Christ Church Cathedral

Jonah 3:1-5,10
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

Last week I spoke about the history and theological driving principles of the ecumenical movement in the churches. I intertwined that with an account of some of my own experiences of the process. I shall continue in that vein today, but move in a slightly different direction, as we celebrate the final Sunday of this octave of prayer for the unity of the church.

The word ecumenical in interesting. It comes from a Greek word which means house or home. But it comes to mean the world in which we live as our home. The same Greek word is the root of another English word, economy, much in our thoughts these days. If you think about it economy is about how we live together in the world. In the Greek Christian tradition the word has yet another meaning. It refers to the process by which, sometimes, the strict application of legal principles has to be modified to fit in with the actual experience of living in the world. The western Christian tradition has called this process dispensation. In the secular world in French it is called derogation. I don't know what it is in English. I know about it because I had to obtain a derogation for my house in Lanaudière, which the original owners had built too close to my neighbour's property line.

Ecumenical then is often explained as being about the whole inhabited world. One might use the neologism, the humanosphere, though, as the significance of the work of Charles Darwin begins to sink into our consciousness, it is no longer possible to draw a hard line between the human and the other animal and plant kingdoms. Indeed some recent thinking has seen the evolution of the physical world also being bound up with the evolution of life.

Our reading from Paul today suggests that all this might be somewhat questionable:

I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, ...and those who buy as though they had no possessions,  and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. ^[1]

But in reading passages like these, we have to realize that they come from the earliest level of the tradition. The later genuine letters of Paul and the gospels all show that this idea of a very imminent end of the present world was fading way by the second half of the first century. However, it is often brought out and polished at time of crisis throughout history, so be sure that we shall hear more of it in the coming period.

Our other readings concern themes which are more central to the ecumenical movement  and experience.  The Gospel speaks of the mission of Jesus and the implication in it of the disciples, and by extension us. Of that I spoke last week. The passage we read from Jonah, however, introduces another theme which has often been ignored in the Christian tradition, but which I believe is of the greatest importance today. When we think about Jonah, our minds always jump to his experience with a whale, but today's reading gives us the all important context of the story. Jonah is being sent to a foreign country and a foreign culture to speak about issues of personal and social morality and social justice. As you remember he carries out his task with great reluctance and against his better judgment. Because the inhabitants of Nineveh take notice of what he says, they are spared an imminent punishment. You will notice however that nowhere does the story speak about their conversion to the Jewish faith and religion.  If there is a conversion at the end of the story, it is Jonah's as he comes to see God's compassion for all humanity.

In the past two hundred years, two things have brought us face to face, as never before, with people of other cultures and religions. The first was the missionary movement from the churches, allied with the colonial expansion of the European powers. The second was the development of easy long distance transportation, together with the necessity of a work force to power the economic engines of colonialism, both of which have resulted in huge trans-world migrations. Taken together, one result of these two factors is that, not only do we know, as never before, about the existence of other religions and cultures, but also we know that people, families and communities of those cultures live in our midst. This requires of us a good deal of thought about how we deal both theologically and socially with this new human experience. In this matter, as in others, the church is deeply divided. Some believe that anyone who is not of the Christian fold is living in sin and untruth, and destined to eternal damnation. The only possible loving approach, in this view, is to work for the conversion of as many as possible to the Christian faith and way of life and to do that by any means possible

It will not surprise you to learn that I do not share that view. The starting point of my thinking is found in the stories, like that of Jonah, which speak of God's compassion for all humanity. I am therefore drawn towards a process of dialogue with people of other faiths and cultures, in which together we can seek common experience and elements of our faith and together learn how we
can live in love, justice and compassion not only for all humanity, but for both the living and physical world. I find myself drawn to this not only through the conviction of my faith, but also through horror at the alternative: the warfare and violence we are experiencing in our world between cultures and religions, or even, the less harmful, but equally unattractive, views which we have seen expressed in the course of the reasonable accommodation debate in our province.

When we speak of interfaith dialogue, we may at first have a vision of religious leaders or university thinkers meeting together to discuss faith and theology in intensely philosophical debates. That  process is not unimportant. But I believe it will not lead far unless it is accompanied by a lower level process in which ordinary members of faith and cultural communities meet together to learn from each other and share experiences of their faith and culture at the ordinary everyday level. This process also requires some preparatory work. It is, I believe, essential before embarking on such a process to have a basic knowledge of the history and belief of other communities. But even then it requires a good deal of courage and conviction to discover ways of making this dialogue possible, and making it happen.

Last week I told you a little of my involvement in the inter-church ecumenical movement. I want to end today with an account of my own experience in the interfaith world.  You may remember last week I spoke about my time in the Graduate Seminar of Ecumenical Studies in Geneva. Going there represented a choice for me. I had been undertaking inter faith studies (then called comparative religion) at Birmingham University in England, which followed from a gap year in which I had taught English in a Muslim country. I had to choose between continuing those studies at a higher level, or going to Geneva. The choice ended up with Geneva, and for most of my ministry my interests have followed on from there. There was a good deal of interfaith experience in my work in the Missions to Seafarers, but, as I recounted last week, it was more a matter of practical compassion and justice than theological dialogue. I had a more theological experience  during the time when I represented the Church of England to the Buddhist community in Mongolia, though the briefness of my visits and the omnipresence of listeners prevented too deep a discussion.

The real reawakening of interfaith interest began just a few years back, when for some eighteen months, my wife and I were foster parents to two young Hindu girls who were refuges here in Canada. This resulted in contact with the Hindu community and culture, and some of you may remember an interfaith experience here in the Cathedral when we had a dance interpretation of dialogue between the Christian concept of Trinity and the Hindu theme of trimurti.

Since then, I have given a lot of my study time to reading about the  major faiths of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and the Sikh religion and  you will occasionally have heard echoes on that in my homilies. As I come towards the end of my active ministry in the Cathedral, it is my intention to take these studies further, and in particular to think and write about three aspects. I want to discover what are the common experiences across faith and culture which can be a starting point for the practical every day dialogue on the level of ordinary members of faith communities. I want to discover what are the factors which stand in the way of such contact and dialogue and I want to find people who can tell stories about the ways in which these difficulties are being overcome. Before I retire at the end of this year, the wardens have agreed to a four month period of sabbatical leave beginning in September, and I hope to use that period to continue and focus these studies, and to begin to make contact with people sharing similar ideas both here in Quebec and in Europe.

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[1]  1 Corinthians 7:29, 31 NRSV