Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] June 26, 2022 “For What Do You Stand? The UCC at 65” Luke 9: 57-62 57 As Jesus and his disciples traveled along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One[a] has no place to lay his head.” 59 Then Jesus said to someone else, “Follow me.” He replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of God’s kingdom.” 61 Someone else said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say good-bye to those in my house.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand on the plow and looks back is fit for God’s kingdom.” Jesus didn’t make following him an easy choice, no promises of great rewards here. As this passage makes clear, nothing was to come between a decision and immediate enactment. “I need a couple of days to go bury my father.” Sounds reasonable. Who’s going to say no to that? Jesus. “Can I at least go home and let my family know where I’m going?” “No.” C’mon Jesus, let’s be reasonable. But, no. There’s no time for delay, the time has come. There’s no time for delay, because the time is now. Well, there was a delay in the formation of the United Church of Christ. This could have been our 70th or 71st anniversary but our official birth was delayed until 65 years ago. Let me explain. 1957 marks the official union of two denominations into the United Church of Christ – the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Each of those was the union of two previous denominations about 25 years earlier. We call them our four streams. Now, note I said “union,” not merger. They may have merged the business functions of the previous entities, but it was a union of people – a reunion of Christ’s followers who had continually divided into sectarian groups. Our ancestors had a passion for “overcoming the sin of denominationalism,” reversing the separation of Christ’s people into divided churches. I want to tell you a little about each of our denominational predecessors. First, the Congregational Churches, our Mission Hills UCC heritage. Congregational Churches are some of the oldest churches in the US, some pre-dating the US, originally formed as dissenters in the Church of England. You may have heard of a group of people on a boat called the Mayflower? And some folks known as Pilgrims? That’s us – for all the good, bad, and ugly that represents. Pilgrims and Puritans didn’t start out by calling themselves Congregationalists but they were people who passionately believed in self-governance. They sought the autonomy of local gatherings of Christians who were bound together by covenant. For the cause, some were actually martyred. Others escaped persecution seeking religious freedom. Sadly, it wasn’t a grace they always extended to others once they were in control. Our Congregational ancestors weren’t united so much by a set of doctrinal beliefs as much as their commitment to self-governance, autonomy, for the local church to believe and act as it sees fit, with each member equal – of course, male member, likely property-owning and white. Still, it was this model of self-governing democracy that greatly influenced the whole notion of American democracy. Many Congregationalists were involved in the American Revolution. In fact, the Boston Tea Party was the result of a meeting at Old South Congregational Church. With their focus on autonomy instead of creed, congregations could be as liberal or conservative as they felt called because no higher authority could dictate to them. Education was a huge priority, evidenced in such institutions as Harvard and Yale, and especially the 500 schools they started for freed Blacks in the wake of the Civil War. Congregationalists had been prominent in the cause of the abolition of slavery – something they did not believe should be delayed for even one more day – and the Social Gospel. Secondly in our family tree, there’s some misfit groups formed post-American Revolution. One was a group who objected to the authoritarianism of bishops. They called themselves Republican Methodists. There was a group of Baptists in New England who believed in universal or Free Salvation. And there was a group of Presbyterians in Kentucky who embraced revival meetings and wanted to be free of the shackles of doctrine but were shunned by their fellow pastors. These three anti-hierarchical, anti-creedal, anti-establishment groups found each other and called themselves simply The Christian Church, or Christian Connexion. Despite being opposed to the idea of denominations, they created their own in order to further their work. For their times, they had very unique ideas. Principles, they call them:
A fourth group emerged later and joined in, comprised of formerly enslaved persons who called themselves Afro-Christians. These anti-doctrinal Christians were so committed to the freedom of interpretation that when they went looking for partners, most other Christians shunned them – and in one case even burned down their church for not believing in the Trinity. Eventually they found a willing partner among the non-creedal, non-hierarchical Congregationalists and the two denominations joined together in 1931. Most church members probably didn’t even know. The biggest benefit was felt by the relatively small memberships of Black Congregationalists and Afro Christians. Working together, these groups fostered leadership among young people that has played a wonderfully outsized role for decades. Congregationalists had the most racial diversity of all the groups – including Chinese churches, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican, American Indian and more. In the early 1700s, in the aftermath of the 30 Years War, Germany lay devastated, plundered by lawless armies, much of its population decimated. Many exhausted Germans began landing in the US and settling in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic. Among them were people of the Reformed faith, people shaped by 200 years of the Heidelberg Catechism. The catechism is a set of questions and answers memorized by generations of Reformed