Do You Speak Centurion?

Psalm 69:13-18; Luke 7:1-10
Reformation Sunday

            There is anonymous saying that I like a great deal.   It has to do with investing.   Not financial investing, though, for goodness knows I’m woefully unqualified to speak to that topic.   I’m instead talking about spiritual investment.   And so the saying goes – “Every spiritual investment bears eternal interest.”   In other words, faithful friends, all the ways we invest in our relationship with God are received and blessed with growth by God.   We can make such a bold claim only in the name of Jesus Christ, for it is our Lord who brokers it all.  

            Deeply believing God is actively receiving and responding, that God is dependable when given our trust, is at the heart of what it means to have faith.   Our Bible passage this morning from Luke’s compassionate, inclusive Gospel offers us a great and unexpected example of this.  

            At the center of our story is a man of very high social status.   He had a high pressure job in an ancient city located North-West of the Sea of Galilee.   As a matter of historical record, this city, Capernaum, was inhabited between 150 B.C. and 750 A.D.  Why is it significant to us as Christians?   Because it happened to be Jesus’ home after he left the mountainous hamlet of Nazareth in the early days of His ministry.   And Capernaum had this imposing, two-story high, white limestone and local black basalt synagogue as a central location of Jesus’ teaching and healing.  It was in this house of worship that He preached following His miraculous feeding of the five thousand (Jn. 6:16-59) and it was also the site of his healing a man with an unclean spirit (Luke 4:31-38).

            As it turns out, the man whom we meet in our lesson today is one of the folks who helped build this very synagogue.    But – surprise! – it also turns out he was a Roman Centurion, that is, a man who had achieved the highest rank of officer in the Roman army.   He had been well paid to wield the authority of the vine-emblem staff over one hundred – that is, a century – of foot soldiers.   His social position, as I’ve said, was one of power and prestige.  When he barked an order, underlings listened and got a move on.   

            Yet, all the power and prestige of his position in those days couldn’t protect him from the arrival of a tragic illness and the possibility of death.   Not his, however.   This Centurion was a sensitive enough Greco-Roman to have compassion for his slaves.   It was one of these men, whom he had valued highly, who had fallen gravely ill.   In his grief, he had realized it was beyond even his power to command the slave back from the brink.  Death was immanent, and so was his futility in the face of it.

            For whatever reason, this Centurion was also a sensitive enough pagan overlord to have befriended the Jews whose land he and the Empire allowed to live in Capernaum.    As I mentioned, he had helped build their synagogue.   Over the years, maybe you’ve discovered that a funny thing can happen when you involved yourself in neighborly projects.   You can learn new things, gain appreciations, develop respect, make friends.    So it was that the Centurion came to discover the Good News about a great and holy healer named Jesus. 

            Now just imagine yourself in the Centurion’s shoes.   Being a person of great power, you could order any physician or spiritual healer in the land under your authority to have a go at healing your valued servant.    Instead, by way of some unlikely friends at the synagogue, you learn about Jesus and feel compelled that He is the one to turn to.   You have the high standing to command him, to prove his spiritual stuff – yet you choose not to.  Why?

            Well, perhaps because in part you are a compassionate and sensitive leader.  You are not one to abuse your office.   You are intelligent, empowering, and diplomatic … not a brutal numbskull.   You have integrity others trust, especially your friends at the synagogue.  You thus choose to make an appeal instead of a command.

            But there seems another reason as well.   It’s because you are also humble and faithful.  You have come to believe – to trust in your heart – the words of Jesus’ advocates.  You have come to deeply believe the Jesus has power far superior to yours, that when He speaks, more than foot soldiers hop to it – so too unclean spirits and fevers and all sorts of worldly infirmities.

            So humble was this Centurion that he did not even dare request a face to face audience with Jesus.   He felt unworthy.   Certainly, his being a Gentile, a friend but nonetheless outsider, to the Jews has something to do with this.   So he requested some of the Jewish elders to intercede for him, hoping they’d ask Jesus to come and heal his servant.    Which they did, explaining to Jesus that “he loves our people.”   Hearing of such faith, such trust, Jesus goes with them to visit the Centurion’s home.  

