Sunday, January 16, 2011

Text of Sunday Sermon - Remembering Who We Are

1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Remembering Who We Are
James Sledge                                        January 16, 2011

Many of you are probably familiar with the movie, We Are Marshall, and even if you’re not, you may know some of the story behind it.  It begins when a flight carrying to football team home from a game crashes, killing players and coaches and university officials.  It is an incredibly devastating event for the campus and the surrounding community.
But the tragedy of the crash is only the backdrop for the movie.  Its story is about trying to resurrect the football program from the ashes.  It is no easy task.  There are many at the university and in the community of Huntington, WV, including the school president, who don’t think the time is right, for whom the pain is too fresh and raw to even think about going to a football game again.
And of course there is the problem of starting from scratch.  The entire program is gone, save one assistant coach and a few players who had not made the ill-fated flight to that game.  But in the face of all these obstacles, with the urging of the students and others in the community, a coach was hired, and the slow process of starting over again began. 
It would be years before the football program returned to true respectability, but those who were there at the start turned in a remarkable performance.  With those few remaining players, walk-ons from other sports, and incoming freshmen, they fielded a team and even won their opening home game.
For the players and students at Marshall in 1971 when they won that first game, the cheer “We are Marshall” spoke of an identity forged from the horrible tragedy and the remarkable triumphs they had experienced together.  “We are Marshall” did not mean quite the same thing as when some other school shouted a similar cheer.  Other students might be proud of their school and thrilled with their team’s successes, but not many people can fully know what it meant for those students to say, “We are Marshall!”
To some degree, that’s probably the case even for current day Marshall students.  1971 was a long time ago.  There are memorials and other reminders.  The movie likely revived those memories, but it is not difficult to imagine a time when shouting, “We are Marshall” would not be much different from shouting, “We are Dayton.”   It would still mean that they are students at Marshall, but not much more.
It is perilously easy to lose an identity gained at great cost.  Our daughter, Kendrick, who works with Teach for America in New Mexico, told me an experience she has had of this.  While home for Christmas, she talked about her elementary students, all of them Navajo and many residents on the reservation adjacent to the small town where she teaches.  She said that these children are fiercely proud of their heritage, of being Native Americans and Navajos.  And yet, they seem to have little sense of what that heritage means or entails. 
Kendrick said she was surprised that she knows a lot more about Native American history than her students do.  Despite their deserved pride in their heritage, their “We are Navajo” cheer speaks of little more than an accident of birth.
It is perilously easy to lose an identity, and something similar to the experience of those Navajo children sometimes goes on in the church.  We have our own identity, our own cheer, “We are Christians.”  It is a claim to be a particular people shaped by a particular life lived “in Christ,” a life lived out in a particular community, the Church.  It is an identity that was forged by faithful disciples who walked in the footsteps of Jesus, who were willing to take up the cross, were willing to die to spread the good news of God’s coming rule.  But over time, the cheer “We are Christian” can come to mean less and less.  It can speak of little more than an accident of birth, little more than being raised in a society that, until a few generations ago, expected people to belong to a church.
When I first came to Boulevard some 10 years ago, we did some work in both the Session and Deacons to name who we were, to claim our particular identity as Presbyterians here on this corner of Grandview Heights.  One of the exercises involved trying to describe our core values.  In other words, what is genuinely expected of a member?  Not what would we like members to do, but what things are so integral to being a member here that not doing them would cause people to feel they had violated some key standard or norm.  After much discussion and debate, we were able to agree that the only things we truly expected members to do were attend occasionally, and be nice.
Imagine for a moment that you had decided to start a non-profit organization so you could change the world.  You want to invite people to join this group, and when you do they quite naturally ask what your group does.  If you answered, “Oh, we meet, and we try to be nice,” how many people do you think would be dying to become part of your organization?
We live in a time when a lot of people are hungry for meaning and purpose in their lives.  They would love to discover some sort of spirituality that made a difference in their lives, that helped them become something more than they are right now.  And for such people, I’m pretty sure that “We meet, and we try to be nice,” simply doesn’t cut it.
Of course, that is not who we are called to be as the Church, and Paul speaks directly to that in his letter to the Christians in Corinth.  The situation in Corinth is quite different from our situation, but before Paul gets to any particular problems, he introduces his letter with a general description of what it means to say, “We are Christians.”
It is a common calling.  Paul does not speak to the pastor or staff or leaders of the congregation.  He writes to the church of God that is in Corinth.  The church is a group effort, a fellowship together in Christ where all the necessary spiritual gifts are given to the community so that it can be Christ to the world until God’s rule arrives.
Paul says nothing about individual salvation.  Rather he speaks of a covenant people, sanctified, set apart and called to be saints.  The word saint means holy, and it is not a designation for certain, special Christians, rather it is at the very heart of what it means to say, “We are Christians.”  It says we are called to be a holy people, that is, a people consecrated to God, a people who by our lives show Christ to the world.
This call is common to all who are baptized.  At the font, whether as infants or adults, we are joined to Christ.  The old self is crucified with him and a new self is born.  In baptism we are joined to each other, becoming one.  In baptism the Holy Spirit is present and grants each and every one of us spiritual gifts so that working together, we can be the living body of Christ to a hurting world.  This is who we are.  This is our identity.
But when we forget that every person in the pews is our brother or sister and care for only those who are our friends, we lose that identity.  When congregations called to be one in Christ remain divided by race, we lose our identity.  When we “go to church” rather than “be the Church,” we lose our identity.  When we want the 10 Commandments displayed on public buildings but don’t live lives shaped by those commandments, we lose our identity.  When we think that saying “We are Christian” primarily means believing in Jesus, being good, and getting into heaven, we lose our identity.
But when we remember… When we remember that our baptisms have marked us and set us apart for distinctive lives; when we remember that God has both called us and gifted us to be saints, a holy people living as Christ’s living body at work in our community and the world; when we remember that we are one, a holy fellowship in Christ; when we remember and begin to live into our calling, the presence of the living Christ becomes palpable in us.  New life and vitality are breathed into us by the Spirit, a life and vitality that draw others into this holy fellowship.  When we remember who we are and live into that identity, the love of God again takes on flesh and reaches out as hope to the world.  The hope and promise of God’s new day begins to become visible in us… when we remember who we are.

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