Disciple: Unity Does Not Mean Uniformity
Our diversity plants the roots for Becoming Beloved Community to grow
By the Rt. Rev. Sam Rodman
It is amazing to me that six months have passed since the Ordination and Consecration service at Duke Chapel that hot July day last summer. I am enjoying each day as your bishop, and I am particularly grateful to Bishop Anne and the diocesan staff for their partnership in the work we all share.
Of all the wonderful and memorable experiences I’ve had already, by far my favorites have been my visitations with congregations. Between Sunday visits and other occasions, I’ve had the chance to spend time with more than half of our churches and missions, and it has been a joy to start to get to know you.
There is so much diversity in our congregations. Each one is unique with its own sense of vocation and mission, its own personality and character. The buildings and properties and histories are all different; each has resources to offer and faces challenges in maintaining those resources and connecting them to mission. The rich diversity of leadership at every level is perhaps the greatest treasure in this diocese. And the good news is your leadership is not hidden or buried; it is shining brightly as we live into the Jesus Movement and the promise of what it means to become beloved community.
In and through all this diversity is the common ground we share, that common purpose as followers of Jesus, as disciples sent out to our local communities to offer good news, to partner with our neighbors, to discover what God is already stirring up around us and to celebrate the movement of the Holy Spirit.
THAT WE ALL MAY BE ONE
In my Pastoral Address at the 202nd Annual Convention, I shared a bit of history from the Book of Common Prayer. Buried in the Historical Documents of the Church section is a little known and largely ignored document called the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.
The document is a Statement of the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1886 that says, “to all who it may concern, and especially to our fellow Christians of the different Communions in this land, who, in their several spheres, have contended for the religion of Christ:
Our earnest desire (is) that the Saviour’s prayer, ‘That we all may be one,’ may, in its deepest and truest sense, be speedily fulfilled….”
The statement then lays out four principles for the unity of the church that includes the following:
- Affirmation of the “Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God,”
- “The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith,”
- The two sacraments — Baptism and Eucharist, or the Supper of the Lord as it is called in the document, and
- “The Historic Episcopate — locally adapted … to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.”
I think we can all agree we are a long way from fulfilling the intention and promise captured here. Upon returning from the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the Rt. Rev. Thomas Shaw of the Diocese of Massachusetts returned with this to say about Church unity: “Unity is very, very, very, very hard.”
Bishop Shaw was not talking about unity with other denominations; he was speaking about unity within our own Anglican Communion. So rancorous and divisive was this gathering that instead of holding the next gathering in 2018 when it would normally have been scheduled, current Archbishop the Most Rev. Justin Welby postponed the next Lambeth conference until 2020.
Why is this important to us here in North Carolina? Some of the dividing lines around which the Lambeth conference in 2008 struggled were conservative and liberal theological perspectives; differing understandings of human sexuality; tension between the mostly white Northern Hemisphere churches and the Southern Hemisphere churches, which are not only predominantly people of color, but also, at this point in history, represent the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide; and the economic fault lines between well-resourced and under-resourced members of the communion. Sound familiar?
It seems to me that for us, this living prayer of Jesus “that we all may be one” has been channeled in North Carolina by your bishops, the clergy and lay leadership for quite some time in what we have come to call the Jesus Movement. You all have had the vision and the wisdom to recognize that Jesus’ call to unity — his prayer — is a call to unity of purpose, a focus on mission and movement more than church structure and the institution. The movement has been characterized by language that is not only missional but is also full of energy and life: Go to Galilee; be disciples who make a difference; go deep, go speak, go do.
During the walkabouts and Whistle Stop tour last February, I noticed something about the spirit of this diocese. It is gospel inspired. The gospel comes first. The way you live out the gospel is creative and innovative. You are willing to take risks, to try something new, or something very old in a new way.
Recently I have been speaking about the concept of apostolic succession as having meaning for the life of the church, as it leads to apostolic expression and expansion. We are all apostles. We are all witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. We all have a vital role to play in God’s mission and in the Jesus Movement as it continues to unfold, to expand and to deepen. Our apostolic call is not only as individuals, but as communities, as congregations. This is the connection between the church of the first century, the church of the Book of Acts, and the Church of today.
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
Now, just as then, there is no one model for what it means to be a church. In the early church, some met in houses, some met in synagogues, some met in the catacombs, some gathered in the streets. This holds true today: One size does not fit all. There are traditional models, and there are contemporary models. There are new church plants, there are churches that close and are reborn in a different form with a new sense of mission and purpose. There are established, well-resourced congregations. There are churches started by people going door to door to offer welcome, to offer prayer or to serve the needs of the community.
Our unity goes hand in hand with our diversity. As we become beloved community, we are becoming the rich, colorful and multifaceted tapestry the church of the 21st century needs to become to share the fullness of the gospel promise: We are all God’s children, we all have gifts to offer and we are each unique. The gifts we bring are different and varied. What is true for us, as individuals, is also true for our congregations. This is the richness embedded in the life of the church. This is the light we are called to let shine, especially in the Season of Epiphany, the season that celebrates the gift of the gospel of Jesus for all people, even strangers, from another land. This is the season that reminds us that from the very earliest days, the coming of Jesus was all about movement, a journey and following the light of God wherever it may take us.
The soil here is rich and ready for the gospel promise of becoming beloved community to take root and to grow up in us. We are being sent by God to share what we are discovering about ourselves, each other and the liberating love of Jesus. Unity may be very, very, very, very hard, but unity is our call. Not unity that masks oppression, but unity rooted in the living prayer of Jesus, unity where none of us has the upper hand. Becoming Beloved Community is our first next step in responding to that call and living into Jesus’ prayer for each and all of us.
The Rt. Rev. Sam Rodman is the XII Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina.
Tags: Our Bishops / North Carolina Disciple
