GATHERED FOR POWER

Dear Friends in Christ:

We will be praying this collect on Sunday, August 26:

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name;  through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

This collect underlines a point from the Gospel reading for the Seventh Sunday of Easter:

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  (John  17:21)

However much we may experience our unity in Christ as a personal blessing, our unity is primarily a witness to the Good News. In spite of our obvious differences, we are one in Christ. In spite of our disagreements, we are one in Christ. And when the world sees that unity, a unity that is not based upon how much we agree with one another, or how alike we are, or even how we like one another, the world can come to believe that the Jesus is the One whom the Father sent to bring to all people the gift of abundant life.

My longtime friend Ian Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, spoke at the meeting of the House of Bishops earlier this year. In his address, he noted that there has been a shift in understanding of mission in the last fifty years and that the focus has been increasingly on God’s mission and on the Church’s participating “with God in God's new creation, to work for God's shalom, God's salaam.”  Douglas believes that the “Trinitarian God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, has effected a new order, a new shalom; one in which all of creation can find new life and new hope…. The Church is called and uniquely empowered by the Holy Spirit to participate with God in God's mission of justice, compassion and reconciliation.”

We are not, therefore, to be so absorbed with ourselves and our concerns that we never see the needs of the world beyond our front door. That, of course, does not mean that our own needs and those of other members of the parish aren’t important. They are, and caring for one another is as much a part of the ministry which we share as is providing hospitality to homeless families during our IHN week, or participating in and supporting mission trips to New Orleans or Honduras. But too often congregations seem to be self-absorbed, very good at taking of themselves, but also very good at ignoring the needs of others. In the words of a bishop of the last century, “The parish that lives for itself, dies by itself.”

We have in the past year been somewhat preoccupied with our capital campaign property improvements. But the parish’s property is not an end itself, but a resource for mission. As we continue to make much needed improvements in the property, I hope that we will never lose sight of that fact.

Pentecost, which we will have celebrated by the time you read this, is all about power for mission and ministry in the world. That power is the power of agape, the unconditional love that led Jesus to Calvary’s cross, the love that could not be held in death’s grip but was victorious on Easter morn, the love that the Spirit fans into fire in us. May that fire of love continue to move us in our sharing in “God's mission of justice, compassion and reconciliation.”

Your brother and priest,

Daniel