Daily Devotion for Lent 2023 - Day 8

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.

                                        Ephesians 4:5-6 

Today, I'm grateful that The United Methodist Church taught me to be ecumenical.  We are committed to working with other Christian traditions and expressions and we do our best to see how God is at work through them as well.

 Within The Book of Discipline, paragraph 105 on "Our Theological Task  claims the following:

"As people bound together on one planet, we see the need for a self-critical view of our own tradition and accurate appreciation of other traditions.  In these encounters, our aim is not to reduce doctrinal differences to some lowest common denominator or religious agreement, but to raise all such relationships to the highest possible level of human fellowship and understanding."

This takes mutual respect.  Of course, it is often easier to receive respect if you grant it first!  That is a Lenten task if I ever saw one.

In my first appointment in Drummond, I remember working with the United Church of Christ pastor and the Baptist pastor to start a food pantry.  We also worked together whenever aid was requested by someone in town.  When World Communion Sunday rolled around, the UCC pastor, Rev. Gordon Epps, and I swapped tables and shared communion with each other's congregation.  After we finished preaching, the congregations both started a hymn and we walked across our back yards to each other's church.  It actually worked out pretty well.

In Piedmont, I worked with the ministerial alliance there for years.  Every year, we would rotate the church that would host the community Thanksgiving service.  On my last year there, I suggested that we share Holy Communion together.  To my surprise, they all agreed!  The other clergy were Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Nazarene, and Assembly of God.

 

 While we didn't always agree on matters of doctrine or biblical interpretation, we did manage to support one another in a lot of other ways.  

When the Baptist pastor was hit by a car while bicycling, we all went to the hospital to pray for him.  A pastor from another tradition related to the rest of us that a person from his congregation asked him why they were praying for healing for a pastor that would be leading people to Hell.  

This was a bit shocking for me to hear because I could never imagine a person from my congregation saying this.  Our ecumenical roots allow us to be generous in how we see God at work in other traditions.  

As we move through Lent, what other traditions have you encountered that have made you feel less than acceptable to God?  It may be easy to dismiss them because we tend to go on the defensive in these cases.  What do you think you hold in common with them?  Where do you see Christ at work through them (outside of the derision!)?

This is a part of our identity but is not always easy!  But if we try, it may be that we can raise our relationships to a higher level of fellowship and understanding!