By Rev. Greg Goodwiller, Synod Executive –
The Old Testament reading for the Day of Pentecost that we just celebrated was the story of the Tower of Babel. The ancient faith story from Genesis was meant to help the people of Israel understand the world’s diversity. But its pairing with the story of the Spirit’s arrival in Acts makes the point that because the Christian message is for all people everywhere, and since we are all one in Christ, the Christian era holds the possibility of folding that diversity back into a new unity.
That has always been a messy process. It was in the Book of Acts, as the first “Gentile Christians” were welcomed into the Church by some, but not by others, and it has remained so as even we Christians have become divided into many different groups with differing beliefs, convictions, and practices.
And so, two thousand years after the Spirit’s arrival, the world remains far more divided than unified, as does the Christian Church. Which makes it all the more important to recognize and celebrateeven small steps to reduce what the Book of Order calls the “obscurity” that results from our “division into different denominations” (F-1.0302a).
In addition to the constitutional amendments adopted by the General Assembly last summer, and approved by a majority of presbyteries in the months that followed, the PC(USA) has also adopted a new ecumenical agreement with the Episcopal Church. We are not yet in “full communion” with that denomination – as we are with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ. The new agreement is, in some ways, a “baby step” forward. But it is a step.
The new agreement approves and spells out details for what it calls “Limited Orderly Exchange of Ministers;” meaning that ministers of the two denominations can serve in temporary placements or appointments in each other’s churches. The primary focus of those placement and appointments is “ecumenical ministries and cooperating parishes,” but that is not a hard and fast rule.
The agreement also emphatically states our acceptance of each other’s membership, preaching, and the Sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as valid. One of my favorite expressions of this is in its statement regarding the Lord’s Supper that says, “We agree that The Episcopal Church will invite members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to receive Holy Communion in their churches and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will invite members of The Episcopal Church to receive Holy Communion in their churches. We encourage the members of our churches to accept this Eucharistic hospitality and thus express their unity with each other in the one Body of Christ.”
Again, a small step. But each step on a journey is important, and the agreement concludes with a rather personal word from the team that drafted it: “this group believes it has prayerfully discerned a way forward through which our two churches may continue to journey together in a complementary manner and enriching each other as we participate in the mission of God.”
To God be the glory.