in Christ to a world full of vibrant and tantalizing
competetion. To be authentic agents of
God’s new creation, we must recommit to being a community of “I in You and You in Me.”
Unfortunately, some actions of the past
several General Conventions have led people to leave the Episcopal Church. In anticipation of that potential, let me conclude
with an Ubuntu story.
There once was man
who was a staunch churchgoer and a deeply committed Christian. He supported most of the activities of his
local church. And then for no apparent
reason he stopped attending church and became just a hanger on. His minister visited one wintry evening. He found him sitting before a splendid fire
with red glowing coals, radiating a lovely warmth round the room. The minister sat quietly with his former
parishioner gazing into the fire. Then
he stooped and with the tongs, removed one of those red glowing coals from the
fire and put it on the pavement. The
inevitable happened. That glowing coal
gradually lost its heat, and turned in a while into a lump of cold ashes. The minister did not say a word. He got up and walked away. The following Sunday, the old man turned up
in church[18].
AMEN.
[1] Lesser
Feasts and Fasts, 272.
[2] Sam Portaro, Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts (Cowley
Publications,
[3] Report
to the 76th General Convention, 93.
[4] Ibid,
91ff.
[5] Ibid,
124.
[6] Ibid,
127.
[7] Ibid,
154.
[8] I have heard that approximately 18
different resolutions on this topic have been filed.
[9] Op
Cit, Report, 137.
[10] Ibid,
178.
[11] Ibid,
191.
[12] Ibid,
631.
[13] Ibid,
766.
[14] Desmond Tutu, God has a Dream: A Vision of Hope
for Our Time (
[15] Pentecost
[16] Op
Cit, Tutu, 25-26.
[17] Michael Battle, Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me (
[18] Ibid,
57.