“Forming One Body"
“Forming One Body’by Rev. Josuah M. De Rosas
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2021
Theme: “Abide in My Love and you shall bear much fruit!”
Opening Prayer: Speak to us now dear Lord for your servants gathered together virtually are listening; teach us what we need to learn and tell us what we need to do; for us to truly love one another as you have loved us. AMEN
Good morning ecumenical
community of Negros! Good morning Divinity School Koinonia all over the
Philippines and abroad! As we all know, every year on January 18-23, we join
with other Christians in the Philippines and around the world to set aside one
week, to pray together for Christian unity. This year’s theme is “Abide in my
Love and you shall bear much fruit” based on the gospel of John 15: 1-17.
The study guide was written by
the residents of Grandchamp Monastery in Switzerland. This monastery is a group
of 50 sisters from different countries and denominations around the world.
Monastic life may not be familiar to us Protestants. However, it is interesting
to take note that the word monk where we get the word monastery comes from the
Greek word monos which means alone and one. Our hearts, bodies and minds should
be one and integrated, and one with Christ with one another and with the rest
of God’s creation. A monastery helps a person to have an integrated life. The
Grandchamp monastery sisters dedicate themselves to prayer, meditating the Word
in silence, practicing reconciliation, unity and hospitality to each other and
to the guests who would visit them. They are a concrete model of Christian
unity, by living together in spite of differences in religious traditions,
language and cultures.
We are now on the third day of
this week of prayer for Christian Unity. The sub-theme for today is Forming One
Body. The process of becoming one in mind, heart and will for Christians is a
process and a difficult one. Our Lord Jesus knew exactly how difficult it is to
deal with the disciples and how challenging it is for the disciples to agree
with each other, even for them to understand what this ministry with Jesus was
all about for three years. It was very
clear that the disciples were in competition of who will sit at the right and
at the left when Jesus will reign as king as they imagined a political kingdom!
So, rumors, gossiping, division and factions among the disciples occur. And I
would say, we are not that much different from them after two thousand years.
History has told us of the dangers when the church becomes the tool of
politics. Divisions, competitions and claims of an exclusive path to salvation
is common to churches and denominations. Who would expect now there are more
than 50, 000 different denominations of Christians around the world and some
claim to be the right Church? The ecumenical movement is set to correct this
wrong direction of Christianity contrary to what Jesus has prayed, that we may
all be one!
The setting of our text today is
Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, the night when he was arrested and
betrayed by Judas Iscariot. In that night he instituted a remembrance that the
disciples should do after his physical departure from them. He used the bread
to symbolize his body broken for them; and the wine as the symbol of his life
poured out for them. After the supper, Jesus is a teacher reinforces his lesson
to the disciples with an act. He poured water on the basin, get a towel, and
then one by one he washed the disciples’ feet. It was a refreshing feeling
after days of walking in those hot and dusty roads of Jerusalem, for your feet
to be soaked in fresh cool water, scrubbed gently to remove dirt, and patted
dry and clean. A very relaxing experience! But perhaps to the disciples, it was
a surprising and shocking event! Washing someone’s feet is a work of a slave to
a visitor at home! So to see their Lord and Teacher knelt down and washed their
feet was a shocking and humbling scene! So Peter resisted, Lord, you should not
do this to us! But Jesus answered to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no
share with me.”
It is in this simple act like
that of a slave that Jesus conveys his message across his disciples; serve one
another; and only in this way, you can show your love concretely to each other.
When you serve each other, you are formed into one body; you will then see me
among you! Jesus did this to the
disciples since they were the core and pioneer members of Christ’s family, the
Church. In other words, Jesus is telling, serve those who are closest to you!
If you cannot serve those who are closest to you; you probably cannot serve
those who are not related to you! I remember a story of Mother Teresa of
Calcutta in one of her trips, she was approached by a young man who wanted to
go with her to help her ministry. She gently told the young man, “Go home and
love your family!” We might not be called to the same vocation in taking care
of lepers and the poorest of the poor in Calcutta like Mother Teresa, but we
have been called where we are to serve first especially those who are closest
to us! Loving, serving and even living together with your loved ones is a
challenge. You probably can relate to this after spending the entire year at
home with your family and loved ones!
Serving each other means
realizing that we are all related to each other. When Jesus said, “I am the
Vine and you are the branches, he is actually telling us that we all of us are
nourished by the same vine, the same life nutrients as the blood circulating
and flowing in our veins. We are nourished by the same Lord. We have been
grafted and became part of the same plant. We are connected to God through
Jesus and in turn we are interconnected, interrelated and interdependent to
each other. When we choose to break from the vine; we will eventually die!
