Text: Psalm 133, Ephesians 4:1-6
Our reading from Psalm 133 has this wonderful verse: “How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” The Apostle Paul continues on this theme in our New Testament lesson from Ephesians, when he writes, “make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace… for there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
Well, when Paul says “make every effort” he certainly has it right: it does take effort. Unity does not come that easily or naturally for many of us. I learned about the problem of disunity in the church at an early age. Growing up in my Southern Baptist church in Indiana, our church was kicked out of the local association for practicing Open Communion – welcoming all Christians to partake in the Lord’s Supper. The other churches didn’t want to associate with a Southern Baptist church that was willing to associate with Christians who were somewhat different from us, and I learned early on that it really does take effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, as Paul puts it.
But I want to be clear: there is no need to pick on Southern Baptists because churches of all stripes suffer from a lack of unity. When churches are in the news, it is often as not because of either scandal or fighting – if not both. Why is this? Shouldn’t we be better than this? Of course, we should, but a better question might be “How is it that more divisions don’t enter the church?” I mean, let’s face it: there is division of one sort or another everywhere we look.
Turn on the TV, read the paper, talk with folks at the coffee shop. Conflict in the church is a mirror of conflict in society. When we come together as a church, we want so much to be able to leave those divisions behind, to unite in our love for God and for each other. The church is the one place where we can truly be united under Jesus’ lordship. But for some reason, it’s not that easy.
We have so much practice, so many examples, so many role models, of division, that it is hard to not let these creep into our fellowship. It happened at the church in Corinth. In I Corinthians, Paul described a church that had split into factions based on who had baptized them or who their favorite leader was. So there was Apollos’ group, and Peter’s group, and Paul’s group. One is mentioned as Christ’s group. That doesn’t seem to fit alongside the others, but perhaps these people thought themselves as spiritually superior and “above the fray” and called themselves “Christ’s group” as a putdown to the others.
Against all of this, Paul says that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We are all a part of one family. Like it or not.
On this World Communion Sunday, Christians around the globe will share together in the Lord’s Supper. This day is a reminder and more than that, a celebration of our oneness in Christ. Despite whatever differences we have of race or nationality or politics or social standing, we are brothers and sisters.
This morning, our choir sang “Three Songs of World Praise.” This included songs from Brazil and Peru and South Africa, and Christians in those places join us at the table today. So will believers yet today in those ancient cities that Paul wrote, in Corinth, in Greece, and in Ephesus, in Turkey. Coming to the Lord’s Supper and realizing that it is not just our little church, but millions and millions of Christians all around the world sharing in this meal, gives us a different perspective. Despite all of the differences of race and language and culture and practice and understanding, we are one in Christ – as Paul says, we share one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
Our congregational singing both today and every Sunday reflect the diversity of the Christian family and the ties we share. We sang “Holy God We Praise Thy Name,” with 18th century Austrian music and words that are adapted from Te Deum, an early Christian hymn of the fourth century. We sang “Let All Things Now Living,” sung to a traditional Welsh melody. As the elements of communion are distributed this morning, we will sing a couple of simple contemporary songs written by Americans: “Let Us Be Bread” by Thomas Porter, a Catholic composer and music professor in Bismarck, North Dakota; and “Make us One Lord” by Cynthia Cymbala, director of the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir.
It is this way all the time in our worship, though we rarely stop to think abut it. Last week we sang “Holy,” a song from El Salvador. The week before that we sang “Children of the Heavenly Father,” a traditional Swedish hymn. We are indebted to Christians of all places and times.
Americans tend to be very independent folk, and when it comes to religion, Baptists are one of the more independent brands of already independent people. We can act as though we have no need or particular connection with anybody else.
Writing way back in 1936, Ralph Linton wrote about the idea of the independent American:
Our solid American citizen awakens in a bed built on a pattern which originated in the Near East… He throws back his covers made of cotton (domesticated in India)… or silk (discovered in China)… He puts on his slippers (adapted from moccasins invented by Indians in the Eastern woodlands) and goes to his bathroom, whose fixtures are a mixture of European and American inventions... He takes off his pajamas (a garment invented in India) and washes with soap (invented by the ancient Gauls).We all are connected as a human family. When we deny these connections and look upon those of other nations not as part of a wide family, but as competitors to be defeated or worse yet, as enemies to be destroyed, we all suffer for it.
