All Saints' Episcopal Church, Thomasville
Epiphany 3, 2007

"The Body does not consist of one member, but many...If all were a single organ, where would the Body be?" (I Corinthians 12)

"No one can say that Jesus is Lord, except by the Spirit."

 In the novel Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope's Victorian masterpiece about life in the Church of England, the first chapter is titled:  "Who will be the new bishop?"  In Barchester, the new bishop turns out to be what we would call today a wimp, and this wimp proceeds to wreak havoc on the diocese through his slimy chaplain, whose takes it upon himself in his first sermon in the cathedral to condemn all that has gone on liturgically under his predecessor, and in the process insulting the theological convictions of just about everyone.

Following that dreadful sermon, one of the parishioners approaches the bishop's chaplain and tells him:  "Believe me my child, that Christian ministers are never called on by God's word to insult the convictions - or even the prejudices of their brethren; and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible of urbane and courteous conduct among men." 

 I've never forgotten that sentence, although I fear that from time to time I probably have (hopefully not willfully) insulted some of your convictions if not some of your prejudices - and if I do that today, it is only because I've read something lately that really has assaulted some of my own convictions and prejudices, hopefully in a positive and redemptive way.  St. John wrote:  "Little children, let us love one another for love is of God."  And he probably resisted the temptation to add:  "And if love isn't possible, at least try to tolerate one another."

This morning's epistle about the Body (the Body of the Church) is one which, at least for me now, can really stretch to the limits our perspective about our conduct and behavior toward as well as our tolerance of our brothers and sisters who happen to see things differently -- not just here at All Saints but throughout the community, as well as throughout the diocese, nation, and the world.  And St. Paul attempts to remind us that every single one of us has something to contribute to the well-being of the entire Body - even with all the sinful baggage that each of us (not the least being yours truly)  -- continues to bring to that Body.

This sermon then is to one one in particular, but to everyone in general, and especially to me - on a subject which has probably been too close to too many of us lately.  And I might add it's a little longer than usual.

 St. Paul addressed this letter to the Church at Corinth, which was a Body on the verge of being torn apart by factions, not unlike our Church today.  And in a word, the source of that strife (apart from the general heresy of Gnosticism); is what we might call fundamentalism - which for most of us isn't a very friendly word.  I don't think I've ever been called a fundamentalist, and I hope I never will.  But perhaps I’m wrong about that.

I speak of Andrew Sullivan's considerably flawed but extremely thought-provoking set of essays titled The Conservative Soul.  Mr. Sullivan describes himself as a gay Roman Catholic Conservative.  The book is dedicated to his fiance'.  He's been a Republican, and his book is addressed to his party which he says has temporarily lost its soul.  His primary subject is fundamentalism; and at least according to this man, I have more of the fundamentalist in me than I care to admit -- at least in terms of how he defines that word.

Mr. Sullivan's most apparent target is the Republican Party, which again, he claims as his own party.  But it doesn't take much imagination to see that fundamentalism pervades just as much of the Democratic Party as well:  so-called liberals and conservatives alike (liberals and conservatives in the Church as well). 

Without going into pain-staking detail, Sullivan writes that fundamentalists believe they have the market cornered on the truth.  Such truth does not come to them as the result of wrestling with their consciences, intellects, and faith, but through a metaphorical light bulb ignited either from something they've heard or something they've read or something they've experienced which has produced a good feeling.  But then, they have never gone out of their way to wrestle with whether or not that good feeling is of God, or of something else, or even of the devil himself.

Fundamentalists have a difficult time seeing anything other than white or black.  There remains little if any gray, and as a result one is either in or out of one’s particular group.  For them, there is no such thing as a difficult answer to a complicated question; there is only the desire to have the easy answer to a complicated question.  Perhaps most significantly, at least from my present perspective:  the fundamentalist fears he is on the losing side.  Thus, in the words of the author:

"Fundamentalism promises to abolish fear, and offers a clear answer to the bewilderment of modernity.  It offers a way to make sense of a world now so fractured in meaning that it appears to defy any other comprehensive explanations or resolution."

What he means is that fundamentalism pretends to abolish fear by encouraging the individual to disregard the warnings of his conscience in favor of whatever authority has captured his allegiance.  That is, should the authority that governs the fundamentalist (be it the political party, the president, the Church, the Bible the Book of Common Prayer, the Papacy, General Convention or whatever); should that authority that governs the fundamentalist ever tell him he should believe something that goes against his conscience, then the fundamentalist should ignore his conscience and reverence that higher authority - no matter how wrong that authority might be.

In this regard, one can't help but think of so-called conservative biblical fundamentalists who would go against their conscience and totally ignore the relevance of biblical historical criticism for the correct interpretation of the Bible for today.  On the other hand, one can't help but think of so-called liberals who might ignore their conscience in favor of whatever General Convention, the Papacy or whatever might otherwise tell them to do.  Liberal and conservative fundamentalists can both (to their own detriment) ignore their consciences in favor of whatever authority has captured their allegiance.
 
 That's a terrifying thought:  the idea of bending one's conscience - or ignoring one's conscience - and why Sullivan's book intrigued me.  In Anglican Moral Theology, it has always been paramount to test one's conscience from time to time.  But for one to ignore or disregard what is presumably his best informed Christian conscience is to sin seriously against one's soul, if not against God Himself. 

In the realm of the fundamentalist however, faith in one's personal convictions never ever waivers, no matter what his or her conscience says.  There can be no gray.  He or she cannot comprehend the very real fact that faith can only grow through testing and constant questioning by one0s conscience; nor can they comprehend that even our Lord's faith was tested rather severely on the Cross. 

