May 27, 2001

Over the last eight weeks, I and four other Norwegian pastors have attended a continued education programm at Luther Seminary. Title of course: "Resources for the renewal of Lutheran congregational life".

We’ve had an fascinating and inspiring encounter with American church life. We have met congregations, worshipped, talked with pastors and ordinary church members. Some of us have met relatives, and thereby had an opportunity to have an inside look at life in America.

We bring many things with us back home.

What have I myself learnt from what I have seen of American Church life?

Four words – spelled with "V":

* Vitality. We are impressed by seing all the churches; all the people gathered for worship, the number of activities. Buildings and resources.

* Variety, or diversity. There are so many different churches and ways to worship God. Maybe a need here because of the wide cultural diversity. But still a testimony that the gospel is for everybody. It connects different people and cultures to one community.

*Values. Not material ones, but the readyness to say what the local church is and should be. The reason why we have a church, gather for worship, and have the congregation and the Christian faith as basis for our lives, is not that it always used to be like that. It comes from a calling: Jesus’ call to faith and discipleship. And the great commission he gave us, his church: to bring the gospel, the message of joy, to all people. I have seen these values more clear here than frequently do at home, and this has inspired me.

* Voluntarism. We have seen churches where hundreds have been ministering only on one Sunday morning. All churches seem to need voluntary ministry, and they know how to mobilize and cherish it. It must be any pastor’s dream to have so many good lay co-workers.

There are surely a back side also to this story. We have met and heard of struggling congregations. And in Norway, there are also very vital congregations. But it has really been fascinating to spend these weeks her, and it has given new and fresh joy in ministry. What we are doing in the church makes sense.

These thoughts I bring with me into the text for this Sunday.

The Bible tells ut that Christ was risen on Easter morning. Later, he made himself known to the disciples and other friends. The ressurection is the incredible and impossible event that was the turning point – for those who experienced sorrow turned to joy, and hopelessness to hope.

The ressurrection also means that Jesus as the Lord of all things makes himself available to us, he comes and meets us, links us together. He promises to be with us in all circumstances of life, and he has the power to keep what he has promised. 40 days after Easter morning, he was lifted up, and made invisible to the witnesses who were there. Ascension day, which was observed three days ago, doesn’s imply that Jesus was taken to somewhere far away, but that from now on, he is no more limited by time and space. He is everywhere. He is there for all who sincerely seek him.

The text in John chapter 17 is one of those passages in Scripture where the usual writing and counting rules seem out of place.

For, what is Jesus actually saying?

- that all his friends may be one, as Jesus and the Father are one

- that the relation between Jesus and his friends is that he is in us, and we are in him.

I do not venture to explain neither the maths nor the grammar of this, in order to make it logical or understandable. But I think I know what Jesus meant by saying that we are in one another:

- Closeness. Jesus is close to us in our everyday life. When we need him. Not only on Sundays, but all days. Jesus is not far away, as we sometimes experience. He is so close that ew canb experience it with our senses, when hearing his words to us, whes he comes to us in the sacraments. Jesus is near us. This is a good news, and worth while considering for every one who experiences Jesus as beeing far away, or week or alone. Because of our baptism in his name and our faith in Jesus as the risen Lord, we can trust that he never is far away.

And then, the word, the prayer of Jesus that we may be one is also very much about our everyday life. In the midst of all that split people and nations, of differences of culture, language, color, traditions, thinking patterns, even over against those forces that disunite people that were supposed to be close to one another, Jesus builds up a new community. Someting all new, unseen of in the world so far, and unlike all other sorts of community: a people, a holy people of brothers and sisters.

Jesus says this prayer just before the last supper. He knows what is going to happen. He knows the dispair and disunity that will occur, the forces that will split people, groups, churches, nations. He knows how hard it is gong to be. Not only hard, but impossible. But still he prays his Father that they may be one. Still, he asks us to keep united, knowing what forces in us that will the opposite.

Why? So that the world can believe. As a sign and testimony that there is a God, that the powers that gather and build are stronger than those who destroy. That men and women who live without God and hope may find their way back home.

Has this prayer been heard and fulfilled? Difficult to say.

Depends. How much more rupture had this world seen without the church representing Christ in the world?

We can only speculate.

But I do see signs of hope.

I see churches coming closer to one another, obeying the prayer of Jesus, by the Holy Sprit that gives a greater unity.

I have learnt here in America, if I had’n known from before, that Lutherans are not the only Christians around, and that there is more that unites than separates. I also have read that churches started finding together when they discovered the great commission. It was not too easy to arrive in China and try to explain that I represent "The Chinese Branch of the Dutch Reformed Church in America". Because the church is ONE, and it belongs to Jesus. You Lutherans in America have merged together. You and I know that it isn’t always that easy.

But fractioning is more painful, and is definitely not what Jesus wanted for his church.

The community in Christ is that we are invited to walk the bridges that he has built for us:

- The bridge between us and God, the cross, that takes away the sin of the world, and links us to our creator

- The bridge between men and women whe were created to live in community with one another.

One auhor has used a daring methaphor to describe the power that binds together: the divorce child, who is in between mother and father, is part of them both, has - litterally speaking - hands stretched out to both, feels responsible, even guilty for whatever separates, and whose

utmost concern is to bring together what is split.

Jesus reconstructs and rebuilds. His challenge to us is: Walk the bridges. Dare try to let him reconcile what is broken.

There is no promise of simple solutions, nor can we always expect to go one living without pain from what went wrong.

But we may walk on in our lives in freedom.

Here in Minneapolis you have something nice that I have never seen anywhere else: the Skyways that link buildings and blocks, and makes life easier for pedestrians in the metropolis. The houses are united up there. I can choose the easier way in the first place and remain at street level. Or I can find my way on to the bridge.

When Christ prays for us for unity, it is also a prayer for courage, to not always chose the easier path, but walk the bridges, and practise the love that God pours on us every day.

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716