A Gifted Church, A Giving Church
Message for the Intersynodal Conference, April 10, 2008

In my former life in independent school education I found it to be a common experience for parents to overestimate the abilities and giftedness of their children. Whether the giftedness that parents believed their child possessed was in music and the arts, academics or athletics, frequently parents esteemed their child to be advanced in both demonstrated ability and potential. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Although it’s good for parents to hold a more realistic appraisal of their child’s abilities and potential, it’s also good for the child’s self-image to know that other family members believe in him or her and have confidence in his or her potential for achievement. Every child needs some personal cheerleaders.

I mention that experience this evening because of the contrast of that prior experience with my more recent experience over the past couple of years in my PEC role. What I’ve frequently encountered over that time is the propensity of folks outside the Moravian family to have a higher opinion of us and our witness than we tend to have of ourselves. Call it Moravian modesty or low self-esteem or whatever you want to call it, we Moravians have a tendency to be overly self-critical and sometimes unappreciative of the gifts with which God has blessed us. The result is that we end up underestimating our potential for service to Christ and to the world. That result seems even more likely in times like these when the church generally faces all kinds of threats and challenges, from growing secularism to internal fragmentation.

Some of you may remember a story that Tom Are told years ago about a herd of donkeys he called the “wild asses of Mexico.” It seems that when these wild asses were threatened by a predator of some kind, they would form a circle, all facing inward, so that all could kick outward when the predator attacked. Tom Are concluded his story with the commentary that unfortunately when the church is attacked our tendency is to circle around facing outward and kick each other’s backsides. Well, those aren’t Tom’s words exactly, but your imagination can fill in the blank!

Having said all that about our tendency to be overly self-critical and at the same time without thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, I want us to consider some of the gifts that God has given us Moravians. I want us to recognize, claim and celebrate those gifts. Why? For one reason only – so that we can share those gifts with others.

We are a gifted church. There is a multitude of gifts we could name and celebrate, but I want us to consider some intangible gifts that we mostly take for granted. There are five of them that I want to highlight, and let me quickly add that identifying them is not original with me. I give credit to the late Bishop Clarence Shawe of the British Province. Bishop Shawe, who died more than 50 years ago first named these gifts in a little study booklet published in 1957 under the title, “The Spirit of the Moravian Church”, for 500th anniversary of the Moravian Church. I believe that these five characteristics of the spirit of our church then and now are at the heart of our giftedness as part of the Body of Christ.

The first gift is that of simplicity, which Shawe names as “the primary feature of the Moravian Church”. (p. 6) Our church has been blessed with the gift of simplicity in the sense that Bishop Spangenberg used it in the 18th century when he wrote,

When simplicity we cherish,
Then the soul is full of light.
But that light will quickly vanish
When of Jesus we lose sight.

The gift of simplicity is the ability and will to keep our church’s focus on Jesus Christ. We sometimes call ourselves Christocentric, which I understand to mean that Jesus Christ is the lens through which we look in order to know, understand and experience the reality of God in our lives and in the world. We read and understand Scripture through the eyes and mind of Christ. We know God to be a God of love, grace and compassion through the life of Jesus. We experience the peace of God through the blood of Christ, shed for us on Calvary. We Moravians have found special meaning in the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father....Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me....” (John 14: 9, 11)

This gift of focus on the main thing – the person and work of Jesus Christ – has been the foremost factor in delivering our church from schism and division. It has been the reason, I believe, that we have sought balance rather than embracing extremes. It has enabled us often to be a both/and church living in an either/or world. The principalities and powers of the world always seek to label and divide – liberal and conservative, traditional and contemporary, red states and blue states, black and white. While we may have different deeply held convictions about various matters of theology, doctrine and social issues, we Moravians can rejoice in a simplicity of belief and practice that for generations has professed, “Christ and Him Crucified remains our confession of faith.” One of my greatest sorrows today is that there are so many Christians who cannot sit down together to discuss their differences on various theological and social issues without regressing into ideological quarrels that sound more like The McLaughlin Hour on PBS than disciples of Jesus searching for the Lord’s leading. I give thanks that God has blessed our church with the gift of simplicity. It is a gift sorely needed in our day.

The second gift is happiness, or if you prefer, joy. Jesus promised his disciples, again in the Gospel of John, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11) Over the generations, under conditions that most of us today would find intolerable, Moravians have manifested a spirit and attitude of joy for God’s grace and joy for God’s call. Bishop Shawe quotes an Anglican clergyman who wrote in 1876 some of his observations concerning various religious groups active in London in the 19th century, “There is a warmth and geniality about the Moravians, from their minister down to their pewopener, which is sadly rare.” (p. 12) Ours is not the smug happiness of a triumphal Christianity that holds itself above others or gloats in a divine promise of health, wealth and happiness for all true believers. Far from it. Ours has been the happiness of knowing the grace of our Lord and feeling his friendship and fellowship with us daily. For us, the practice of our faith has not been seen as a burden to be carried out with grim determination, but a joyful privilege that brings peace and comfort to the soul. Bishop Shawe quotes Zinzendorf on this subject as Zinzendorf compared the Moravians of the 18th century with the rigid Pietists of his day who insisted that conversion to Christ had to be accompanied by struggle and deepfelt sorrow for one’s unworthiness, “A Pietist is a man who cannot be converted in so cavalier a manner as we, but needs to make more ado about it” and again, “We are the Savior’s Court Poets (or Troubadors); the Pietists are prose-writers or grammarians.” (p. 13) Mind you, we Moravians don’t stand in judgment of those who see the way to Christ to be fraught with prolonged struggles of the soul with one’s sin, but I believe that our gift is the desire in our happiness/joy to woo people into heaven rather than scare them out of hell. I am reminded that in New Testament Greek, the words for grace, gift, and joy all come from the same root. It is to say that God’s grace bestows upon us gifts which produce joy in one’s heart. God has surely blessed our church with the gift of happiness.

