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OPENING WORSHIP
MESSAGE
La Verne D. Mercado
Before I proceed, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you in
the name of the National Council of Churches in the
I hope your coming will help strengthen our solidarity as Asians working
together for the liberation of our people.
I would like to talk briefly on "The Ecumenical Challenge to the
Churches and to All of Us."
As an imperative of the Gospel, ecumenism is a prerequisite for a truly
authentic mission, and that mission forms the basis for a truly ecumenical
sharing of life. Ecumenism is essential for Christian Mission. If the Church is
to demonstrate the Gospel in its life, as well as in its preaching, it must manifest
itself to the world the power of God to break down all barriers and to
establish the Church's unity in Christ. Christ is not divided. Divisions among
us Christians block the way to the faith for many. How can we proclaim
reconciliation, when we ourselves are not reconciled to one another? How can we
be heralds of one Lord, calling all persons to accept the Lordship of Christ,
when we ourselves cannot cone together under His one Church and one rule? As
long as we Christians are divided/ our mission, our proclamation of the Gospel,
will be adversely affected. Divisions among us Christians impair the
credibility of the Gospel and the effectiveness of our witness.
Ecumenism is essential for mission. No single church or denomination can
evangelize the world. No single religious community in our country or in
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seek union in faith and fellowship and* in
witness and service with other children of God. This magnificent realization is
both mystical and practical.
By ecumenical or "ecumenism", we mean not only the coming and
being together of churches, but more biblically, of the "whole inhabited
earth," the "oikoumene" of persons
struggling to become what they are intended to be in the purpose of God.
Ecumenism is when Christians and others are confessing the faith in the
concrete situations in which they live, when they, in one way or another, are
seeking to work not only for unity of the Church, but also for the unity of the
human community, the unity of all things under God. It is a unity that includes
human beings, society and nature. We Christians, participate in this movement
in the full knowledge that the world is the Lord's and that He calls us to
discern what He is doing among His creatures and in His creation, on the basis
and in the perspective of what He has done in Christ, who is the centre of the
ecumenical movement.
In Colossians 1:15-20, we read the following words of the jostle Paul:
"...In Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the
Church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He
might be pre-eminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell
and through Him to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making
peace by the blood of His cross." I would like to use here, the
introductory material prepared by Dr. Carino for our NCCP
Convention theme next November, which is "United in Christ, a New
Creation":
Two visions - both of which are central to the concerns of the
ecumenical movement - are linked together in these verses: the unity of the
Christian community, the Church and the reality and the challenge of the new
creation. This Biblical text is Paul's ascription of the person and work of
Jesus Christ as encompassing not only the unity of God's people, but also - and
perhaps even more importantly - the unity and newness of the whole created
order. In Christ and through Christ, writes Paul, "all things, whether in
heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or authorities", have been created, so that all things,
too, hold together in Him. The task and possibility of Christian unity, in this
context, is placed within the wider and more comprehensive character of
Christ's work as having a cosmic and universal consequence.
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Indeed, as Paul has so reminded the Church in Colossae,
the work of seeking and manifesting the unity of the Church must be placed
within the broader framework of bringing all things together under the creative
and unifying work of Christ. The work of Christian unity, in other words,
cannot be achieved or fully recognised unless it is seen within the purview of
the work of seeking unity, peace and reconciliation in all things that exist.
Nothing, in this sense is outside the scope of the work of Jesus Christ, so
that nothing, too, is outside of the parameter of the work of the ecumenical
enterprise as an expression of "Christ's
What these words of the Apostle Paul pose before us as Christians and as
churches today are the breadth and the width of the ecumenical challenge. The
ecumenical task does not have only a narrow "spiritual" concern.
Neither does it have only an "ecclesiastical" character or interest.
It has a broad cosmic dimension in which all that is human, all that is
created, all that is "in heaven and on earth" is involved in the
parameter of its work as a testimony to the mission of its Lord.
This is the underlying current in the ecumenical perspective and around
which the multifarious aspects of ecumenical concerns may be seen in proper
focus. The mission of seeking unity among different races, ideologies,
religions and cultures, and even of seeking unity with the world of nature and
all of the varied manifestations and mysteries of the whole cosmos are, thus,
integral and native to the ecumenical vision. Recently, the inter-unit program
on "Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation", which the World
Council of Churches has initiated, has focussed attention in a very concrete
way on this comprehensive character of the ecumenical task. Within the life of
the Christian Conference of
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solidarity with the poor, for a science and
technology that is serviceable to those who are in the "underside",
for a new spirituality that is rooted in justice, and for a new Church that is
set within the striving for a new people and a new nation.
This deeper meaning of ecumenism provides a perspective that expands
ecumenical vision, and a theological basis that under grids the search for a
Christian unity that encompasses components that go beyond the parameters of
ecclesial constituency. It underscores the servant hood of the Church's life
and mission, and embraces within the scope of ecumenical aspiration -"the
whole inhabited earth, the oikoumene".
Today, it is pointed out that ecumenism or Church unity is shallow unless
it is seen in the context of the search for a renewed, transformed and
reconciled human community. The search for a theological consensus of faith,
ministry and sacraments remains an indispensable part of ecumenical work, but
it is not the whole picture. To speak of a fellowship in the one faith that is
divorced from the realities of oppression, exploitation and conflict or
struggle of the people is to resign the Church and the Ecumenical movement to
irrelevance. On the other hand, we need to confront the issues involving our
society and people as one Church, as one body of Christ, which is a sign of the
sacramental presence of Jesus Christ, as our distinctive Christian witness as
we work together and with others for the sake and best welfare of the people.
It is our conviction that the blessed Holy Spirit is present and at work in and
beyond the Church.
And so, we individual Christians and 'churches should be more involved
in ecumenical action in mission and service, in proclaiming in word and in act the
reality of the presence of Jesus Christ in our day, in having dialogue and
working together with other faiths and other ideologies, with other sectors of
our society, such as the farmers, the fisher folks, the labourers, with action
groups and other ecumenical bodies or organizations for the development of
people and of the whole person, in making the environment sustainable for the
well-being of all, in the continuing struggle of the people, and in the
liberation of all persons and all things in the hope of the final
manifestations of the Kingdom of God.