FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

 

Celebration Sunday

September 7, 2008

 

CHRIST AT THE CENTER: THE FAMILY OF FAITH

 

Scripture:  Genesis 11:27-12:9, Galatians 3:23-29

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Having just returned from Israel yesterday after a two week pilgrimage focused on faith renewal and building relationships with twenty-five other pastors and laypersons from all across this city, I am here to report that at least three things about our trip were and are true:

 

First, the Holy Land is still a sacred place where I sensed the presence of Jesus Christ in a powerful way, and rediscovered many of the Biblical characters going back 4000 years in human history…

 

Second, that although the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding region is caught up in conflict of monumental proportions, there is hope in that land that the three Abrahamic religions called Judaism, Christianity and Islam will someday live together in peace…

 

And third, with the temperatures down in the Negeb south of Jerusalem in the Judean desert well over 105 degrees in the shade every day without rain, the weather here in “Hotlanta” feels pretty good to me right now.

 

It is good to be back home, and I thank you for your prayers while I was away.  Someone gave to me a while ago a cartoon which pictures a business person standing in front of the receptionist’s desk with a rather strange and befuddled look on his face as she says to him, “While you were out sir, the company, rudderless and adrift, operated pretty much the same as always.” 

 

Not so here.  Thanks to a wonderful staff and strong lay leadership, I was able to be in Israel for two weeks and I am grateful for that gift which all of you have given to me, and I am so glad to be here with all of you on this Celebration Sunday as we begin another new church year concentrating on the theme “Christ at the Center: The Family of Faith.”  I feel excitement in the air here at the corner of 16th and Peachtree, and I am looking forward with great expectation to all that the Lord holds in store for us during the months that are yet to be!

 

I

 

“Who are your people?”  When the Wirth family moved here from suburban Pittsburgh 18 years ago, that was a new phrase to me – “Who are your people?”

 

As most of you know, that’s the way we ask each other in the South about our family trees.  I have grown accustomed to that question, and I think it helps us make connections with not only the places we have come from, but also with our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and extended family members who helped to shape our identity.

 

My grandmother up in Long Island used to say to me “George, you come from good stock…except for one or two bad apples on the family tree who might have been horse thieves.”  I have never tried to track them down, remember something Mark Twain once wrote about spending $25.00 to research his own family background, and then $50.00 more to cover it up again!

 

“Who are your people?” is the question of our sermon today, and it takes us all the way back to 1848 when this church was founded by nineteen faithful women and men, together with Dr. John Wilson from Decatur who soon thereafter became the pastor.  They had a vision of what the Lord was calling them to do and to become, and 160 years later, here we are.

 

But the family tree of First Presbyterian Church goes back even farther…to the early 18th century when our Scots-Irish Calvinist forbears brought the Presbyterian Tradition to these shores…and back to the 16th century Protestant Reformation…and back to Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity…and back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries when the Christian Church embraced the Gentile world with the Good News of the Gospel – that’s how most of us got in – and it all goes back to the 1st century with Jesus and His first disciples and the Apostle Paul, who were all Jews.

 

But as you know, it goes back even farther than that – through the long line of God’s chosen people – the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elijah to name just a few, and King Solomon and his father King David, and before them, Joshua and Moses who led the great exodus to the Land of Canaan which had been promised beforehand by God to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants 4000 years ago.

 

“Who are your people?”  Look at the stained glass window to your right and there you’ll see Sarah and Abraham and his nephew Lot looking up toward heaven as God called Abraham to follow and to be faithful to Him.  The words from our scripture lesson in Genesis 11 and 12 remind us of that significant and life-changing, world-transforming event:

 

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

 

The Bible says that Abraham and Sarah’s people originally came from Ur of the Chaldeans (Genesis 11:28) which is modern day Iraq, that their father and forbear Terah had migrated to Haran (Genesis 11:27, 31) which is now in Turkey, and that when it came time for the next generation – Abraham and Sarah – to move on, the destination was the Land of Canaan, today called Israel where I have just been.

 

And when Abraham and Sarah settled there, first at Shechem, then at Bethel and then toward the Negeb, God promised them, To your offspring I will give this land (Genesis 12:4-9).  We call that the Abrahamic Covenant, as God promised to make of His servant a great nation, that God would bless him and make him a blessing to others, including all the families of the earth, and that God would give to him and his offspring the Land of Canaan. – all of which was dependent upon Abraham believing the Lord, trusting in His word, and faithfully following God’s will and God’s way.

 

Two thousand years later, as B.C. turned to A.D. through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, writing his letter to the Galatians, proclaimed that the promise had come true, not only for the Jews but also for the Gentiles:

 

…For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.  As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29)

 

And 2000 years this side of Jesus’ resurrection, 4000 years after the Covenant was made with Abraham, that promise now includes you and me as the children of God in The Family of Faith.

 

II

 

“Who are your people?”  According to the scriptures, from the Book of Genesis on through the Old Testament into the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior who has come to fulfill God’s promise of salvation, the family of faith to which we belong goes back through Jesus - generation after generation after generation - to Abraham and Sarah and the Land of Canaan.

 

But if you were to visit that land today called Israel, and the surrounding sections of land in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian regions of the West Bank and Gaza, you would see with your own eyes that the family tree has been divided down through the centuries into what is now a cauldron of conflict between different religions, nations and ideologies.

