In 1995 I went to General Synod for the first time as a clergy representative from the Diocese of New Westminster. Within fifteen minutes of my arrival at the registration desk, I was whisked away by an anxious volunteer. The volunteer told me that the priest of the parish who was to host members of the New Westminster delegation on Sunday had come down with a very bad case of laryngitis. Would I preside and preach at the three points of the parish?
I said ‘yes’ and then realized that I had just agreed to preach three times on Pentecost in congregations I did not know, with little time to prepare and the pressing business of a General Synod that had come together at the beginning of our internal debates about the place of LGBTQ disciples in the life of our church. But late one night, as I was struggling about what I would say on Monday in a meeting of the whole on the topic of sexuality, I can only say I had a Pentecostal moment. I realized that the primary gift of the Holy Spirit was courage to act on what I knew, what I had been taught and what I had experienced since I became a disciple and friend of Jesus in 1953.
Just as the first disciples knew who Jesus was and what he had taught them and how he had lived among them, so we, two thousand years later, know who is for us now, what Jesus has taught us and is teaching us now and how he lives with us now. Through the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, through the writings of Christians over two millennia and through our own experiences of life as members of the Body of Christ, we have come to recognize that Jesus is our foundation; he is our model; he is our mentor.
But what we know, what we have learned and are learning, and what we see is not always enough to enable us to be the disciples and friends of Jesus we seek to be. Just as the core operating systems of our computers need an upgrade now and then to facing changing technologies, so too does our core spiritual operating system need an upgrade from time to time. After two thousand years we Christians must share and live the good news of God in Christ in contexts very different from those of first-century Palestine or, for that matter, the late twentieth-century North America at the time of my ordination in 1981.
We need to learn new ‘languages’ so that we can share the good news with those who know little to nothing of the Christian story other than what they read and see in the popular media, especially these days when the Christian voices that have come to dominate the public’s perception of what Christian faith do not speak for all Christian believers. We have to imagine different ways of ‘being church’ in a society that is wary of committing to any organization or institution which cannot proclaim and live a clear and compelling mission that makes sense in twenty-first century Canada. We have to apply our core operating system, Jesus of Nazareth, to situations unimagined by our forebears in the faith.
To this end the Holy Spirit has been sent, is being sent and will be sent to us. Through the Spirit we are ‘en-couraged’ – filled with courage and empowered so that we can act on what we know, what we have learned and what we have experienced as Jesus’ disciples and friends.
Richard of Saint Victor, a Christian theologian who lived and taught in the twelfth century in western Europe, was frequently criticized by his contemporaries for his approach to scriptural and theological interpretation. Many thought him innovative at best, heretical at worst, and sought to silence him. In response to their criticism he wrote:
"Do you wish to honour and defend the Fathers? We cannot honour the lovers of truth more truly than by seeking, finding, teaching, defending and loving the truth. Do not ask whether what I say is new, but whether it is true." (McAuliffe et al., With Reverence for the Word 2003, 24)
We know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. But discipleship and friendship with Jesus requires us to look at the world around us, its needs and its resources, its hopes and fears, its lack of vision as well as its precious insights. How do the Scriptures and our lived experience guide us towards making our time and our place ‘a thin place’ where God’s life and our lives touch.
Today small flames appear over the heads of all who claim to be and who seek to grow as disciples and friends of Jesus. Today our hearts are given the courage to be who we truly are and to share the good news the message that the glory of God is found in human beings truly alive. The whole world, or at least this small part of the world we inhabit, is waiting eagerly to hear, in whatever language is needed, in whatever form is needed, this message of freedom and abundant life unleashed this day two thousand years ago – and today and every day.
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