Exploring the Ecumenical Church in the City of Peace
We spent January in Geneva, Switzerland (“The City of Peace”) on behalf of the Moravian Board of World Mission participating in a course sponsored by The Lutheran World Federation, called: “The Ecumenical Church in a Globalized World.” There we interacted with nearly 30 future and current clergy from: Canada, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ghana, Japan, Namibia, Pakistan, Tanzania, USA, and Zambia. We were the only Moravians in a class of Lutherans, Methodists, and one Anglican.
Being in daily faithful conversation with women and men from this wealth of different contexts and communities was valuable. In addition to our daily presentations and discussions about ecumenism, our class toured ancient ruins predating the Roman Empire, took water taxis across Lake Geneva, spent time in the United Nations, rode a cable car up into the French Alps, and dipped bread into fondue at a Swiss restaurant. However, returning with a new understanding of the worldwide Christian mission — with a newly defined sense of purpose and calling — was more awe-inspiring than even the snow-capped mountains and cheese-dipped bread. Chief among the things we gleaned from our studies at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva is the sense that the church (and there is only one) must be about and for the world. To be Christian is to be ecumenical, and to be ecumenical is to be justice-seeking. We discussed how poverty, wealth, development, violence, and climate change are completely entangled entities the church should be involved in overcoming.
What we learned is simple, but required a subtle paradigm shift in how we think about the global church. As Moravians, we care deeply about our faith, about Christian unity, and about the socio-political issues threatening all of creation, but faith, for us, has been personal. Community and unity have been practical. Societal change has been theoretical. The course in Geneva helped to reform our understanding of these once separated realms. We’ve come to realize that faith requires unity, and unity requires that we exist as agents of active, social gospel. We now have a clearer understanding that intentional actions, such as supporting Fair Trade companies, are imperatives of our faith.
It was Martin Robra, one of our presenters, who proclaimed what functioned as this course’s persistent theme: “It is impossible to be the church — to be Christian — without being ecumenical.” For Robra, unity is “a gift and calling.” The Moravian Ground of the Unity, fully concurs with these assertions. Throughout our daily discussions about ecumenism and Christian unity, we realized that the most pervasive operative myth today, particularly in the USA, is that we exist apart from one another. Yet, “the other” is actually a fictitious concept. We are all (humans, animals, plants — all life) an enormous living organism. This is true on a biological level but also on a relational level. All living beings are intrinsically communal. Togetherness — harmonious existence — is God’s intent for creation. To deny this, and thus others, is to deny our very selves. We are no longer able to think of it as our personal faith (though that personal relationship with God is still essential); rather, we’ve come to realize that faith is our cause: because we have faith in God, the Creator of all things, and Jesus Christ, the one who calls all to new life, we must do. And there is plenty to do.
One thing we can begin to do is to discuss who the “Christian unity” includes. Robra posed a question about line-drawing, asking: “Who has the right to draw the line?” —determining who is included within, or excluded from, the Christian unity. We concluded that the scandal of God’s grace, manifested in Christ, is that even those we so love to despise are welcome in the Christian unity. When the line of acceptance is drawn at anyone it is suggested that the boundary of Christian unity stops at them. As Christians can we say that? What would it look like if we Moravians spent the rest of our days erasing and stretching the lines that have been etched into the air between “us” and “them”?
Tying in with the theme of ecumenism, much of our daily dialogue in Geneva centered on globalization and poverty, and the church’s role within each. Wealth is something mentioned frequently in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, but it is something rarely addressed by the church today.
We were asked by Dr. Rogate Mshana: “Who is benefitting from the global market economy?” He urged us to remember that there must be justice in the economy, which is void of ethics, morals, and justice — three societal elements imperative to Christ’s mission. The church must overcome inequality, inequity, and poverty. “Wealth is based on greed,” Mshana said. He advocates that we as Christians should be guided by an economy of enough — of contentment — aware that the privatization of everything creates disparity. We, the ecumenical church, are called to be advocates for the poor and oppressed.
Advocacy — the church as voice for the voiceless — was central to our daily discussions. One of the course leaders, Michael Trice, spoke about making hospitality a way of life. The challenge in this is that hospitality forces both guest and host to be vulnerable with one another. He asked us to ponder: “What do we do with the ecumenical dialogue documents after we’ve written them? How do we get them out into the community?” He asserted that we need to risk ourselves in the encounter and that we should not just write a document. We are, he said, “the living texts,” and we need to “read each other and be read” in a spirit of authenticity if we hope to see any kind of positive change in the world. Sister Sheila Flinn reminded us that: “God doesn’t ask if we are suitable, but if we are available.”
We close with unutterably inspiring words from Swami Agnivesh’s discourse in chapel one morning. He asked: “Why should children be dying? They are the most beautiful gift of God. Children are simple, without prejudice. Be the voice of the voiceless children.” This is the challenge facing the ecumenical movement today, because can we say, “We love our neighbor,” when we sit by and watch voiceless children dying? Can we truly claim unity in the church when there is such disparity among Christians? No, we cannot claim unity — as wonderful as that would and will be — until we uplift one another. This is the paradigm shift that is required of us: to say, “We are all human; we are all God’s children; we are all equal in God’s eyes.” When we can embrace one another as such, we can change the world. Is this possible? Of course — with God, all things are possible!
