Sermon preached by Rev. Trina Zelle

October 4, 2009

Body and Soul

James 2:14-18,26

Isaiah 58:1-12

        Following my mother’s death in 2004, I moved a few pieces of furniture from my parents’ house, including her writing desk, and its contents from Louisville, Kentucky, to our house in Tempe.  Yet it was only two weeks ago that I finally sorted through all of those papers – discarding some and organizing and saving others. And as I did, I was struck by all of the letters she had saved over the years. Bundles of letters from friends and family dating back to the mid-forties.  As a rule, they were several pages in length, filled with vivid descriptions of the author’s activities, thoughts and concerns.  As a child, I had watched her write her own letters, filling sheet after sheet of stationery with her fine handwriting, in all likelihood responding to the ones she had saved so carefully over the years. 

        We don’t write letters like that anymore do we?  Most of us anyway.  We shoot emails or leave phone messages.  Maybe a Christmas letter or a note jotted on a birthday card.  But not like my mother and her generation. It seems to be a disappearing art, along with ironing with starch and home-made pie-crusts.        

So I was fascinated to realize that letters are what comprises the earliest scripture of first century Christianity.  Letters were what kept it going.  Letters bound them together.  Letters from Paul, James, John, and Peter -- written to tiny communities flung far and wide across the known world -- dealing in minute detail, with the whatever particular issues were currently besetting them.  Letters that invariably began, “Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

        Letters are at the heart of early Christianity because, as these early communities organized themselves around individual experiences of the Risen Christ, they found themselves having to create their own path.  Break their own trail.  Letters from one or more of the apostles – defined as someone who had encountered the risen Lord – helped them do this.  Their contents dealt with everything from who would likely make a good leader to the need for even- handed treatment of Greek and Jewish widows to the second coming of Christ.  They encouraged, exhorted, explained, and scolded.  In fact, they give us a pretty accurate picture of the early church – like the exasperated one written by Paul to the Galatians:  “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel!”  It seems that church members in Galatia had been persuaded by someone to add a few extra requirements for church membership beyond acceptance of Jesus as Lord.  Perhaps with the rationale  that the more hoops they had to jump through, the more committed new members would be. Paul doesn’t pull any punches.  “Who has bewitched you, you foolish Galatians!”

        What if an apostle were to write us a letter – we being the American church at the beginning of the 21^st century.  What issue do you think it would address first?  What would its tone be?   Would there be encouragement, challenge, perhaps rebuke?   What would its contents tell us about ourselves?  Just as the content of those first letters – by the issues they address – give us insight into the early church – a letter to the American church could open a window for us as to how we are seen by the rest of the world – or at least that part that cared enough to write!

        In fact, we do have something pretty close to this in an open letter from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to its member churches around the world.  It comes to us from Accra, Ghana, Africa, where representatives met in August of 2004.  The World Alliance, or WARC, is just what its name says it is.  An association of churches whose roots go back to the Reformation – specifically, those influenced by Calvin, Knox, and Zwingli.  The Presbyterian Church, USA is a member of WARC as is the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, the Hungarian Reformed Church, and many more.

        WARC meets every 7 years to study the critical issues that challenge the church – its next meeting will be in 2011 in.  The letter it sent out to its member churches is one that I believe we need to hear because it goes to the very core of who we are as Christians.  It is a long letter, which I have condensed, but I would be happy to make copies available to anyone who would like to read it in its entirety. 

        It begins with the traditional greeting used by the apostles:  “Grace and peace to you from our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  It then sets the context of its remarks, beginning with the notation that they have been meeting in Accra, Ghana and a side trip they took on one of their days there.

        “Our most moving and memorable moments came from our visit to Elmina and Cape Coast, two “castles” on the Coast of Ghana that held those who had been captured into slavery, as they suffered in dungeons waiting for slave ships that would take them to unknown lands and destinies.  Over brutal centuries, 15 million African slaves were transported to the Americas, and millions more were captured and died.  On this trade in humans as commodities, wealth in Europe was built.  Through their labor, sweat, suffering, intelligence and creativity, the wealth of the Americas was developed.

        “At the Elmina Castle, the Dutch merchants, soldiers, and Governor lived on the upper level, while the slaves were held in captivity one level below.  We entered a room used as a church, with words from Psalm 132 on a sign still hanging above the door (“For the Lord has chosen Zion…”) And we imagined Reformed Christians worshiping their God while directly below them, right under their feet, those being sold into slavery languished in the chains and horror of those dungeons.  For more than two centuries in that place, this went on.

        The letter then moves from historical description to their own reactions.

        “In angry bewilderment we thought, ‘How could their faith be so divided from life?  How could they separate their spiritual experience from the torturous physical suffering directly beneath their feet?  How could their faith be so blind?’”

        “Some of us are descended from those slave traders…others of those who were enslaved.  We shared responses of tears, silence, anger, and lamentation….Reformed Christians have always declared God’s sovereignty over all life…so how could (our) forebears…deny so blatantly what they believed so clearly?

        And now to the heart of the matter.

“Yet, as we listened to the voices today from our global fellowship, we discovered the mortal danger of repeating the same sin of those whose blindness we decried.  For today’s world is divided between those who worship in comfortable contentment and those enslaved by the world’s economic injustice and ecological destruction, who still suffer and die.

        “Millions…live daily in the midst of these realities.  The economies of many of our countries are trapped in international debt and imposed financial demands that worsen the lives of the poorest…Each day 24,000 die because of hunger and malnutrition and global trends show that wealth grows for the few while poverty increases for the many.  Meanwhile, millions of others in our congregations live lives as inattentive to this suffering as those who worshipped God on the floor above slave dungeons.