When we realize we are interconnected,
interrelated, and interdependent to each other, we can practice EMPHATY!
Empathy means imagining and feeling the same with another person. When we
emphatize with another person; we cannot condemn and judge the person right
away; we try to imagine the situations that prompted this person to act this
way; and acknowledge that we too are not perfect and sometimes can make
mistakes. Empathy means imagining if you were the one suffering and in pain,
how would you react to the words you have spoken or you will speak to someone
lying in a hospital bed. Empathy means seeing yourself in another person.
Empathy is the first step when Jesus said, “love your neighbor as yourself.” It
is about wishing and doing concrete ways for the welfare, for the future of
this person, as if you were doing this for yourself.
There is a short story which has
remained with me all these years and has taught me what empathy is all about, a
story written by Monica Hellwig, the story goes like this:
“Time before time, when the
world was young, two brothers shared a field and a mill, each night dividing
evenly the grain they had ground together during the day. One brother lived
alone; the other had a wife and a large family. Now the single brother thought
to himself one day, “It isnt really fair that we divide the grain evenly. I
have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed.” So each
night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother’s granary to see that
he was never without.
But the married brother said to
himself one day, “It isn't really fair that we divide the grain evenly, because
I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has no one.
What will he do when he is old?” So every night he secretly took some of his
grain to his brother’s granary. As a result, both of them always found their
supply of grain mysteriously replenished each morning. Then one night they met
each other halfway between their two houses, suddenly realized what had been
happening, and embraced each other in love. The story is that God witnessed
their meeting and proclaimed, “This is a holy place---a place of love---and
here it is that my temple shall be built. And so it was. The Holy place, where
God is made known to people, is the place where human beings discover each
other in love.”
Serving each other means seeking for the
welfare of that person. This is our calling as leaders of the Church, to serve
each other, and to think of the welfare of those who are with us. To be a
family is the most ideal dynamics we can work to achieve; that’s why we would
call ourselves a family of faith. This is difficult, and so our Lord has given
us a simple starting point. That is to become friends. We can become friends
first so that becoming a family would be easier. Jesus told his disciples in
chapter 15, “you are my friends, and not just servants.” It means, that Jesus
assured them of a more intimate relationship. A friend is someone who knows you
deeply, your hobbies, your character, your secret, even your future plans. A true friend will help you achieve your
plans for the future and will stay by your side through thick and thin. Jesus
has shown that his followers should be friends to each other. The kind of
friendship that Jesus demonstrated is deeply personal, and not instrumental. He
befriended the disciples and others like Mary Magdalene, Martha, Mary, Lazarus,
some tax collectors and those who are considered unclean not because he wanted
something from them in return or that he would use them for his own benefits.
He became friends to them and care to bring back their dignity as human beings.
Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's
friends.
Last weekend, during the
symposium hosted by the Divinity School of the ecumenical movement here in
Negros Oriental, there is one common theme I heard from both Bishop Erme Camba
and Fr. Eric Lozada of their experiences on ecumenical movement in Dumaguete,
that common theme is friendship. The ecumenical fellowship started because of
friendship. Friendship that was shown in listening to each other’s stories,
sharing their common struggles and longings in life, and respecting each
other’s differences for the sake of the common good. Ecumenism is not inviting
people to come to church, discrediting their religious tradition and convert
them into members, but more on inviting fellow members to go out of the four
walls of the church and meet other Christians and make a difference in their
respective community in the Name of Christ.
As we continue with our struggle
with COVID19 pandemic, this week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we are reminded
of stories of the past as church leaders and as a community to continue the
work; to form one body; the body of
Christ. This can be worked out when we affirm that we are all branches of the
same vine; Jesus Christ the Vine, and our source of sustenance and identity.
And that we are called to a common calling to serve one another! This is our
legacy for the next generations of Christians to come. In essentials, unity. In
non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity! Make friends. Be a friend to
someone. Look for the welfare of another person as if it is your own. Start
with the people closest to you! When we do this, Christ’s body is formed among
us, and He is present and walks with us in our journey of faith. Come, Lord
Jesus! Make us one body! AMEN
(Sermon delivered last January 20, 20201 during the First Wednesday Chapel Service for the 2nd Semester and 3rd Day of the Week of Prayer for Christianity for the Dumaguete ecumenical community)
Comments
Post a Comment