June 1 | Easter 7, Year C
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26
We live in a world of competition and narcissism. We are taught that we can succeed only by differentiating ourselves from the crowd and thereby being “special.” Studies in the past three decades have illustrated increasing individualism in Western cultures, and particularly in the United States. There has been an increase in the number of people jogging and joining health clubs, but participation in group activities has significantly decreased. These trends are to be lamented because face-to-face social networking is foundational to democracy and societal stability. These social networks, unlike their cyber counterparts, are characterized by membership in civic organizations. When we join such organizations, we submit our individualism to the corporate good.
Likewise, although the privatization of religion, the perspective of “that’s fine for you to believe that, but I believe this,” appears to be the ideal solution for societal and cultural conflict, the truth is that it leads to just the opposite. Lonely, self-centered people who come to expect to have their way become angry and combative when they are confronted by something different. If I worship a personal and relational God and you worship an inaccessible and legalistic god, we will be in conflict. If I submit myself to a loving and grace-filled God and you submit to evil spirits, we will be in conflict. If I believe in a God who reveals himself as the only way to salvation and you believe in a pantheon of gods, or that all religions lead to salvation, we will be in conflict. If we are not unified in the truth or cannot even agree that there is such a thing as absolute truth, we will necessarily find ourselves in conflict. And within the Church, if we are bent on having our way or we live in constant conflict, God will not be made known to the world.
As the Church, however we live, we are the outward and visible sign to the world of what we believe is God’s nature. To be an accurate sign, or sacrament, we need to reflect the “inward and spiritual grace given by Christ” (BCP, p. 857).
The Book of Common Prayer’s catechism defines grace as “God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved” (p. 858). Grace is the sovereign gift from God by which he enables us, inspires us, and strengthens us to live in a reconciled relationship with him. The Church is the vehicle through which we can come to recognize and experience that grace.
Jesus’ prayer is that we will all be unified in the truth, which is incarnate in Jesus. It is a unity made possible through the reconciling death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through which we have been reunited with God. It is a sacramental unity because it is made possible only by God’s grace and has as its ultimate purpose the revelation of God’s nature to the world. Since God is the source of life, temporal and eternal, the proclamation of this unity with God is good news indeed.
Unlike jogging, worshiping alone is not an option if we are to be the Church. We are the body of Christ, individual members united under Christ as our head. If we are to be healthy we must function as a coordinated unit to achieve the purpose of our head. We can only be united through submission to God and mutual submission to one another. Ours is to be a unity not focused on having peace among ourselves, but to be a sacramental unity that announces and demonstrates God’s will for the world.
Look It Up: Acts 16:19
Think About It: C.S. Lewis wrote that “The characteristic of lost souls is ‘their rejection of everything that is not simply themselves’” (The Problem of Pain).
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.
