Kendall's Notebook page 11
“Celebrate or Sell Out”
June 8, 2003
Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2: 1-21
I hope that it is obvious that I have two loves in my life. One of them is Cheryl. The other is the church. I love Christ’s church and never tire of learning more about the church. I love this United Church of Christ in which I have been serving as one of its ministers.
I also love to talk about our church with people and to learn more and more the stories of our local connectedness with the wider church. In recent years, something has been happening in conversations, which I have with UCC folk, that is more and more disturbing.
So this morning I am going to begin with the declaration of a pet peeve and then move to a more joyous celebration of Pentecost.
Here is the peeve, the gripe, or complaint.
It seems that I cannot engage in a sustained conversation about our church with UCC folk for more than 5 minutes, usually sooner, before I experience a change in subject. We are soon talking about some mega church that has been recently attended and that my partner in conversation is all excited about. We are constantly looking over the fence into other churches’ backyards, and talking about how they have better barbeque grills and bigger swimming pools and more people at the party than we do. More and more, I hear UCC parishioners express more excitement about some other church than about their own.
That is my gripe. Today’s lesson is about the church’s day of birth in Jerusalem. The book of Acts tells us about how Christianity grew and spread from Jerusalem to Rome. No one tells that story, without giving credit to the work of the Holy Spirit, symbolized by doves, flames and the color, ‘red.’ The Pentecost story tells us how the early church was filled with the Holy Spirit from God and the spirit of enthusiasm and celebration of the people.
Too often, instead of celebrating our church, we sell out. We sell out by going to the Vineyard Bookstore where the resources and curriculum offered have nothing to do with our church’s tradition, history, theology, polity Biblical understanding and even language of faith. We feed our children this third rate material for ten years and then wonder why as teenagers they are not the least bit excited about a church they know nothing, absolutely nothing, about.
We sell out by keeping our OCWM giving at the same level it has been for the last umpteen years, thereby weakening with each passing year our church’s presence and impact in the world.
We sell out every time we look into the back yard of other churches and get all excited about how much greener the grass is on the other side of the fence.
There is much to be excited about in our UCC. In numerous areas, our church has made major contributions to society to which other churches can’t hold a candle. God has given the UCC and its congregations huge gifts of the spirit which give us cause to celebrate.
Let’s celebrate.
I begin celebrating by remembering that the very first ESL (English as a Second Language) program went into effect the very moment that the Christian Church was born on Pentecost in Jerusalem. Or course it wasn’t English, it was Egyptian, Libyan, Latin, Arabic, and a host of other languages on that first day.
If anyone ever wonders why we should do an ESL program, just read Acts 2. The gift of understanding other languages was the very first gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the church on Pentecost.
For the first 1500 years of the church’s life, Latin was the only language on the playing field and no one worried about whether or not others could understand it.
During the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation released the Scriptures from their Latin imprisonment in the church and ever since
second language stuff has been on the front line of Protestant mission and work. Looking back in history, our ancestors in the UCC have been very active on the front lines of translation and language work and work to increase understanding of other cultures through the understanding of language.
In the 1630’s, less than a decade after the arrival of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, an English clergyman, John Eliot came to the wilderness then known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony and dedicated his ministry and life to a single work. Eliot ministered to the native Americans, the Indians, learning their language and translating the Bible into their language.
For the first 100 years of this country’s history and our church’s history beginning in 1620, the biggest mission was the language work in the mission to the Indians. In 1735, John Sargent graduated from Yale Divinity School and went North 75 miles into the Berkshires. There he established a mission to the Stockbridge Indians at the heart of which was language work. His mission became the First Congregational Church of Stockbridge where I had the delightful experience being one of the preacher’s kids for 3 years of my childhood. In the late 1960’s, the Stockbridge church was the first local church in the country to ratify on the local level the national merger of the E and R Church and Congregational Christian Church, thereby becoming the first UCC congregation in our denomination. On the basis that I was singing in the junior choir and getting kicked out of Sunday School Classes at that time in that church, I consider myself a Charter Member of the UCC.
Back to our ESL celebration and its incredibly strong Biblical and historical roots in our church. Most of my childhood was spent in a seaport on the Maine Coast. A story oft-told in that town’s church, and still remembered, is the story of Rev. Blodget. In the early 1800’s, the Maine coast was the epi-center of world trade under sail. Clippers and other majestic sailing ships were sent down the ways on a daily basis along the coast to be placed in the China trade service. A lot of church people in all those coastal towns decided that along with timber from the forests, salted cod from the sea and dried apples from the orchards, there should be another export from their shores. They became dedicated to taking the Gospel to China. Blodget who grew up in Bucksport and the Bucksport church, went to Bangor Seminary and then off to his mission work in China. In China, he was the first person to translate the Scriptures into the Manchurian language.