He puts on garments whose form was derived originally from the skin clothing of the nomads of the Asiatic steppes. His shoes are made from skins tanned by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut into a pattern derived from classical civilizations of the Mediterranean. He ties a strip of brightly colored cloth around his neck, which is a survival from the shoulder shawls worn by 17th-century Croatians…
On his way to breakfast, he stops to buy a paper, paying for it with coins (an ancient Lydian invention). At the restaurant, a whole new series of borrowed elements confronts him. His plate is made from a type of pottery invented in China. His knife is of steel (an alloy first made in southern India). His fork is a medieval Italian invention, and his spoon is a derivative of a Roman original. He begins his breakfast with an orange (originally from the eastern Mediterranean), a cantaloupe (from Persia), or perhaps a piece of African watermelon. With this, he has coffee (from an Abyssinian plant) with cream and sugar. After his fruit and first coffee, he goes on to waffles (cakes made by a Scandinavian technique from wheat domesticated first in Asia Minor). As a side dish, he may have an egg (from a species of bird first domesticated in Indo-China) or thin strips of bacon (flesh of an animal domesticated in Eastern Asia which has been salted and smoked by a process developed in Northern Europe).
When our friend has finished eating, he settles back to… reads the news of the day (printed in characters invented by ancient Semites on material invented in China by a process invented in Germany). As he absorbs the accounts of foreign troubles, he will thank a Hebrew deity in an Indo-European language that he is “100% American.” (adapted from Ralph Linton's The Study of Man, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1936)
World Communion Sunday took hold in the aftermath of the Second World War. Europe and Japan were in ruins and the human race was stunned by its capacity for violence and destruction—London, Dresden, Coventry, Berlin, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Auschwitz, Buchenwald. The Protestant churches had a strong presence in all those cities and nations that had suffered so much - the largest concentration of Japanese Christians, for example, lived in Nagasaki and perished on August 9, 1945. Christians from around the world tried to find a way to speak a prophetic and healing word that would affirm the oneness of the human race, the precious gift of every human life, and also a word that might translate religious beliefs into work for peace. And the idea they came up with was not a political action movement but a day on which the world’s Christians would acknowledge and celebrate their oneness at the Lord’s Table. And so on the first Sunday of October, Christians all around the world join hands across barriers of race and nationality.
Despite all of the differences of race and language and culture and practice and understanding, we are one in Christ with believers all over the world. We share one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Unity does not mean uniformity – it clearly does not mean we are all the same, because we are not. Even within this room, we could find plenty of differences and disagreements. But our unity comes because what we share in Christ is greater than our differences.
This month we will be receiving the World Mission Offering, which supports American Baptist mission and ministry around the world. Our gifts both support missionaries who serve in faraway places as well as ministry efforts of partner conventions of churches. The offering is vital to our international mission work, and I encourage you to give generously.
But you know, while we go to carry on significant ministry in other parts of the world, at the same time the world is coming here. We are blessed to live in Ames where students and their families come from all over the world and we have the opportunity to build friendships and learn from people from around our planet.
And it’s not just university communities. This weekend we had our regional convention in Des Moines. There are around 150 American Baptist churches in Iowa and Minnesota, and we welcomed a new church this weekend: the Chin Baptist Church of Des Moines.
The Chin are an ethnic group who are one of the hill tribes of Burma, now known as Myanmar. For years they have suffered from persecution by the military regime and many have fled to refugee camps in Thailand. A number of Chin have emigrated to the US, with a number of families in Des Moines. Many are Baptists, stemming from the mission work of our first Baptist missionaries, Ann and Adoniram Judson, nearly 200 years ago. The Chin community of Des Moines was worshipping in a home – about 60 worshippers would jam into a small apartment. They are now worshipping in the Westover Baptist Church and have joined our region. This is a congregation of people who have lived very hard lives – they know what suffering is. These are folks who struggle financially, who have many adjustments to make in living in a new and very different place. But they also bring joy and enthusiasm and can teach us something about cherishing the freedom we have to worship and being thankful for the bounty that we enjoy. Different as we are, we truly need one other.
At a county fair, spectators gathered for the old-fashioned horse pull. Increasing amounts of weight were put on a sled and horse would try to pull the weight. The grand champion pulled 4500 pounds. The runner-up was close, pulling 4400 pounds. Some people wondered what they could pull if they were hitched together. Separately, they had pulled about 9000 pounds, but when pulling together as a team, they were able to pull more than 12,000 pounds.
That is why we need to pull together. That is why God has given us each other--so we can do together what we cannot do alone. We are part of a great family of faith that extends far beyond our own denominational tradition and our own country. With believers around the world, we are one in Christ.
“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.”
“How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” How good it is. Amen.
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