 

This past Friday, as our group of Atlanta pastors and laypersons went to the garden tomb in Jerusalem, we Christians celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Connie Lee from this church, Tom Tewell, now a minister in our Presbytery, and Gerry Durley from Providence Missionary Baptist Church led us in a truly inspiring communion service.  After the worship was over, I walked into that empty tomb for the second time in my life and cried tears of joy as I prayed for my family and friends and for all of you in this church.  I also prayed for peace and reconciliation in that Holy Land which has been ripped apart by unholy division and violence.

 

That same evening and on into Saturday, Jews across the city observed the Sabbath – Shabbat services and ancient rituals in their homes and synagogues, just as they have for centuries. 

 

And on that same day, Friday afternoon, thousands of Muslims – also the descendants of Abraham through another son named Ishmael and followers of the Prophet Mohammed – thousands of Muslims observing the end of the first week of Ramadan came out of the mosques walking through the Damascus Gate, which I now know is not a good time to try to walk in the opposite way for one last hour of shopping.  Five of us were caught in the crowd and we finally had to turn around and go with the flow.

 

And there in the center of the city stood the Dome of the Rock, glistening gold in the setting sun, sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims because of events believed to have happened in that place long ago related to Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed.  So there are three monotheistic religions – believing in and worshipping one God – but caught in the crossfire of different theologies and traditions.  And God only knows how someday, some way, there is going to be some kind of reconciliation.

 

About a year ago Doug Ellis of this church gave me a chart.  It’s a pie chart of the major religions of the world and it lists all of them, and ranking them by number of adherents.  This green section which you can’t see but it’s there is Christianity – (33%) Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and it represents 2.1 billion Christians.  But look at the red section, how large it is – that is Islam, Shiite and Sunni – (21%) representing 1.5 billion people - And then there is this small sliver here which represents Judaism, (.22%), 14 million of them.

 

I think we need to pay attention to this chart my friends, and we need to not only continue to grow in our own faith as followers of Jesus Christ, but also continue our relationship with The Temple and our Jewish brothers and sisters which means so much to this congregation, and finally to find out more about those who adhere to Islam and make some contacts with them to see if we can get some kind of a dialogue going.

 

Bruce Feiler in his book entitled “Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths” describes it this way:

 

          “Fourteen hundred years after the rise of Mohammed, two thousand years after the ascent of Christianity, twenty-five hundred years after the origin of Judaism, and four thousand years after the birth of Abraham, (the question is) can the children of Abraham actually coexist?”

 

That question requires a response from us as Christians who follow the one we call “Prince of Peace,” and who taught His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9).  So let us, as Christians, continue to pray for peace among these three religions, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, to pray for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, and to work and advocate for reconciliation until the day of God’s Kingdom on earth finally comes.

 

CONCLUSION

 

“Who are your people?”  We have said that as the family of faith, we need to know our Biblical tradition and who our forbears were, going all the way back to Abraham and Sarah.  Moreover, the time has come for us to relate to other branches of the family tree, seeking understanding and reconciliation, especially between Jews, Christians and Muslims who believe in one God.

 

And there’s one thing more before we close and it’s the most important thing of all.  We who belong to The Family of Faith called First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta must always remember and never forget our own identity as disciples and followers of Jesus Christ.

 

As our theme reminds us year after year, “Christ Is The Center” of our life together and He is the reason why this church is here.  Through His incarnation, we have seen God in person, reaching out to touch us with His love and grace and compassion.  By His death on the cross, our sins have been forgiven and we have received the gift of salvation.  And to all who believe in His resurrection, Jesus Christ has promised us abundant life on earth and eternal life forever in heaven.

 

That is our identity as Christians, that is what we affirm here in this congregation, and that is why we can proclaim today that we are children of God who belong to The Family of Faith.

 

Dr. Robert E. Speer, who was secretary of the old Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions for 46 years, told about the day he left the family farm in Ontario to go away to school.  His father suggested that they have a talk with one another, but when the time came, there was an awkward silence and neither of them seemed to know what to say.

 

So they walked out through the kitchen, past the worn oak table where the family ate their meals together, down to the barn where Robert had milked the cows at dawn and dusk every day, and finally to a fence where that father and son each put one foot up on a rung and looked across the wheat field where Robert had helped with the threshing and learned what a day’s honest work really meant.

 

Then at last Robert’s father looked at him and said, “Son, there’s only one thing I want to tell you – don’t ever forget who you are, or where you come from, or how we live here.”  (From a sermon entitled “The Old Ladies’ Home” by Dr. Robert Cleveland Holland, preached at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA, February 9, 1975)

 

“Who are your people?”  Robert E. Speer knew the answer to that question, and we can know it too.  For “In Christ Jesus (said the Apostle Paul) you are all children of God” who belong to The Family of Faith.

 

So wherever you go and whatever you say or seek to do, never forget who you are, where you come from, or how we live and love one another here in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Let us pray:

 

Great and eternal God, as we begin another new church year together, guide us and provide us with all that we need as your family of faith, and lead us forward into ministry and mission for the sake of Your Son, our Savior Jesus.  Amen.

 

 

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