Imagine the world’s 2.4 billion avowed Christians speaking as one, or our nation’s 200 million. We wouldn’t have to agree on everything. Just that we insist that governments obey the divine law of the universe, also known as the golden rule. Nation states actually can behave toward others as they wish to be treated, at least to the extent of not hurting or killing people unnecessarily.
Our unity on this core tenet of our faith would’ve kept Trump out of power. This is a dream, of course. For some and perhaps most of us, personal and political needs and creeds exert too much influence over our theology. Many of us accept Jesus’s commandment to engage in daily acts of self-sacrificial love as merely the golden guideline. Not to mention all the doctrinal differences we argue about, while a skeptical public looks on, hungry for excuses to construe as foolishness the very idea of putting others first.
But all is not lost. Those who think that our schisms are unbridgeable should visit Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, It’s home to a Sunday morning congregation of Spanish and English speakers, the Ugandan Community Church, and the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, for which the Van Nuys site is the Cathedral of the Incarnation. While the congregations worship separately, lay and ordained leaders are exploring more ways to do ministry together.
Yesterday they invited me to preside at a rare bilingual joint confirmation service. All 12 of the confirmands happened to be from the UCC, which usually worships at four on Sunday afternoon. As usual, I tried to talk the young people out of the dangerously countercultural impulse of giving themselves over to the service of God and God’s people in our selfish, secularizing times. None blinked. They had been too well prepared by their pastors, the Revs. Sam and Joy Magala, and the UCC’s Mothers and Fathers unions, who were out in force on Sunday.
I first heard about this ecumenical miracle many years ago, during a lunchtime conversation with its devoted and visionary former rector, the Rev. Canon Norman Hull, now a chaplain at Campbell Hall. The interim bishop in charge these days is the Rt. Rev.Naudal Alves Gomes, former primate of Brazil, who brings his extraordinary experience, wisdom, and kindness to his ministry of oversight and collaboration. Thanks to him, the clergy meet regularly for fellowship dinners, and an all-churches discernment retreat is coming up.
So much talent and love at this church! The services Joy and Sam organize each week brim with energy, music, and dance. My colleague the Rt. Rev. Gerry Engnan, who had a obligation out of town on Sunday, pastors the IFI congregation while looking after his whole diocese, comprising tens of thousands of square miles.
The Rev. Catherine Wagar, my fellow Holy Land pilgrim from 2007 and a veteran justice witness, plays a vital leadership role. The associate priest is the Rev. Brainerd Dharmaraj, who, in addition to his other duties, was my kind chaplain. The senior warden, Dr. Scherise Mitchell-Jordan, is a heart specialist who does peer reviews of journal articles. Satellite launch engineer and junior warden Leslye Miranda, in discernment about her vocation, sent me home with an inscribed book about Archbishop Oscar Romero, saint of her native El Salvador.
When we all met after a delicious luncheon, these and other leaders offered kind words about my ministry at what we took to be my last official visitation. But I’ll be back, leading a pack of curious disciples, I trust, who will want to learn everything they about this pioneer of practical ecumenism, which if practiced on a national scale could help spell the difference between freedom’s flowering or demise.