        Now comes the challenge from the representatives at the Accra meeting to the rest of us:  “we have come to realize that this is not just another “issue to be “addressed.”  Rather, it goes to the heart of our confession of faith.  How can we say that we believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord over all life, and not stand against all that denies the promise of fullness of life to the world?

        “If Jesus Christ is not Lord over all, he is not Lord at all.  That is why we find in the bible, a constant criticism of idolatry…To declare faith in the one true God is to reject divided loyalties between God and Mammon, dethrone the false gods of wealth and power, and turn from false promises to the true God of life.

        “We know that this does not come easily for any of us.  Yet our hope lies in confessing that the power of the resurrected Christ can overturn the idols and the modern gods that hold the world captive.

        And the call to action.

“Therefore, we invite you, in Reformed churches throughout the world, to take this stance of faith…against all that denies life and hope (to) millions, as a concrete expression of our allegiance to Jesus Christ.

        “Brothers and sisters, this is a grave and serious invitation.  As those who have met on your behalf in Accra, we declare to you that the integrity of our Christian faith is now at stake, just as it was for those worshipping in the Elmina castle…(Further), living according to what we say we believe changes our understanding of mission.  We recall(ed) that the church was born in a time of empire.  God’s Spirit called forth the church…as a new community bearing witness to a new global reality and opposing the false claims of earthly gods.

        “How can we share the message and liberating love of Christ’s life in those places where suffering and death seem to reign?  This much we discovered for certain in Accra:  more than ever, faithful mission today requires our connection – really it demands bonds of belonging – between one another as churches.  The challenges we now face in proclaiming the Good News will simply overwhelm us if we confront them as individual churches alone.

        “Being truly mutual and accountable is hard and even painful, testing the depth of our trust.  It requires the vulnerability demonstrated in Jesus.  But there is no other way for us to follow God’s mission…

        “(There is one more truth) that we want to share…we need new depths of spirituality.  This isn’t merely political activism;  we’re being called to a spiritual engagement against evil, and for that we need our lives to be deeply rooted in the power of God’s Spirit.  To put it simply, we need, as never before, the transformation of our lives promised through Jesus Christ.

        And the benediction.

        “Our prayer for you is that God may reveal to you in fresh ways how our faith is deeply connected to all of life.  May none of us ever live our faith insensitive to brutal suffering and indifferent to urgent cries from our world.  May all of us know the power of God at work in our Lord Jesus Christ to overcome evil and offer to all the world life in the fullness intended by God.

        “And may the grace of God, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you now and forever more. “

        James saw the seduction of empire threatening to corrupt the life and teachings of Jesus in the early faith community and he responded in no uncertain terms.  “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ¹⁵Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

        Isaiah warns the Babylonian exiles against the folly of thinking that their imminent return home represented a return to  business as usual – the have/have not society that was in place before they, the nation’s elite had been whisked off to a strange land. 

        James sums it up best: “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right.”

Let us cling to these words of scripture as, on this world communion Sunday, we reflect on the contents of this prophetic letter written by fellow Christians from all around the world..  Because without their commonsense wisdom, it would be easy for us to fall right off the cliff as we consider the overwhelming complexity of it all. Love your neighbor as yourself.  Faith without action is dead. IF you feed the hungry and bring the homeless into your house. . . THEN your needs will be satisfied; you will be as productive as a spring fed garden – lush and bearing fruit. 

We have a million and one reasons why we cannot make a dent in a world that, itself is spiraling out of control.  Why we should not even try.  But the truth of the matter is, as a faith community, we already have.  With all due respect to Bono, the whole notion of debt relief emerged for poor nations emerged when church people brought it to the table at the approach of the millennium. Maybe some of you still have your Millennium 2000 lapel pins.  I came across mine the other day. It has had an impact and should be continued.

        And although millions of pious folks were complicit in visiting the horrors of slavery on countless millions, it was also people of faith who challenged its legitimacy and brought it to an end.  These are not isolated examples.  In our own country, the activism of people of faith has resulted in the founding of universities and hospitals, women’s suffrage, anti-poverty programs, civil rights initiatives, child labor laws, and much more.  In a few moments you’ll be hearing a report from Dan Abbott about similar activities that this church is involved in. There is another side to the dark coin of human exploitation.

        Which makes it all that much more crucial that we not surrender the title of “Christian” to the kind of faith that is a direct descendent of the slave traders of Elmina Castle. To representatives of the faith who see nothing contradictory with putting profit above human dignity, or who have retreated from the world in order to keep themselves pure.  Because of the many ways Christianity has been hijacked, it is a temptation to abdicate our responsibility to give to God what is God’s in concrete and meaningful ways, and explicitly in the name of Jesus.

        We must not give in to that temptation.  Not if we are to be the salt and leaven Jesus calls us to be.

This word of truth comes at an opportune time.  What Thomas Cahill might refer to a time period that turns out to have been a “hinge-period” of history.  With the abject poverty of our own country exposed by Hurricane Katrina, the plague of foreclosures driving people into the street, with the devastation of war and natural disaster visited upon vulnerable people around the world, it is time to say to ourselves, “if not now, when.  If not me, who?” 

As we come to the table on this world communion Sunday, I invite you to see in your mind’s eye, the great cloud of witnesses that surround us, and stand shoulder to shoulder with us.  People of faith from every place and time, who struggled with the meaning of their faith just as we do; yet, seeing the possibility of a better world, stepped out in faith to live the kind of lives their God was calling them to.  .