How GOD S Story Becomes OUR Story 8. The Untold Story of the Body of Christ Romans12:9-18, 21; Acts 11:19-26 Sid Batts

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1 How GOD S Story Becomes OUR Story 8. The Untold Story of the Body of Christ Romans12:9-18, 21; Acts 11:19-26 Sid Batts First Presbyterian Church Greensboro, North Carolina October 26, 2014 Reformation Sunday Reformation Sunday barely receives a mention in many Protestant churches. The reason? Is it because it can feel divisive or that we Protestants are somehow slamming our Catholic brothers and sisters. Just for the record, I want us to remember and reaffirm that we are ecumenical to the core, that we believe that Presbyterians, Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Christians of all stripes are part of the larger universal church of Christ. We do not celebrate Reformation Sunday as a statement of contempt but as a celebration of identity. Our roots, as Presbyterians, are bound up in the Reformed ideas and actions of those who came before us. And God knows, as Protestants, Catholics and Presbyterians, we have evolved, and are continuing to evolve, into the church we believe God is calling us to be. Or as the Presbyterian mantra has long been: We are reformed, always reforming. Yet, the Reformation has a history that was violent, divisive, and often as political as it was religious. Part of church reform often depended on who controlled the throne at the time, and whose army could conquer whose. I have great admiration for the people of faith that saw the need for reform: Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others. But we hold up the tension of bloody chaos next to the teachings of Jesus: Love God, love neighbor, turn the other cheek, forgive and pray for those who persecute you, love your enemies. * * * Church history has largely been viewed through the lens of Big, sweeping institutions of church and state, politics, popes, bishops, kings, queens, armies, and conquests that surround the big sweeping changes. Major themes of church history which include creeds and dogmas coming out of powerful church councils, and the important theological thinking of figures such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and Barth. Events such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the geopolitics that changed governments and churches within countries. And, those big, sweeping geopolitical religious movements are important for understanding the church and the world.

2 2 However, it is not the story of the church. There is another story, often untold, of movements of the spiritually devoted who were simply following Jesus, seeking to embody his ways, practicing love, humility and hospitality. Diana Butler Bass, a church historian who was our Mullin Forum preacher/teacher several years ago, helps us to see part of our untold story with her book A People s History of Christianity. It is full of people and movements of Christian history that most of us have never heard of before. Today I am helped by her research. For instance, today, because of the Ebola epidemic, we have some sense of the scariness and devastation of such pandemics. In the second century, a similar epidemic called, The Plague of Galen, was brought into the Roman Empire by troops returning from campaigns in the Near East. It is suspected to have been smallpox but no one knows for sure. The disease claimed the life of the Roman emperor and caused up to two thousand deaths a day in Rome, and was fatal to twenty-five percent of those infected. It spread to other parts of Europe and total deaths have been estimated at five million. In the face of this scary epidemic, many fled the cities, trying to escape the disease. However, one group did not. That group was a new movement emerging from the Middle East and into the Roman Empire. The Christians. While others fled, Christians stayed behind to extend acts of mercy to the suffering regardless of class, tribe or religion. An early Christian Bishop of that day proclaimed that Christians who were well should care for the sick, relatives love their families, masters show compassion for their ailing slaves and that physicians not desert the afflicted. Sociologist Rodney Stark says this about the church of that day:... Christianity served as a revitalization movement that arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear, and brutality of life in the urban Greco-Roman world. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachment. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fire, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.... For what they brought was not simply an urban movement, but a new culture capable of making life tolerable in Greco-Roman cities. This is to say, Christians did compelling things that helped people. John Chrysostom, an early Christian preacher said: This is the rule of Christianity, its most exact definition the seeking

