(Preached on Sunday, October 03, 2010)
That precious memory triggers another: your honest faith – and what a rich faith it is, handed down from your grandmother Lois to your mother Eunice, and now to you! And the special gift of ministry you received when I laid hands on you and prayed – keep that ablaze! -2 Timothy 1:5-6
In the Baptist Church of my youth I don’t ever remember celebrating World Communion Sunday. We heard about foreign mission fields and we heard stories about Baptist missionaries saving souls and converting the heathen to Christianity. But we never heard about other Christian missionaries, or even other churches functioning elsewhere in the world. The Baptist church in which I was raised functioned as an entity unto itself without much sense of connection to any others who claimed the title Christian.
I don’t really mean to pick on the Baptists, for in many ways we run the same risk in our own United Church of Christ. This danger is an unholy alliance of the national value of individualism coupled with the understanding of the priesthood of all believers has led to an overemphasis on the private, personal aspect of faith. The result is that we run a great risk of losing the communal aspect of the faith. The Protestant Reformers were not trying to do away with the priesthood, but rather we trying to elevate the standing of lay people. They were trying to reclaim the Biblical view that understood all Christians as part of a “royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” They were trying to empower all followers of Jesus to understand that we are all called to care for one another and we can all function in priestly roles for one another. Instead the idea became perverted into the notion that I can be my own priest. Even the unabridged Webster’s dictionary makes this mistake stating as one definition of “priest” that “since the Reformation it has meant any Christian believer, as each Christian is his own priest.” Nowhere in the New Testament is that notion put forth.
There is no such thing as “personal” faith in the New Testament. As this letter to Timothy illustrates that none of us comes to faith alone and none of us continues in the faith alone. The author reminds Timothy that is faith came from his mother and his grandmother. He recalls for him how it was further empowered for his work of ministry through the laying on of hands of others. Even the author is not presented as a grand innovator – but states that he worships God with a clear conscience, as did his ancestors – a shocking statement for those who think of Christianity as an entirely new religion!
So it is most appropriate, and very important, that at least once a year we pause to remember and celebrate that we are not alone in the world as a Church. We are not the only group of people seeking to follow the teachings of Jesus and to faithfully worship and serve God. We are part of something larger than ourselves and our little church. It is not all about us; it is much bigger and grander than simply us. One colleague in the United Church of Christ, Pastor Craig Schaub, has described this day in these words. “We celebrate World Communion Sunday on the first Sunday of October, as a recollection of the universal church gathered at table in celebration of the presence of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. . . When we gather at table, we celebrate a number of core components that the ecumenical community agrees are manifest in the Eucharist (the Greek word for “giving thanks”). Holy Communion is an act of God’s grace. It is an act of thanks for all God has done in creating and saving. It is an act of remembering the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. It is work of the Holy Spirit who prompts our remembering, our thanking, and our hoping. It is a family meal of nourishment, justice-seeking, and inclusion. It is an act that makes visible our future hope with God and all of God’s people.”
That is a powerful image: the whole church gathered at the table as one. To prevent this from being a totally abstract exercise I thought I would share a couple of stories with you this morning to help flesh out just who is sitting at this table with us this morning. These two stories come from some of our United Church of Christ missionaries working with our Mission Partners in various parts of the world.
The first is shared by the Reverend Scott Couper who serves in South Africa. He writes about Nomvula Shale who is HIV positive. Her health status does not stop her from speaking out! Nomvula travels from church to church in South Africa, defying taboos and the stigma of disease in order to provide words of comfort and assurance to those who are drowning in silence. Yesterday she was at Highway Hospice; tomorrow she will be at King Edward Hospital. Today, she counseled two in the parking lot who were too scared to seek help. What for many would be the harbinger of hopelessness is for Nomvula the key that enables her to communicate and be trusted by all who come to her. Why is she HIV positive? She says: “The Scriptures tell us ‘So the glory of God might be revealed!’”
Nomvula communicates her message to the church, to the government, to the schools, and to the people. She hosts a talk radio show and writes weekly in the newspaper. She leads the HIV and AIDS Desk of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, which enables local churches to strengthen their own outreach to their communities.
With the aid of Global Ministries, Nomvula and the HIV and AIDS Desk work together to fight the goliath of the AIDS pandemic in Africa, through such things as grants to purchase life saving medications, funds for a home-based care project, a new house at the Cebelihle (she-bah-lee-lay) Children’s Home and new accommodation for the Siyabathanda (see-yah-bah-tan-dah) literally “We are loving them” ministry in Noodsberg. The silence about HIV/AIDS needs to be broken – Nomvula shatters it. In a world in need of hope and direction, Nomvula lives her life the way that Gods wills the church to be.
The other story comes from Andrew & Ellen Collins, missionaries in Nepal. They tell the story of Nima who had been coming to church for weeks. You’d think she had always been a Christian. She knew all the songs, raised her hands and prayed out loud like everybody else, and read the scriptures half a syllable ahead of the others. But when communion Saturday came along, just before the elements were served, Nima, like all the other non-baptized worshippers, would quietly get up and go outside. In Nepal, communion is offered to all who have publicly declared their faith in Christ and who have been baptized. The pastor makes it very clear that everyone else is welcome to the church service, but must step outside at communion time.
This seeming lack of inclusiveness on the part of the church did not dampen Nima’s interest in Christ. When asked about it she responded: “Are you kidding? The church is the only place in this country where I, a woman, am truly welcome. Where I, rejected by my family for marrying out of my caste, am accepted. This is the only group of people who welcome me in, despite the fact that I have been treated for mental illness. Even untouchables and lepers are allowed in! Here I find rich and poor – educated and illiterate – sitting together, singing together sharing a Bible or a hymnbook.”
Several months passed and then one day Nima stayed for communion. She and her husband had been baptized earlier in the week and they were now welcome to the table. She beamed: “I am a baptized Christian. And now I stay in church for the whole time! What a great privilege!” she exclaimed in her delight.
That day the Collins’ learned something they had lost sight of. They recalled how some Saturdays, after sitting through two hours of church – legs half-asleep from sitting cross-legged on the floor and brains exhausted from following the sermon in Nepali – they chose to exit with those who had no choice but to leave before communion was served. They so easily passed up what Nima considered a prize. Again, as had happened so many ways over the years, God had taught them and humbled them through people like Nima. She rekindled in them that day the passion to be present at the table, because, like she said, it is truly a great privilege.
Let me close with a story not from the mission field but from a local church about an elderly man who could no longer see or hear very well. Yet, in spite of this, Bill faithfully attended worship. One day a good friend asked him: “Bill, I’m curious. I know that you can’t hear or see very well. So, I’m wondering, are you able to get much out of the worship service? Why do you come?” Bill didn’t hesitate a moment: “I come because I want people to know whose side I’m on.”
Thank God for people like Bill and Nima and Nomvula and our global mission partners who help us connect with the wider church and who help us understand that our faith is not a personal, private faith, but is a faith received, developed, and lived out in community!