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THE PREAMBLE

5/29/2022

John 14:24-27 (The Message)

“A loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.

“I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned and bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.

Last week I said we would be looking at the Preamble to the Design for the Christian Church today, and we will be getting to that in a minute. This preamble is all about how we – all together as one family – are called to celebrate and serve God.

I wrote this message two days after the horrific shooting at the Uvalde school at a time when we as a nation appear so divided that the concept of “all together as one family” seems an unapproachable dream. At a time when the news keeps revealing more and more grizzly facts of unspeakable violence and our nation is grieving and horrified and enraged and yet divided by one more Slaughter of the Innocents, we are setting out today to take apart this short document in order to – hopefully – find how we can find a way to be one body bound by covenant with God and with one another – all of us “one anothers.”

The Design for the Christian Church is a lengthy document describing the set-up and the workings of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ – our organizational style from the local to the national levels. It is a business document with the addition of explaining our theological reasons for doing things in this particular way. The Preamble – which, if you recall from last week’s message -- our General Minister and President Terri Hord Owens described as reading more like a hymn than a governing document -- is its introductory statement, leading into the whys and wherefores of who we are.

Next week we’ll be hearing more on those whys and wherefores, but right now I want to get into the Preamble itself, which consists of eight short statements which we’re going to take one at a time The first reads:

As members of the Christian Church, we confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world.

This is a statement that can be read literally as the actual precise, factual truth, or metaphorically, with Jesus as God’s loving message of hope and peace found in human form. As long as we can make this statement, in any form or understanding, we are included here. This statement of faith is the bedrock upon which everything else we do is based.

One of the things that attracted me to the Disciples in the first place is that one of our major tenets states that God created us with brains and the ability to reason and that God expects us to use them – not to just go with the flow because “someone says.” As Disciples we are free to go with whatever best describes our understanding of our relationship with God, understanding that accepting Jesus as our Christ binds us to all others – ALL others -- who also do so.

The second statement continues:

In Christ's name and by his grace we accept our mission of witness and service to all people.

Here we arrive at our part of the covenant – what is asked of us? “In Christ’s name we accept our mission” – we have work to do. We are called to witness to and serve all people – but – this document doesn’t tell us how to do this. Many of these expectations are found in scripture – feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, clothe the naked, seek justice, love kindness – but the exact method for our actions can only be found in us – in our nature, our position in the world, our abilities. Our covenant tells us why, we – with the help of the Holy Spirit -- determine our individual how.

The next statement appears to drop the call to mission and returns us to our relationship with God:

We rejoice in God, maker of heaven and earth, and in God’s covenant of love which binds us to God and to one another.

The incredible beauty of this bond is so rich that we can hardly bear to even think on it too much. We are so blessed, so gifted – and when we are being honest, we know the gift is so un-earned, so un-deserved. We did not choose to bind ourselves to God, or if we did, our human bonds are so fragile and easily broken. No, God bound Godself to us in a covenant that we cannot break – God will love us no matter what. And in that bond we are bound to God and to each other. How can we help but rejoice?

The next two statements are very similar to each other and so we can discuss them together:

Through baptism into Christ we enter into newness of life and are made one with the whole people of God.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit we are joined together in discipleship and in obedience to Christ.

The covenant between God and God’s people is a God-made, God-initiated covenant, but these two statements are our freely offered “Yes.” We choose to bind ourselves into this same covenant. We choose to be made one with the whole people of God. We choose to be joined in discipleship and obedience to Christ. There is no demand, no force applied. We choose this communion for ourselves.

Statements six through eight enumerate further choices we make when we bind ourselves in love and service with each other.

At the Table of the Lord we celebrate with thanksgiving the saving acts and presence of Christ.

Whenever we Disciples gather, for whatever reason, we gather at the Table, not just with our own small communion, but with all who wish to join us here. Here we celebrate the life and death of Jesus and his continued presence among us. Here we celebrate his saving love and the gift of himself offered in the forms of bread and cup. And all are welcome at this table because, in truth it is not ours – it is Christ’s.

Our next statement is

Within the universal church we receive the gift of ministry and the light of scripture.

Ministry is a word with a world of meanings. Some of these ministries are formal and well-defined – preachers, teachers, elders, etc. Some are called to minister by opening the scriptures and helping others to find God’s word therein. In other cases to offer a cup of water to one who is thirsty is to minister to them. In Paul’s writing to the Ephesians we are told that “the work of ministry is for the building up of the body of Christ,” and there are so many ways to build.

