July 11, 2004
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During Sundays in this year’s Lenten season, I read a
statement of purpose for our congregation. Affirmed by the EZEKIEL Project Team,
the statement says, “As followers of Jesus Christ, who
loves and cares for all creation, our purpose here at Broad Street Christian
Church is to be a safe and welcoming place for all people seeking a spiritual
home where their relationship with Christ can be nurtured and strengthened”. Our purpose statement affirms the vision and mission of the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in whose denominational fold we rest. The
Vision of the church is: “To be a faithful, growing
church, that demonstrates true community, deep Christian spirituality, and a
passion for justice” (Micah
6.8). The vision supports the Mission of the church, which is: “To
be and to share the good news of Jesus Christ, witnessing, loving and serving
from our doorstep ‘to the ends of
the earth’ ” (Acts
1.8). Those statements go along with our statement of affirmation
that says in part: “we seek also to be Christ like
through community service and partnerships that create an affirming community of
love, care, and support for all”. That’s a lot of words I’ve just read to you.
I share them because those words say who we say we are and so we are, we
dare not merely talk the talk of who we are, as if just saying it makes it so,
we are called to move and walk in the faith we declare about ourselves. We become the good news of Jesus Christ when we are faithful
to our understanding of ourselves as a true community. True community is about
what we can do together at Broad Street Christian Church and in the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ) in Ohio, and throughout the United States and
Canada, with ecumenical partners all over the world. True community is what we can do with groups like BREAD, the
Metropolitan Area Church Council, and the downtown churches. We are the good news of Jesus Christ when we practice deep
Christian spirituality. Deep Christian spirituality leads us to regular prayer
and worship, it leads us to do acts of mercy and kindness, and it means that we
can do nothing less than become the most active church members and generous
stewards we can be. Our sense of community, our faithfulness to God seen in our
spiritual disciplines will lead us to a passion for justice. Passion is about
intense feelings and emotional connections. Living with passion calls on us to
give all we have, and more for those things about which we feel deeply. So to
have a passion for justice is to invest personal and emotional energy in doing
all we can to make sure every child of God is treated with respect and decency.
It is to be an advocate for ourselves and for others. Justice is more than
fairness. Fairness is about being free from bias and injustice. Justice is about
moral rightness, it is about a kind of internal compass that tells us what is
the correct thing to do. Justice is not only about us; it is about a high
quality of life for all of us. As we build community, practice spiritual
disciplines, and do all we can to act and live justly, we will be the good news
of Jesus Christ. Being, doing, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ is the
work and ministry of all of us. It is what it means for us to be disciples of
Christ, not in the sense of being in a church body like the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ) but as members of the body of Christ. Now is a good time for us to live as disciples of Jesus
Christ. It is a good time because
people are watching to see what we do. I was talking with someone who is looking
for a new church home. This person had read in the paper that we have affirmed
that we are a congregation that wants to include all people. The person I was
talking with wanted to know if we welcome and include people so that we can
condemn then and shame them, or if we welcome and include people so that they
can worship and work with us. I said that we do indeed mean what we say, and
said again what our worship time is. It is a good time to be a disciple of Jesus Christ because
researchers who study such things tell us that unchurched people of all ages are
hungry for a connection with something that will feed their minds and their
spirits. I believe this church can help ease that hunger as we offer a safe
place for people to come to know God and Christ and to claim a faith for
themselves. It’s a good time for us to live as disciples of Christ
because there are other voices competing to be heard saying, don’t bother,
there is no God, Christ doesn’t matter, and that the only spirit holy or
otherwise that matters is what energizes me. We are little gods to ourselves, we
know all we need to know, and we are all that is. But when we embody the good news of Jesus Christ, we can say
to whoever will hear us that as important as our lives are, we can be more, we
can do more, we can give more, not only in dollars but in terms of a renewed
commitment to Jesus Christ. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul describes some
qualities of discipleship for each of us to claim. As we take them into
ourselves, see if we do not begin to witness, love, and serve in the name of
Christ. See if the momentum we have experienced here does not continue and grow.
