Welcome to Country Speech

7th National Forum of the NCCA, 9-13 July 2010
Aunty Agnes Shea, Ngunnawal Elder

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Good Afternoon All.

Let me begin by reminding all present that this is NAIDOC Week and today is NAIDOC Day.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander week unlike Reconciliation week is a time for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to come together with others to celebrate our life and culture and that we have survived. It is a time where we can highlight the import things that concern us and celebrate our unity as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Many celebrations are happening around the country and this years spotlight will be on Melbourne where the National Ball and awards will take place. Some may recall that Mrs. Elsie Heiss, a member of your Executive received the Elder of the year award at last year’s celebration in Brisbane. Many will receive due recognition for the tremendous work they do.

But the theme for this year is “Unsung Hero’s.”

This is a very important theme as it shines a light on many who have been struggling hard to bring about a better life for all of us. Many of us do this quietly in the background with little recognition. They are the teachers, coaches, doctors, Aunts, Uncles, parents and Grand parents to name a few.

We like you want the best for our families and friends and work tirelessly in our communities to try and bring it about. If you know anything about our communities and the amount of outside influences that affect our lives, then you would know it is not always so easy. We do it because of love. Love of our brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and all that have gone before us. Our strength we draw from our past and one another.

This week then, it is important to stop and reflect upon those many unsung heroes who have gone before us and are around us now. It would be good if you yourselves take a short moment to think of some of those Aboriginals or Torres Strait Islanders who work tirelessly to make this community, this country a better a place for all.

Many thanks for thinking of them and hopefully while you are here together pray for them for the strength and courage to continue.

I warmly welcome you back to Ngunnawal Country some 16 years after your first Forum here and pray that your time here will be fruitful and remember, whatever you do tread lightly across my Country as we have done for thousands of years.

Thank you.

Sermon
Ecumenical Public Worship

7th Forum of the NCCA, 9-13 July 2010
by Archbishop Aghan Baliozian

(delivered by the Revd Dr Ray Williamson)

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In the liturgical calendar of the Armenian Apostolic Church, today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Befittingly as we come together in fellowship and worship at this 7th National Forum of the NCCA with the theme of “Shaping Our National Ecumenical Footprint” we can look to this holy feast day to inspire our direction and shed the glorious light of Our Lord Jesus Christ upon our witness, by the grace of God.

The Transfiguration was a vision, a brief glimpse of the true glory of the King. As we read today from the Gospel of Matthew, this was a special revelation of Jesus’ divinity to three of the disciples, and it was God’s divine affirmation of everything Jesus had done and was about to do.

The distinct revelation that Jesus is God’s Son comes to us in three specific episodes. The first public declaration was at His baptism when the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the bodily form of a dove and a voice from heaven declared “You are my Son, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22) 

Second, Jesus appeared to three of his disciples – Peter, James and John – in glorious splendour upon the mountain high, beside him the prophets Moses and Elijah. As Peter was speaking to Jesus, a cloud enveloped him and the prophets and a voice was heard saying “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9:35)

The third affirmation of Christ’s glory and purity was revealed in the resurrection and ascension which was witnessed by many.

Whilst the public witnessed the first and third revelations of the incarnate Christ, for the transfiguration Jesus singled out Peter, James and John. Why? Perhaps they were the ones most ready to understand and accept this great truth.  Jesus took them to the top of the mountain to show them who he really was – not just a great prophet, but God’s own Son.

These three disciples were the inner circle, the closest to Jesus of the group of twelve. They were among the first to hear Jesus’ call, they headed the Gospel lists of disciples and they were present at certain healings where others were excluded. Peter, James John would eventually play a key role in the early church. Peter became a great speaker, John became a major writer and James was the first of the twelve disciples to die for the faith.

When Jesus transfigured before them he was joined by Moses and Elijah, the two greatest prophets of the Old Testament. Moses represented the law or the old covenant and predicted the coming of a great prophet. Elijah represented the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah. Moses’ and Elijah’s presence confirmed Jesus’ Messianic mission – to fulfil God’s law and the words of God’s prophets. Just as God’s voice in the cloud over Mount Sinai gave authority to his law, God’s voice at the transfiguration gave authority to Jesus’ words.

The transfiguration revealed Christ’s divine nature. God’s voice exalted Jesus above Moses and Elijah as the long-awaited Messiah with full divine authority.

When Peter suggested making three shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, he may have been thinking about the Feast of the Tabernacles, where shelters were set up to commemorate the exodus when God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Peter was impulsive in nature and wanted to instinctively act, but this was a time for worship and adoration.