Scripture is one way God communicates with us, not by taking it as word for word literal fact, but again by that belief that we are to use our minds to delve into the Word and find what is there that sounds to us like the voice of God (and to freely discard what does not.)

And finally,

In the bonds of Christian faith we yield ourselves to God that we may serve the One whose kingdom has no end.

In love, in gratitude, in awe that we are called into covenant by God, we grow and seek – in all we do – to serve God and each other. We yield ourselves, freely and willingly to this service in grateful thanks that we have been called.

Our Preamble gives us permission to be who God has called us to be. It is a living and fluid document, as opposed to a contract that is to be upheld. It describes our covenants – with God and with each other as acts of love, and so they are.

It is clear that our broken and violence-ridden world needs to learn to love and to experience the blessings of covenant in order to heal. It is also clear that we, unlikely as it may seem to us as individuals, are called to help the world find its healing. Next week we will continue delving into the subject of covenant and how it defines who we are, including some very interesting history.
Blessings on your week.

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A COVENANT WRITTEN IN THE SPIRIT

5/22/2022

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2 Corinthians 3:4-6 (The Message)
We couldn’t be more sure of this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn’t think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. This letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn’t written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It’s a covenant written with Spirit on spirit, Christ’s life in our lives!

The last two or three times we were together here we talked about the very earliest beginnings of this concept we call “church” – this creation which grew organically from the people who had followed Jesus and learned from him and were left now to figure out “what next?” Granted, they had the Holy Spirit to guide them, but recognizing how God mostly works – at least in my life – this leading was likely more in the line of “nudges” than flashing neon signs.

We can’t live out our role in the church today if we don’t know at least where we began, some of the places we’ve gone over the centuries, and how we got to where we are now – especially as Disciples of Christ. We’ve already looked at some of the earliest beginnings of church, so over the next few weeks we’re going to be looking into the beginnings of this particular branch of the Christian faith – the Christian Church: Disciples of Christ. Some of this may seem somewhat dry, but I believe we need at least a passing acquaintance with where we’ve come from. I’m not planning on an in-depth history but just a swift overview. And I’ll try to keep it brief. It may even seem a little boring, but it is a necessary “prequel” to where I want us to go next. As I said, I’ll try to keep it brief.

In the 1700’s there was – in Protestant Europe and in North America -- an outburst of fervent religious piety that is commonly known as the First Great Awakening. In America as the populace began to spread out westward from the eastern seaboard small churches began to appear in every new settlement, mostly from the Presbyterian and Baptist denominations, each seeing themselves as the only “true” church.

At the start of the 1800’s, there began to be a back-lash against this strict denominationalism and small splinter groups began to break off from the parent denominations. Some objected to creeds, some practiced a strictly closed communion, others banned instrumental music of every sort – they had all sorts of differences and ways to separate themselves from one another. Two of the churches in this mix were the Christians and the Disciples of Christ.

In 1832, these two churches, having gone through several revisions and splits each, felt a call to unity, not further division, and merged as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Other churches split off from them over the years but the unifying core remained.

One of the identifying features of this joint “denomination” was that it truly was not a denomination. It’s founders and members insisted on calling itself a “brotherhood” – viewing a denomination as a contractual relationship and a brotherhood as a covenantal one. The distinction between these two concepts would continue to shape this joint church through the years to come.

We’re going to spend some time on the similarities and, especially, the difference between these two words and the concepts they represent, because understanding this difference changes how we read scripture. The word covenant is scattered all throughout both the Old and New Testaments, beginning all the way back in Genesis with the Abrahamic Covenant between God and Abraham.

Covenants in the Old Testament often read like contracts but the consequences for breaking a covenant promise are not legal consequences, but spiritual – although that is not quite the right word either. Contracts are entered into because something of value is to be gained by the fulfilling of certain conditions and the only way of gaining that “something” is through this contractual obligation. A covenant is an agreement binding two parties together in a voluntary joining where both parties gain something of value to them if the terms are faithfully kept.

Sometimes the exchanged values seem woefully unbalanced to our eyes. Abraham, for instance, was promised long life and descendants in the hundreds and land and vast herds and security for generations – and all God wanted in return was Abraham’s faithfulness. Humans do not always value the same things God values...and vice versa.

In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) we have a document called The Design which lays out how we operate as a church. Not just Rules of Order and who-does-what, but the whys and wherefores of what we do and believe. It also explains that we are a covenantal church – bound by covenant, not contract.

Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, our current General Minister and President, explains it this way:

The Design of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the document that governs our common life together, begins with a Preamble that reads more like a hymn than a governing document. In it, we find an affirmation of our faith, an expression of hope, a call to service, and a reminder of “God’s covenant of love that binds us to God and to one another.”
That covenant is written into the Preamble, but it is lived out through covenantal relationships in all expressions of the church. [We’re going] to explore the notion of covenant within our faith tradition, and to deepen our commitment to living in covenant with each other.

This Preamble, though fairly brief, is what we are going to be looking into for the next few weeks because it tells us who we are called to be, why this is, who we are now, how we are called to be it, and how an understanding of it can carry us into the future.

I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead and to learning more about the Preamble and about this thing we celebrate together as church. I hope you join me.

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HOW DID WE BECOME CHURCH?

5/8/2022

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Acts 2:44-47
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

This reading gives us a description of the earliest Christian gatherings. This is Post-Easter, Post-Ascension, Post-Pentecost, when the Jesus-followers were gifted with the Spirit and then left on their own to figure out “what next” for themselves -- when the institution we know as “church” was just being established (although no one then would have understood what they were doing in that language or that context.)

They came together in their excitement at hearing the stories of Jesus. Whether they had followed Jesus for three years already or they had just heard the Good News for the first time last week, they wanted to be with other people who shared their excitement and had other stories to tell. They wanted to live together as Jesus had urged them to do. They wanted to care for each other. And they wanted to tell the world about everything.

It has been 2000 years since these first gatherings and those once impromptu meetings now cover the earth. And in those 2000 years they have undergone many, many changes. Some remain small and communal while others have become large, ritualized, and somewhat impersonal. Some focus on community, some focus on the written word, e.g. the Bible, some put their focus on a eucharistic meal.

Some are all about the music, whether classical or rock, some are about a flashy arena-style “experience” creating excitement and endorphins. We each choose the style that we are most comfortable with – one that matches our own idea of “following Jesus.” I, myself, stumbled into the Disciples of Christ because after spending most of my life to that time in a communion- centered denomination I needed communion every week to feel that I was truly experiencing church.

As long as the message is true and the caring is honest it probably doesn’t make too much difference where or how we choose to worship if it fits us and draws us into community. But – the thing I just said about the message being true and the caring being honest – that is important because if either of these is missing then that is the wrong place for us to be.

So what is it that makes a church? That may sound at first like a pretty easy question but it most definitely is not. Yes, assuming we are talking here about Christian churches then we can say that a church is a group of people who follow Jesus. That’s pretty basic but to take that question to the next level can immediately get very complicated. If it were simple there would only be one church, one denomination, but as it is there are over 45,000 Christian denominations worldwide. 45,000 ways of following Jesus. And new ones being added all the time.

Not to pile on the Methodists – they’re just the ones in the news this week so the ones that caught my attention – but starting next month there will be a whole new Methodist church split off to do its own thing – which apparently is to not have to deal with LGBTQ+ people anywhere around them. (sigh). We just keep splitting apart and making more and more divisions – each division convinced theirs is the right way.

This thing that we call church has always shown itself capable of beautiful things – love and compassion and hope and service. But it has also proved to be capable of division and gate-keeping and – unfortunately -- violence and death.

How can something begun from the love of Jesus go so far astray? Too many churches seem to be built in the image of those who build them instead of the image of Jesus. I know of many churches – our own included – that work at being the people Jesus calls us to be – who try to be true to Jesus’ call. And following that call means helping with the “things” people need in their lives – things like food and shelter. But it also means so much beyond “things“ – it means welcome and respect and caring --- both for the neighbors we can see and those far away. It means not just claiming Jesus as our own but being willing to join ourselves into the greater family of God’s children everywhere.

This word “church” means more than the building we gather in or the people who gather here with us. Church is a concrete reality and a philosophical ideal It is a dream with so many meanings and layers. Next Sunday I’ll be on vacation, but starting the following Sunday – the 22nd -- we’re going to begin to delve into the realities and the ideals of what church is – and what it can be.

And maybe find out how we arrived where we are today starting from that place where all the believers were together and told their stories of Jesus – where [according to our scripture today] they sold possessions to give to anyone who had need...where they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God.

So I’m going to ask you to do some thinking over the next two weeks about just what it is you mean when you say the word “church.” And also where you think we could do better – and how to do that – and why. We’re going to talk about it the next time we come together, so be prepared.

And those of you meeting with us from a distance and not in-person, you can send your thoughts as well. There’s ways to contact me on our web-site and our facebook page. I hope to hear from you.

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MEETING JESUS AGAIN

5/1/2022

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John 20:19-21; 21:1-8

When it was evening, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.....

