And I Will Raise Them Up
Ninth Sunday after Epiphany (Proper 14) - August 10, 2003
by The Rev. Benjamin J. Newland
- Deuteronomy 8:1-10
- Psalm 34 or 34:1-8
- Ephesians 4:25-5:2
- John 6:37-51
“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”
Thus says Jesus, in this passage from the Gospel of John, in what can be interpreted as a text of great inclusively, or a text of significant exclusivity. Like most of John’s Gospel, this particular verse is just a little bit apocalyptic; it’s just slightly more concerned with the next world than with the world we know. Jesus speaks of the Last Day and of how on that day he will raise up those the Father has given him. When I hear this passage I hear Jesus say, “…that I should lose nothing…,” and, “…anyone who comes to me I will never drive away,” and, “that all…may have eternal life.”
There is a hymn that goes with these verses called I am the Bread of Life, which I sang at worship last Sunday. Many of you know that I spent the past two weeks in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I kept an irregular diary of my time there and after the Sunday morning Eucharist service, it occurred to me that there is very little about worshiping in a convention center that appeals to me. The space isn’t designed for worship of course. The organ is electric, the choir is huge but inexperienced in signing together, the altar is on a stage, and for those of us sitting in the bleacher seats at the back, you can’t really see anything that isn’t projected onto the giant screen hanging over the stage.
One of the few things that is likeable about worshiping in such a setting was singing hymns, because hymns only sound better when there are five thousand voices singing them. So as communion wound to a close, all five thousand plus Episcopalians, guests, and visitors began to sing I am the Bread of Life, and when we finished the unison first verse and switched into four part harmony for the chorus… Well, that was really something to hear.
And so I was surprised later that evening as I was gathered with several friends from seminary, and they all began to talk about how much they hate I am the Bread of Life. “How can you hate I am the Bread of Life?” I asked them. “Dude,” they said, “that hymn says anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus is going to hell!” And sure enough, after some explaining, I could see where they were coming from. In addition to saying that he would lose nothing that had been given him, and that he wouldn’t drive away anyone who came to him, Jesus also says that all who see and believe in him, and all who eat of his bread shall have eternal life. The implication, my friends assured me, is that those who don’t see, believe in, and eat of Jesus are specifically barred from eternal life.
There was a lot of that kind of thinking going on at General Convention. Are we being inclusive or exclusive? Do our scriptures ask us to do this thing or not? How do we read scripture and church tradition to decide what to do in our lives together now? I was actually looking forward to reporting to you all the things that had gone on at Convention in this sermon. I thought it would write itself. Unfortunately, CNN beat me to the punch, and if you watched or listened to or read any news at all last week you already know the juiciest parts of what we did in Minneapolis.
The big news, of course, was that Convention confirmed the election of The Rev. Canon Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire. Convention also confirmed nine other newly elected Bishops, but Canon Robinson is openly gay, and so he got all the press. The legislative process of confirming Episcopal elections was new to me, and it’s too complicated to explain here and now. The part that most impressed me as I sat and listened in, was how orderly, and civil, and dignified the debate was. At each of several hearings speakers rose to say why they opposed Canon Robinson’s confirmation, or why they supported it. The pro and con sides of the debate took turns speaking, and when the votes were cast and counted we all sat in respectful silence as the results were announced. There was no cheering or applause. We all stood to pray together, and then those who lost the vote were allowed to speak to the assembly.
It will take some time for the repercussions of this election to become apparent, whether those repercussions are positive or negative. In the interest of personal self-disclosure, let me say that I am glad Canon Robinson’s election was confirmed. If I had been voting, I would have voted with our Bishop and Lay Delegates to confirm. There are men and women-my brothers and sisters in faith-who disagree with me, some of whom I met in the past two weeks, and some of whom I know well, and I admit that I find merit in certain of their arguments. I am only too aware that I am capable of being wrong, and that even the General Convention, in all of its assembled diversity of experience, opinion, and wisdom may judge wrongly. As I said, the repercussions of what our church has done this summer will only be known in good time.
And yet, I don’t agree with those friends who chastised me for liking I am the Bread of Life. Just because Jesus didn’t include Buddhists specifically in his one way ticket to heaven package, doesn’t mean that he intended to specifically exclude them either. This is a difference not of hard facts, but of interpretation and approach to scripture and church tradition. In my mind, the first line of our Gospel passage today is indicative of the Gospel’s overall preferential option to include.
“Jesus said to the people, ‘Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.’”
“Bring them all to me,” is what I hear Jesus saying. “Bring them all: gay or straight, male or female, slave or free, black, white, yellow, brown, or red, young or old, the crippled, and the blind, and the lame, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews, Episcopalians and Baptists. Bring them all to me, and I will never drive them away.”
The really hard part comes in the letter to the Ephesians. In the last verse of today’s reading, Paul tell us to “…be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love…” The thing is, how do we know who’s doing that? Is Gene Robinson, as an openly gay man living in a committed and monogamous thirteen year relationship being an imitator of God? A slight majority of voters at General Convention--and I--say yes. Is the Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth, who repeatedly rose to object to Canon Robinson’s confirmation and his manner of life, being an imitator of God. Again, the answer is yes.
And there’s the rub. We don’t know exactly what God is like, and so we don’t know exactly how to imitate God. And so we go about doing our imitations in different ways, and inevitably we disagree with each other about whose imitation is better.
Yet nowhere in scripture are we excused from making our best attempt at imitation, and nowhere in scripture are we excused from loving each other no matter how horrible we may think someone else’s imitation might be. For better or worse, God has called us to an imperfect imitation, not only individually, but as a community. Therefore my imitation of God exists not only in how well I order my life, but also in how well I respect your ordering of your life. May God give us the strength to love one another.
“I am the living bread of heaven,” says Jesus, “and I will not drive away any who come to me, but I will raise them up. AMEN.
