Does Christian Unity Still Matter? A Sermon on Ephesians 4: 1-6 Delivered by Rich Holmes on September 16, 2018 The title of my sermon today is Does Christian Unity Still Matter? Maybe that title is a little misleading. Of course it still matters. When I was ordained as a minister eighteen years ago, I made a vow to pray for the peace, unity and purity of the church. I prayed that back then and I pray it now. And today, we have read a passage from Ephesians that is obviously about Christian unity. And, I wouldn t have chosen to read this passage if I didn t think what it has to say is important. It says we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism. This passage reminds us that in the church we don t all worship different Gods or have different baptisms. Our Catholic brothers and sisters down the street at St. Paul s, the Lutherans down on Lindy Lane, the Baptists down on East Maple, they don t worship a different God or have a different baptism or a different Christ. We are all Christians and what we have in common matters more than our differences. In choosing this title Does Christian Unity Still Matter? I don t mean to say the unity we share as Christians isn t important, but these days it seems to be something we simply take for granted. Now, I know that wasn t always the case. When John F. Kennedy was running for President nearly sixty years ago, he almost lost the election because he was Catholic. There was a lot of prejudice in this country among Protestants against Catholics at that time. During the election that year, Martin Luther King, Sr. the father of the more famous Martin Luther King even said that he wouldn t vote for Kennedy because could never vote for a Catholic. He later changed his mind. But those kinds of attitudes seem quaint today. They seem like museum relics from a by-gone era. 1
But is that what we really mean when we talk about the unity of the church? Do we really just mean that we can get together with the Catholics and the Methodists and the Baptists down the street for joint worship services a couple of times a year? Do we just mean that we no longer give a thought to whether a Presbyterian votes for a Catholic or a Catholic marries a Presbyterian? Do we just mean that or could we mean something more? When I was a pastor in North Carolina, our Presbytery had a partnership with a Presbytery in Guatemala, and the way that partnership worked was that each church in the North Carolina Presbytery also had a partnership with another church in the Guatemalan Presbytery, and the church that we had a partnership was called Iglesia Presbiteriana de Jesus El Buen Pastor, or The Presbyterian Church of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. And I remember that some people from Jesus El Buen Pastor would come and visit us about once every two years and we would go down on occasion and visit them, and I remember too that whenever a group of them would fly up, we would spend weeks getting ready and I would prepare our congregation by teaching them little Spanish words and phrases. Now, the church where I was the pastor was in Bessemer City, North Carolina, and if you want to hear something hilarious you should listen to a group of people with Bessemer City, North Carolina accents trying to say Spanish words for the first time in their lives. And one of the words I taught them or should I say I tried to teach them was the word hermano or hermana, brother or sister. And I told them as was their custom at Jesus El Buen Pastor, that when you addressed them, you did not address them as amigo or friend, but as hermano, brother, or hermana, sister. Now when you call someone a brother or sister in Christ, that sounds like a lot of churchy talk. It s just church language. But is it just church language, or does it mean something else? Does it also mean that we really are brothers 2
and sisters with these people down in Guatemala who live in houses with thatched roofs and dirt floors. These people who don t speak a word of English and who ride around town in thirty year old pick-up trucks with the entire family in the back. Does it also mean that these people are my brothers and my sisters no less than King is my brother who lives in South Carolina, no less than Rob and Jeff are my wife s brothers. Now you may say to me These aren t real brothers and sisters, I don t share the same blood with them. My family, my biological family on this earth, we have the same blood. But you do have the same blood. We share in the blood of Christ, and that blood is every bit as real as any blood you have between members of your biological family. If someone says to me I don t know what this business about the blood of Christ means I m going to tell them that I don t know what this business about family blood is either. If one is real, then so is the other, and if the one is just a playful way of talking, so is the other. If you ve never read an entire book of the bible, the best place to begin, I think, is with the book of Philemon. Philemon is the shortest book in the bible, and it takes the form of a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to Philemon the slave master. I don t know how many slaves Philemon had, but at least one of those slaves was named Onesimus. And one day, Onesimus decided to run away from his master Philemon. I know it would be a shock to everyone here to know that slaves generally do not like being slaves, but they don t and that is why Onesimus decided to run away. And as he ran away, Onesimus decided to take shelter with Paul and Paul harbored this slave for a time. But finally, Paul wrote a letter to Philemon, informing him that he was harboring Onesimus, and one of the black marks on the Christian faith is that instead of commanding Philemon to free Onesimus, instead of telling him that slavery is wrong, Paul told 3
