World Communion Sunday 2013
As I sat down Thursday morning to begin putting thoughts together for my offering of the Good News this morning, I noticed a letter sized white envelope sticking out of one of several paper piles on my office desk. I immediately knew what it was, and that it’d been there about two weeks waiting for me to follow up in reply with a letter of my own. There wasn’t an email option or even a phone number, so part of my delay was trying to remember how snail mail works! I believe the Spirit called my attention to it in that moment … not just as an overdue “to do” item, but because I find the content of that properly formatted letter to be related to the message of 2 Timothy.
It was sent to my attention by a gentleman out in California. He’d been researching his family genealogy project for many months. This led him to our churchyard, in search of several members of the Beam family. Specifically, John Beam, who died in December 1833 at the age of 33. His resting place is just a little bit in from our front stone wall to the left of the gate. I’m curious … anyone here have Beam family ties? This gentleman living on the west coast reached out to me with the hope of further establishing, in his words, a “factual, credible, documented family tree” for his children and grandchildren. I was glad I could support this endeavor a little bit, with the help of our excellent cemetery map. And glad I recalled how to format a letter in this age of emailing!
This experience was a good reminder that family names help deeply root and interpret our identity. Not all of us have spent a lot of time researching our family history – but I know we all have intergenerational family stories that name various relatives who have influenced us in various ways. We first learn about the essentials and complexities of life and about core values from the folks who share our family names. There’s a beautiful lyric affirming this family bond by my favorite folk-rock group, The Avett Brothers. The song is a conversation between the singer who is worried about dying and his loved ones. He sings that should this happen, they are to “Always remember there was nothing worth sharing like the love that lets us share our name.”[i]
Today being World Communion Sunday, I also spent some time this week faithfully reflecting on the significance of family names in other cultures. This is how I came upon the following African expression – Umuntu, nagamuntu, nagabantu. It means, “A person is a person because of other persons.” I found this in a very inspiring article written by Yale Divinity School professor, Dr. Lamin Sanneh, who was born and raised in Gambia. He shared it to emphasize the obvious fact that we are born, grow, live and die in family relationship. In the context of African community, it’s not “I Think, Therefore I Am” … it’s “I Am Related, Therefore I Am.”
As a professor of World Christianity, he then affirmed that family names significantly help spread our faith wherever we are in the world and in the Church. “As long as our names exist,” he wrote, “the Church has hope of continuing community.” As I thought about this, it became wonderfully true to me as I started prayerfully naming names that have helped and continue to help sustain and grow FPC. Can you also think of a couple of these names right now? Oh, and did you feel your ears ringing as I was deep in thought?
In this morning’s text from 2 Timothy, there is a powerful affirmation about the influence of family names upon faith community. Did you notice it?
This part of the Bible is a letter. It was written to Timothy, whom the Apostle Paul regarded and groomed as his heir in ministry. Timothy is reminded about what it means to be a true apostle in the world -- that is, to be a divinely commissioned delegate for “the sake of the promise of life that is in Jesus Christ.” He’s reminded that it requires three things in particular -- worshipping God with a clear conscience, trusting that the holy plan of salvation in Christ has existed since “before the ages began,” and that it means relying on the Holy Spirit to give the power of love and self-discipline during times of suffering. Paul supremely exemplifies apostleship.
But this letter is about more than what it’s like to pass the promise of Good News along in the powerful way of Paul. It’s about foundations. It’s about family. It’s about naming the forebears who gifted faith. It’s about Timothy’s divine commissioning being deeply rooted in his identity as a child of his faith-gifting mother Eunice and his faith-gifting grandmother Lois. Have you ever stopped to wonder whether or not we are born with faith? By faith, I mean having a clear conviction about the truth of God? Since we are created in God’s image, I say we are certainly born with the capacity for this, but otherwise I whole-heartedly agree with theologian William Willimon. Inspired by 2 Timothy 1:14, he states that “You can’t be born with faith; faith must be given. You can’t discover Christianity through long walks alone in the woods, rummaging around in your ego, or thinking deep thoughts in the library. You must receive this faith; you must be given faith in Christ by someone else. Faith is gift all the way down. Faith is a divine treasure handed down from one generation to the next.” To punctuate this, he further proclaims that “If you have faith in Christ, then it’s because somebody loved you and Christ enough to tell you the stories, live the faith before you, and show you the way.”[ii]
To state something obvious, there is enormous diversity in this world among all of the people professing faith in Jesus Christ. Faith gets handed down through generations speaking many different languages in a myriad of cultures. And across the history of Christianity, it’s a tragic fact that there has always been a great deal of sinful disagreement and division within this great diversity. It goes all the way back to the bickering of the first disciples over who among them had the greatest faith. But all the history of this does not blot out the Bible’s authoritative teaching that unity should always be our goal. The name above all names that roots us all as one family is Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 4:1-6 is a constant clarion call for unity in Christ’s name while also celebrating our divinely gifted diversity. It charges us individually and collectively to “Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
Truth is, every Sunday is a celebration of world communion in Christ’s name. Yet how good it is to have this special day (which originated within the Presbyterians in 1936) set apart as a specific reminder. It’s a day inviting all generations in all places to celebrate the Sacrament the Lord’s Supper as our central act of faith. In solidarity with our faith family members who must walk great distances in order to share in this spiritual feast, you are invited this morning to come forward before the table and the Cross to receive the elements. As you do so with humble gratitude and genuine joy for “the sake of the promise of life that is in Jesus Christ,” I especially encourage you to prayerfully recall the names of all the people who have gifted you with faith in this great hope. I encourage you to also reaffirm your commitment to keep passing on this promise, to be faith-bearers in this time and place and apostles to the world we experience every single day. And may we all be mindful of what former PC(USA) Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow has written in answer to the question of why he takes communion – “I take communion because it reminds me that the Body of Christ goes far beyond those who circle the table in our little church; rather it is extended to those whom we will most likely never meet, which in turn compels us to live in the world as if every person is a brother and sister in Christ.”[iii] Amen.
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