The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Easter 7C
This year at our Easter Vigil we took to heart what Jesus prayed for in the Gospel reading we heard today. “That they may all be one.” It may have felt like a regular ol’ Easter Vigil for us, but it was a radical move toward living out Jesus’ prayer for unity among those who call themselves Christians.
We brought together and shared table fellowship as best as we could in the complicated world of church polity and rules. It was risky, and it took work. It took work to navigate and negotiate what we were going to pray together, and it took openness and vulnerability to share what were the non-negotiables among the negotiables. This is the work that we must keep doing in the long, long shadow of the Protestant Reformation. Some things might feel silly, and yet they also can bear great significance.
One of those things in the last 150 years was grape juice versus wine at the altar. For many of our Protestant siblings, the choice is clear: by using grape juice, those who cannot partake of alcohol are included. That makes sense. We Episcopalians use wine, generally fortified port wine. For us, we reserve the extra wine as an abiding sign of the presence of Christ and for emergencies, and wine keeps much better than grape juice. In our theology, partaking communion in just bread or just wine is full and sufficient. One kind is both kinds. Also makes sense.
But the grape juice and wine conversation brings up what welcome and hospitality at Christ’s altar looks like, and it brought up how each of our traditions thinks, and how we can navigate it. One school of thought would be lowest-common denominator – just use grape juice since everyone could, in theory, partake of it. But for us, the wine also has a sensory experience – the taste and sensation of wine are distinct, different than grape juice. And so we decided we would have both.
And then the bread – how do we do that? Some Episcopal congregations like us generally use unleavened wafers as a nod to St Paul’s reference of “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” and as it has been a tradition in the Western church… and the ease of storage and lack of crumbs. But it’s also perfectly acceptable to use leavened bread. And we decided that a gluten-free bread would work for everyone.
The other churches, especially our Presbyterian and Disciples friends, were also very gracious in letting our Episcopal liturgy take the center stage. I wove together bits and pieces of everyone’s worship styles, but the framework was ours. The Disciples of Christ don’t use creeds – their view is “no creed but Christ” – but they read our Baptismal Covenant and said they could go along with it. The Presbyterians keep the Eucharist very simple and straightforward, no long Eucharistic prayer, but they were willing to go through our ritual.
The holy work that we did at the Easter Vigil was hard, thoughtful, prayerful work. It was not a “lowest common denominator” liturgy but a worship where we all wanted to be together, to hear the Good News, and to celebrate communion together. I think we did a good job and brought joy to Jesus’ heart – he prayed that we may all be one, and we did it at the Easter Vigil 43 days ago.
When it comes to this unity, I turn to what is called the “Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.” If you grab the prayer book with the cross on it in front of you, turn to page 876.
The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is not a plan for church union but rather how we can cooperate, think, pray, and work together.
Turn to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral —
— After the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral How do we inhabit the spirituality that moved previous generations to desire such union among churches? How do we learn what to hold tightly of our tradition as a gift, and what do we learn to hold more loosely so that we may find more unity with our fellow Christians? As the world spirals, it seems that we Christians may be a stronger light to the world if we bring our lights together and shine as one. Amen.