After the most recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church, a few articles began to appear about our church and its dire future. One article in The New York Times by Ross Douthat asked the question, “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?”
Mr. Douthat’s answer seems to be ‘no’; that based on attendance and membership data, liberally minded religious denominations are now collapsing and will soon fade away. And, to be fair to him, Mr. Douthat thinks that’s a bad thing. He writes, “The defining idea of liberal Christianity — that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion — has been an immensely positive force in our national life. No one should wish for its extinction, or for a world where Christianity becomes the exclusive property of the political right.”
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Many people seek many, many different things from religion, and Christianity is no exception. People come to the church to find God, or to find a good husband, or to be spiritually transformed or politically confirmed. Some come to be challenged, others come to be comforted. Some come as an expression of their deepest, most personal beliefs; others come as an expression of their cultural or ethnic identity. Some come to be sheltered in the solitary stillness of God, others come to embrace the entire, noisy, rambunctious body of Christ. Some come to church to hide out from life. Others come to ‘come out’ more fully into a life of the Spirit, a life lived in a crowded community of faith.
And after they come, some people leave.
In our reading from John’s gospel today, some of the people in the congregation of the synagogue at Capernaum, who have been following Jesus, find his most recent teaching too incredible, too unbelievable; and they leave.
Jesus has been teaching and preaching that he is the bread from heaven, the one sent from the Father, and that we must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood so that he might abide in us and we in him. But the disciples point out to him that “this teaching is difficult, who can believe it?” (6:60) And Jesus counters them, “‘Does this offend you?” (6:61)
Jesus is trying to make the point that it is the Spirit that inhabits the flesh, and not the flesh itself, that brings eternal life. Jesus says to the disciples, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (6:63) To eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of Jesus is to accept the Holy Spirit that dwells within him, within the words he speaks.
It’s not the flesh, but the spirit that dwells within the flesh, that is important.
Seems a simple enough concept, but as we see in today’s reading, it is an idea that some people either just don’t get or won’t get, or can’t except. So they leave.
And that has proven to be the case not just in first century Galilee, but in our own day. In the Episcopal Church, in the last few decades, we’ve confronted issues of the spirit versus the flesh a few times.
In the 1970s after long thought, and impassioned debate, we had come to believe that it was not the gender of priest, but the spirit that dwelt within her that makes her fit to serve as a priest in the church. Some of us just didn’t get it, or wouldn’t get it, and couldn’t accept it, so they left.
In 2003 when Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire, once again the people of God said it is not the gender of the person this priest loves, but rather the spirit that dwells within him that makes him fit to be consecrated a bishop, a worthy successor to the apostles. But some of us just didn’t get it, or wouldn’t get it, and couldn’t accept it, so they left.
It might happen again after our most recent General Convention which voted to authorize a liturgy to bless and hallow same sex commitments and marriages. Once again, the people of God said it is not the gender of the people involved, which is, after all, just a condition of the flesh that makes their relationship sacred, rather it is the spirit of love that exists between them that makes a true Christian marriage. Some of us just don’t get it, or won’t get it, and can’t accept it, so they may leave us too.
The Rev. Winnie Varghese, rector of St. Mark’s in the Bowery here in Manhattan, wrote an article for the Huffington Post called The Glorious Episcopal Church. Responding to Mr. Douthat’s piece among others, Winnie wrote,
"If our increased thoughtfulness in understanding the human condition causes us to be open minded in a way that offends your prejudices, yes, the Episcopal Church might not be for you..."
Winnie goes on to comment on some of the actions of General Convention, the authorization of a same sex blessing liturgy, resolutions against discrimination against transgendered people, racial profiling, and random ‘stop and search’ policing methods. She continued,
"We believe that God cares more about the nature of your relationship than its biology, and we have a beautiful blessing to offer. We believe that God created you to express your gender the way you feel moved to express it. We believe that no one should be assumed to be breaking the law because of his or her appearance.
"But mostly, we believe that we are received into the household of God in baptism and partake of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, and through the sacrament are given a glimpse of God's vision for a just world, and the courage to make it real, and we want you to join us." (emphasis added)
It seems like that word is bearing fruit. Law Professor Mark Osler, who joined the Episcopal Church just over a year ago, recently wrote his own article for the Huffington Post entitled The New Episcopalian. Professor Osler writes,
"I am a new Episcopalian who embraces the love of God, the guidance of scripture and the beauty of worship. The Holy Spirit is not a leaden stillness but a wind, and I feel that deep truth when I worship in my new church. Yes, some have left, but I am coming in, unafraid and unashamed. The Episcopal Church is ready for me, and I am ready for it."
And that from a law professor at a Catholic university, and a former Baptist! Take that, Ross Douthat!
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I imagine that it was a painful for Jesus and for the rest of his disciples that day in Capernaum when some of those who had been part of their community left them. It has been painful for many of us when those who could not follow us where we felt the Spirit leading left us. It’s not an easy thing to leave, and it’s not an easy thing to say good-bye to those we love, whom we have broken bread with.
We can’t know how many left that day in Capernaum. But the fledgling church was not overlarge at this point in our history. And it may have been that those who left represented a sizeable portion of those who had begun to follow Jesus in those early days.
But the thing about Christianity is -- it’s not a numbers game. It’s not about which congregation has the most members, or which parish has the largest endowment, or which denomination is growing larger than any other. Christianity is not a numbers game. It’s a spirit game, it’s a life game. It’s not about today’s attendance. We’re in this for the long haul, the really long haul. We serve a God who promises us life everlasting. This isn’t about the overnight ratings, but about eternal redemption.
I wonder if, on that day in Capernaum, when Peter and the others watched those who walked away, those who could not accept Jesus’s teaching... I wonder what they thought and felt. Did they worry about their future, their chances of success, or even of survival? Did they worry that their small sect might not prove efficacious, that their theology might not withstand the test of time?
Little did they know that so compelling would be the message of Jesus, so inspiring would be the stories that Peter and the others would tell about him and his works of mercy and healing and faith, so wondrous would be the good that they would do in his name, that someday nearly 7 billion people would call themselves followers of Christ, more than a third of a very crowded earth’s population.
But as I’ve said, it’s not a numbers game, because the numbers are not about the spirit, the numbers are not about eternal life.
Peter comes to understand this. After the departure of some of the followers in our gospel today, Jesus asks the twelve, “‘Do you also wish to go away?’” (6:67) Peter replies, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." (6:68-69)
And so might we say to those who challenge our interpretation of the gospel, the soundness of our theology or the efficacy of our church. ‘What else can we do? We have come to believe that Jesus Christ is the Holy One of God, and that this is his word to us in our own day, for our own time. ‘It is the spirit that gives life, not the flesh.’ We have come to believe that these words spoken to us are the words of spirit and life. We have come to believe that these are the words of eternal life.’ And we want you and everyone else to join us in following the risen Christ into a new, more just, more holy life to come. Amen+
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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