Like Peter, we too may have such inspiring experiences that we want to react in ways which are not intuitively correct. And at times with such experiences, we may want to stay where we are – away from the realities and problems of our daily lives. Knowing that struggles await us in the valley encourages us to linger on the mountaintop. Yet staying on the mountaintop prohibits our ministering and instead of becoming spiritual giants we become dwarfed by our self-centredness. We need times of retreat and renewal but only so we can return to minister to others. Our faith must make sense off the mountain as well as on it.

To give Peter credit however, his desire to build shelters may have shown his understanding that real faith is built on three cornerstones: the law, the prophets and Jesus. Peter grew in his understanding and eventually would write of Jesus as the “chosen and precious cornerstone” (1Peter 2:6)  of the church.

It must have been such an overwhelming experience for these disciples to witness the transfiguration. We read in the Gospel of Mark of Peter, “He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.” (Mark 9:6)   So terrified were the disciples that when the cloud enveloped Jesus, Moses and Elijah and the voice from the clouds was heard affirming “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)  the disciples fell facedown in fear.

Jesus is more than just a great leader, a good example, a good influence or a great prophet. He IS the Son of God. When we understand this profound truth, the only adequate response is worship.  Whilst the disciples were yet to understand this, we have insight today, the greater picture that assures us of Jesus’ divinity.

When the disciples looked up again they only saw Jesus and as they walked down the mountain with him, Jesus said to them “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” (Matthew 17:9)  Why so? Would it not have been be a natural response to want to rave about the majestic phenomenon they had just experienced?

Jesus knew they did not fully understand what had happened and could not explain what they didn’t understand. Even though they knew Jesus was the Messiah, they still had much more to learn about the significance of his death and resurrection. Then would they realise that only through dying could Jesus show his power over death and his authority to be King of all. The disciples could not be powerful witnesses for God until they had grasped this truth.

It was normal for the disciples to be confused about Jesus’ death and resurrection because they could not see into the future. We, on the other hand, have God’s revealed Word, the Holy Bible, to give us the full meaning of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.

The vision of the transfiguration which appeared before them would have evoked a multitude of emotions – terror, amazement, shock, exhilaration, curiosity – but mostly I would think - bewilderment.

In seeing Elijah, the disciples questioned Jesus “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” This question was based on the teachers of the Old Testament law believing that Elijah must appear before the Messiah as had been prophesied in the Book of Malachi. (Based on Malachi 4:5,6)

Jesus replied “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognise him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” (Matthew 17:11)  Jesus referred to John the Baptist, not the Old Testament prophet Elijah. John the Baptist took on Elijah’s prophetic role – boldly confronting sin and pointing people to God.

It would have been difficult for the disciples to grasp the idea that their Messiah would have to suffer. The Jews who studied the Old Testament prophecies expected the Messiah to be a great king like David who would overthrow the enemy, Rome. Their vision was limited to their own time and experience.

They could not understand that the values of God’s eternal kingdom were different from the values of the world. They wanted relief from their personal problems. But deliverance from sin was, and is far more important than deliverance from physical suffering or political oppression. Today more than ever, our understanding for Jesus must go beyond what he can do for us here and now. We should adopt an eternal perspective in our everyday lives.

The significance of the transfiguration is as profound for us as it was for the three disciples. As churches, we must look on high to the mountaintop upon which our life in Christ is founded and our witness of Christ originates. Our witness must be aglow, as the shining light of Christ in his revelation as the Son of God. 

As with the earliest church, today we confront the problem of declining commitment and conforming to world standards, compromised faith failing to stand up for Christ.  However as church leaders, we must lead by example to show the difference between light and darkness and to encourage the church to grow in genuine love for God and one another.

John, described as the “apostle whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20), walked and talked with Jesus, saw him heal, heard him teach, watched him die, met him risen, and saw him ascend. John knew God – he had lived with him and had seen him work. And John enjoyed fellowship with the Father and the Son all the days of his life. What a far cry was John the apostle who walked with Christ from the apostle who witnessed for Christ.

Our gathering at this forum, in true Christian fellowship with other believers is powerful testament of how we can walk and talk in God’s light to effectively shape “Our National Ecumenical Footprint”.  We must commit to three main principles in this endeavour.

Firstly, our fellowship must be grounded in the testimony of God’s Word as without this underlying strength, togetherness is impossible.  Second, it must be mutual, sharing and respecting ideas and focussing on the unity of believers. Third, our fellowship must be renewed daily through the Holy Spirit in worship and Bible Study.

