What I would have said

Alumni Memorial Eucharist
The General Theological Seminary
New York
The event was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy


Scripture Texts:
Isaiah 25:6-9
1Corinthians 15:50-58
John 5:24-27

I am glad to be here! I wasn’t so sure I’d make it. Cyclone Sandy’s path of destruction was phenomenal. I watched it from Istanbul. I watched and prayed. I see the seminary is still standing It’s weathered a lot of storms, cyclones, snowstorms and storms metaphorically speaking. Thank you for good leadership in keeping the buildings in good repair, thank you for good heart and commitment among the Alumni and all who love and care about the place and its mission.


Liturgies like todays are benchmarks of love and commitment. These are times when we can get a bit of perspective on our life and vocations. It’s “a return to the source day” in a way. I remember when I was a student here (I was a junior 31 years ago!) wondering at the names in the necrology. Who were these people? But even more deeply, I understood they had done what I also wanted to do—to serve God and the Church my6 whole life. I know some of the names today, some were classmates. By naming them we claim them as part of the GTS family. By claiming them we are adding to the picture, the vision we hold up to the world, of what it means to be a Christian and a Christian leader.


Right now, being a Christian in America seems to be more about party politics than collaborating with God in the on-violent establishment of God’s Way, the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That’s a challenge. How can what we do here today fund our imaginations to meet that challenge?


There are two words or phrases that are buzzing in my head. They are “source” or “foundational” words that can help our imagining and our commitment. Isaiah mentions “salvation” in the passage we read, and John mentions “eternal life” in the Gospel passage. Marcus Borg, in his recent book Speaking Christian makes a very good case for the need to re-learn or maybe just discover, what these words mean. For instance, he reports on person saying that “salvation” and smugness go together! He demonstrates how recovering the meaning of words like these in their Biblical context can magnify our proclamation and ministry and make a place for people to find a home intellectually and spiritually. I’m sure I don’t need to go into all the details with you. Doing a little word study like I learned from Barbara Hall, my New Testament professor here at General, I can see salvation includes in the psalms, deliverance from natural disaster, and return from exile. As Borg says, salvation means the transformation of life this side of death. Isaiah uses the word in connection with deliverance from oppression It’s not just about going to heaven, but a new kind of life with God and how we live together. Here’s a flying wedge into politics, but much less cynical than the tea party coalitions championing gun ownership and capital punishment and deportation of illegal immigrants as “Christian.” But I am a Franciscan for a reason!


Salvation is a charter value, a touchstone when we are reaching for ultimate meanings at funerals and other times. Our brothers and sisters whom we remember today shared the struggle in our work against oppression. To proclaim a living God of abundance (“a feast of rich foods!”), and to reject the power of death means to say “no” to all kinds of violence and instruments of violence—guns, bombs, poison gas: all of it. Plus violent rhetoric that incites to hatred and murder. And in a more homely way, how we express our frustrations with each other and the limitations of our daily life. These concerns comprise the forum of salvation. It has a claim not only on our preaching but our pastoral care and daily living. Hearing this familiar passage over and over, especially at funerals, the message is planted deep in our hearts: salvation is what God is about, and we have a part to play.


“Eternal life” is the other word. It’s what I learned to call here at GTS a “proleptic reality”—knowing God and Jesus both now and in the future. Again, it is not about some place over the clouds with angels and harps. It is about timelessness and transcendence in our daily life. I think in other words it points to being grounded in things that really matter, the things that put us in relationship with God and an enlarged world view. Borg uses the exquisite word “beloving” God and Jesus for how we experience eternal life.


Our Christian life is then characterized by different values that are grounded in our attitudes towards death. We celebrate our departed with Alleluias. This “praise the Lord” is evidence of a completely different world-view. But it is hard to inculcate because death is experienced often as separation, loss, sometimes regrets. Grief. But even with tears in our eyes we hope to commit to praising God for the beauty and fragility of life. Loving life we cherish it, all of it, cherishing human society and the global environment.