            But as He nears that home, utter humility laced with enormous faith strikes again.   The Roman officer and gentleman sends some friends out to keep Jesus from entering the home.   He instructs them to speak even more words of faith on his behalf, saying, “Master, don’t trouble yourself.  I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof.  That’s why I didn’t think myself worthy to come to you in person.”  And then adds, “But, just say the word, and my slave will be healed.”   According to Luke, these words utterly amazed Jesus.   Imagine amazing Jesus with your words of faith!    He responded with blessed affirmation and miraculous healing.  The Centurion’s spiritual investment was responded to with eternal interest.

            Do you speak the same faithful language?  Do you speak Centurion?  Is your trust in the good power and authority of Jesus produce such investment? 

            My asking such questions honors our church calendar this week.    All Saints Day is Nov. 1^st.   This is a time for celebrating saints, which we Presbyterians regard as those, living and deceased, who witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   You and I, as baptized participants in the priesthood of all believers, are very much saints; so too loved ones gone before us in Christ’s eternal car.

            Our calendar also recognizes that today is Reformation Sunday.    As such, it is a day when we give a grateful nod to those saints who boldly spoke Centurion in order to call Christ to heal the corruption of the 16^th century church in Western Europe.   Centurion speakers Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon,  John Calvin, and John Knox were regarded by the religious authorities of their day as outsiders.   But this doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t amazed at their words, especially those of Luther’s 95 protests which he pounded on the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany 495 years ago on October 31, 1517.   I believe Jesus received such spiritual investment and responded to it with eternal interest.  Out of this was born our Protestant branch of the Christian tree.  

            In honor of All Saints Day and our roots in the Protestant Reformation, we pause this morning to also remember and celebrate all who have gone before us, especially those who in their own ways and circumstances spoke centurion.    Who have you personally known to bear a humble yet strong and influential witness?    Are they loved ones and church family members, or “outsiders” who surprised you into greater faith?   To put it another way, who do you regard as best exemplifying the words found on John Calvin’s official seal, which stated, “Unto you, Lord, I offer my heart, promptly and sincerely”?

            Think and pray on who comes to mind.   Prayerfully express gratitude for their witness as your commune today during our celebration of the sacrament.    And also hold in mind and heart these words from the Westminster Confession of Faith, found in our denomination’s constitution – “All saints being united to Jesus Christ their head, by his Spirit and by faith, have fellowship with Him in His graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces.” (The Book of Confessions, 6.146).  

            Amen.

           

 

           

           

 

God's Measure of Glory

 

Isaiah 51:1-4, 14-16, Mark 10:35-45

 

            My days for most of this coming week are going to be quite different, and I hope, quite intellectually energizing.   I will be attending alumni reunion lectures and workshops at Princeton Seminary.   Somehow, it’s been fifteen years since I completed my Master’s degree there, and for no particular reasons, I’ve never gone back for any alumni events.      But this year, the seminary is joyfully celebrating its bicentennial.     As part of this, they have secured a visit from a truly world-renowned New Testament scholar.    This is what caught my attention, given that I consult his writings fairly often.  

            So from 8:30 A.M. until 10:30 A.M. this coming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I’ll be seated and listening to Dr. Tom Wright in what I’m certain will be a full house.   Given his considerable status as a New Testament scholar, I have to chuckle that he more often goes by his first initials, N.T.!   And that his last name makes it sound like he’s correct – that he is right -- all the time.   This Anglican bishop, Oxford educated university professor, and prolific author hails from Northumberland, England.    Suffice to say, I’m very glad the alumni event gives me a chance to hear and meet him directly while only having to travel less than an hour from home. 

            You don’t get to be world-renowned in any field of study by always playing it safe, by only tritely rehashing conventional wisdom.   While many such folks work toward this reputation by being consistently controversial, I find that N.T. Wright’s teaching has a wonderful balance between faithful uplift and challenging edge.    For example, the lecture series about the Gospels I’ll be listening to this week is called “The Forgotten Kingdom.”   I’m eagerly wondering what he’ll be saying we, as members of the universal Church, keep forgetting about our Lord’s reign given that we are supposed to be continuously helping expand it to God’s glory.   

