FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Communion Meditation by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

The First Sunday in Lent

February 25, 2007

CHRIST AT THE CENTER:

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – UNITY

Scripture: I Corinthians 12:1-13

INTRODUCTION

Immediately following the 1992 race riots that erupted after the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, an emergency meeting of representatives from the faith communities across Atlanta was held at the Interdenominational Theological Center. Dr. James Costen, the President of ITC, together with Rabbi Alvin Sugarman of The Temple, Dr. Joanna Adams of Trinity Presbyterian and Dr. Joe Roberts of Ebenezer Baptist Church called us together and there were more than seventy pastors, priests, rabbis and imams in the room.

The fear, of course, was that Atlanta might ignite the way Los Angeles had, and so we talked about strategies to get some deeper conversations going between blacks and whites, Jews, Christians and Muslims in order to deal with the tensions.

Thank God, some of those efforts were successful, and as had happened before during the 1950’s and 60’s, Atlanta avoided a major riot. Today, our city is still working on improving relationships between different racial, ethnic, economic and religious groups, and that will always be a work in progress.

But what I remember most from that traumatic time 15 years ago was what Rodney King himself said when he was interviewed by the press. With his face still swollen from the beating, he looked into the cameras and asked the question, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

I

I think it was a question of similar kind which the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote his letter to the Christians in Corinth around 55 A.D. Paul had spent 18 months in that city and helped to establish a church there, where both Jews and Greeks (Gentiles), including rich and poor, young and old, women and men had joined the congregation (see Acts 18).

But word was sent to Paul several years later while he was living in Ephesus, that the Corinthians were in trouble, that the church had become separated into factions, and that the immoral actions and growing dissension among those struggling Christians had created a divisive situation that was threatening to tear the congregation apart.

Paul must have wondered about them, “Why can’t you all just get along?” But knowing the dark side of human nature, the apostle chastised the Corinthians for their sinful behavior, he offered some instructions about how to live according to Christian disciplines…and then he appealed to them with a glorious vision – unity in the midst of their diversity, unity instead of their constant bickering, unity in spite of their disagreements about so many things – unity as a gift that the Lord could give them if they would open their hearts and minds to His Holy Spirit which had the power to bind them together as one. This is how Paul described it to the Corinthians:

No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are a variety of gifts, but it is the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (I Corinthians 12:3-7).

Do you see what Paul was telling those first century Christians and all of us still today? His point was and is that when the Holy Spirit takes hold of the church, helping us to put Christ at the center of our life together, then the unholy trinity of “I, Myself and Me” is transformed into the variety of ways that “we” can find the common good. And as that happens my friends, the spirit of unity can and will bind us to one another as sisters and brothers in the family of faith.

II

Now as all of us know, the Presbyterian Church (USA), like most every denomination in America, is struggling with divisive issues that won’t go away. The question “Why can’t we all just get along?” is being asked in many churches across this nation, and thus far, we have not found any easy answers. You know the issues and so do I – human sexuality, ordination and marriage, different interpretations of the Bible, arguments about theology, struggles with ethical behavior, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, and the horrible genocide and starvation in Darfur in the Sudan. Those are some of the major issues and the list goes on and on. We need to pray about and pay attention to all of those tough situations, and seek ways to find peace and reconciliation.

Some folks say that the question “Why can’t we all just get along” is a watered down version of the gospel – that getting along and going along is contrary to taking a stand, as did Martin Luther, the German priest who helped to launch the Protestant Reformation with the words “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

But I wonder if our friend John Claypool (rest his soul), had the right insight when he said from this pulpit years ago that today we may need to revise those words as follows: instead of “here” the word might be “there”; instead of “I” the word could be “we”; and instead of “stand” the word would say “walk” – “there we walk” together – not negating our call to proclaim what we believe as Christians, but also seeking and finding ways to listen and to be led by the spirit of unity, because if Jesus meant what He said at the Last Supper, as He prayed for…

Those who believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us…that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that Thou has sent Me and hast loved them even as Thou hast loved Me (John 17:20-23).

…if Jesus really meant what He prayed, then we had better pay attention to His words, as He called for a spirit of unity among all those who claim His name as Lord.

III

Sometimes the issues upon which we disagree threaten to tear us apart. But sometimes, the issues are not so major, as Barbara Brown Taylor describes in her book “Leaving Church.” What she lifts up is how we are supposed to keep the noise down in our worship services, wanting to be reverent and needing to focus our attention on God. But one Sunday morning, Barbara Brown Taylor decided to baptize, as she explains it:

“…A whole crowd of babies at the same service. I wanted the parents and godparents to know one another, and I wanted the infants to have some company. The decision was not popular. Most of the families would have preferred being the only honorees…

While my logic may have been good, the logistics were awful. Grace-Calvary is a small church. Divide the square footage by five crying babies, and you get one crying baby per sixteen seats…The babies cried through the first hymn, picked up steam through the second, and were going so strong during the reading of the gospel that I decided to ditch my sermon altogether…

I walked to the altar rail, where I said something funny about the crying and something straightforward about the baptism. Then I poured the water into the font, led the congregation through the prayers, and called the first family forward to present their child.

Because remembering is often better than being there, I can no longer say for sure when the howling turned to whimpering and the whimpering to snuffling, but by the time I had the last baby in my arms, the whole place was quiet. The Holy Spirit had spread her wings, and all the babies had settled down underneath them…

As the silence bounced off the back wall of the church and headed toward the altar again, a collective sigh went up from the congregation…and there in the church, for close to ten minutes, the babies, the people, the water, and the silence were all one in the Spirit…And those who are not afraid of the language call it “mystical union.” (From “Leaving Church” by Barbara Brown Taylor, Harper San Francisco, 2006, pages 95-96)

CONCLUSION

As Presbyterians, we celebrate two sacraments in worship – baptism and Holy Communion. We don’t usually combine them in the same service, mostly because of time restraints – Presbyterians are supposed to do everything decently and in order, and that includes getting in and out of the sanctuary in one hour.

But would it be beyond the boundary lines for me to suggest to you today that we symbolically celebrate both sacraments before the Benediction? That is, asking God to baptize us through the Holy Spirit with the gift of unity in this congregation and across our entire denomination, so that as we come to the communion table, hearing the noise of the world that surrounds us, suffering in so many ways, and the silent cries of those sitting around us with all of their (and our) fears and pain, we will promise the Lord to pay attention to them and to pray for healing, hope and reconciliation – that all may become one in God’s great kingdom, here on earth, as it is in heaven.

To be baptized with the spirit of unity and then come to this table as what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community – Can you imagine what it would be like to celebrate those two sacraments at the same time? If you’re willing to do that, so am I!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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