May the Almighty grant us wisdom, guidance, direction in our fellowship throughout these days and in our future mission together in the NCCA and as we commemorate the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us renew our commitment to faith life and outlook to eternal purposes. Amen.

President’s Address

7th Forum of the NCCA, 9-13 July 2010
by Bishop Michael Putney

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This is the seventh forum of the National Council of Churches and the second to be held in Canberra.  Moreover, the Council was inaugurated in 1994 here in Canberra.  This makes our meeting an historic one.  We have returned to the national capital, and to the place where we began.

The words ‘national’ and ‘Australia’ in the title of our Council are obviously words intended to express our identity and our mission as a national body drawing together in a Council representatives of the vast majority of Australian Christians.  Therefore, the national capital is at least symbolically if not also in reality of some significance for our Council.

This return to Canberra provides us with the opportunity of reflecting on the achievements of the Council since it was inaugurated.  The three objectives of the National Council of Churches in Australia announced in Canberra in 1994 were:
a) to encourage and enable churches to develop their existing relationships;
b) to encourage and enable the member churches in the light of the gospel to give prophetic leadership to each other and the community;
c) to promote other important relationships eg with other world religious.

It would be a valuable exercise for each of us here today to reflect upon the history of the Council as we know it and to point to positive achievements that satisfy one or other, or even all of these objectives.

I certainly would point to the signing of the Covenant in Adelaide at the Fifth Forum of the National Council as a very tangible and potentially very fruitful consequence of the formation of the National Council of Churches here in 1994.  One could also point to the memorandum of understanding between the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission and the National Council of Churches signed in 2005, as a tangible example of commitment to the prophetic role of the Council.  The representation of the National Council on national Muslim-Jewish-Christian bodies illustrates the capacity of the National Council of Churches to exercise a particular function that no other group can.  It is the most comprehensive representative of Australian Christians in dealings with other world religions.

There would be many other achievements which received less publicity but were none the less of great importance for the ecumenical movement in Australia.  I wanted to name some such positive achievements because we can easily forget that as the National Council of Churches in Australia there are some things we can do that no other body can do.  Each of those words has its importance.  We are a national body.  We are a Council drawing together, for deliberation and decision making, representatives of Christian churches.  We exercise this role in and for Australia.

At the same time I think we need to reflect upon what we have yet to achieve and that to which we might need to commit ourselves with increased energy after this Forum.  Therefore I will point to a number of issues that I think become obvious when one participates in Executive meetings of the Council and even in this Forum.

Firstly, I began my address by drawing attention to the significance of our meeting in the national capital.  We went to great trouble to invite the then Prime Minister to address our gathering and alerted the Leader of the Opposition that we were doing so and that we would in turn invite him, it our first invitation were accepted.  In fact, we were put on hold which is something politicians sometime have to do.  It then became impossible for us to put our own program on hold while we waited and waited.  Therefore we withdraw the invitation, and alerted the Leader of the Opposition’s staff.  What is significant for me is that we were not recognised as the most important Christian body to meet in the national capital this decade as I would like to claim, and so seen as a modest priority for the Prime Minister’s calendar.

I say this not with any sense of pride but simply because we are the National Council of Churches in Australia.  I am not ignoring the fact that some Christians, churches and communities are not part of the national council but the majority of Christians are represented by this council.  However, our national profile and our national “clout” is obviously not as great as we would like and maybe not even as great as some other national bodies representing a lesser number of Christians.  Perhaps, in fact, no Christian body is of such significance that the Prime Minister’s office would believe that he would need to accept an invitation to attend.

Australia is a secular country and the influence of Christian churches is diminishing.  How they respond to that diminishment varies.  This Council acts towards politicians and governments in one way.  Other groups engage with them much more directly as lobbyists.  Some would argue that our style makes us a less significant partner for the federal government than such more politically engaged Christian bodies.  However, again it would be very difficult for any Christian body, no matter how prestigious or politically active it might be, to become an essential part of the agenda of a federal government given our contemporary Australian culture.  All of this is worthy of our reflection because if we truly are the national Council of Churches then ideally someone in Canberra should think we are worth talking to.

This leads to my second reflection.   Not even the churches themselves which are members of the National Council seem to be as passionate about its existence and its mission as the title would imply.  It is sometimes hard to get a quorum for executive meetings.  This raises real questions about a council of churches that does not so capture the imagination of the churches that they would think that they could not afford to be unrepresented at its meetings.

