Communion with the World
October 4, 2009

 

A sermon by

The Rev. Dr. Alan Kelchner

 

 

            Well, it’s too late to turn back now!  Suddenly, the Founders Building is but a memory, an empty lot, where a beautiful new building will soon rise.  A large building takes a year to build, and a day to demolish.   It had to go; but it’s disorienting to not see it there.

            You may also be a bit disoriented with the pulpit and communion table today.  In order to highlight World Communion Sunday, we decided to have the table in the midst of us.  And the pulpit is in the center because there is a light out, casting a shadow right there.  It’s one of those light bulbs that will cost us $400 to replace, because we have to rent a lift.  So, given the current state of our church finances, we’re decided it would be prudent to put it off for awhile. 

            World Communion Sunday, as we noted in the Gathering Prayer, is a day set aside each year to remind us that Christ intended that all his followers might “be one”: one in spirit, and united in mutual support and encouragement.  We are a long way from that goal, I’m afraid, with so many divisions and factions within Christianity.  Our Second Hour panel today on Fundamentalism reminds us that great differences exist among Christians. 

            Still, we do sometimes experience true Christian Unity, and when we do, it’s a wonderful thing.   Like the day after 9/11, when all the churches in the area were invited into this sanctuary, along with our Jewish and Muslim friends and neighbors. 

            Together, we cried, and prayed; and we resolved not to react with hatred or violence; but to move forward with hope, and trust in God.          

            And perhaps you have had other moving experiences of Christian Unity: when you have worshiped in some unfamiliar setting, with people of a different culture, or a very different style of worship; and yet somehow the Spirit broke through, and you were moved, or you were inspired.  And you knew yourself to be in the presence of God. 

            The many kinds of bread, chalices, and candles on our beautiful communion table this morning are a reminder of those boundary-breaking worship experiences, in many different settings and different occasions. 

            Over the past several years, more than 70 people from DCC - both youth and adults - have gone on mission trips.  And we have had some incredible worship experiences, which have crossed a multitude of cultural boundaries.  Our very first mission trip, to El Salvador, began with a marvelous three-hour worship service, all in Spanish - but it didn’t seem that long:  such loving and gracious people. 

            It was led by Lutheran Bishop Mercardo Gomez - a true hero - who narrowly escaped the Death Squads 20 years ago.  And then, at the end of the week, after we had completed the two-room, cement-block house we came to build, the whole community turned out to bless the house.  A local pastor led us in a very emotional service.  They sang to us in Spanish, and we sang back to them in English.   We held hands, and prayed, and laughed, and rejoiced together.

            And then there was that remote little village in Honduras, where we went to dig trenches, to bring running water to the village.  One evening, the whole town turned out for a special worship service. The church was packed, with people gathered outside at the open windows and at the back door.  I preached, with the aid of a translator; but the real heart of the service was three old men who played their ancient guitars and led us in robust and joyous singing, and praising God - with smiles that crossed all barriers of language and theology.  

            The blue chalice on the table this morning is the one that the Katrina Mission Team used for our closing communion service, after we had spent a grueling week together, working in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans.

            Some of us also worshiped that week at Beecher Memorial United Church of Christ, an historic African-American church in the Ninth Ward, which had six feet of standing water in it, after the levees broke.  The building had been stripped down to the studs, with nothing left but the stained glass windows to remind you that it was a church.  We sat on folding chairs on a bare cement floor.  We sang, and prayed, and cried together, and gave thanks for the all-embracing love of God.      

And in January of this year, in Belize, our Mission Team was asked to lead the Sunday service at Holy Cross Anglican School for 300 children, and their families, and the school staff.   We gathered in an open air pavilion just steps from the ocean, and we put on a skit of Samuel and Eli - which the kids loved.  I led us in the Eucharist, the sacrament.  Most of the children couldn’t take communion; but they came forward anyway, so that we could to lay hands on them and bless them, which Don Lenhardt, Wayne Snyder, and I did, with tears in our eyes.  (Precious children.)  

            Our own young people have likewise had fantastic and memorable experiences, worshiping with other Christians in Costa Rica, in Appalachia, Denver, Hartford, Grand Rapids, New York City.

And I hope that you, too, have had some fantastic and memorable  worship experiences, in unfamiliar settings, with other Christians.  For  occasions such as these provide us with a glimpse of Christ’s vision of that day when “They shall all be one” - when all boundaries are stripped away, and we are in “communion with the world.”  Then we will not be rich or poor, African or European heritage, Asian or Hispanic, Catholic or Protestant, liberal or evangelical; we will just the children of God together. 

            It’s a beautiful vision. 

            However, when we encounter Psalm 8, which Bob read for us earlier, we realize that we are challenged to something even greater than this.  Psalm 8 calls us to think about World Communion in a much broader sense - as communion with the world, the earth.  We are called to be in communion, not only our fellow Christians, but with all of creation.   

