+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:

2 Kings 23:36-24:17, 1 Corinthians 12:12-26, Matthew 9:27-34

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
1 Corinthians 12:21

I was once a member of the One True Church. We were quite convinced that everyone else who claimed to be Christian was off-center just enough to be wrong. And a lot (maybe most) of those were wrong enough to be damned. That God he brought us to the True Church, founding on Jesus and the Bible, where worship was just as he (Jesus) had told his disciples it was supposed to be. We heard these verses from St Paul and looked around the room and were blessed.

We were not like the Methodists or Presbyterians - God’s Frozen Chosen - with their lifeless services and Spiritless doctrines. We didn’t speak in tongues or deliver new “prophecies” like those misled-by-demons Pentecostals. We didn’t ordain women or gays like the Episcopalians. We didn’t over-inflate the virgin at Christmas like the Roman Catholics. And the Orthodox didn’t enter our thoughts. Because, of course, we were members of the Southern Baptist Convention. We heard these verses from St Paul and looked around the room and were blessed because we were sure that Pastor Ron had some gifts and the kind old ladies in the 3rd pew were hands (at least when it came to cooking the Covered Dish Suppers) and the Men’s Fellowship Breakfast was the hands when it came to building the barn or fixing Pastor’s car. The feet were clearly the youth group. And some place in the choir there was at least one ear that wasn’t tin.

Oddly, among my hyper-pious Orthodox friends, I heard the same language 22 years later when I joined the Orthodox church.

The Romans, too, have a True Church. They are not even convinced the rest of us have churches at all. We’re relegated to Ecclesial Communities.

The ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”

(I love this “greeting” of the Pope. It comes with a built in backslap: Dear Delegates of the Orthodox Churches, of the Oriental Orthodox Churches and of the Ecclesial Communities of the West, I greet you with joy a few days after my election.

And to be fair - I was in the wrong circles most of the time. There are many places where such isn’t true: even here in Asheville, the Baptists and the Greek Orthodox hang out with the Episcopalians. Let’s not talk about the Russians, though: they don’t even hang out with the Greeks.

Don’t get me wrong: I want to be a member of the True Church.

Or do I?

To be fair, on some days you can even find a Methodist who feels this way about some other Methodist. Some African Anglicans feel this way about some American Episcopalians. Some liberals feel this way about some conservatives and quite a lot of Protestants feel that way about Rome.

Most of us are, to one degree or another, convinced that we are right. And even though, in reality, we might only be an unsightly case of acne on the Body of Christ, we’re quite willing to assume we’re the head and that we have no need of the back hair.

I long for the ability to say to my conservative brothers and sisters that I love them.

I long for that same ability in regard to my liberal friends.

I greatly desire the ability to say “I love you” to people who think I’m going to hell and tell me in forcible language designed to push all my buttons and make me do something worthy of damnation.

But most of the time I end up settling with joining another “True Church”.

From the outside looking in, we’re all one batch. The non-Christians can’t tell the difference between the Pope and Gene Robinson. The non-Christians don’t even want to understand the differences between Katherine Jefferts Scolari and Jerry Falwell. All they see is a collar and a cross, all they hear is “Jesus” and they turn off. The evangelical invitation to dance around the altar of St Gregory of Nyssa Church might as well be an invite to a Cross Burning in some ears. Most people on the street can’t tell the difference between Roman Catholics, sedevacantist Catholics, Old Catholics and sundry Catholics with such roots in the USA. Ask someone where the local Catholic church is and they’re likely to point to the nearest sign that says “Catholic” without regard to who is inside.

We’re all in this together, like it or not.

And yet we fight tooth and nail over 8 letters, one Latin word, an English phrase added to the Nicene Creed. We fight tooth and nail over who may or may not serve at the head of the community table. We fight tooth and nail over music styles and art styles: we’ve convinced ourselves that “we” love Jesus but “they” have the wrong theology so they don’t love Jesus at all.

I want to be a member of the One True Church which Jesus seems to define as loving God and loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. He doesn’t teach any doctrine. He wrestles with the same demons as all of us and tells us to love.

But there are so many flavours…

We’re all gloriously human together: B16 no more than me or you. He’s willing to bicker over the same unimportant things that I am, that most of my religion geek friends are willing to bicker over. Some of our saints were downright hateful: look at Bernard of Clairvaux, preaching in support of the crusades, or Francis of Assisi going along with the Knights to convert the Muslims, Santa Claus punching out Arius at Nicea, Mother Theresa and Birth Control, John Chrysostom and anti-Semitism, Cyril of Alexandria hating John Chrysostom, evangelical Nigerians and syncretism.. it’s all a mess.

A glorious mess.

And God manages to say he loves us anyway.

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

May it be true of us.

Much love and Shabbat Shalom!

Huw