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Sunday September 21, 2008 "Our Polar Star" Ephesians 4:1-6 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 9/22/2008 1:45 PM | For the past several weeks, we have been concentrating on an exploration of our faith heritage and traditions in this sermon series called “We Call Ourselves Disciples” and today we finish with this sermon called “Our Polar Star.”
In the previous 5 sermons, I have concentrated on different aspects of who we are and how we became, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Why is baptism by immersion celebrated? Why is the communion table open to all who come? What does it mean to our life together that we live in covenant with God and each other? Does that fact that we are a non-creedal church impact how we live our lives together? What role does the Bible play in our understanding of God’s revelation in the world?
Now, you may have noticed a thread running through all these topics, at least in some small way. When the founders of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have come to a place where a stand needed to taken, where decisions needed to be made, they virtually always came down on the side of openness and freedom. The founders, and those who have helped guide the movement in succeeding years consistently supported decisions that would open up the community of faith to more people, that would allow more and more seekers to find their way to God’s presence within a group of Christians. Over and over again, when questions arose concerning a powerful church structure versus individual and congregational freedom to discern God’s will in their lives, the founders consistently came down on the side of freedom.
This does not make for a neat little package that can be presented to those who are interested in what goes on inside the walls of a Disciples church. It is not an efficient system for making decisions. It means that sometimes members of the same group will have differing beliefs about topics. It means, however, that inside the church, a premium is placed on faithful study and prayer and discussion. It means that members of this movement have been asked to really think about their beliefs and learn how to articulate them.
But why? Certainly Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone thought they had the “right” answer to lots of questions, yet they still persisted in setting up a church that allowed, no, demanded, that we listen to everybody’s views and do our best to learn from each other. Take it from me, nothing will get a member of a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregation off the bench and into the game faster than a sentence that begins, “This is what we must believe…”
Again, I ask, “Why?” Why the openness? Why the emphasis on freedom? Certainly we could build a nice church on a relatively narrow doctrine, or on any standard creed.
The answer lies in the fact that none of these things we have talked about represent the ultimate goal of the church. All of them are factors in how we organize and identify ourselves for our larger purpose, but they are not the purpose themselves.
Today’s topic is one more of those factors that helps lead us to our ultimate goal. It is the idea of Christian Unity and it’s importance to this movement that so many of us love so well.
Today’s scripture is one of the best statements of the description of Christian unity available to us.
This letter to the church at Ephesus is commonly attributed to the Apostle Paul, but recent scholarship has question that assertion. The form of the letter is much different than other letter’s of Paul. Stylistic differences of greeting and benediction lead some to believe that it was written by someone other than Paul. The fact that the letter doesn’t address a specific issue like so many other letters also is a clue. And finally, many scholars have come to believe that it was written after Paul’s death, which would have made it difficult, at best, for Paul to have written it. So, most likely, it was written by a student or disciple of Paul seeking to carry on the Pauline tradition of encouragement and mission.
One of the reasons some believe this is a pseudonymous letter is that it doesn’t seem to be aimed only at the church in Ephesus, but to all who follow Christ. It is a general letter to all Christians, and it’s topic is something of great importance to the early growth and movement of the church: unity in Christ.
The writer asserts that all have been called to act in humility, with gentleness, bearing with each other (even in disagreements) in love, all aimed at maintaining unity among all those who would name Jesus as Lord.
The writer goes on to make the case for why this is: no matter how fractionalized we might become over differing beliefs in doctrine and what might be called the non-essential parts of our faith, we are still all one, because there is only one body of Christ and one Holy Spirit – of which we are all part. There is only one purpose, one messiah, one faith, one baptism, one God. Even if we wanted to be separate, that is an impossibility. In Christ Jesus, under God’s gracious care, led by God’s Holy Spirit, we are all one.
This is why folks like Campbell and Stone eschewed creeds and embraced freedom and declared that the only test of faith is the simple question, “Do you believe that Jesus is the messiah, son of the living God, Lord and savior?” Because to declare any more than that is to deny the essential truth that no matter our differences, we are at the core, all one.
This does not mean that Campbell and Stone naively thought that they could do away with all denominationalism or that everyone would suddenly drop their creeds and join up. What it does mean is that they knew that they did not want to put up barriers and divisions to the reality of Christian unity.
They did not like the divisions that kept Christians of different denominations at arms length. Campbell was famous for saying, “In essentials of the faith, we seek unity. In non-essentials of the faith, we seek freedom. In all things, let us act in love.” Stone’s most famous writing, “The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery,” contained the idea that when that religious association known as the Springfield Presbytery ended it’s operations, it appropriately took it’s place among the great mass of Christians known as the body of Christ, to serve God’s purposes, not the human purpose of truth through separation.
Yet, they understood that theirs was a difficult task, but a worthy one. Because without Christian unity, their purpose, their ultimate goal, would be very, very difficult to achieve.
We haven’t talked about that yet, have we? Why all the freedom? Why the emphasis on Christian unity? Because unity and freedom were the keys to what the church was instructed to be about, what the church was commissioned to do by Jesus himself: “Go and make disciples of the world.”
There it is: this is why the church exists. In order to bring God’s word as revealed through Jesus Christ to all who have ears and would hear the good news; to bring everyone into communion and into relationship with God, giver of grace and life.
There is no doubt that along the way, the church serves a purpose for it’s members. The community of faith exists as no other to comfort, to challenge, to pray for and to pray with each other. We are strengthened as individuals when we find our safe harbor among the fellowship of believers that is the church. But just as importantly, is the purpose that the church serves in strengthening the body of Christ, in being able to move into the world, and make disciples of the all the world. It is two sides of the same coin: the church grows and thus offers comfort and strength to more and more individual members; the church grows and thus is better able to serve God’s purposes as revealed through Jesus Christ. No matter which of those two scenarios we dwell on, making disciples of all who need God’s good news is made that much easier when we can present ourselves in Christian Unity.