Such a council of churches needs to look at its agenda.  If it is not dealing with the issues that really matter to the churches and doing so in a way that they cannot do alone then in what sense is it genuinely a council of those churches?  If it is dealing with agenda coming from elsewhere or generated only from within its own structure then it ought not be surprising that the churches might think that, while it is a good thing that it exists, it in fact is not going to make any impact on their church life.  If this is so, they will not be motivated with any urgency to participate in all of its meetings all of the time, as one would hope.

This is a great challenge for the Council and one that it began to tackle at its last Executive Meeting.  The desire generated to address this question has influenced the agenda for the Forum.  Is the National Council of Churches really doing the work of the churches?  In theory they should want to come together nationally as a council to address those things which confront them all in our Australian context.  If it is not helping them to do that, it is surely not satisfying one of their basic objectives in the formation of the Council.

On a more spiritual level, if it is not drawing them closer together so that they can point to a real achievement of deeper ecumenical awareness, collaboration and spiritual union with each other, again it is not satisfying a fundamental objective for which it was established.  There is always a danger that no matter how hard we try, a council becomes just one other body alongside the churches rather than an actual coming together of the churches.

Thirdly, among others the Orthodox Churches in Australia are under-represented at this Forum and usually at the Executive Meetings.  This is a great sadness because we need to hear all the voices of our member churches if we are to fulfil our mandate.  This is not just the mandate accepted at our inauguration but the mandate that comes to us from God.  We need each other and we have to find a way of enabling Orthodox Christians to participate in a manner that will make them want to be part of us.  If would be tragic if they or anyone else came to Executive Meetings and to the Forum only out of some notional ecumenical duty.  We are the National Council and councils are meant to capture and shape our desire to work together both for Christian unity and to carry out our mission in our own country.

Fourthly, as we celebrate the centenary of the modern ecumenical movement this year we need to remember that the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference of 1910 generated the enthusiasm that lead to the formation of the Faith and Order Movement and the Life and Work Movement which in turn led to the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948 in Amsterdam.  It was missionaries who began the ecumenical movement.

The poor relation throughout this great and exciting history was the World Missionary Council which did not join the World Council until much later.  There are Christians who are not very interested in the ecumenical movement but are interested in evangelism / evangelisation.  They are not very interested in the National Council of Churches because it can seem to be concerned with what they would see as a bureaucratic form of ecumenism rather than the urgent mission of proclaiming the Lord Jesus to our secular country.

Their absence from the ecumenical movement and our Council challenges us to look at our own priorities.  The original impetus for Christian unity was the need to be united for the sake of the mission of proclaiming the gospel.  The first two objectives of our National Council of furthering relationships that would draw us closer together and of enabling us to fulfil a prophetic mission in our country together, must be given appropriate weight in our agenda and in our deliberations.  But prophetic mission must include offering the gift of Jesus Christ himself to our nation.

Finally, we will lose the impetus that began in Canberra in 1994 if the National Council of churches in Australia is just one more business meeting.  The Executive Meetings and the Forum most not become just more meetings that tired and busy Church people have to attend because of their ecumenical commitment but which in fact offer them very little that is of value for their own churches.  We do not exist just to do business.

We must not let our return to Canberra become just one more item on the 2010 calendar of events.  The Forum needs to be the occasion when we reclaim the enthusiasm with which this Council was inaugurated and commit ourselves to whatever changes we need to make in our mission and our agenda in order to ensure that it is worthwhile being members of the National Council of Churches in Australia and actually coming to its meetings.  Will participants leave here on Tuesday, not just happy about the time they spent with interesting people talking about interesting things, but aware that through their participation, their churches grew closer together and learnt from each other how to take up together our mission in this country?  Anything less is the beginning of the end for the Council not the end of the beginning as this return to Canberra should signify.

“Footprints and Echoes”

Bible Studies
7th Forum of the NCCA, 9-13 July 2010
by the Revd Dr John Gibaut

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Introduction
Every year the Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity prepare the texts of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, with an original draft prepared by a local, ecumenical group writing from one of the regions of the world.  The material for 2010 was prepared in Scotland because of the 2010 Edinburgh Conference, marking the centenary of the 1910 Edinburgh Conference and with it the beginning of the modern Ecumenical Movement.

The biblical text chosen by the Action by Churches Together in Scotland team is the entire chapter of Luke 24, Luke’s account of the Resurrection.  Although the text is long it holds together as a single literary unit. The words of Jesus at the end of this chapter—the theme of the 2010 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity—are addressed to the disciples of Jesus in 2010 as much as they were on that first Easter day: “You are witnesses of these things.”