Christians but which were more relational than doctrinal, more focused on the heart than the head. For example, question #1: What is your greatest comfort in life and in death? That I belong heart and soul to Jesus. These German Reformed folks could have joined together with their Dutch Reformed counterparts in America but the Dutch were too strict. These Germans preferred loving Jesus over being right about him. These ancestors in our family tree had a mystical bent with a high regard for the sacraments and the church as the Body of Christ, not a voluntary association. Another group of Germans started coming in large numbers in the mid-1800s, also escaping poverty, settling in large numbers in Saint Louis and beyond. Like the Reformed in the previous century, they practiced a simple heart-based form of Christianity with this motto – in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity. They were known as Evangelicals, but not like our current understanding of the word. In Germany, Evangelicals were a moderating force, representing a middle way – between rationalism, a complete rejection of religion, and confessionalism, the kind of rigid adherence to creeds that most of our ancestors rebelled against. These folks in our family tree had a heart for service, especially health and human services. During its time, this little group started more hospitals and health care institutions per capita than any group. Even today, major hospital systems in Saint Louis and Chicago have their roots among these servant people. These two immigrant denominations found commonality and joined in union in 1934, but without a constitution or agreed upon statement of faith. They just thought, “we’ll figure it out as we go.” You know, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity.” I’m not sure anyone quite said what essential meant. They formed the Evangelical and Reformed Church. And just five years later they began talking to another recently formed denomination, the Congregational Christian Churches. On paper these two denominations, the E&R and CCs, had very little in common, except that in their very divided world – mid World War 1 and 2 – they believed Christians should present a united face to the world. How could the world cooperate if Christians couldn’t? So, conversations began that led to serious consideration of union, perhaps consummating as early as 1949 or 1950. However, into this harmonious optimism came a group of Congregationalists who feared the loss of their autonomy. The E&R operated more like a group of churches than individual ones. Opponents sued, the case went to court, and an injunction ceased conversations. Four long years later, a judge threw out the case and work proceeded, culminating with the Uniting General Synod in Cleveland on June 25, 1957 – 65 years ago. All E&R churches became UCC that day and all changed their name. Given their polity, each Congregational church voted on its own. 1,000 did not join. Many that did, like Mission Hills in 1961, did not change their name – or like us, at least not for decades. These new UCC Christians had a “Basis for Union” that guaranteed autonomy but structured our life together as a group of churches in covenant with each other. Among the first items of business was a statement of faith adopted in 1959. Importantly, it reads not as a creed or a test of faith but a description of the deeds of God to which we testify. From the very beginning, you can see our faith has been characterized for its concern for the world in which we live. For example, we testify how the Holy Spirit “binds in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.” 1959. In 1959 the General Synod also adopted a Call to Christian Action in Society that set the stage for our activism still today. Building upon the heritage of the abolition of slavery and the social gospel, among the 51 statements adopted in 1959 is a call for environmentalism, “the conservation of the earth’s resources for the benefit of humankind in the future.” The expansion of public services. The protection of migrant workers and their families. The admission of more immigrant refugees. Better treatment and rehabilitation for prisoners. The independence of church and state. And the end of racial segregation and discrimination in our communities – in church life, in housing, in employment, in education, in public accommodations and services, and in the exercise of political rights. 1959. In 1963, only six years old and much yet to do, the General Synod set aside the internal business of the church and turned its attention to more important matters – racial justice. President Ben Herbster asked, How can we care about what happens in our churches more than what happens on our streets? I wish I had more time to tell. The 1973 General Synod paused business one day to charter a plane full of delegates to go to Coachella to stand with Cesar Chavez. And thinking of the Supreme Court reversal on Friday, I’m reminded how our heritage of love for the world was expressed by the General Synod in 1971, pre-Roe v. Wade, calling upon all the members and churches of the United Church of Christ to support the “repeal of all legal prohibitions of physician-performed abortions.” The United Church of Christ isn’t always easy to explain. We’re several historic denominations more interested in unity than doctrine that came together in 1957. But instead of trying to explain what we believe, perhaps it would help to answer, for what do you stand?
Saying to Jesus, “I need a couple of days to go bury my father” might sound reasonable. Who’s going to say no to that? Or, “Can I at least go home and let me family know where I’m going?” C’mon Jesus, let’s be reasonable. But no. For the sake of the vulnerable people Jesus loved, I get it. There’s no time for delay. In the spirit of our ancestors, the time has come to support and protect our sisters, siblings and kindred in Christ. It’s our heritage. It’s our calling because we are the United Church of Christ.
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