So how do we do it? First, we thank God daily. Paul remembers the Colossians in
prayers and thanksgiving because he and his companions have heard that the
Colossians are the kinds of church that gathers together on Sunday and spends
the rest of the week caring for each other and serving the community around
them. I believe that is the kind of church we want to be. Have you thanked God
for Broad Street Christian Church today? God has given us a house of healing
hope, a place to grow and know God, a legacy to offer to your children, a place
with doors that open out wide so we can invite others to know what we know, that
we can do hospitality, we can do care; we can be the compassionate folks Jesus
expects members of his church to be. We
have much for which to thank God. We become the good news of Jesus Christ, first by thanking
God daily, for all that God has done in our lives. Then second, we simply allow
ourselves to love and appreciate what God has given to us and acknowledge that
we can lead lives worthy of Christ. When what we know helps us to love without
condition, speak the truth in love without fear, forgive as we have been
forgiven, give and receive with grace; help those in need and talk with God
daily, we are living lives worthy of God and Jesus Christ. And we begin to bring
to our task of being the church wisdom and understanding. Wisdom and
understanding help us to grow strong, our strength helps us to endure when
difficult times come. Family will sometimes disappoint, endure with patience.
Church will sometimes disappoint, endure with patience. Life will sometimes
disappoint, endure with patience. As you do, know that enduing with patience
need not mean endure and do nothing. We are not living the good news that every
person, including ourselves has worth and dignity if we allow ourselves, or
others to be abused. There is not good news in bearing mistreatment passively. Enduring with patience means holding on when life is rough
and believing that a brighter day in coming. Enduring with patience means
knowing that what is difficult now is not a permanent condition – it can be
better and by God’s grace it will be better.
You know how to endure with patience if you have been through the death
of a loved one, you won’t get over it, but you learn to function again. You
know how to endure if a hard and negative time in your life became an occasion
to let God fill the empty, lost places in your soul with strength and faith you
may not have known you had. The
poet Edwin Markham understands enduring with patience. In his poem, ‘Victory
in Defeat” he says: Defeat may serve as well as victory With thanksgiving and love, offer ourselves to God, then
third, we act out the good news of Christ as we announce in Christ’s name that
we are redeemed – saved from hopelessness and finality, saved to hope and
eternity. Imagine that we are part of a new and exciting spiritual
adventure. Imagine that we are on fire for God, excited about our ministry,
eager to share the good news. Let’s not imagine it, let’s do it. Let’s
personify the gospel of Jesus Christ with its news about God’s eternal,
unconditional love, God’s call to justice and peace, compassion and generosity
for all the world. We can do it if we will be Christ’s disciples. A lawyer asked a question about eternal life and when Jesus
told him to love his neighbor with all that he had, the lawyer asks, ‘who is
my neighbor’ and Jesus told him a story. It was a story about random violence,
incredible kindness, and a despised stranger doing what others would not do. A man is robbed and beaten and left for dead. The priest and
Levite walk by because for all they knew, the man on the road could have been a
decoy for other robbers. Besides, all their lives they have known that to touch
a man who is dead, or appears to be dead, is to be made unclean. The stranger
who helps the man is a Samaritan. Keep in mind
that “Samaritans were descendants of a mixed population occupying the land
following the conquest by Assyria in 722 before the Common Era. They opposed
rebuilding the temple and Jerusalem (Ezra
4.2-5, Nehemiah 2.19) and constructed their own place of worship on Mount Gerizim.
Ceremoniously unclean, socially outcast, and religiously a heretic, the
Samaritan is the very opposite of the lawyer as well as the priest and the
Levite” (Interpretation
series. Luke. Fred Craddock. Louisville: John Knox Press, p. 150). Nevertheless, it is the Samaritan who cares for the injured
man. He picks him up, cleans him up, puts him up, and pays the debt the man owes
to the hotel. Who is our neighbor? They are the ones who lift us up when we
are down. They are the ones who take a risk for us. Like the Samaritan, they
pick us up, clean us up, put us up, and maybe even pay the debt that we owe. Our
neighbors are the ones we take some risks for, who receive our help and support
from time to time. Ultimately the one who is our neighbor is the one who helps
us to be the good news, the one in whose name we are a faithful, growing church.
Our model for living the good news is Jesus himself. It is he
who models for us thanksgiving to God, and understanding and knowledge of the
will of God. It is Jesus himself “who for the sake of
the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and
has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews
12. 1b-2). It is Christ
who has risked everything for us, who has picked us up, cleaned us up, put us
up, and paid the debt we owed. What do we do in return? We let people see in us a vision of
hope that says that God has given us a future that is bright and full of good
things. The good news of Jesus Christ is in us and that news can carry us
forward to a good and growing place. In other words, we become the church. Let’s be the church
and welcome, nurture and strengthen all of us who cross the threshold of this
building. Let’s be the church and in Christ’s name become a community filled
with the Spirit and a passion for justice. Let’s be the church, loving,
witnessing and serving from our doorsteps to the end of the earth.
That is how we talk the talk and walk the walk. Let’s be and do the good news of Jesus Christ and as we do,
may Jesus Christ be praised. Thanks
be to God. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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