Day 1: Luke 24.1-27
Luke’s account of the first Easter day is the longest of the four gospels.  At the centre of Luke’s story of the Resurrection is the episode of the Road to Emmaus, from verses 13-35.  The strange thing—or the wondrous thing—is that the people in this story are not the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples. There are no angels, no Peter or Mary Magdalene, all of whom appear in verses 1-12, where we hear the news of the Resurrection, but where Jesus has yet to appear.  The Emmaus story is about two completely unknown people, Cleopas and his companion; was this a friend? His wife?  A relative? A partner? A son or daughter?  Because Luke gives us no hints about who Cleopas is, let alone his companion, we are left to our own imaginations, as the works of artists who have portrayed this story so amply demonstrate.  I think that Cleopas and his companion are you and me, and all the ordinary people who have responded to Jesus in one way or another.  And it is to these unknowns that the Risen One first appears in Luke’s Gospel.

The discovery of the empty tomb was the experience of relatively few people.  But the news spread quickly so that by the end of the day the two disciples trudging back to their village had heard it as well. But rather than receiving the news with joy, Luke tells us that they were sad. They didn’t believe it.  I think that they were so traumatized by the events in Jerusalem that they were in no position to receive anything.   And they are separated from the Jerusalem community, what they call “our group,” isolated and walking away.  Until they are joined by the stranger, who talks to them, listens to their feelings, listens for their questions, and then opens up the Scriptures as they walked.  Upon later reflection, they recalled that their hearts were burning within them as he proclaimed/explained the Scriptures.

The theme of this conference is “Footprints.”  When I hear this word today I first think of an “ecological footprint.”  Or, I think of that wonderful story of footprints in the sand, the double set and the single set.  It also recalls the footprints that were left on that dusty road from Jerusalem to Emmaus by Cleopas, his companion, and the Risen Jesus.  And then there are the footprints on the road back to Jerusalem. Not only did they walk and leave footprints, but they also talked and left echoes of those conversations in Luke’s gospel.

At the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh 1910 a journey began, the ecumenical journey, which has left footprints and echoes in directions that people 100 years ago could never have imagined.  There have been so many conversations since then, so many dialogues between Christians; in so many ways, the echoes of their conversations resonate with our own, about the Risen Lord, and with the Risen Lord.

The one decision that came out of the World Missionary Conference was to form a continuation committee to continue and to deepen cooperation between the missionary societies.  It was a unanimous decision, and the delegates were so amazed, and so moved, that the rose to sing the Doxology together.  A new phase of Christianity began in which they began a journey together, not in competition, not in isolation, but a journey together with the Lord and with each other that would lead all the way to this Seventh Forum of the National Councils of Churches of Australia in Canberra. We are the heirs of these things.

But at the beginning, and perhaps today as well, the ecumenical journey, like the journey to Emmaus, begins with strangers.  The unrecognised Jesus was a stranger to Cleopas; Cleopas and his companion are strangers to us; his companion will always remain a stranger. They are estranged from the Jerusalem community, from who they have walked away.

But as they journeyed together, leaving their two sets of footprints on the road, something changed, because of the third set.  They went from sadness to hearts burning within them; from a sense of pointless loss and unsettling news to having a sense of meaning. They saw how their own stories and the story of Jesus fit within the broader framework of the biblical narrative.  There was a dialogue. There was change, and we have been caught up in the echoes and footprints of that change ever since.

The great “burning hearts” insight of Edinburgh 1910 was the churches’ mission and message of reconciliation in Christ was distorted by their divisions.  The vision that was born in 1910 was not merely church-cooperation, but of Christian unity.  The insight came not from the Europeans or North Americans, but from the young churches of Asia, who linked the call to Jesus’ prayer in John 17. 21, “that they may be one”.

