A Sermon for the Celebration of the Lutheran / Reformed Full Communion

Pacific School of Religion Chapel
6 October 1998

by
President Timothy F. Lull
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary

Text: Luke 24:13-35

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

PACIFIC CHILL AND BURNING HEARTS

Grace and peace to you...

About three hundred years after the beginning of the Reformation, Jane Austen published a novel called Pride and Prejudice (1813). It tells the story of a love that almost wasn't. Miss Elizabeth Bennett feels the full charm of the handsome Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, but cannot stand what she sees as his arrogance and his condescending friends. Mr. Darcy is not immune to the charms of Miss Bennett, but he cannot imagine life with her ineffective father, her pushy mother, and her uncouth younger sisters. And once their pride and prejudice are set, all that happens tends to reinforce the stereotypes they have of each other, which almost destroy the possibility of their ever coming together.

Surely Miss Austen did not have Lutheran Churches and Reformed Churches in mind when she wrote her masterpiece. But "Pride and Prejudice" would not be a bad title for the history of the relationships among these two families of churches since t he Protestant cause began to fall apart at Marburg in 1529. The original differences over understanding the Lord's Supper were deep and serious; but once they were set in stone, each family of churches had difficulty seeing the other charitably, and tended, at least at times, to compare its own ideal life with the concrete and fallible picture that it had of the other. Lutherans tended to see the Reformed as squandering the sacramental heritage of the church catholic and equating social and political crusades of the moment with the kingdom of God. Reformed Churches tended to see Lutherans as people who lacked the courage to finish the task of Reformation they had started, stuck in late Medieval guilt and totally passive and quietist toward the needs of the suffering world.

Only the great and shaking events of the twentieth century finally cracked this relationship open, making a new mutual assessment possible. It was especially the experience working together by those few German Protestants who opposed Hitler--despite Lutheran and Reformed differences--that opened the way after the Second World War for the Leuenberg Agreement in Europe. Now finally, after many setbacks along the way, four American churches--the Reformed Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have overcome both pride and prejudice and entered into a new relationship of "full communion."

Despite the cosmic sounding sweep of the phrase "full communion", this important agreement is rather modest in scope. It does not portend a merger of these four churches. Rather it argues that the common agreements among them are substantial enough to justify the closest working relationships, including common strategy for mission, common theological work, and even interchangability of clergy, but that the remaining differences are both significant and mutually enriching. So "full communion " invites these churches--and eventually others--to live in a relationship of "mutual affirmation and admonition."

Some of you will wonder whether that justifies even such a modest celebration as this, to say nothing of the big bash last Sunday in the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. Some will note that such mutual recognition and intercommunion has long been practiced at the local level. Fair enough. Still, given the historic scar tissue among these churches, even modest agreements can be the occasion for a modest celebration, and surely the Holy Spirit works through formal covenants among church bodies as well as through what bubbles up from the grass roots.

But I suspect that here in Berkeley, and especially at the Graduate Theological Union, we will be tempted in our usual posture of irony to be rather dismissive of "full communion". It brings together only a few of the Protestant churches--not even all those of the Reformed or Lutheran family. And it is in itself no guarantee of serious work together on the massive problems facing all the churches, from the renewal of local mission, to the challenge of multi-culturalism, to the debates about full participation of gays and lesbians in church leadership, to the challenge of encounter with the non-Christian religions of the world.

We have a tendency here in Northern California--and especially at the GTU--to have our own pride and prejudice--pride at how advanced or progressive we are in comparison to the rest of the country, and prejudice that dismisses in advance the possibility o f anything very important coming out of our own denominational structures (or even local congregations). Perhaps the breeze from the beautiful but cold Pacific Ocean tempers all enthusiasm here, although at times I wonder whether it chills our hearts beyond realism to a skepticism about whether anything very promising is to be found in the future of our churches.

We might, in fact, in our more reflective days, be like those persons who walked one Sunday evening centuries ago from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus on its outskirts. They were more deeply discouraged than we ever tend to be, because they had been re al enthusiasts, believers that in Jesus of Nazareth God was doing something decisive in behalf of the ancient promises of salvation. All that had been crushed by the execution of Jesus as a common criminal. His followers were scattered, although a core remained in Jerusalem. There were rumors that his death was not the end, but then in desperation, people will think or dream almost anything.

And so they walked to Emmaus, as three of us might walk along the Bay here in the evening, one from PSR and one from SFTS and one from PLTS. Imagine that the conversation is honest and self-critical in the way that can only happen between old friends who have put defensiveness aside and are in a confiding mood. What might they said as they walk together while the chilly breezes blow off the Bay?

I think they might not be very enthusiastic about the prospects for the church of the future, at least not for churches in our tradition, on our part of the Christian map. There is great vitality in many places today, from the self-confident megachurches , to renewed Roman Catholicism, to the many forms of evangelicalism. But the daughters and sons of the Reformation--for all that they continue to speak for millions in America--are no longer the Main Line (I don't think Lutherans ever were--or at best got there just as the concept disappeared). They would know the negative trends nationally, but even more they would know the struggle of Lutheran and UCC and Presbyterian and Reformed congregations here in the Bay Area where the tide of Christendom seems to be ebbing, and vital religion manifests itself in other traditions.

But this Full Communion Agreement, and especially the text chosen for the gospel reading for today, invites us in the discouraging moments of our walking to listen out for the voice of the stranger in our midst, the One who is almost never recognized in his coming, the Risen One who brings resurrection not only at the end of time, but to those who have lost faith and hope and even love.

The gospel lesson invites us to ponder whether we may not have become confused about who is ultimately responsible for the church's future. I know this: if it were Luther and Calvin that walked with us along the Bay, they would tell us that we should not expect that renewal or reform is something that we cannot announce as a goal and achieve through any human scheme. Our human wisdom and strength can do many things, but are not capable of bringing dead Christians and half-dead churches to life. Our forebears in this tradition would point us where Luke points us--to the word and the sacraments--to the grace of God coming in the interpretation that opens the Scriptures to us (which always need interpretation to be a word of live), in the waters of Baptism, in the breaking of the bread, in mutual conversation and consolation.

For this is the promise that we have received and the faith in which we stand: not that we would be guaranteed a dominant market share, not that all trends would be favorable, not that all our very important goals and quests would be quickly fulfilled, but that under the theology of the cross, the God whose ways are hidden and surpassing would be with us always, to the end of the age, to the limits of the world--even to Berkeley!--and that God's greatest gift to us would be continuing presence in, with and under these humble, created forms in which the gracious Maker of Heaven and Earth is pleased to dwell with humanity.

I can't tell you this morning that Full Communion will be a turning point, because I do not know. What our common Reformation heritage teaches me is to avoid theologies of glory that think you can look at the world and know how you are doing, or look at statistics and know the future of the church. God always surprises people in ways that are not our ways, refreshing us just at our greatest moments of discouragement or cynicism. And given that, I think we can give our churches the benefit of the doubt and raise a modest "Alleluia!" today for this Full Communion, thankful that some old issues that have been put to rest, and thankful for the hope of walking together in a new mutuality along the next segment of the journey.

If God can call us back to that power from above which beyond our own reason or strength is what calls the church to new life, if these four churches can make a happy and non-homogenizing peace with each other, then this might be one small sign of hope for the whole church--one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Yes, many here this morning are not themselves a part of this new agreement for full communion. But my hope is that we will live to see many other such celebrations, and along the way find new vision, new faithfulness, new friendship, and that genuine capacity of Christians to be surprised by what the Holy Spirit does to us and through us.

The peace of God...