Later, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing. ” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

Last week we discussed the story of the disciples seeing Jesus for the first time after his death and burial as it is told in the Book of Acts. This week, we hear much the same story – as well as a final meeting – as it appears in John’s Gospel.

In both books the disciples see the risen Jesus for the first time when he appears in the locked room where they were hiding from the authorities. But from this point the two accounts diverge, reflecting two different communities who were affected in two different ways by the resurrection and return of Jesus.

To backtrack a bit from the Acts story and place it in context we need to go to the ending of the Gospel according to Luke, since Luke is the assumed author of Acts, and Luke/Acts is considered to be one continuous story. Both books tell the same story of Jesus appearing in the locked room, but in Luke they are told to wait for Jesus to come around again when they witness his ascension into heaven. It was only after this that the disciples moved out into the world and began telling anyone who would listen the story of their resurrected Lord.

In John’s version, after appearing to the gathered disciples, Jesus appeared a second time because Thomas had been missing the first time and wished to see proof that it was indeed, Jesus.

In both books, there are very few instances of Jesus appearing to anyone after the first big appearance – except that both books have tantalizing one-liners that say basically that Jesus “appeared many times and did many wonders, but we didn’t write them down.”

And then we come to today’s story which is the resurrected Jesus’ last appearance in John’s Gospel. There is no ascension story to follow, no anything else, because John’s Gospel stops right here.

I know I’ve told you many times – and I’ll say it again – this is my favorite post-Easter story of Jesus. Many of the post-Easter stories are basically just recitations of facts. But two of them stand out, in my mind. My second favorite is Luke’s brief story of Mary Magdalene meeting her risen lord in the garden. This is much more than “and she said this, and then he did this.” This is a meeting of two people who loved each other after what should have been a forever-loss. Jesus – even in the midst of the cataclysmic thing that is happening to him – recognizes and cares about the deep grief he knows Mary is suffering. There is recognition and there is joy and there is tenderness all wrapped into this brief meeting.

In the same way, this meeting at the Sea of Tiberias in our John reading is a very personalized meeting. There are no angels to announce Jesus’ arrival – he’s just there. And he doesn’t seem to expect the disciples to drop everything and run to him. These are working men and they are hard at work. Instead, Jesus, unknown at the moment, helps them find fish, and then as they come ashore, he offers them breakfast. He meets them where they are.

I love that part of this story – that he meets them where they are. They are tired and discouraged and hungry and he is right there with them. This story always reminds me that Jesus always meets us where we are, and this is Good News in capital letters. There is no demand that we perfect ourselves before meeting Jesus. Jesus loves us even with all our warts and lumps. Jesus comes where we are.

And I love the part the follows even more when, after they had all eaten, Jesus took Peter aside, and asked him three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And then handed the future leadership responsibility of this movement into Peter’s hands. Peter – who, in his fear of being arrested like Jesus, had three times denied ever even knowing him. Peter, who must have wished he could die from his shame in the hours and days immediately after the crucifixion.

Three times, to wash out the shame of those three denials. Three times to make it clear that Peter absolutely was forgiven – and that he was trusted. That he was loved. And that he had always been loved.

The beauty of this short pericope is that there was never any need for forgiveness – because there had never been any blame, only deep understanding.

Some of the most important teachings about Jesus and us come in these post-resurrection stories. There is so much going on in a short time period that we can miss hearing just what these stories tell us. Let’s review a few events:

In the Emmaus Road story two anonymous disciples who only appear for this brief little story are witness to Jesus still with us. He isn’t lost, he isn’t gone, he’s not dead and buried, he’s right here.
Mary Magdalene’s pure grief is recognized and comforted as Jesus’ first act when risen from the tomb. Our grief matters – even when there is a whole world to save.
When Jesus appears to the disciples in their locked room, his first word are “Peace.” And then again, “Peace I leave with you.” Be at peace. Stop letting your fear run your life.
Jesus didn’t sit in church or temple waiting for us to come to him. He will always come where we are.
And finally – although I’m certain not completely – We are not judged for being human and occasionally weak. Human is what we are – not gods or super-heroes. We are just humans, beloved by God.

That’s a lot of Good News. A lot of hope and caring. And it’s all for us. Don’t get so caught up in the whole exciting story that we miss hearing that all of this was done for us. That we are loved – always and forever.

Christ is risen. Thanks be to God.

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THE PREAMBLE

A COVENANT WRITTEN IN THE SPIRIT

HOW DID WE BECOME CHURCH?

MEETING JESUS AGAIN

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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