There were some who asked what it is that keeps us apart.  People like Anglican bishop Charles Brent, their hearts burning from the experience of Edinburgh, saw that the way forward was dialogue; conversation about the questions of the faith and ordering of the churches that kept them apart.  And so in 1910, plans began for a world conference on Faith and Order, which after years of planning and the horrors of the First World War, took place in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1927. Around that table of Faith and Order the churches encountered each other for the first time in a new way.  Leaders and theologians did not attack or justify positions, they just introduced what they believed and how their different churches were ordered or structured.  In the beginning it was a dialogue of strangers, who knew really did not know one another, although caricatures, historic condemnations, memories of past conflict were alive and well.  And something happened to them in Lausanne. They were no longer strangers and aliens.  They saw Christ in one another.  They could show that there was far more in common that united them in Christ than that which separated them from each other. And they knew themselves to be citizens together with the saints and members of the same household of God. (Ephesians 2.19)

Listen to their words to the churches in 1927:

God’s Spirit has been in the midst of us.  It was He who called us hither.  His presence has been manifest in our worship, our deliberations and our whole fellowship.  He has discovered us to one another. He has enlarged our horizons, quickened our understanding, and enlivened our hope. We have dared and God has justified our daring.  We can never be the same again.  Our deep thankfulness must find expression in sustained endeavour to share the visions vouchsafed us here with those smaller home groups where our lot is cast.

This was an Emmaus experience for those who were part of Faith and Order in 1927, and the churches they represented.  The dialogues between the churches have continued ever since, on varying issues, at various speeds, with varying successes. But the Faith and Order movement, a movement which seeks to reconcile separated Christians by dialogue, by talking and walking together, by learning from one another, by recognizing and being recognised by the Risen Christ, includes us all:

God’s Spirit has been in the midst of us.  It was He who called us hither.  His presence has been manifest in our worship, our deliberations and our whole fellowship.  He has discovered us to one another. We have dared and God has justified our daring.  We can never be the same again.

Questions:

1. What journey has your church been on in the past one hundred years with other Christian communities? How have you journeyed with other Christians in your own lives?
2. What dialogues has your church embarked upon with other churches, and how have they brought you closer to that unity for which Christ prays?
3. In what ways have the insights or experiences of another or other churches been an instance of the Risen Christ opening the Scriptures to you and your community?
4. With whom or what other Christian community do you need to journey on your own road to Emmaus?

Task:

1. What verse from Luke 24.1-27 resonates most strongly with where you are this morning?
2. What verse resonates most strongly with the dialogue within your table-group this morning? Why?
3. Each group will in turn read its chosen verse in plenary.

Day 2: Luke 24.28-35
As they reached their home in Emmaus, hospitality demanded that they invite the stranger to stay with them, because it was almost evening and the day was now over.  But at the meal, the guest becomes the host, as he takes the bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them. Then, their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.

When they see him, they don’t recognise him; when they recognise him, they don’t see him. What is going on here? The answer is in the fourfold action of Jesus in the meal: taking, blessing/giving thanks, breaking, and giving the bread.  These are exactly the actions of Jesus in the Last Supper narratives in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul.  They are the same four actions in all the feeding miracles in all four gospels. They are also the four-fold action of the Eucharist in the ancient church, and in the celebration of the Eucharist in many liturgical traditions today: the preparation of the gifts, the Eucharistic prayer, the breaking of the bread and Holy Communion.  The entire story is liturgical: the community gathers on Sunday, the day of resurrection; the Scriptures are proclaimed; the table is prepared, the blessing said, the bread broken, and the community of Cleopas and his companion are fed by Christ.

This is where the ordinariness and obscurity of Cleopas and his companion give such power to the story.  They are like you and me who did not visit the empty tomb, who missed the angels, missed Mary Magdalene and Peter. It is as if Luke is telling those of us who were not there that the Risen Christ meets us as well as Cleopas and his companion, as we encounter the Risen One as he gathers us with him on Sunday, the day of Resurrection, to proclaim the biblical word of hope, and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

The flash of intuition that the Lord is risen indeed was not the result of their careful planning or well-thought out theology, but it is the Lord’s doing in the context of time, community, story, meal, and prayer. It was not an idea, but an experience of the Risen Christ that led them to the basic foundation of Christian belief: “The Lord is risen; he is truly risen!”

If this is the point of Luke’s Emmaus story—and most biblical commentators suggest that this is precisely what is going on—then there are implications for the unity of the Church, or rather, for its disunity. For, here, gathered around its Risen Lord, the Church, the Christian community is most authentically itself.  It is from here that its life and mission flows and returns.

The most scandalous way that Christian division has been expressed from earliest times has been breaking Eucharistic communion with one another. Equally scandalous in the long history of Christian disunity has been naming the other’s Eucharistic theologies and practices as heretical. In the event that Luke’s Gospel identifies as the privileged place of encounter with the Risen Lord, we all told others Christians that that they got it wrong.

Faith and Order was born in the Eucharist at Edinburgh 1910, when the Anglican delegates who celebrated the Eucharist every day became increasingly aware of the discrepancy between the growing Emmaus experience of unity at the conference, and the Anglican practice at the time that made it impossible to celebrate and receive the Eucharist together. That sense of “wrongness” impelled them to seek to remove whatever issues of faith and order that kept believer apart in the Eucharist.