 

Listen again to the Psalm:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, O God,

            The moon and the stars that you have established;

What are human beings that you are mindful of us,

        Mere mortals that you care for us?

And yet, you have made us little less than gods,

            you have crowned us with glory and honor.

You have given us dominion over the works of your hands;

          You have put all things under our feet,

All sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

            the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

                  whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

And then, the psalm ends with these words:

                O Lord, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

 

            In verse 5, by the way, the Hebrew text says “Elohim” which means, not “God,” but “gods”:  plural.  “You have made us almost like gods.”

            I love this psalm.  For it states clearly that it is God who is majestic, not us.  God is the creator, not us.   We are mere mortals, and all creation is a gift to us from God. 

            But, at the same time, the psalm also acknowledges our special role as human beings.  For God has given us dominion; God has given us incredible power.  We human beings stride across the earth like gods.

            There are more than a million different species of living things in this world, but we humans have no rivals.  There are no other creatures like us. We alone have the capacity of written language, of self-reflection, and the ability to make complex tools and machines. 

            And, in the last few generations, we have developed amazing power to shape and re-shape the earth itself: the power to build up, as well as fearsome power to destroy. 

            You and I routinely ride in machines that carry us along ten times faster than we can run, while other machines fly us through the air 100 times faster.   We carry around devices that make it possible to speak to people who are not anywhere within the sound of our voice.  In fact, they may be a thousand, or 10,000, miles away.   We can also send pictures, video, and information instantly, all over the world.     

            I was intensely aware of the awesome power of human machinery, as I watched the back building being demolished this past Thursday.   It was amazing to watch this incredible machine - which is called an Excavator, but it looks like some Great Beast with giant jaws.  It tore that building to shreds in a matter of a hours. 

            The Excavator has the power of 100 men, which we saw demonstrated as it picked up huge steel girders as if they were toothpicks, bending and crushing the metal.  The operator of the machine deftly manipulated the jaws of this Great Beast, to separate metal from wood, to pull out long strands of electrical conduit and copper pipe, to separate out the skylights and the plumbing fixtures.  Everything went into a separate pile for recycling.  It was a great show:  sad in a way, but also fascinating. 

Yes, we human beings have great power to invent and use, to create and to destroy.  God has given us dominion over the earth.  We are like gods - but only because our creator God has made us so.  And in giving us dominion, God has also given us the awesome responsibility of caring for the earth and caring for each other. 

            In some cases, we humans have been good stewards; building a humane social order, and respecting and maintaining the fragile balance between humanity and the natural world. 

            However, in other ways, we humans have been evil gods; we have acted like tyrants and land barons, exploiting other people, and exploiting the earth - depleting its resources for personal gain - with no thought to future generations.  

            But we are not meant to be users, takers, and exploiters.  Instead, what makes us human is that we are carers and repairers.  We are lovers.

            I think this is what anthropologist Ashley Montagu is pointing to when he speaks of the “evolutionary imperative.”  Montagu writes, not a theologian, but as a scientist.  He says that, the evolutionary imperative is not survival of our species, but love.  Love is what drives human history.  

            What Montagu has in mind is not romantic love, and not spiritual love, but something else.  It’s more like an investment of ourselves in something other, something that is outside of ourselves. 

            It seems that we cannot be fully human unless we use our time and energy on behalf of someone, or something, else.   As St. Francis of Assisi put it, “It is in giving that we receive.”

            To be sure, we have an instinct for self-preservation - we tend to take care of ourselves first of all!  But Montagu argues that this is always held in tension with an equally instinctive, powerful, and deep-seated drive to give ourselves away, to lose ourselves on behalf of someone or something else.

            This is how a mother cares for her child, or a teacher cares for his student.  It’s the way an artist cares for her painting, or a quilter for her quilt, or a craftsman for his craft.  It’s the way an entrepreneur cares for his business.  It’s the way that people who are truly in love care for each other.  To care for someone else is to invest yourself in helping the other to reach its full potential.

            Suppose a person has a great idea - she may even call it her “brain-child.”  And so devotes herself to that idea, she nurtures it and cares for it, and wants it to be fulfilled and to become a reality, for its own sake.             

            So, I want to suggest to you this morning, dear friends, my fellow gods on earth, that we have been made, not for self-preservation, or self-care, or personal fulfillment; instead, we have been made to give ourselves away.  This is what makes us human. 

            And this is the pathway to “communion with the world.”  As we invest ourselves for the good of others, and for the good of the earth, we are exercising dominion the way God intended.  Listen again to the Psalm:   

 

O Lord, You have made us little less than gods...

You have given us dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under our feet.

 

            Dear friends, God has entrusted you and me with dominion over  all of creation.  We have the power to build up or to tear down, to solve problems or to ignore them, to love or to hate, to build bridges or to build walls.  May we humans use such power wisely. 

            And by the grace of God, may you and I answer the call to do our part, by investing ourselves in someone, or something, or some cause.  Thus, may we be in true communion with the world. 

            For Jesus sake.  Amen.