Service of Prayer for Christian Unity
Westminster United Presbyterian Church
Munster, [ndfana

January 23, 1966

Rev. John M, Buchanan

BEHOLDING NEW THINGS
Isaiah 43: [4-21

[t is never easy to see a new thing. The human mind is a connectional device
that operates by establishing links between the known and that which is being learnec.
and something brand new cannot be linked or related to anything. Like a computer
that shorts Its circuits trying to assimilate a piece of information for which it is
not programmed, the human mind often rejects newness of any sort. Newness Is un-
settling; it cannot be categorized. Newness Is discomforting because it cannot be
predicted, Newness is sometimes repuJsilve because it involves a risk and a commit-
ment.

A commitment to a new idea, to a new nation, even a new President, does involve
a certain amount of personal risk. This is so, simply because the meaning, the im-
plications and ramifications of something new are not obvious at first. A person
never knows where he wil! end up when he commits himself to something new, because
newness indicates a course uncharted and a future unknown.

Consider, for instance, the birth of a child. What couple realizes, before the
birth of its first baby, the impact that event will have on the entirelty of life?
Who can know ahead of time the radical transformation of all of life when two sudden-—
ly become three? What parent does not periodically find himself amazed at the
quality of |life actuated in him by the fact that he Is a parent?

And so, newness, on a very personal level,is difficult to comprehend, difficult
to anticipate, and difficult to assimilate even when it comes. And if this is true
personally, if Is even more significant on a broader, historical level. Generally
speaking, we are very much bound to the immediacles of the present tense; we lack
what the scholar would call "historical perspective". That means we don't understand
the long range significance of events even as we are participating in them. We are
blind to newness because we fail to grasp the significance of something new, even as
we are Involved In it.

There are, however, in every age, men who rise above the crowd and point out to
dim eyes the meaning of contemporary events within the whole context of history.
Such a man was Winston ChurchI11, who seemed Intuitively to know the threat of Nazi-
ism; and who chronicled the war, batttle by battle, not for the sake of a dry record
but with the vision of one who comprehends the meaning of events while they are
happening.

John F. Kennedy was another such man; one who knew, as no other President In
this centuryknew, the historical significance of his office. He knew that the des-
tiny of America and the fate of mankind rested on smell decisions made by individual
men; and everything he did, he did in the context of this fine historical sensitivity.

Such a man, also, was the prophet who wrote the passage in the 43rd Chapter of
Isaiah read this afternoon. He, too, was a man who possessed the "overview". From
his position in Jerusalem, he could see the signiflcance of events breaking forth on
the horizon; and he saw his prophetic task in terms of announcing that significance.

His countrymen were captives in Babyton. More accurately, they had been cap-
tives, buf after several decades: their captivity evolved to a rather comfortable
sojourn. They were not restricted in Babylon; they had put down roots; gradually
some of them began to adopt Babylonian suctoms. The captivity, the temporary exile,
began to take on ao aura of permanence.

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But the Jews {n Babylon were blind to a new thing that was happening. To the
North East, the Persian armies of Cyrus the Great were gathering momentum - and the
Babylonian Empire was living on borrowed time. The Prophet saw In this the hand of
God working to redeem his people. This Is the burden of the letter he wrote to them;
the letter that occupies the 40th through 55th Chapters of the Book of Isaiah; the
letter that begins movingly with the words, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your
God", and rises to prophetic articulation in the fmperative, "Behold, | am doing a
new thing: now It springs forth: do you not perceive if?".

Now I'm bringing all of this to your attention because the Jews, Iike many
people before and after them, did not see the newness that was happening. In retro-
spect, we look through the eyes of faith and know that God was aeting to redeem and
renew his covenant people. But they did not know it, until the prophet called their
attention to It, and even then they probably passed him off as a pious visionary.

‘ This transaction is important today, because we foo find ourselves involved in
a great new movement; a movement involving millions upon millions of men; a movement
that will one day loom large in history; but a movement which we, who are now parti-
cipating in it, often fail to see,

Newness Is happening! Newness has happened to the people of God with a be-
wildering rate of spped. As a boy, and that's not very long ago = but long enough
to be in the pre-ecumenical era, | was cast, In my neighborhood, in the role of &
peace maker between the Shaughnessy children on our feft and the Baptist Esteps on
our right. The only thing the two groups ever agreed on was the fact that | was
doomed. John Shaugnessy was certain that | was going to hell and apparently he had
it on good authority. One day | went to Confession with him, and Frank Estep was
equally as certain that | was going to hel! because | had seen the evil interior of
a Confessional. And my Presbyterian father dispaired that | did not have any Pres-
byterian friends who nefther knew nor cared who was going to hell. A homely illus-—
tration - but we have come a long way. Newness has happened — and often in spite
of us.

The time In the past,when such a service as this would have been completely out
of the question, cannot be measured In decades or even years, but months. There are
those in our day who see with the vision of a prophet; those who know that we are In
the middle of something new and very important. Pope John the Twenty-third was one
as is his successor, Bishop Pike and Eugene Carson Blake are two more ~ prophetic
voices, speaking and acting as if newness is already here, and yet all too frequently,
speaking and acting to a people blinded by the darkness of tradition.

Today, then, in our experience, is a day for beholding the new thing that is, In
fact happening. But more than that, it is a day for making a beginning in the diffi-
cult task of seeing and understanding the total significance of what is happening.

Let's be honest 2bout the Ecumenical movement. [ft could not,and did not, origi-
nate in the mind of man. Our respective traditions are too comfortable for that.
Even today, some of us have found it expedient and profitable to be anti-Catholic or
anti-Protestant. [In fact, the Churches most numerically successful today, at least
on our side, seem to get that way by regularly berating the Ecumenical Movement.
Can't we confess together today, that this new thing which has happened to us is of
God?

A letter from the French Federation of Protestants to all the Protestant Churches
in France contsined this sentence which is most appropriate: "If the Lord is pleased
to open the doors between the houses of his separated children, why should we be
afraid to go through them?'* The doors between our separate houses have been flung
open. Let us not hesitate to express humbly th>t the power to open those doors did
not come from us; that in all candor, we would have been more comfortable with them
tightly shur; that they were opened by God's Holy Spfrtt.

* Page 342 — Reformed and Presbyterian World — Decenber, 196%

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Christian Unity Is of God, and because it is of God Unity in the Church is not
an end in itself. The Ecumenical Movement Is not the Mission of the Church, but 4
tool — a means to accomplish that Mission.

A group of North Americans, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, recently engaged
in an intensive three day study of the them -"How do we implement the Council?" The
meeting was held In Rome. One of the significant understandings that came out of it
wes voiced by a priest in attendance: "Christian Unity Is not a valid goal in itself.
The calling of a Christian is té mission and service In the world. Unity will be
given for the sake of mission."

We err, ond err badly, when the Ecumenical movement becomes for us an end in it-
self. [t is no panacea for our collective or Individual difficulties. [n fact, our
task may become more difficult - and | am certain more uncomfortable - If we begin to
see the ecumenical movement as something that is moving; a dynamic, living thing
which is pushing us , not only together, but also out Into the world.

It is @ world that cannot be bothered with "Christian in-fighting"; e@ world
grown cynical at the sinful competiveness between the followers of Jesus. If is a
world that needs to know the love and grace of God; a world badly in need of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Gospel is not fragmented; It comes to all men through
the Church - as it faithfully serves its Lord. [{t is for thls that we are concerned
with Unity in the Church,

Again, we cannot create Christian Unity; only God can and will and is doing
that. We can pray for it! We can serve it! Today we can behold it ~ a "New thing
now springing forth."

Amen.