Just as with Paul's Church in Corinth, there is little wonder that in our Communion today liberal as well as conservative fundamentalism continues to threaten to tear and rend the Body of Christ.  Thus we hear Paul remind us that the Church is not an organization, but a Body - and that every part of the Body plays a purpose.  "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" - or vice versa.

Again, unless I want to be a fundamentalist (at least as described by Mr. Sullivan), there is no way that this passage can do anything other than stretch my imagination, my theological convictions, my tolerance of others with whom I disagree -- not to mention stretch what little real charity I have to the utmost, if not the very breaking point.  Somehow, it helps me to think of the woman taken in adultery in John 8.  The Law said such a person should be stoned.  Jesus does not deny that Law, but says to the crowd, "OK, let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

We all know what happened.  The crowd walked silently and reluctantly away.  We might say that the crowd, at least before they encountered Jesus, was fundamentalist.  That is, stoning was the easy solution to the problem, just as the metaphorical stoning of each other in the Church is the easy solution to the complicated problems we're facing.  But the point - at least one of the points - is that the crowd that day really did walk away:  supposedly with some of them wrestling with their consciences; supposedly with some of them testing the waters of their faith to see whether or not it might actually float an idea that previously their hearts told them was impossible.

 I don't mean for a moment that General Convention was right three years ago.  As with that episode in John's gospel, (even though Jesus is quite clear about the severity of the woman's sexual sins, of which we're all guilty in one way or another), He tells her to go and sin no more.  That is, He tells her in one sense to go away and wrestle with her own conscience.  Of course the far greater sin in everyone that day is the sin of pride, pride being the root of every other sin that you and I dread to commit, if not delight to commit. 

But is it not interesting that to both the (perhaps conservative) crowd that wants to take the easy way out and stone, as well as to the (perhaps liberal) woman who perhaps wants to take the easy way with an unfortunate marriage and commit adultery, Jesus tells the fundamentalist in both of them not what to do or not to do, but to go away and wrestle with their respective consciences.  Don't wrestle with each other, but with yourselves. He's not going to let fundamentalism on either side cloud what is right and good:  the right and good in this case being the reconciliation of the wife with her husband - and the reconciliation of the woman with the rest of the community.

 How do we do the same with our Church today?  What makes us part of the Body?  What keeps us part of the Body?  To begin with, it is our faith in Jesus Christ - and I do not mean the simple and unquestioned and untested faith of the fundamentalist in each of us.  What I'm talking about is what Paul touches on earlier in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, where he writes:  "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord', except by the Spirit." (Repeat)

That is, whatever you and I have done in our lives to bring you and me to whatever faith we have, we have done because the Spirit of God has prompted us.  If we think or boast that our salvation is due to anything that we have done or believed or failed to believe; (even if we boast of our theology, or boast in the very act of having accepted our salvation through Jesus), then we give the devil cause to laugh.  No one can say "Jesus is Lord", except for having been prompted by the Spirit of Jesus.  That is how we become members of the Body, whether it be a baby through the sacrament of Holy Baptism, or the cry of a lonely, desperate soul in his bedroom in the dead of night.

What that means is that not only our salvation, but even our faith as well as our membership in the Body of the Church is God's gift to us His creatures.  We have done absolutely nothing to achieve it.  We have no merit upon which we might boast.  And here we broach once again upon that strange and mysterious but ultimately wonderful and comforting doctrine of predestination.  Part of what that means is that in a few moments, we will ask God to accept our participation in the sacrifice of the Eucharist, "not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses".  And in the Prayer of Thanksgiving, we will acknowledge that we are very members of the mystical Body of Christ's Church "by the merits of His precious death and passion."  Predestination essentially means that no one can say "Jesus is Lord", except by the Spirit.

 Every single bit of our salvation is left in God's Hand, which really ought to be extremely comforting to us.  I am not saved or condemned, nor are you or anyone else saved or condemned because of something you or I have done or failed to do, or believed or failed to believe.  It is all in God's hand.  That is how we become part of the Body, and it is how we remain part of the Body.  If we really believed this, we might be able to summon the humility as well as the charity not to mention the imagination to somehow live together with each others' differences and / or faults.

I don't mean for a moment that we throw away our convictions, whatever they might be about human sexuality or the Prayer book or anything else.  But we do need to test our convictions from time to time.  We need to ask ourselves on whatever side we're on in the current wars:  "Am I really right?"  "Am I allowing my conscience reign enough to at least attempt to see the other side, not to mention the possibility of seeing the folly of my own?"  "Why do I feel and believe the way I do when so many others seem to believe something else?" (I ask myself that re: the traditional prayer book all the time.)  "Why do I feel I'm losing something?"  Once more, Jesus did not tell the crowd that day how to act or how not to act.  What He said, which disturbs my conscience not to mention the fundamentalist in me to no end was, "Let him without sin cast the first stone."   Wrestle with yourself, with your own conscience; not with each other.

Back to St. Paul, it would be folly for the eye to want to stone the foot or vice versa, even if one's foot was deformed or if the eye were blind.  But more important, the foot does not itself decide to become part of the body anymore than does the eye decide to appear all on its own.  We might say that both foot and eye are predestined to become part of the body, eve as different as they are.

Nor my friends do you and I become part of our Lord's Body on our own.  It is entirely God's gift.  Knowing this, perhaps we can do a little more to curb that voracious appetite that feeds the fundamentalist fears in all of us, summon a bit more charity - and even a bit more imagination - in order to live with each other a little easier.

 We must never forget that the great commandments are:  Love God, and Love our neighbor as ourselves.  And once again in the words of one of the Anglicanism's most keen observers:  "Believe me children, that Christians are never called on by God's word to insult (not believe but insult) the convictions - or even the prejudices of their brethren; and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible of urbane and courteous conduct among men."