THE UCC AT 50  SHINING STRONG

(Preached on Sunday, June 24, 2007)

I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.                   -John 17:20-21a

 

The promise of the Gospel is that God has a place for everyone of us.  We struggle mightily with this idea.  Ralph Milton, a retired editor of religious books and a member of the United Church of Canada reflected on this issue one day in his email newsletter.  Remembering a friend who joined the United Church but after one year felt he didn=t fit in because he sensed an anti-evangelical bias, Ralph mused: AI don=t understand the linguistic and cultural abyss that separates evangelicals and so-called liberals.  Only in religion do one=s preferences require excluding all other preferences. ... Enthusiasts for overstuffed tail-finned Cadillacs and bare-bones MG-TCs can disagree and still talk cars.  Sports fans can raucously endorse Michael Jordan or Shaquillle O=Neal, and still share a passion for basketball.  Computer users can defend their Macs or PCs without feeling a need to reject each other personally.  We accept choice in those areas.  We don=t insist that people must drive either Chevrolets or Hondas.  But in faith, it=s either/or.  If they=re right, I must be wrong.  Why can=t faith be both/and, instead of either/or?  Is God that small?  Is God captive to a single perception?@

 

There was a cartoon a few years ago in a Christian magazine that suggests he is on the right track.  At the pearly gates, St. Peter is welcoming each person standing in line waiting to get in.  As each person comes to Peter he asks what denomination they belonged to on earth.  ACatholic,@ says the first.  ABaptist,@ says the second.  The next two say AMethodist@ and so on.  Each person is then pointed toward a door with the name of that denomination inscribed above.  But the way the cartoonist drew the picture, you could see not only what=s on this side C namely Peter, the desk, the book of names, the long line of people waiting C but you could also see what=s on the other side of the doors.  In fact, all the doors are part of the same facade; they all opened to one and the same place C heaven!

 

Fifty years ago, tomorrow, June 25, 1957, in Cleveland, Ohio, the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian churches joined together to form the United Church of Christ because they believed the truth of that cartoon more than our human tendency toward division and separateness.  Many thought this merger would never work for these two churches were so different in significant ways.  The Congregational Christians were passionate about the autonomy of the local church.  The members of the Evangelical and Reformed church used a more representative style of government, which gave considerable power to synods and to the General Synod, their national body.  When the General Council of the Congregational Christian Church met in Omaha, Nebraska in 1956 to authorize the election of delegates to the uniting General Synod the following year it was a difficult meeting.  While the vast majority of delegates were eager to move toward authorizing the union, there was a significant and very stubborn minority who resisted the action to the end.  They demanded that the minutes of the Executive Committee of the General Council for the previous two years be made available, not merely the summary they had been given.  Having heard that the President of the Evangelical and Reformed Church had been given Aassurances@ of some kind by the Council, these dissidents were convinced secret agreements had been made and that their precious liberties as Congregationalists had been sold down the river to the stereotypical AHerr Pastors@ of the German church.  No amount of assuring from the Moderator could assuage their suspicions, so the Council delegates were reconvened at ten p.m. following worship and sat through the night until 7:45 the next morning, hearing the minutes read aloud.

 

There wasn=t just division and controversy over internal matters at that meeting.  Debate raged over a resolution about an AUnsegregated Church in an Unsegregated Society,@ which included the call for a consultation with all Congregational institutions, particularly in the south, to press forward the cause of desegregation.  A resolution denouncing the tactics of McCarthyism, naming the violation of civil rights going on in the frenzied context of rabid anti-communism was passed as well.  Imagine how all of this must have played in the genteel south, or in America=s heartland back in 1956.

 

This stroll down memory lane illustrates the truth of our history as a church: there has never been a time in our life as a church when conflict has been absent.  We have never agreed 100% on many of our beliefs, our stances, our positions.  But our forebears persevered to bring the United Church of Christ to birth because they believed it was what God wanted as expressed in Jesus= prayer in John 17:21: Athat they may all be one.@  They believed in it so much that phrase became our church motto.  What they shared was a passionate impulse toward unity and a deep commitment to responsible freedom in Christ along with the liberty of conscience inherent in the Gospel.  With great humility they agreed to follow the guideline Ain essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity, in all things charity.@  They believed, and our fifty years bear witness to this belief, that our unity grows through struggle and sacrifice, as we seek to listen to  and learn from one another and from other Christians and people of faith, all in a spirit of love.

 

While it has not been easy, our commitment in the United Church of Christ to responsible freedom has shone forth in a passion for justice and fairness for all people.  We understand the mission of the church to be God=s mission.  John 3:16 defines this eloquently as love for the world.  We affirm that the authority of God, as revealed in Jesus the Christ, and interpreted with the aid of the Holy Spirit, stands above and judges all human culture, institutions, governments, and laws.  Still, we recognize our calling, both as individuals and as the church, to live in the world in such a way that expresses God=s grace, welcome and hospitality toward all people.

 

This belief has resulted in a rich history.  Our forebears were among the leaders in the founding of this experiment in democracy in the United States.  It was from the Old South Meeting House, a Congregational Church, that the first act of civil disobedience in U.S. history, the ABoston Tea Party@ issued forth.  And it was a German Reformed Church that supported the rebels in 1777, hiding the Liberty Bell under the church floorboards, so the British could not seize it and melt it down to manufacture cannons.  We were the first Protestant denomination to ordain an African-American pastor, Lemuel Haynes, in 1785; the first church since New Testament times to ordain a woman, Antoinette Brown, in 1853; and the first mainline Protestant denomination to ordain an openly gay person as a minister, William Johnson, in 1972.

 

We have worked actively for human rights for all people beginning with taking an early stand against slavery, in the early 1700's.  Congregationalists were among the leaders of the committee formed to support the Amistad slaves in their court case to achieve their freedom in 1839.  This led to the formation in 1846 of the first anti-slavery society in the U.S. with multiracial leadership, the American Missionary Association.  It was the AMA that started six colleges in the south from 1862-1877 specifically to help educate the newly freed African-American slaves.  In 1959, at the request of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the UCC=s Office of Communication led the fight that resulted in a ruling in Federal Court that the radio and television airwaves are public, not private property.  This helped lift the blackout on the growing civil rights movement among many televison stations and led to the hiring of persons of color in TV studios and newsrooms.  Again, these examples are simply representative of the wide range of actions our belief in responsible freedom has led us to take as a church.