Ever since, Faith and Order has provided a space where the divided churches have shared with each other what they believe and experience in the Eucharist.  The mandate of Faith and Order is to “proclaim the oneness of the Church of Jesus Christ, and to call the churches to the goal of visible unity in one faith and in one Eucharistic fellowship.” One of the gentle but at the same time disturbing surprises has been just how much we already have in common in the Eucharist, and how much we owe to one another in terms of liturgical renewal. They could show that there was far more in common that united them in Christ than that which separated them from each other. This was most poignantly achieved in the 1982 convergence text called Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, known simply by its abbreviation, BEM”.

People don’t read BEM very much anymore.  It’s even hard to find a copy, even after a million were produced in over 39 printings and in 40 languages!  But without knowing it, many people receive BEM every Sunday. Because so many of those involved in the BEM process were also engaged in liturgical renewal in their churches, our service books were being revised as BEM was being prepared. There was an order of celebration based on BEM called the Lima Liturgy. It was seldom used, but it became the model for a whole series of Eucharistic liturgies and service books from 1982 to the present.  It is no wonder that there is a family resemblance in the way that churches celebrate the Eucharist, in terms of shape of the liturgy, music and hymns, common lectionary, and common Eucharistic prayers.

Before, during, and after the publication of BEM, an extraordinary thing happened: when Christians visited each other’s churches, especially at celebrations of the Eucharist, they felt “at home.” It was not identical, but it was familiar, giving rise to a deep desire to receive Christ in Holy Communion with and from another. That is a different kind of ecumenism, not of theologians or church leaders, but of ordinary people like Cleopas and his companion, a grassroots ecumenism of those who encounter the presence of Christ in the other, who hear the echoes of themselves, their prayers, their songs, their stories, in the prayer of the other and desire to feed on that presence as did Cleopas and his companion. And they knew themselves to be citizens together and members of the same household of God.

For the vast majority of Christians—Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant churches—receiving communion is seen as the goal of Christian unity. For others, it is seen as the means to unity, or as a pastoral measure of hospitality in the interim.  Some Christians will not receive in another church, for the sake of unity.  Others will receive, also for the sake of unity. Both positions place being in Eucharistic communion at the heart of the ecumenical movement—not just receiving communion from one another, which is relatively easy, but receiving one another, being in communion with another community, and encountering with the other what Cleopas and his companion found with the stranger: the presence of the Risen Christ.

“Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him, and he vanished from their sight.”

Questions:

1. What are some of your experiences of the prayer of other Christian traditions?
2. What is your church’s position on Eucharistic hospitality, and why? How do you experience churches that follow a practice different to your own?
3. In what ways have the insights or experiences of another or other churches helped you to recognise the Risen Christ in the breaking of the Bread?

Task:

1. What verse from Luke 24.28-35 resonates most strongly with where you are this morning?
2. What verse resonates most strongly with the dialogue within your table-group this morning?
3. Each group will in turn read its chosen verse in plenary.

Day 3: Luke 24.33-51
Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry acknowledges the many names given to the sacramental meal in bread and wine in which we meet Jesus.  In chapter 24 of Luke’s Gospel and throughout the Acts of the Apostles it is called the “breaking of the bread.” St Paul calls it “The Lord’s Supper.”  The early church called it Eucharist, from the Greek eucharistia meaning “thanksgiving”, recalling the third of Jesus’ actions in the Last Supper, the feeding miracles, and the Emmaus story, when Jesus gave thanks.  Eastern Christians call it the Divine Liturgy, from the Greek leitourgia, meaning “work of the people.”  In the early Western tradition, it was simply called “Mass”, from the Latin missa meaning “sent”,  from the dismissal by the deacon at the very end of the Eucharist: ite, missa est, meaning “go, you are sent.”  And from this we get the word “mission” and words like “commission”, “transmission”, “dismissal” and “Mass”.

We often forget, especially those who come from traditions shaped by the Reformation, that the word “Mass” points to the deep connection between Eucharist and mission, between the Resurrection and mission.  In his account of Emmaus, Luke tells us that after Cleopas and his companion recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread, they did not complain about the sermon and turn in for the night.  Rather, their experience of the Risen Lord sent them on mission, back to Jerusalem. Their experience of the Risen Christ was such that they were impelled to witness to what they had heard and seen and tasted.  They return to Jerusalem, and to the community of the Lord gathered there, and are again in communion with them, for they too had news: “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon.”

