ECUMENISM: The Space Between Us – Sermon by the Rt. Rev. D. Wayne Burkette, President of the Moravian Church, Southern Province, Provincial Elders’ Conference
The sermon below was delivered at the January 27, 2010 worship service of the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Relationship of Full Communion between the Moravian Church in America, Northern and Southern Provinces and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The service was held at the Augsburg Lutheran Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Photos by Deanna L. Hollenbach, Interprovincial Board of Communication, Moravian Church in North America.
The Space Between Us (Colossians 1:15-20)
As a Moravian, and in the spirit of confession being good for the soul, I must confess to a bit of envy of my brother and sister Lutherans with whom we celebrate this tenth anniversary of our full communion agreement. While I am grateful for and appreciative of so many attributes of Lutherans, I’m especially envious of your denominational name. Unlike the name Moravian, your denominational name is not only familiar and recognizable to most everyone, but it also points to the founder of your tradition Pastor Martin Luther, another name familiar to many folks. Compare that with the name Moravian, which is often more a source of confusion than enlightenment for folks who are unfamiliar with the Moravian Church. Some Moravians have wondered whether we should change our name. I suppose we could be the Zinzendorfian Church or the Spangenbergian Church or maybe Hussites, but something tells me those names wouldn't bring a lot of enlightenment! We could reclaim the public use of Unitas Fratrum, but many would consider the Latin to be a bit stuffy.
The Rt. Rev. D. Wayne Burkette (MCA), the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop (ELCA), and the Rev. David L. Wickmann (MCA).
So, I suppose we must be reconciled to being just Moravians. At least it’s a name familiar to some in a few areas who know a little bit about our history and traditions, including the lovefeast, which a Baptist friend of mine likes to refer to as a coffee break during worship.
Having confessed my envy, I’m truly grateful to be here this evening to gather in worship and around the Lord's Table with sisters and brothers in Christ. It is remarkable what God has done with a conversation that took place 20 years ago on the steps of Main Hall at Salem Academy and College about how two campus ministry fellowships - one Lutheran and one Moravian - could do some joint services and programming. Little did anyone imagine that such a conversation would bring us eventually to a dialogue, then a full communion agreement, and now here to this celebration this evening. Never underestimate the power of God's Spirit to bring folks together in ministry and mission. May God receive our worship and bless our fellowship in this service.
In a 1922 play, “The Gioconda Smile,” by Aldous Huxley, there’s a scene where a woman named Doris finally begins to recognize some of the wonder of life after a failed suicide attempt. She walks into a room where Henry Hutton stands, looks around, and as she gestures back and forth with her hand, she says to Henry,
"And this – how wonderful this is! Simply being able to move from one place to another. There’s emptiness here and there’s space there….That’s why you’re free….Perhaps that’s what God is – the space between things." - (Harper & Bros. Pub., NY, 1922, p. 128)
I hear Huxley’s notion of God as the space between things as a variation on the theme of the Apostle Paul’s splendid christology in Colossians, and Paul’s image of the cosmic Christ who is the glue of creation, the One in whom all things hold together.
It is not unfair, I believe, for us to envision God as the One who holds all things together by filling the emptiness between things with His Spirit, a Spirit which seeks to bring together, to reconcile all things. For this is the God who was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself and who has entrusted to us this ministry of reconciliation. Surely if we believe that God in Christ Jesus reconciles the world unto Himself, we can affirm that the church is also the object of God’s ongoing reconciliation and unity. We can affirm that Christ takes upon Himself, not only the sins of the world, but also the sins of the church. That Christ takes upon Himself any shame of past hurt or pain or misunderstanding, past action or inaction, past sorrow and past joy, that He takes it all upon Himself, and by his suffering love, make us right with God and with each other. Surely we can affirm that the cosmic Christ who holds the universe together also holds us fast to Himself and to each other. It seems to me that such affirmation is at the heart of our full communion as Moravians and Lutherans.
This wonderfully rich image of the Christ in whom all things hold together is a source of strength and encouragement to any faith communion which dares to reach out to other communions in a gesture of unity or dialogue. After all, the way we understand the space between us as faith communions has significant implications for how we proceed across that space toward greater unity and in what spirit we proceed. If we envision the space between us to be filled with obstacles and barriers, whether they be historical or contemporary, real or imagined, then we will likely move with great hesitancy, even reluctance, for fear of the unknown. If, however, we envision that space as filled with the Spirit of the reconciling Christ, who prayed that his followers would all be one even as He and the Father are one, then we proceed across the space between us with great faith and confidence.
Count Zinzendorf encouraged early Moravian missionaries to go to suffering people in remote corners of the earth with the assurance that the Holy Spirit went before them to prepare the way for the Gospel. There was no place on this earth where they might go where the Holy Spirit had not been before them to prepare the way for the good news of the Savior. Just as surely do we work toward deeper communion with sisters and brothers in Christ, knowing that the Holy Spirit goes before us. The ecumenical work we do is to a large extent a work of discovery, discovery of God’s presence in that space between us and others, where God is already. The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas says of this Christ who goes before, “Cleave the wood, I am there. Lift the stone, and you will find me there.” And so we find Christ in every space.
There is and perhaps will always be some space between us no matter the depth of our communion with each other, given our various histories, polities and traditions. A chemistry teacher on my faculty in my former role at Salem Academy reminded me that even when molecules bond, there remains space between them. Even when two hydrogen molecules bond with one oxygen molecule to form the water (H2O) without which we would surely perish, the hydrogen and oxygen molecules retain their identity; they do not disappear into each other. But in their bond to each other (dare I say their full communion with each other?), they function in a new way, an indispensable way, to quench the thirst of a needy world. So can we with Christ in the space between us.
The Moramus Chorale sings during worship.
Finally, I would suggest to you that God not only fills the space between us as faith communions, but also that God fills the space and time between us and the future. Jesus does still lead on. Exactly where the Good Shepherd will lead us I do not know. Like Abraham and Sarah, we Moravians and Lutherans have responded to the call of God to rise up and accompany one another on a journey in faith to a promised, yet unknown destination, that in time will be revealed. What I do know is that the united witness we can bear to the world as we make this journey of promise together has perhaps never been as sorely needed as it is now. Now - in the midst of war, with us and others in various lands looking over our shoulders and around every corner at the prospect of terrorism. Now - with the tragic earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath of human suffering and misery, the latest in what seems to be a series of natural disasters. Now - when hundreds of thousands of people still suffer and die every day from HIV/AIDS. Now - in a world where every economic or demographical study I have read in the past 20 years points out that the wealth of our world is in terrible disproportion, a world in which the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Now - when as a nation we struggle to define life’s values in ways that build bridges between fragmented and often polarized people instead of barriers, and we’re not enjoying a lot of success in that struggle. Now - when the temptation to cynicism or even despair about the future is almost irresistible.
If we the church are to speak and act effectively to meet human need, material or spiritual, we must believe that the kind of world God wants is already part of the mind of God, waiting to be revealed and discovered in our acts of peace, reconciliation, justice and compassion. God is already in the space between us and the future, urging, beckoning us to follow His Christ – the prolepsis of that which awaits us. What the world needs now is hope, not vain hope, but hope grounded in the promise of the God of creation, the God who was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
Surely our unity as faith communions can at the very least offer our full communion as a sign to the world that hope is not naïve, and that the God who holds us together in full communion, holds all things together by filling the space between us, and between us and the future, with His presence. In that faith and with that promise, let us continue to follow our Shepherd, for indeed Jesus still leads on.
Amen.