St. Francis was describing his love for God, describing eternal life, in his Canticle of the Creatures. In that beautiful poem he describes the interconnectedness of all things, he celebrates beauty and shows how all things work together and point to God. Francis brokered a reconciliation between the Bishop and mayor of Assisi, singing his song of peace and reconciliation. My singing has never had much impact on world peace, but however we apply ourselves to it, peace is a big part of being part of and sharing with all God’s creatures—even the ones we like least are part of this creation. These are some of the elements of eternal life: kinship with creation, reconciliation between enemies, peace—personal and cosmic.


Our generation is not the first to apply itself to the proclamation of salvation and eternal life. Trying to get it right, amplifying it, if you will, has been part of the Church since the beginning. When I say “our brothers and sisters” now, I mean all of them, the whole Christian family, noting a “thousand years is as a day” we can spare a thought for our early forebears today.


As I said at the beginning (bragged rather) I have just returned from a trip to Istanbul where I gave a paper on ecumenism and inter-religious work of the Society of St. Francis at an on-going formation course sponsored by the Order of Friars Minor. It was an exciting and rich time, including a whirlwind visit to the Churches of the Apocalypse: the churches mentioned in the Revelation to St. John: Laodicea, Smyrna, Pergamum and all the rest. One of the places we visited was Ephesus, and the site of the basilica built after the Third Ecumenical Council in 431 where it was decided Mary is the Theotokos among all her other distinctions. It was amazing to stand in the rubble of the basilica and imagine the beautiful Byzantine church soaring above me. I began to think about the bishops travelling there, wandering around in the city, in political caucuses, drinking ҫay (tea) [they probably didn’t drink tea, but I did!]. I was struck how this understanding of Mary was the subject of one of the great Ecumenical Councils of the Church. Our guide was no Dr. Wright, but I think she gave us the basics. Perhaps somewhere there is a list of all those who attended; we heard of only a few, mostly about John Chrysostom. Yet anonymous or prominent, they were all important to the outcome, to this enlarged understanding of Mary and consequently salvation. This story corroborates one of my theories about the meaning of obedience and my promise and vow of obedience as a Priest and Religious. We are not called to do as we are told reflexively, but to listen to each other (ab audire is the Latin root of obedience—to listen attentively). We are to listen to each other deeply and compassionately, with openness. One can only guess what the case at Ephesus was. But I’ve attended Lambeth Conferences and General Conventions enough to know we don’t always listen very willingly or compassionately. At least not at first: the indaba continues! God has never seen fit to reveal the whole truth to any one person since Jesus. But when each of us tells our part, then a much bigger thing is born.


Yes, I got all that from sitting on a shattered plinth in the hot sun almost 1700 years after the Council ended. We stand on the shoulders of those at Ephesus (and the other Councils of the Church). Back at the friary in Istanbul we talked about Vatican II and the challenges of reception (that’s what we agreed on—there are challenges of reception of Vatican II!). Actually, we also came to consensus that among us, the sons and daughters of St. Francis, no matter our denomination the best way to honor those who have gone before us is to keep on listening to each other-- beloving each other and working together. That’s how we can help the Holy Spirit make the meaning of salvation and eternal life clearer to our generation.


Death is a mystery. Contemplating it we wrestle with questions of meaning: the meaning of my life, our life: the role of faith and love and commitment. Surveying it all, at times we can see how the message has been clouded and needs clarification. Councils are convoked, books written. The message gets amplified and magnified—sometimes after generations of one way of thinking we throw open the doors to fresh winds, new promptings of the Spirit. We are forever indebted to our forebears, our friends and colleagues who have gone before us because they were the lights in their generation. And in their light we see the greater Light, the bright Daystar from on high, the Son, Jesus Christ. With love we pray for them and for ourselves that in company with each other we can be led by the Holy Spirit through all the storms of life into greater truth and understanding