             I already do have a good idea of what he’ll be saying, though, because I’m in the middle of reading his 2011 book, intriguingly titled, Simply Jesus.    What I believe he’s going to mention is captured in Chapter Six, which talks about how skepticism has been the general mood in Western Society toward Jesus’ holy reign and claim on our lives and the whole world.   Why this general attitude of doubt, of disbelief?   Wright argues that it has to do with our very human, sin-rooted reluctance to sacrifice our tightly held worldly notions of power and glory.   We get skeptical when we feel threatened.   We reject certain Christian claims when they call for greater degrees of sacrifice.   Here’s how he frames it –

            “By all means, people think, let Jesus be a soul doctor, making people feel better inside.  Let him be a rescuer, snatching people away from this world to ‘heaven.’    But don’t let him tell us about a God who actually does things in the world.  We might have to take that God seriously, just when we’re discovering how to run the world our own way.”  Then, speaking about the Gospels, he writes, “So where does the story lead?   It leads straight to the announcement that Jesus was making: God’s in charge now – and this is what it looks like!”[i]

            Today’s Gospel lesson from Mark is very clear what Jesus taught about God being in charge.  It does so by letting us in on an intense conversation Jesus had with his disciples.  This conversation was started by James and John, who were brothers Jesus nicknamed, “The Sons of Thunder.”   There are a few possible reasons why they earned this nickname, none of them conclusive.   But as today’s lesson reveals, they may well have had a certain strong-headedness about them.    The conversation, after all, started with them making a bold demand of Jesus – “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”    Addressing their holy teacher in this self-assured way sure sounds like a thunderclap to me!    One article I read this week compared it to “all the directness of a two-year-old who has neither learned to say Please nor to sugarcoat his settled assumption that, of course, the world revolves around Me.”[ii]

            We might expect Jesus to have responded with what would have been a much more severe thunderclap.   This is what powerful people can do, right?  They can use their greater social status and authoritative voice to hold insubordinate talk in check.    Yet, as if he did not have any idea where the conversation was headed, he simply replied, “What is it you want me to do for you?”   

            I love this about Jesus.   How he responds by graciously leading us deeper into holy truth.  

            The boom brothers replied that they wanted him to guarantee them seats of power right next to his when he fully achieves his holy reign.   Now, we have to understand that they expected his glorious rule to be like that of powerful worldly rulers.    They expected Pharoah Jesus.   King Jesus.  Emperor Jesus.   And if true to their nickname, the tone of this want, this expectation, was laced with outright demand.   All that time and talent given to following and defending Jesus … it all had to lead to powerful position.   To their own personal glory.

             We can’t really blame them for demanding this security, this reward.   They knew much about being oppressed.    They were Jews living as a minority population under the somewhat tolerant but otherwise oppressive thumb of the massive Roman Empire.  And they were Jews that by choosing to follow Jesus, were dangerously breaking from the strict rules and regulations established and defended by their Temple authorities.    It was too risky, too radical for James and John, among many others, to expect Jesus to do anything but topple, take down, and forcefully reveal the full measure of God’s glory to the prevailing rulers of the day.       

            What they didn’t really realize, despite Jesus’ repeatedly speaking about it, is that his ultimate power and glory cannot be understood apart from his identity as the Son of Man.    This is the only title Jesus used to refer to himself.   He did not go around touting that he is a new Pharoah, King, or Emperor.   Nor did he go around declaring himself the Son of God, the Messiah.   According to the Gospels, he instead refers to himself as Son of Man over seventy times. 

            One of the times is right at the end of today’s passage from Mark.   There, Jesus directly defined Son of Man as being the One who came to serve, and not to be served.   To be great in this world the way Jesus defined greatness, is to be what he himself called a “slave to all.”     To participate in His power and glory, then, is to willingly enter into oppressions.   It is to serve absolutely all who are in need of being served.     It is to give up self-glory.  

