All of us are one
Based on 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Three years ago, a special ecumenical service was
held at Sudbury United Methodist Church, in Massachusetts in the USA, at
which Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley preached to a combined congregation of
Catholics and Protestants. But the only date that worked for him was the
Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
And it was agreed that if a service celebrating Christian unity was going to
be held on the same day that the Church celebrated the baptism of Jesus, it
would be appropriate to celebrate the Reaffirmation of the Baptismal
Covenant.
The large number in attendance meant that an
overflow room with a screen had to be set up to accommodate those who would
not otherwise fit. Reverend Anne Robertson, a Methodist, and Tom, a Catholic
priest, whose last name I don’t know, were tasked with taking water from the
font into the overflow room to sign the people in there, while the Cardinal
O’Malley and United Methodist Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar signed those in the
main body of the church. After they had collected their bowls, Tom took the
opportunity to ask Cardinal O’Malley for his blessing, and Cardinal O’Malley
anointed him, and anointed Anne as well.
Then the unthinkable happened. Cardinal O’Malley
asked Anne to anoint him. And so, an Irish Catholic Cardinal, a high-ranking
member of a denomination that does not ordain women, was anointed by a
divorced Scottish Methodist clergywoman.
When I was a young child back in the early 1970s, there
were two world events I saw on our black and white television screen that I
will never forget. The first was the USA’s war in Vietnam. The second was
The Troubles in Belfast.
And all I really knew about The Troubles at the time was
that there was fighting between Catholics and Protestants. I didn’t know
much about Catholics back then, but I hadn’t heard much positive said about
them.
My paternal grandparents were fiercely sectarian, and I
remember my grandmother’s framed Loyal Orange Lodge certificate being
proudly displayed on their living room wall. My parents met while they were
both in the army during the Second World War, and my father told my
grandparents he had met a girl he liked. They asked what her name was, and
he told them.
“Kathleen?” my grandfather responded. “That sounds Irish.
She’s not Catholic, is she?”
Now I am not trying to be disrespectful of my
grandparents. They had both been born in the 1890s and they were products of
their time. A time when people could be devoutly divided on the basis of
what church they went to.
It seems bizarre today that this conversation had to
happen, but I can remember my mother telling me that I ever fell in love
with a Catholic girl, it was fine for me to marry her. And I never really
know any Catholics until I was about eight, when a girl called Christina
joined my class, and we became good friends.
It would be easy to think that differences between groups
of Christians can be traced back to specific historical events, like the
East-West Schism of 1054, which saw Eastern Orthodoxy and the Western Church
part company, and the Reformation, which saw Protestants break away from the
Western Church.
But as todays Epistle reading from St Paul’s First Letter
to the Corinthians, which I will refer to as First Corinthians for short,
tells us, there have been disputes since the earliest days of the Church.
In the text we heard this morning, St Paul, who has never
given me the impression of being the most patient person in the history of
the Church, despaired, and he strongly reprimanded the Church in Corinth for
its quarrelling.
One comment he made particularly intrigues me. St Paul
noted this discord had been brought to his attention by Chloe’s people.
Chloe is a popular girl’s name today, but it originally a girl’s name from
ancient Greece. And by referring to Chloe’s people, St Paul indicated that
women held positions of leadership in the early Church.
Unfortunately, the sniping between different factions of
the Church did not stop when St Paul called it out. It only got worse. And
it has gone on for two thousand years now. I have already mentioned some of
the main schisms that occurred in the history of the Church. There have also
been many others, and the Church today compromises various denominations
that can more or less be assigned into three main groups: Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic, and Protestant.
The various branches of the Church have differences and
distinct characteristics. As well as the place of women in ministry, which I
have already referred to this morning, they have different views on matters
like what books are in the Bible; whether we should be informed by
scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, or just some of these; whether
scripture should be considered literally, allegorically, or a by a
combination of them; the nature of the Eucharist; how atonement works; and
the validity of holy orders, to name just a few. That is a lot of
differences.
But still, we continue to quarrel amongst ourselves. And
these quarrels can occur within denominations, as well as between them. We
only have to look at the
how our
own Anglican Communion struggled with the mysteries of human sexuality in a
rapidly changing world, and how easy it could be for a schism to occur
within our own denomination. Which to be
quite honest has already happened to some degree with the breakaway of the
GAFCON sect.
Now let us go back to that Sunday in Massachusetts
three years ago. Anne Robertson’s anointing of Cardinal O’Malley prompted
mixed reactions. Some were horrified, and said it was wrong for a woman to
assume such a role. Anne wrote about this in her blog the following day. And
I am taking the liberty of concluding today by quoting from her at some
length.
“At the root of the word "significance" is the word
"sign," and that is what occurred in that moment of anointing.
You don't get to be a Cardinal by being unaware of the significance
of your public acts. In a
completely spontaneous moment, Cardinal O'Malley seized the opportunity of
signifying the truth of Galatians 3:28, ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for
all of you are one in Christ Jesus."’
Which is, of course, also the truth of baptism.”
“In that moment of anointing--as he anointed me and
I anointed him--we were not Protestant or Catholic, Scottish or Irish, male
or female, cardinal or clergywoman.
We were Christians, babes in Christ, spiritually naked before the
Lord who called us both to service. Nothing could have better signified what
everyone in that room had just reaffirmed. In baptism, we are one.”
“The things that came to divide us after our baptism
exist still. There was a reason
beyond the accident of the day that we celebrated a reaffirmation of our
baptism together and not Holy Communion. There are uncomfortable realities
even in the world of Protestants, even in the world of United Methodists,
that resulted in me being the only vested clergywoman of any kind in that
service. And there were other symbols of unity that it was not even possible
to signify because those exclusions run too deep still.”
“It was imperfect. In a perfect world this
reflection would not exist because a United Methodist clergywoman anointing
a Roman Catholic Cardinal would be routine and unremarkable. In a perfect
world Cardinal O'Malley and I would preside together at the Lord's Table. In
a perfect world I might preside with a Cardinal Brighid O'Malley.”
“But grace exists, even in our
imperfections--perhaps especially because of our imperfections. And
yesterday afternoon, Jesus took the hands of his servants, Cardinal Sean
O'Malley, and Rev. Anne Robertson, and had them anoint each other, thereby
signifying to all of us what heaven will be like.”1
Darryl Ward
22 January 2023
1 http://www.annerobertson.org/on-rites-and-symbols
All Bible references are from the New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV) unless stated otherwise.