One cannot study UCC history without literally tripping over second language stuff at every turn.
Eliot, Sargent and Blodget did more than translate Bibles. They nurtured and established relationships between cultures. They made friends with peoples who could have just as easily become enemies. During the French and Indian War, the Indians who had been befriended by Eliot and others like him were the only Indians In North America who sided with the British and Colonists. Some historians give credit to that relationship as a determining factor in the Colonists’ winning the war and the future direction of all our nation’s history.
We have much to celebrate and be excited about in the UCC. I am only skimming the surface in these remembrances. The Pentecost Spirit closely connected with language work has been active throughout our history in the UCC and continues to be active right here at Christ Church in our second language program. Be excited.
We can be excited that the work and ministry\of the United Church of Christ is grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Gospels tell us over and over stories of Jesus’ ministry with individuals. The salvation Jesus offered consisted of liberation, freedom and grace - all to be found in this world. Not all received what he offered. The rich young man asked, “what must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus answered, “sell all of your goods and give them to the poor.” Jesus knew this man was possessed by his possessions and offered the man freedom from his material bondage. He offered others freedom and liberation from religious oppression, prejudice, disease, hopelessness and despair. The UCC continues the ministry of liberation in ways worthy of our celebration, excitement and support.
There are churches where women cannot take up the offering, read the Scriptures or liturgy, or serve on the board of elders, not to mention be ordained or teach at one of their seminaries. People, I despair when I hear UCC folk, looking over the fence into the yards of those churches, bemoaning that the grass is greener on the other side. The grass is so much greener on our side, in our church, where women are allowed the opportunity to live out their faith to the max. I have had the blessing to be schooled in some tremendous academies from Eden Seminary in St. Louis to Oxford University in Oxfordshire, England. I have listened to lectures from some of the world’s brightest and best. The most brilliant mind that I ever ran into belonged to Dr. Leslie Ziegler, professor of theology and ethics at Bangor Seminary. Dr. Ziegler lectured with clarity and insight and never missed a trick, could stand up against anyone in an intellectual debate, and had an IQ that measured off the charts. In some churches, Dr. Ziegler wouldn’t have even been admitted to their seminaries, not to mention teach in one. We can celebrate that in the UCC, women have the place to put to use the gifts for ministry and teaching that God has given to them.
Most Americans, Democratic, Republican, independent, or third party, thank god or their lucky stars for the democratic form of government in our country. We forget, that our ancestors in the United Church of Christ were practicing and fine-tuning democracy as their form of church government for 200 years before the American Revolution. When the Constitutional Convention convened, the founders of our country borrowed from the founders of our church mading the church form of government our country’s form of government.
What a gift to the world that we have to celebrate and rejoice over.
The UCC is a small church but we have a huge inheritance that comes to us through two streams – the Congregational and the E and R. So far I have been reflecting on what comes naturally to me, a person brought up in theCongregational side. The E and R side of the UCC also brings us a rich inheritance.
In the 1880’s 5.5 million immigrants came to America from Europe – twice as many as came in the 1870’s. Most of those immigrants were from Germany and settled in the Midwest(quoted from the UCC website “About Our Church.) Many of the new immigrants were very poor. Coming, as they often did, with a language barrier and lack of skills, they found life harsh and bleak. In order to alleviate some of this suffering, deaconess work was established through a variety of institutions in many cities across the land by members of the Evangelical Synod. 1889—Evangelical Deaconess Home and Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri; 1902 Protestant Deaconess Home and Hospital, Evansville, Indiana; 1905—Evangelical Emmaus Homes, Marthasville and St. Charles, Missouri; are just a few of the many institutions founded by the Evangelical church to liberate oppressed folk from the bondage of poverty and disease. All this is more of our rich inheritance.
Let’s celebrate. Christians since Pentecost have gathered around tables to share meals. We do that well, here at Christ Church. And today, our meal is a part of Christ’s mission of liberation, as we work to help liberate families from poverty through Habitat for Humanity. Jesus said, “Do not hide your light under a bushel.” Instead of looking over the fence and marveling at all the green grass in other church yards, we need to remove the bushel with which we cover the bonfire of good works, good mission, good theology and just plain good church in our own UCC. Let us rejoice and be glad. Let us rejoice, be glad and share the good news, invitinh others to came and be a part.