The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church shook some people up with her opening remarks on July 8^th last month at the start of the triennial General Convention of our church. (The General Convention is the governing legislative body for this church.) Bishop Katharine called for that body, and the church as a whole, to not practice "business as usual" but instead to think outside of the box: to think in new ways. That wasn't the part that created a stir amongst people. What got people's undies in a wad was when she continued by saying that the financial crisis our society and world is facing is an example of the

"Great Western heresy - that we can be saved as individuals; that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. This right relationship, in some quarters occurs through insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus....That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being.....(later on she concluded by saying).....We will fail if we choose business as usual. There will be cross-shaped decisions in our work but if we look faithfully, there will be resurrection as well....We can make our decisions in hope, and we can speak the love of God through this church. And we do it together."

Bishop Katharine ruffled some feathers; she made a number of people uncomfortable. Some acquaintances of mine, who have a more conservative and evangelical bend to their theological understanding of the world, started calling themselves "heretics". For them, to be Christian there are set and rigid formula and theirs is a far more individualized relationship with God. Bishop Katharine's opening remarks were challenging for them on these principles. To simplify some fairly complex theological principles, it seems that we are talking about three distinct groupings: there is the individual and God; there is the individual and community and God; and there is community and God. We are talking about individualistic identity and corporate/community identity and how God is involved in those identities and relationships.  Face it, we are all individuals, with wants, desires, needs, dreams, hopes, aspirations. If we are all individually focused, selfishly looking inward, we will miss an awful lot of life's promise.

Please open your BCP's to page 854. Yup, we are in the scary Catechism section of our Prayer Book. Let's review how the Prayer Book defines "The Church". I'll read the questions, all of us will read the answers......  There is something that ties all these questions and answers together - everything is plural when it comes to us. It is us, the community that is the Body of Christ. Granted we are all individuals, not some mutant multi-bodied single organism thingy from some Sci Fi series. But the individualistic heresy Bishop Katharine was talking about takes us out of this community based "we" and focuses us on the idolatrous "I" - that "I" that does not show up in our Catechism.

And this brings us right to the one who can, without heresy, without idolatry, rightfully claim the "I", and that is Jesus saying "I am the bread of life" in today's Gospel reading from John. In John's Gospel, Jesus uses the "I AM" phrase over 20 times. This is significant because Jesus is saying something only God said before when God was talking to Moses out of the burning bush. Moses asked who are you and God replied I AM. So Jesus is not only saying today that he is the bread of life but Jesus is also saying he is God. Jesus is saying that not only is he God but that Whoever comes to me will never be hungry..... never thirsty. Hunger and thirst will be gone. This is one of those statements like the other "I AM" statements: I am the good shepherd; I am the resurrection and the life; I am the way, and the truth and the life; I am the true vine; I am the light of the world.  In John's Gospel there is no doubt at all who Jesus is, who Jesus proclaims himself to be: he is God, taken human form. The one and only I.

By proclaiming that mantle as his own, Jesus becomes the focus for all of us. And we hear about this focus very clearly from Paul today in our Epistle reading from Ephesians.  Not only do we hear about Christ being the "head" of this corporate Body he is founding and that we are a part of, but we also hear from Paul about what we, as the community, as that Body of Christ, needs to act like. We hear the words: humility, gentleness, patience, love. Paul tells us that there is only one body and one Spirit. This is not to say that we are automatons without any personhood. Paul doesn't say that at all. We hear that The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers..... So we each are different, unique, individual, but we are nothing without each other. For it is with each other that we are that Body of Christ in the world today, of which Jesus is the head.  Paul is quite explicit when he says that WE are to be joined and knit together by every ligament. We are knit together. This is one of the ideas Bishop Katharine was getting to in her opening statement at General Convention a few weeks ago. The heresy is the individual believing they have been granted special favor over and above all those others around us that God equally loves. Bishop Katharine is pointing out that as a community, working together, we can face any and all cross-shaped decisions, and they can and will lead us to resurrection moments.

We have an example of this individualist focus getting in the way of community growth in our Hebrew Testament reading. David's actions in regard to Uriah, having him killed in battle, so that David can acquire Uriah's wife as his own, is an example of losing the community, of allowing the individual to overtake and cause injury. This kind of ego-centric idolatrous behavior leads to disaster. We have a wonderful progression in our readings today: David's self-centered "I" to Paul's intertwined community creating the living Body of Christ to John's reminder that Jesus is the bread, the sustenance that feeds our community and makes this life new: one that, as a community, leads us to a right relationship with God.

What the Presiding Bishop was talking about was not that we aren't individuals or that God doesn't love each and every one of us. Our gifts, talents and individual ministries are vital to the survival of our church. We are talking about the idolatry of the self here: putting self before community, putting self before God. We are talking about community, about all of us being a family, gathered here, around our common Eucharistic table, finding sustenance and strength in this Bread of Life we are about to share: quenching a thirst by participating in this shared meal. We are talking about relying on others when we can't find the strength to pray, just as we hold up others with our prayers in their moments of instability and loss. We are talking about being our individual selves in community together, supporting one another. Notice in a few moments how our Confession of Sin has no "I" in the prayer, this is a corporate confession, just like so much of our worship is all about this corporate Body of Christ that we are here. There is no "I", it is all about "we". The heresy of the "I" needs to be left at our entranceway. The church is about "we", supporting each other as we grow into that Body of Jesus in this world today.