            And for Jesus only, this meant doing so through the full measure of giving up his life up as a ransom, as a loving sacrifice, for the sins of all humanity.    To be glorified as the Son of God, the Messiah, Christ our Lord, He had to first be the suffering servant, the liberating one proclaimed in Isaiah’s prophesies. 

            James and John most likely did not want to hear or accept having to follow this path to power.    Gain power by sacrificially loving and living with and serving social outcasts?   By giving up self-promotion and social privilege?   By meekness instead of might?   By recognizing and fighting for the universal “us” instead of the divisive realties of “us and them?”  

            Notice in verse 39 of our today’s passage in Mark that Jesus did grant them the answer they wanted.  He promised they’d have the coveted seats.    Fulfillment on this promise, however, came to both only after they entered into his way of shared suffering.  

            If we believe God really is in charge of the world through Jesus Christ our Lord, what is expected of us?   Everything that was expected of and promised to James, John and all of the disciples.    We are to measure God’s glory through our offering sacrificial love in Jesus’ name.   

            For some disciples throughout history, this has meant martyrdom.   James, we are told in Acts 12:2, gained his seat next to Jesus when King Herod had him killed by a sword.   In more recent times I think about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., who preached everyone can be great if they serve one another and not let what he called our “drum major instinct” take over – the part of us that desires to be out front, to lead the parade, to be first.[iii]   

            Martyrdom, of course, is an extreme measure of discipleship.   There are lesser extremes that are no less important, that have every bit as much power to proclaim the measure of God’s glory in Christ. 

            Taking up our crosses -- walking in the Way of sacrificial love every day of our lives -- happens every moment we make the faithful choice to compassionately companion other people through their sorrows and sufferings.   

            It happens when we have the faithful courage and conviction to speak up and take action against social injustices.   

            It happens when we schedule time in our busy lives to gather in a historic building for one hour once a week to confess our sin and recommit to Christ who died for us, rose for us, reigns in power for us, and prays for us.    

            It happens when we support and celebrate the sharing of the Gospel throughout every generation.   

            It happens when we let go of worry about offending others and injuring aspects of our reputation by politely, genuinely inviting people we know to church worship and events, especially if we know they have long felt estranged from their faith roots.     

            It happens when we take an honest inventory of our greatest influences, especially those that teach us to prioritize power that is not in accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

              So I’m headed off this week to hear world-class lectures about “The Forgotten Kingdom.”  I eagerly suspect I’m going to feel humbled, challenged, inspired.   For this is what happens when any of us are really reminded about the reign of Christ.   Glory be to God.   Amen.  

           

 

             

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[i] Wright, N. T. (2011-10-25). Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters (p. 59). Harper Collins, Inc.  Kindle Edition. 

[ii] http://www.mark-shea.com/sons.html

[iii] http://mlkkpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct

Opened and Healed by the Word

Psalm 51:1-6, Hebrews 4:12-16

 

            I recently came across a small but beautiful collection of very brief prayers that speak to the power of God’s Word in our lives.    These were originally spoken by people living in the mountains of Haiti.    Historically, Christianity in the expression of Catholicism came to this Caribbean part of the world when Christopher Columbus landed there on December 6, 1492.    Through various missionary streams, the Word of God continued to actively flow through the lifeblood of the nation all throughout its hard history of ethnic revolutions, abject poverty, and natural disasters.[i]    

            I do not know the time frame when these prayers of Haitian mountain folks were gathered, or which branch of Christianity most influenced them.   What I love is that they speak about the Word of God in a way that is folksy rather than formal.    This makes sense, given that they arise from some really hard realities and from hearts yearning for God’s comfort and saving grace.    So with the Holy Spirit igniting the pilot light of our faithful imaginations, I invite us to welcome four of these to enter our hearts here today –

            “Our Great Physician, Your word is like alcohol. When poured on an infected wound, it burns and stings, but only then can it kill germs. If it doesn't burn, it doesn't do any good.”

            “Father, we are all hungry baby birds this morning. Our heart-mouths are gaping wide, waiting for you to fill us.”

            “Father, a cold wind seems to have chilled us. Wrap us in the blanket of your Word and warm us up.”