The third gift is what Bishop Shawe calls unintrusiveness. What a strange word to name a gift of God! Perhaps the best way to understand this gift is to say that Moravians historically have chosen not to impose themselves upon others in our witness and service for Christ, but rather to seek opportunities to share our faith in ways and times it can best be received and appreciated. I prefer to think of this gift as the gift of respect – respect for those with whom we differ, whether in matters of faith and belief or matters of policy and practice. Our respect for the spiritual journeys of others has enabled us to play a significant role in worldwide ecumenical efforts over the years. We remember that some have called Zinzendorf the ecumenical pioneer, and even when ecumenical involvement has placed us in a minority position of dissent, we have stuck with it. Why? Well, I think it’s because we take seriously the prayer of Jesus, again from the Gospel of John, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” (John 17:20-21)

Perhaps a word of qualification is in order - we dare not think that unintrusiveness or respect for other beliefs means timidity or lack of zeal for sharing the Gospel. Rather, it informs the way we share, and the spirit that underlies our testimony.

I give thanks to God for the gift of uninstrusiveness - respect for those with whom we differ.

The fourth gift is fellowship. There’s an old Kenyan proverb that says, “If you want to travel fast, you travel alone; but if you want to travel far, you must travel together.” We’ve been able to travel as far as 550 years in large part, I believe, because God has helped us understand the need to travel together. Our historical emphasis upon community is evidence enough of how important we have understood Christian fellowship to be. But fellowship can be misunderstood. The gift of fellowship is not the mere camaraderie of folks who think alike, or who share a common ideology, interest or cause. Too much of what passes for that kind of fellowship in our day is little more than a variation on cliquishness.

The gift of Christian fellowship is not something we create. We’re invited into it by our Lord. Remember that love for each other, even the ‘other’ who is very different from us, is not an option for a Christian. The only one of Jesus’ teachings which he called “a new commandment” was the command “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13: 34) Think about it. Just as Jesus loved, so are we to love. Were there exceptions to Jesus’ love? Was Jesus’ love only for those he liked or those who liked him? Was it only for those whose beliefs coincided with his own? The gift of fellowship is not only God-given; it is, moreover, God-created and modeled by Jesus Himself. We are called into that kind of fellowship in the church.

You know, sometimes a gift can also create a challenge – like the time my wife gave me my first cell phone. I felt compelled to use it, but I never did master the challenge of retrieving a message from the voicemail (and still haven’t, so please don’t leave me one). I think that the challenge presented to us by the gift of fellowship these days is the struggle to find a common language.

I sincerely believe that among Moravians today, especially here in the Southern Province, there is truly a common ground of belief, a common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and a sincere desire to be His disciples. I believe we possess that singularity of focus that we earlier named simplicity. But, when we begin to talk with each other about our faith, we struggle sometimes to find a common language. That’s especially true of us clergy when we try to share differing theological perspectives with each other. The result, of course, is that we never really hear each other, and we jump to conclusions about each other based on assumptions that are either false or distorted.

We need to claim and celebrate our gift of fellowship, because if we claim it and use it for the upbuilding of the whole body as Ephesians 4:12 says we should, then we will discover a common language. It will be language of agape - Christian love.

We’re given this gift of fellowship not just so we can share good feeling with each other. That’s a wonderful thing to be enjoyed, but that’s not the sole aim of fellowship. The aim of fellowship is larger and far more crucial. In John 13:35 Jesus says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The aim of our fellowship is to show Christ to the world.

I give thanks that God had enough confidence in our church to entrust to us the gift of fellowship.

The fifth and final gift that Bishop Shawe named more than 50 years ago and which still is our reason for being today is the gift of the ideal of service. I like to think of it as the gift of mission. It goes without saying that God doesn’t bestow gifts on us or any other church in order for us to bask and glory in our giftedness. Ephesians makes it clear that God’s gifts are given “...to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:12)

Bishop Shawe points out that the ideal of service is best expressed in the German word, “Dienersinn”, from which we get our name today for the folks who serve lovefeast. Shawe says about this German word, “It means to feel oneself to be a servant, to have the mind or attitude of a servant; it describes a living character rather than a quality, a type of person whose mind is dominated by the will to serve.” We Moravians have expressed and continue to express that will to serve in many ways, from mission work among the least and forgotten peoples of the world to outreach into neighborhoods within sight of our church buildings. We’ve built schools and medical clinics and shelters and food distribution services and crisis centers, habitat houses and camp cabins. We’ve given everything from time to talent to treasure, from blood to beeswax, all because we know that service is part of who we are and who we’re called to be. And we’ve done all this without asking for or expecting anything in return, save the knowledge that we have been the hands of Christ stretched out to a needy world.

Actually, I fear I have misspoken. We haven’t done anything, but God has done wonders through us and through our service.

I thank God that God has made us a church of mission, for mission and in mission. I thank God for the gift of the ideal of service.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we have a rare opportunity these next two days. We have the opportunity to share with each other our giftedness as the Moravian Church and to celebrate together the goodness of the Giver. Simplicity, Happiness, Unintrusiveness, Fellowship and Service – what more could we ask for....other than the grace to use these gifts for building up the body of Christ?

To that end may we be richly blessed. Amen.

The Rt. Rev. Wayne Burkette
April 10, 2008