him that he was sending Onesimus back to his master. And it is a great shame that Paul did that. But while Onesimus was in Paul s custody, Paul told him all about Jesus and Onesimus accepted Christ and presumably he was also baptized and became full member of the body of Christ. Now In spite of being a slave owner, Philemon, you see, was also a Christian, and so while Paul didn t tell Philemon to free Onesimus, he did say to have him back as a brother. And if you look at the text of the letter, Paul doesn t say Have him back as a brother, but what I really mean is just a spiritual brother. He doesn t say Have him back as a brother but I don t mean a real brother. He doesn t say Have him back as a brother but I don t mean a brother in the same sense as a brother who shares the same mom and dad. He says Have him back as a brother, period. And if you can think of a slave as a brother, if you can think of someone you owned who is your own property as a brother, then who in this world can you not think of as a brother. And if the truth be told, even though we can blame Paul for not telling Philemon to free his slave, I think in a way, he did. Because you cannot possibly sleep well at night if you own someone whom you think of as a real brother. I couldn t own my brother as a slave, nor could any of you own your brother or sister as a slave. This is what our unity in Christ is really all about. It is not just about Catholics and Methodists and Presbyterians coming together a couple times a year to worship. It isn t just about voting for Catholics or having intermarriage between denominations and all those things which frankly aren t all that controversial anymore. It is about believing that all of us, all who are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are brothers and sisters in Christ, which is just another way of saying that we are real brothers and sisters. 4
Today, young Jackson Jeffrey Webber has become the latest person to receive this one baptism that the author of Ephesians talks about. And like every baptism that I have ever seen, his family is here to see him get baptized. But we are all his family now, by virtue of his baptism and our own baptisms. Now, I don t know that that means that we are all welcome to move in with the Webbers now, but we are a part of his family, because we are all his brothers and sisters in Christ. Now Jackson isn t aware of that yet, but his parents and sponsors have promised God that they will make him aware of this one day. And we have promised to surround young Jackson with the same love that God has for him in sending Christ to die for him as we support his mom and dad and all his sponsors in keeping this promise. Now, I am sure that none of you had any trouble making that promise because it is easy to love a baby. Babies are cute and cuddly, and it s easy to make them laugh and giggle. But young Jackson will not always be a baby. He will get older, he will become an adolescent and a young adult, and in those times he will develop a mind of his own and a will of his own. He could wear saggy pants and listen to hip-hop. He could have arms full of tattoos and gauges in his ears. Now some of you older people might be saying, Pastor Rich, I don t know what these gauges are that you re talking about. Yeah, you do. I promise you ve seen them. But we have pledged to love him even then. We have pledged that he is our brother even then. Just as we called the people from Guatemala hermano and hermana. Just as we pledge to love everyone as a brother or sister who receives this same one baptism. What if we didn t do that? What if we weren t really called to think of each other as brothers and sisters in Christ? Well, we could imagine that, I suppose. If we didn t really think about each other as brothers and sisters in Christ then some people might say we d be a lot 5
better off. When I was a kid I remember my parents taught King and me that because we were brothers we had to watch out for each other we had to take care of each other, and sometimes that was a burden. And I am guessing that we would feel a lot less burdened if we imagined that we had fewer brothers and sisters to take care of and watch out for in this world. Having a sibling is a big job, the more you have the bigger the job. But if we didn t think of each other that way, then we really wouldn t have any business baptizing anyone anymore, or talking about being one in Christ anymore, because we can t have these things unless we are all true brothers and sisters. 6