            “Lord, we find your Word like cabbage. As we pull down the leaves, we get closer to the heart. And as we get closer to the heart, it is sweeter.”[ii]

            Notice that God’s Word is being defined in these prayers as more than just the Bible and as more than just the historic person of Jesus.   It is described as an uncomfortable but effective disinfectant for open wounds … as what fills our open, hungry “heart mouths” … as what wraps us up in warmth when cold winds chill us … and, in what is my favorite image, as multi-layered like a cabbage whose sweet heart is at the center.   

            What these honest prayers help us appreciate is that the Word is God is best defined not by what we believe it exactly is, but by what is does.   

            In the constitutional words of our Presbyterian Church (USA) tradition, we strongly affirm that all of our confessed and professed understandings about God are fully subject to “the authority of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as the Scriptures bear witness to Him” and that “no one type of confession is exclusively valid, no one statement is irreformable.”[iii]  As we actively strive to grow in our faith, we do so placing our “confidence in the Holy Spirit’s continuing guidance of the Church through the centuries,” which “enables the Church to hear the Word of God through Scripture in every new time and situation.”[iv]

            I hope you hear in these words how strongly we Presbyterians believe God’s Word in Christ is living and active.    It’s not static.  It’s not a book stuck on shelf.  It’s not irrelevant, out-of-touch with contemporary realities.   It’s not just ancient history, though we rely on the ancient writings of the Bible to hear it with greatest clarity and authority.  Through the Holy Spirit, it is always fresh, speaking directly and personally to our hearts and minds today.   It is heard through traditional creeds, confessions and church doctrines … but also through homespun prayers for healing, nourishment, and comfort.

             As the Word of God lives with and within us, it constantly opens us up to honestly consider our sin and sin’s corrosive impact on God’s good, original intentions for us and this world.   It reminds us that it is totally impossible to outright lie or even to slightly fib to God about this.  Our passage this morning from the fourth chapter of Hebrews makes it especially clear that the Word of God knows and judges all human thoughts and intentions.   It divides our truly faithful thoughts and intentions from our false, idolatrous, sinful ones the way a sharp sword can separate bone from marrow.    Every one of us, according to Hebrew 4:13, is thus “naked and laid bare to the eyes of the One whom we must render an account.”   Further, through Psalm 51 it reminds us that we are all born guilty, sinners when we were conceived.     As a fellow Christian leader has concluded, “Believing in God does mean believing in the truth.  It does mean a certain nakedness, the willingness to face up to who we really are and to stop pretending.”[v]

            Does this sound very heavy, perhaps even threatening to you?     It sure does to me!   But I find being reminded about what the Word of God does instead of just is to be a very good thing.  It opens me to hold me to honest account.  Humbles me.   Inspires – no, I’d say insists -- on my prayers of confession.    It both whispers and shouts to me that I’m so important and eternally loved by God that I will never be left alone to let sin roost and come to rule my heart.    It does this for me, and for all of us!  And it does so to keep our attention focused on the Good News of Jesus Christ.

            This Good News is that the Word of God doesn’t just open us up, expose our sin, and leave us feeling stung, naked, cold, unable to locate our place of loving warmth in the heart of the Almighty.    It heals us.  It does so by fusing us to the redeeming love of Lord, who completely understands all our personal and global plights.   He, the Word of God in the flesh, once lived them all. 

            Jesus endured all our temptations full-throttle, saddled Himself with all our sorrows and sufferings, encountered and embodied every violence to mind, body, soul.    As He lived all of this and more, there wasn’t a single moment of faithlessness, of turning away from trusting in the great holy plan for peace and reconciliation.    Hard realities can easily cause us to quickly turn away, to sin.   But He did not turn away, did not sin, and therefore was able to bring divine Light to and through and beyond all darkness; especially that of death, sin’s ultimate consequence.   Through the holy truth of His words, supreme example, and resurrection we are able to truly hear and see what the Word of God had been and is still doing in the world.    

