By Pastor Marcia Sietstra

Feb. 8, 2004

I Cor. 13:1-13

Last Sunday through Tuesday I was at a ministers’ pre-Lenten retreat in Chamberlain, and the General Minister and President of the UCC, John Thomas, was one of our speakers. He talked about what is distinctive about the UCC today, early in the 21st century. What would be missed by the world if our denomination were not part of the religious landscape today?

I couldn’t help but think of the Corinthians text from last week’s lectionary, because it’s Paul writing to the young church in Corinth, telling them what is distinctive about them, about what it means to be the church, what is most important. Many of the people in that church had been converted from the mystery religions and pagan cults of the 1st century. The worship they would have been familiar with in their past included speaking in unknown tongues, playing cymbals or castanets or drums. They may have cut gashes into their arms and some even castrated themselves as signs of intense spiritual devotion to their god or obedience to such gods as Demeter, Cybele, Mithras, or Isis. But Paul says that no matter what they are doing now to show their religious fervor, there is only one thing God demands—love—love of God and love of others, following Jesus’ example. If they do not love, their tremendous displays of spiritual power are no better than the performances they used to give in the pagan cults.

Paul, in effect, holds up a mirror to the young congregation at Corinth. I’ve brought along this mirror, the one I was using in the car on the way to Chamberlain when I was putting my hair up while Phil drove. We had left later than we hoped to, so I hadn’t taken time to do anything to these wild curls of mine until on the way. I had a terrible time trying to use this tiny mirror to see the back of my head in the car visor mirror. I could see the bottom but not the top, or the left side but not the middle. You know, even in the best mirrors, we see only part of ourselves. Now keep that image in your mind as you recall what Paul says’ Paul says that our knowledge is as incomplete as if we were using a mirror to see God and each other. Now we see darkly as if in a mirror, he says. While God knows us completely, we know only part of God, part of one another, and actually only a part of ourselves. This ought to make us very humble in thinking we know very much at all! Our knowledge, says Paul, is incomplete and partial.

So these are two important points I see in the text: 1) Love is far more important that religious ‘show’, and 2) Our knowledge of God and life is partial. It is little more than a glimpse in a mirror, so we need to be humble about claiming we know God in much detail.

Now put these 2 thoughts aside for a few minutes. I want to tell you what our UCC President John Thomas suggested to us at the retreat, and then I’ll relate that to what I highlighted from Paul. John Thomas said that he believes the UCC is known for 3 distinctive characteristics in our day, without which the world would be poorer. After thinking a long time about what is so special about the UCC, he came up with these 3 characteristics:

1.) We are known for our extravagant welcome. All are welcome here.

2.) Second, we are early in truth telling. I’ll say more about that.

3.) And third, we are committed to reconciliation in church and society.

Let me briefly illustrate each one. We are known for our extravagant welcome.

It was our ancestors who welcomed blacks into the all-white churches in the 18th century. Rent the movie Amistad sometime. In the movie, those church folks who worked for years to free black slaves kidnapped from Africa, were from the Congregational church, one of our predecessor bodies. Just as we welcomed people from different races early on, we welcome people with very diverse beliefs, and so our church is a broad umbrella that brings together conservative and liberal, and people with widely varying ideas of how to live out the message of Jesus Christ.

Probably the best example of our extravagant welcome today is our welcoming of gay and lesbian Christians into the church. Some churches exclude gay and lesbian Christians, just as many churches in the past excluded people of color or divorced people. Whether you believe one’s sexual orientation is a circumstance of birth or a choice, whether you believe gay people should be ordained or not is beside the point. The point is—whatever one’s sexual orientation there is nothing that a person has to do or agree to before coming to the foot of the cross. All we need is the desire to be in relationship with God made known through Jesus Christ. We can argue passionately with each other and still be united around the message and person of Jesus, who excluded no one. We believe that everyone—young, old, straight or gay, lost or found, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, physically or emotionally challenged, sure or unsure—everyone has a place in the body of Christ.

The second characteristic John Thomas named is that we are early in truth telling. I read recently about a story that was in the UCC newspaper awhile back. It was a story about the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, which is UCC, and it showed a photo that was taken about 60 years earlier. The photo focused on a Japanese-American woman who was boarding a bus. She had one foot on the step, and was half-turned back to a European-American woman on the curb. One arm of each was outstretched to the other, as if they had been clasping hands and the contact had just been broken. The bus was part of a lineup of buses. The sidewalk was filled with Japanese-American people, stretching the length of the bus lineup. The caption was something like, ‘Members of First Congregational, Berkeley, stand with their friends and neighbors who are being taken to interment camps.’ This is a church that has been on the leading edge when it comes to social justice issues, historically and still today.

You can expect to see the UCC out there first, naming the structures of evil in society that hurt people—inadequate public education, social systems that keep people in poverty, corporate greed, to name a few. We were among the first to identify the long-term, subtle damage done by language that excludes people, and started using inclusive language in our worship. We were among the first denominations to protest inhumane working conditions for farm workers in the 70’s, and to draw attention to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Last year, our officers wrote a letter to President Bush warning him of the moral imperative not to rush to war but to work through the UN. The UCC letter was eventually followed by remarkably similar letters from the bishops and leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the United Methodists, the Catholic Church, and nearly every mainline Christian Church in America. But as usual, the UCC took the lead.

It’s not easy to be early in truth-telling. There is a medieval Irish story about a monk who died and was buried, according to custom, in the monastery wall. One day the monks heard a song coming from within the wall and removed the stones to find their brother alive and well. He began to tell them what he had learned in his journey beyond—and everything was contrary to the traditional teachings of the church. So the brothers put him back in the wall and sealed the crypt forever. New truth can be hard to hear. But if we believe the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, that implies that revelation continues. And even though it’s hard to be out there all alone naming the truth, we’re usually not out there very long before other denominations catch up.

Here are some other ways we were early: we were the first mainline church to take a stand against slavery (1700), the first to ordain an African American person (1785), the first to ordain a woman (1853), the first involved in foreign missions (1810), and the first to ordain openly gay and lesbian persons (1972). We value education so highly that we founded Harvard and Yale, as well as many historically black colleges, si’ of which remain affiliated with the UCC to this day.

The third characteristic of the UCC which John Thomas named is that we have a commitment to reconciliation in church and society. We have long been advocates of ecumenical relationship-building, i.e. we try to get different kinds of Christian churches together for discussion and working together. We are intentional about being a multicultural church. Today, the fastest growing group in the UCC is the American Samoan churches. The UCC has, in recent years, taken in African American churches with similar commitment to social justice, even though their Pentecostal worship styles are completely unlike that of most of the UCC. We recently initiated a relationship with a group called the Baptist General Alliance, a group of Baptist churches that left their denomination, in part because they are more progressive than the denomination they left. These are just a few examples of our reconciling work.

Today that hope for reconciliation between all people is reflected in our relationships with other faiths as well, not just other Christian churches, but with the major, enduring faiths in the world—Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and so on. Our commitment to reconciliation reflects our deep respect for all of God’s creation, all of God’s children whom we are called to love.

Indeed, these 3 identifying features of our church bring us right back to what Paul said to that early church. He said,’ Love is meant to be your priority, love that is practiced in action and in relationships.’ Love is meant to produce justice amid injustice and kindness in the face of hostility. ‘And, one more thing,’ he said, ‘be humble, because your knowledge is always only partial, like the glimpse in a mirror.’ Let us never be arrogant, but in humility, always err on the side of grace, showing an extravagant welcome to all’telling the truth early when love requires it, and working for the reconciliation of all people, believing that God wants us to bless the whole world—everyone, no exceptions. Amen.