By Kiply Lukan Yaworski
SASKATOON (CCN)

 

Some 400 people gathered Jan. 29 to mark the closing of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, welcomed to the new Cathedral of the Holy Family in Saskatoon by Deacon Bob Williston.

Rev. Amanda Currie of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Saskatoon opened the celebration, the final in a series of gatherings organized in different Christian churches throughout the community by the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism between Jan. 21 and 29.

"Although the week is coming to an end, I would encourage you to continue to pray for the unity of the Church throughout the year, and to take up the many opportunities for us to gather together as Christians and as churches to pray together, to worship together, to grow in relationship with one another and to engage in common witness and common mission in the world," said Currie.

She highlighted an upcoming ecumenical Lenten series focusing on "Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry." She also drew the assembly's attention to upcoming Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings about Indian Residential Schools, which are happening around the province in advance of a national TRC event to be held June 21-24 at Prairieland Park in Saskatoon.

"Those churches that were involved in the residential school system have a particular call and responsibility to participate in the hearing process that will be part of this event, but all Canadians, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, are encouraged to participate to learn more about, and bear witness to, the legacy of the residential school system," Curry noted.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ecumenical service prepared by Christians in Poland focused on the theme "We will all be changed by the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf 1 Cor 15: 51-58). "We need to open ourselves to each other, to offer gifts and receive gifts from one another, so that we might truly enter into the new life in Christ, which is the only true victory," said Currie.

The service included prayers of repentance, Scripture readings, the Apostles Creed and the Lord's Prayer, as well as prayers for unity and transformation and the exchanging of a sign of peace.

In his homily, guest speaker Dr. Darren Dahl raised the questions, "Who are we as a divided communion? How can we seek an identity in unity?" He noted that the answer to these questions has at times focused on the past, locating the paths down which various denominations have travelled. More recently focus has shifted to the present, and the possibility of a shared mission and a conviction that, "as Christians, we must intervene for the sake of peace, justice and the common good."

In both these approaches, however, something crucial is missing, suggested Dahl. "The early Christian community knows that it is able to appropriate the past, in order to act in the present, because it lives from the in-breaking future of the kingdom of God," he said.

Christ's "object lessons" of mustard seed, yeast, salt, and new wine in old skins give us an image of a God breaking into our lives in unexpected ways: "always opening new possibilities, always drawing us into new life."

St. Paul says that if Jesus is not raised, there is no future for this community, Dahl noted. "Because he is raised, because Jesus the Christ is no longer simply a figure of the past or even the present, he is as Paul says, the first fruits of a new age opened up by God, and we as his brothers and sisters are participants in that new age," he said.

"It is from this perspective that we must begin to understand who we are together as the community of the living one," Dahl added. "Our transformation into unity will come from our common reception and enactment of this future made present in our midst."

The Easter event is not merely a doctrine to be believed or a miracle to be accepted, but it is something to be practiced, he said. "What we do in our worship and in our living, therefore must be understood solely in relation to the in-breaking future of God."

This has implications for Christians, Dahl said, pointing to the "transformative fellowship" of the eucharist. "Such a resurrection practice is neither negotiable or optional," he said, adding that this has practical and critical implications.

For some Christian denominations it will mean a "profound rethinking of what has become a rather occasional and cerebral practice of the Lord's Supper," he said. "For the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions it will mean rethinking the implicit institutional assumptions of the eucharist and the consequent exclusive practices that work in opposition to the radical transformative power of the sacrament," he added.

"Most important, for all of us it means a continuing rediscovery of what the early Christians knew by tumultuous experience: that Christ comes to make us new, not just in our heads, but in our whole flesh, and through our flesh, to make the whole world -- kicking and screaming, no doubt -- new."

He called for a Christian community united and rooted in the "in-breaking hope-filled future of God" to face these challenges, invoking the image of the "orant" figure in Christian art, with arms open wide in prayer. "In our bodies and minds, we welcome God's kingdom and find ourselves transformed."