            When we read the Old and New Testaments, the Word of God reminds us that the sacred story of salvation did not end over two thousand years ago.    I like how the 16^th century church reformer John Calvin reminds us of this.  He wrote that the Scriptures are like spectacles for our weak, failing eyes.    If we do not look through them, we see only a world in chaos, a world driven only by human ambition and failure.  God’s plans are at best blurry, at worst totally undetectable.   But when we put on the spectacles of Scripture – or, perhaps we should just say, “God’s glasses” – then our vision is refocused and God’s saving work in Christ becomes crystal clear.   “We no longer see a world abandoned to its own devices, but see God’s transforming love, which brings good out of evil and hope our of despair.”[vi]

            As we walk away from this sanctuary today, the Word of God will go with us.  So may we go fully recommitted to daily practices that help us receive it – such as prayer, putting our faith in action, and, of course, Bible reading and study.   The absolute importance of reading and hearing the Scriptures is stated simply and very well by the late Harvard Divinity School professor and Memorial Chapel Minister, Peter J. Gomes.   I conclude this morning with his words –

             “We hear the same texts that our ancestors heard but we hear them not necessarily as they heard them, but as only we can … our understanding of what [they say and mean] evolves, and so too do we as a result.”[vii]    Amen.

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Haiti#History_of_the_development_of_Christianity_in_Haiti

[ii] Wally R. Turnbull and Eleanor J. Turnbull, God Is No Stranger (Light Messages, 2010), pp. 14, 18, 56, 92

[iii]PCUSA Book of Confessions, preface to  the Confession of 1967, 9.03

[iv] PCUSA Book of Confessions, Confessional Nature of the Church Report, section C.3.e

[v] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/BEpPentecost20.html

[vi] Bartlett, David; Taylor, Barbara Brown.  Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2

[vii] The Good Book, pp. 20-21

Friends On Earth United

 

 

Psalm 100, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

            I invite us to joyfully and inter-generationally open our hearts to receive the following words from a 1975 hymn titled, “We Come As Guests Invited” –

            “We come as guests invited, when Jesus bids us dine; His friends on earth united, to share the bread and wine.  We eat and drink receiving, from Christ the grace we need; and in our hearts believing, on him by faith we feed; with wonder and thanksgiving, for love that knows no end, we find in Jesus living, our ever-present friend; renewed, sustained and given, by token, sign and word, the pledge and seal of heaven, the love of Christ our Lord.”

            Well, faithful friends, we have bread and we have juice from a vine … though it’s not wine.   In a few minutes, we will be “dining” on these.   We do so because we have been gathered here this day as honored guests of Jesus.    Through the power of the Holy Spirit, our Lord had gathered us to feed us.   And while we will taste but a tiny bit of bread and take only a tiny sip of grape juice, what He has to feed us is far greater than these fine gifts from the earth.   What He offers renews us and sustains us and fills us completely.   We have been gathered here today so we can be gifted with our holy host’s love. 

            This is the purifying love that scrubs clean the sin polluting our souls.  This is the embracing love that accepts us unconditionally.  This is the empowering, equipping love that sends us to care for all God’s good Creation and to follow in the Way of divine justice, peace, and unity.   

            So, the bread and the juice are not a snack.   They are beautifully symbolic of our Lord’s gift of redeeming love.  By them we remember that Jesus shed his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sin.   We remember that to know Jesus as our ever-present friend is to do more than profess our belief in Him.  It is to fully experience His living presence in our mind, our hearts, and our very bodies.    It is to feel and to really be one with Him.     The Holy Spirit helps us experience this through the words and actions of this sacrament.

            This is both a very personal and a vital communal experience.   For example, every time I hold the communion cup I touch the juice with my fingertip as I pray words about how His blood (that is, his sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin) is flowing through me and is my only true strength.   This helps me actually experience the sacrament, to be reminded that Jesus is not “out there” but is as close and vitally important to my life as my pulse.   And it reminds me that I don’t live just for and by myself, I live in and for the Lord through family and greater community.   The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, then, reminds me and reminds us all of our truest identity as those who have been baptized into the one community – the one body -- of the universal Church.

