THE PREAMBLE

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.
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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.