3 3 of the common good for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbors. The often untold story of the church, the Body of Christ, is how Christians practiced hospitality toward the sick, the poor, travelers, widows, orphans, slaves, prisoners, prostitutes, and the dying. We often associate the word hospitality more with Martha Stewart than with Jesus! However, when Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire fourth century, pastors and bishops organized hospitality as an institutional function of the church and resources of the church were used on a scale that was extraordinary. Things like an ancient food bank was created during a time of famine and Christian hospitals were established to take care of the sick. * * * Part of the early Christian movement was seen in the establishment of communal, monastic communities, where the core purpose combined spiritual devotion and hospitality. From the journal of an ancient traveler we hear his account of arriving at a monastery far out in the desert of Egypt: As we drew near that place and they realized that foreign brothers were arriving, they poured out like a swarm of bees and ran to meet us with delight.many of them carrying containers of water and bread. When they welcomed us, first of all they led us with Psalms into the church and washed our feet and one by one they dried them with the linen cloth they were wearing, as if to wash away the fatigue of the journey. What can I say that would do justice to their humanity, their courtesy and their love? Nowhere have I seen love flourish so greatly, nowhere with such quick compassion, such eager hospitality. The idea of hospitality was more than friendly reception; it was as if the Christian was receiving Christ himself. Echoing through the Christian church from its beginning, through the Middle Ages, the Reformation and beyond are the words of Paul: Outdo one another in showing honor. Contribute to the needs of the saints. Extend hospitality to strangers. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

4 4 There were many movements and people through the history of the church that were simply trying to imitate Jesus, practice radical hospitality, love God and neighbor. For instance, in the late 1100s, a movement of laywomen, called the Beguines, emerged in various parts of Europe. They lived together, practiced prayer, and vowed simplicity and service. They supported themselves in such things as weaving, sewing, nursing, and teaching. Without families to support, they were financially strong and healthy and they channeled their financial strength for works of compassion: they fed the hungry, clothed the poor, visited the sick, educated girls, established homes for widows, nursed lepers and cared for the dying. They were called by one bishop the new mothers of the church. But in a male-only church hierarchy, they were viewed with suspicion even after several centuries of imitating Christ with their focus on charity, so they were accused of hypocrisy and heresy. In an official council in the fourteenth century, they were denounced as an abominable sect forced to were disband with options given for the women to join traditional convents. Our church history is full of those who simply were seeking to imitate Christ. One of those movements in church history is close to home: the Underground Railroad. It was not a real railroad of course but an underground resistance movement seeking freedom from slavery. It was a movement of Christians who were simply trying to do what Jesus would do. In the early nineteenth century, people from a variety of churches formed a network of safe houses and churches as an escape route for Southern slaves to make their way north to freedom. One of the heroines of the movement was Harriet Tubman, born into slavery herself in Maryland. Though she escaped, her family remained slaves. Fortified by a deep mystical awareness of God s presence, she believed she should go back to help free others. With a bounty of forty thousand dollars on her head, Tubman returned to Maryland again and again, freeing more than seventy slaves. On Reformation Sunday, we celebrate our identity with an often untold story of people and movements seeking to imitate Jesus and practice hospitality. For several months, you have shared with me your stories of trust, the times when you needed God the most. In this series, I have shared with you some of those stories. And today, I share with you a story of trust and the church..

5 5 Sid, a decade ago a hurricane pretty much destroyed our church, then it was followed by three more hurricanes that pounded an already devastated community. Many people were affected; two billion dollars in damage was done. Unfortunately our minister experienced damage, went into a funk and was non- functional. Because it took so long to get insurance money and companies wanted money down before they would start the work, our church couldn t afford to get things fixed. It fell to three elders (I was one) to take over and do all the things needed to rebuild our church and to minister to those who had lost so much. I was driving to a nearby city every few weeks to visit about fifty of our members who had lived in a retirement center that was destroyed by the hurricanes. They were moved into hotels.. and needed to be cared for as they were bewildered and lost without their belongings, their meds, their cars, and more. I was really in over my head, but knew God would provide. And God did! I was chair of a committee to plan the way we would rebuild the church. But I had no idea what I was doing. With the help of others on the committee, we worked out a plan for improving the use of space using the original blueprints. The chair of the finance committee got mad and quit and we were charged with raising the two billion dollars million it would take to do the things not covered by insurance. I ended up chair of that committee. I who don't balance my checkbook! But, we hired a company, raised the money and built a beautiful new building. I could have done none of this without the help of God and the people God put in my path throughout this very trying time. I felt closer to God at that time than almost any other time I can remember because I was totally relying on God to get us through and of course God did! On this Reformation Sunday we give thanks to God for those who came before us trusting and practicing hospitality and we pray that trust and hospitality will guide our future.