            I hope you can tell that I am really enthusiastic about celebrating this sacrament!  And I am especially so once a year – today! -- when many denominations all across the globe focus on our unity in the Lord.    Not our human born, culture-bound differences, prejudices and wars.  Not our debatable biblical and theological issues.  Just our divinely inspired and gifted unity as the friends of Jesus united on earth.   

            I’m always glad to report that this global celebration of peace and unity in Christ began with the Presbyterian Church.    More specifically -- by Rev. Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr and church leaders at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburg, in the autumn of 1933.   This was an anxious year across the globe.    Hitler had risen to power in Germany.   It was the Great Depression.   Hoover was out and FPR was in, responding to the national economic anxieties and global fears with his fireside chats and New Deal.     With all of this in the mix, the leadership at Shadyside wondered how on earth to counteract all the broad pessimism and division among people, and especially among Christians.    

            When Dr. Hugh Kerr’s son was asked many years ago how the idea of a World Wide Communion common date grew beyond that initial wondering and into the global celebration it has become, he replied, “The concept spread very slowly at the start. It was during the Second World War that the Spirit caught hold, because we were trying to hold the world together. World Wide Communion symbolized the effort to hold things together, in a spiritual sense. It emphasized that we are one in the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus Christ."[i]

            This spiritual communion glue is still so very greatly needed in our anxious country and conflicted world today.    So today we take a particular pause to join the Spirit in continuing to catch hold of the whole world.  World Wide Communion connects the vast network of faithful folks who live to help sow seeds of reconciliation and to harvest hope.

            Speaking of a people being connected in community, there is one overwhelmingly popular way this is happening in the world today.    While World Wide Communion didn’t get any noticeable press in the news this past week, the announcement that the online social networking site Facebook now has over one billion people using it in the world sure did.   This is a really amazing milestone.   Those of us who are part of the one billion know why it’s valuable to us.    I know I rely on it to share photos and updates with family in Florida and with many different circles of acquaintances I enjoy keeping in touch with.   Facebook’s founder, who happens to have been born in the Orwellion sounding year of 1984, wrote these words of appreciation – “Thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you.  Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I most proud of in my life.”

            There’s no question Facebook is helping meet the needs of multitudes trying to manage both life celebrations and deep worldly woes.    It’s a very relevant social and support network.   How’s the universal Church doing on the same front?    For it’s estimated 2 billion plus members?[ii]

            We can answer this in quite a few ways, some of which I find deeply frustrating, but let’s answer first by absolutely affirming what we celebrate today.    World Wide Communion reminds us is that the universal Church is God’s great network.   Today, we login in together!  The common password is Jesus Christ!  

            And, importantly, we are reminded this network is not ours.   It is not, as a Presbyterian colleague has written, “the property of any denomination or the possession of any movement whether it be tagged liberal or conservative, moderate or centrist, left-wing or right-wing.  The church, wonder of wonders, is God’s possession, despite every wart and blemish that we humans bring to it.  It is nothing less than the redemptive body of Jesus Christ poured out in divine love for al creation.”[iii]

            After we receive elements of our Lord’s gracious love this morning, the formal sacrament will come to an end, but our sacramental living will carry on.   Our words and actions will represent Christ, FPC and the universal Church.     Filled with the Spirit, we go forth to companion one another and all our neighbors as God’s social, support and sacramental network.    “Breaking bread with others is central to our life as the Church.  The ripples of companionship move out even farther when we recognize that we are bound to those we do not know, because we break bread with One who breaks bread with them.”[iv] 

            Yes, let’s go forth from this time of worship having been strengthened through the gifts of grain and vine, and also with all the others spiritual gifts we’ve been given as individual members of the Body of Christ.  Let’s go forth with thanksgiving, making a joyful noise to all the earth!  Amen. 

 

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[i] http://www.wekivapresbyterian.org/articles/presbyterian_origins.htm

[ii] http://www.pewforum.org/christian/global-christianity-exec.aspx

[iii] Stephen W. Plunkett, This We Believe,  pp. 131-132

[iv] Dwight W. Vogel and Linda J. Vogel, Sacramental Living, p.93