Then Jesus appears to them all, and says to them words that we know from our experience of worship: “Peace be with you.” Luke tells us that after showing himself to them, he shares a meal with them as well, and then in reverse order begins to proclaim the scriptures, opening their minds to the message “that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

“You are witnesses of these things.”  This is Luke’s version of the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.  The commission in Luke’s Gospel is located after the proclaimed biblical word Supper with the Lord, just like the deacon’s ite, missa est. Like the language around the word Mass, mission in the story of Emmaus is intrinsically linked with the Eucharist. The Orthodox tradition speaks of the Liturgy after the Liturgy.

Edinburgh 1910 had as one of its goals increased cooperation amongst the Western missionary societies.  What actually happened was a vision of so much more, a vision of a united Church.  It was a moment of conversion for the delegates. Charles Brent, who would lead the Faith and Order movement, said of Edinburgh 1910:

I was converted. I learned that something was working that was not of man in that conference; that the Spirit of God... was preparing a new era in the history of Christianity.

During these past days a new vision has been unfolded to us.  But whenever God gives a vision He also points to some new responsibility, and you and I, when we leave this assembly, will go away with some fresh duties to perform.

The vision of Church unity, not missionary cooperation, did not emerge from the Western professors of ecclesiology, but from the younger churches of India, Japan, and China. One of the most famous speeches at Edinburgh 1910 came from one of the few delegates from China, Cheng Ching Yi:

You have sent to us missionaries who have made Jesus Christ known to us, and we thank you for this. But, you have also brought to us your divisions; we ask you to preach the Gospel and to let Jesus Christ himself rise up in the hearts of our people by the action of his Holy Spirit adapted to their needs, adapted also to the dispositions of our peoples, so that there will be a Church of Christ in Japan, the Church in China, in India, etc. Deliver us from all “isms” by which you have affected the preaching of the Gospel amongst us.

The vision of Christian unity in Edinburgh 1910, and the ecumenical movement which sprang from it, has been related solely to mission.  In 1910 they saw with striking clarity that Christian disunity, competition, parallelism, isolation and hostility was the greatest obstacle to mission.  How was it possible to proclaim a gospel of reconciliation—a gospel of repentance and forgiveness to all the nations—when the bearers of that gospel were un-reconciled amongst themselves?  The hypocrisy around Christian disunity continues to block the mission of the church today because disunited Christianity distorts the Gospel.

The operative word is disunity, not diversity.  God loves diversity.  The diversity amongst Christians speaks of the health and vitality of Christianity, and the freedom of the Spirit to blow in different cultures and languages and experiences as the Spirit wills.  The vision of Edinburgh 1910 was never a uniform Church, but a united one, one that preserved, safeguarded, and celebrated diversity in one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

When Jesus says “You are witnesses of these things” in Jerusalem or Edinburgh or Canberra, it is always in the plural, to a communion of wondrously different people.

In Matthew’s gospel, the great commission is to make “disciples of all the nations.” In Luke it is subtly but significantly different: it is to proclaim to the nations repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name, and to be witnesses that the Messiah suffered and rose from the dead on the third day.

Being a witness to the things of Jesus today is understood in wondrously diverse ways, from evangelism, to giving a reason for the hope that is within us, to caring for justice and peace, healing and reconciliation, and stewardship of creation.  The word for Martyr is from the Greek word for “witness”. In Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry Faith and Order says:

Through the eucharist the all-renewing grace of God penetrates and restores human personality and dignity. The eucharist involves the believer in the central event of the world’s history. As participants in the eucharist, therefore, we prove inconsistent if we are not actively participating in this ongoing restoration of the world’s situation and the human condition (Eucharist 20, BEM).

All of these things bear witness to the death and resurrection of Christ, and proclaim the message of forgiveness to all the nations.  I think of wise words from Francis of Assisi to the early Franciscans: “Preach the Gospel; use words only when necessary.”

Questions:

1. What are the areas of mission for your local worshipping community?
2. In what ways is (or could) your experience of Sunday worship be linked with mission?
3. In what ways can you imagine that mission would be changed by the diverse local communities engaging in mission together?
4. What are the differences in mission between a social service organization, a philanthropic society, and worshipping Christian communities?

Task:

1. What verse from Luke 24.33-51 resonates most strongly with where you are this morning?
2. What verse resonates most strongly with the dialogue within your table-group this morning?
3. Each group will in turn read its chosen verse in plenary.