Have you ever known someone who has declared that they will not be part of the church because of the division, disagreements and downright hostility that exists WITHIN the Christian community? I’m not even talking about Christians who might lash out at non-Christians. I’m talking about Christians taking out after other Christians? Those who declare “We are right. We have the one ultimate truth, and they don’t?” I understand their reluctance to become part of that community.
Because the arguments are loud and long and quite honestly, off putting to many people. The arguments can be over how we are organized, who is allowed to be members, who is allowed to serve, how often communion should be celebrated, what baptism means and how it should be done, how the is Bible to be interpreted and who has the right to carry out the interpretation. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone set the tone for Christian unity being of vital importance to their movement because they firmly believed that Christian unity is a wonderful guide, a wonderful navigational tool in reaching the goal of making disciples of all the world.
One of Barton Stone’s most important and oft repeated quotes is “Christian unity is our polar star.” On occasion I have had disagreements with folks about what means. One friend says that Stone is willing to give up anything for the goal of Christian unity. Stone clearly sees this preeminent goal of unity as more important than just what Jesus taught, my friend declared to me.
I had to think about that for a minute. It is a catchy phrase, this notion of a “polar star”, but does it really mean that unity is the most important thing we must focus on? I don’t think so.
In Stone’s day, navigation on land or sea, but especially on the sea, was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today. They didn’t have sophisticated radar and satellite data to keep people on course toward their ultimate destination. So, what did they do to make sure that they were headed in the right direction? Any good boy scout can tell you the answer to that question: they navigated using the stars.
I remember when I learned this lesson at the Charles Howell Scout Reservation in Michigan. It was in the hills of the lower peninsula of Michigan, far removed from the ambient lights of the city of Detroit. The contrast was incredible when you drove away from the city and found yourself looking up at a seemingly endless array of bright stars.
At Charles Howell I leaned about orienting yourself using a particular star, the North Star. By knowing where that “polar star” was at all times, you could estimate if you were going in the right direction. If you wanted to go west and you knew then that the star would be to the north, it would always be on your right hand side. If you were wandering, or sailing, and you checked and the north star was to your left, then you had gotten turned around and were headed in exactly the wrong direction.
This lesson was largely lost on me back then because we weren’t ever hiking more than a few miles, so we didn’t get the full effect of how to estimate where we were by using the star. But we could still tell if we were going in the right direction. It was a tool. It was not the goal. It was our guide. It was not our destination.
So it is with Christian unity. It is a tool for the larger goal of achieving the great commission given to us by Jesus Christ. The guide of Christian unity can tell us if we are making progress, if we are heading in the right direction or if we have become turned around and need to correct our course.
It is not always easy to measure our success in achieving Christian unity. Are we 50% unified? 80% unified? 10% unified? How many more units of unity do we need until we reach our goal? Those are practically unanswerable questions, but still we continue our commitment to moving in the direction of unity to reach our final destination.
From the early 20th century on, members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have been in the forefront of the church unity movement known as ecumenism. Organizations have sprung up to help support cooperation and dialogue between and among denominations. The Council on Christian Unity has long been headed by a Disciple. We as a denomination have been strong voices in organizations such as Churches Uniting in Christ, an organization of 17 denominations seeking ways to focus on what holds us together rather than bickering over what keeps us apart. Currently we are in full communion with the United Church of Christ, which means we do a lot of our work together, especially our mission work. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has begun a conversation with the Vatican with the goal of discovering areas of mutual agreement between Disciples and Roman Catholics. None of these things will end in all of us dissolving our denominations and melding together as one church, the church of Jesus Christ. But all are aimed at working together so that the denominational differences are not barriers to people coming into relationship with God. Rather, these efforts are aimed at working together so that the denominational differences are seen as offering alternative ways of serving God’s purpose. In that way, we can assure that everyone has a place that serves them, and a place that they can serve God. In this way, even though we belong to different branches of Christ’s church, we can celebrate the fact that we are all called to one purpose, we are all followers of one messiah, believers in one faith, recipients of one baptism, loved by one God.
This past week I heard Ray Miles, our Regional Minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Georgia talk about his recent trip to China. They visited seminaries and churches and other areas of interest and he came back with some amazing facts.
First, Chinese Christianity is growing at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world. This is not the underground church of the cultural revolution, but open, celebrating, above ground churches.
Second, before the cultural revolution, Chinese Christianity was among the most fragmented in the world, with a myriad of denominations at odds with each other, largely fueled by the divisions between denominational missionaries from the west. Church growth in pre-revolutinary China was similar to that of other countries.
But something changed when the church was allowed to leave their underground existence behind. The leaders of the various denominations got together and formed the Chinese Christian Council to advocate for the cooperation of all Christians, even with denominational division. They are still separate, but a dialogue between denominations has led to an amazing vitality and spurred the growth of Christianity today. In that communist country, with a repressive and officially atheistic regime in control, the church is prospering, and within 20 years, there will be more Christians in China than anywhere else in the world.
They are navigating their way to the goal of making Disciples of all the world through the use of the polar star, the tool of Christian unity.
Our heritage is clear: Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, and scores of others sought to do God’s will. It was their belief that openness, freedom and the pursuit of Christian unity would help that will come to pass.
Their example is our reality. After all, we call ourselves disciples. It is a remarkable story, our history. The next chapter is up to us.
Let us pray: Lord, we are so thankful for the witness of those who have come before us, those who have challenged us and guided us and for your constant presence and love. May the blessing we feel be multiplied to those who come after us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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