First Presbyterian Church      Rev. James K. Teall

Salt Lake City, UtahJanuary 29, 2006

"The Church Irrelevant or the Church Influential"

Ephesians 2:11-22

Introuction

What do you think?  Does the church have an influential presence in the world today or has it been relegated to the irrelevant?  If the church does have relevance and influence what kind of influence is it having on the world?  Is the church an institute of peace unifying the world or is it more of a politicalised social club dividing the world?  It seems to me that whenever church ‘leaders’ like Pat Robinson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson open their mouths, their words seem to divide us more than they unite us.  Why is this?  And is this a good thing for the church to be so divided?  Jesus once said, “A family divided against it self will not survive.”  Jesus also prayed, “Father, may the people of my church be one united together just as you and I are united as one.”  For Jesus, divisiveness has no place in the church.  A divided church is an ineffective church and consequently an irrelevant church.  Could it be that the church is so divided that we have lost our influence in society and have become irrelevant to the communities in which we live? 

Recently I was having a conversation with someone who is not a member of any church and I asked him why he did not attend church.  His response was, “I have enough problems I don’t need anymore.”  The church, the instrument that God intends to use to be salt and light in the world, to be used to transform societies and the people that live in them, is now seen, at least by this person, as the part of the problem dividing the world instead of as the solution to unite it.  I don’t think my friend’s perception of the church is an isolated opinion, I think it is held by millions and I think their opinion is in most cases is quite justified.  For me this begs the question, what does it mean to be the church?

The Visible and the Invisible Church

When we think of church we tend to think about our local church made up of people who gather on Sunday in a building that has programs for the benefit of the people who show up on Sunday.  Indeed this is part of what the church is but only a very small part.  It would be like saying the world is a single piece of sand when in fact the world is made up of so much more.  The grain of sand is part of the world but not the entire world.  A local church is only a tiny part of the church universal.  It was John Calvin the founder of what we call today the Presbyterian Church who said in his Intuitions of the Christian Religion, “The church universal is a multitude gathered from all nations, it is dispersed in separate places, but agrees on the one truth of the divine word and is bound together by the same faith.”  Calvin did not promote the Presbyterian brand of Christianity as the one and true church.  Calvin is the one who coined the phrase the visible and invisible church.  The visible church, whether it is Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic etc. etc., is a man made structure that contains both believers and unbelievers.  However, the invisible church is the universal church spread around the world made up of believers from every race, creed and color. 

The Goal for the Church

Understanding the flaws of the local church, Calvin knew that conflict was inevitable and so he went on to say, “The Lord esteems the communion of his church so highly that he counts as a traitor and apostate from Christianity anyone who arrogantly leaves any Christian society that is committed to Christ.   From this it follows that separation from the church is the denial of God and Christ.  Hence, we must even more avoid so wicked a separation.”  Calvin believed that each member of the local church must continually strive and struggle to be united.  United does not mean uniformity.  Uniformity means dissolving what makes us different.   Uniformity is not the goal of the church.  It is not a sin to have differences but it is sin to divide over those differences, whether those differences are theological, political, economical, racial, or over matters of opinion.  Paul said there is only one reason to leave a community of faith and that is when the community no longer preaches Christ crucified and resurrected.  So in every other matter strive for unity.   Unity among the believers is the goal of the church.  We find unity in Christ while always respecting and even celebrating the differences of one another. 

Peace is the goal of the church.  Peace leads to unity.  Peace is not simply a cessation of hostility but is the comprehensive term used for a life with God.  The call of the church is to love God, love others and to share that love with those outside the community of faith.  If the community of faith however is divided then it is impossible for that community to love God, love one another and to share God’s love.  Jesus prayed that the church might be one so that the world would come to believe in Him.  A divided church is an unhealthy church and an unhealthy church will be an ineffective and irrelevant church to the community in which it lives. 

Focused on Christ

The Apostle Paul mentions the word peace 43 times in his writings and 8 times in the letter to the Ephesians.  Peace and unity are central components to Paul’s theology.  Paul, as did Calvin 1400 years later, understood that the goal of the church both local and universal is to be unified.  In the 2nd Chapter of the letter to the Ephesians Paul is writing to the new gentile believers in Christ.  It seems there is division in the church between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians.  It would have been easy for Paul being Jewish to have sided with the Jews but he did not take their side, nor did he take the side of the Gentiles but he focused all of them on Christ.  The reason the church is so divided today is because church leaders and church members focus on personal or political agendas, people are taking sides, as opposed to focusing on the fact that we are all one in Christ in the one body of Christ called the church. 

Paul says of Jesus, “He is our Peace.”  What does he mean by that?   Paul is stating the fact for both the believing Jews and Gentiles that Christ is peace.  Thus to follow Christ means to be at peace with God and others.  How can we do this?  Suppose two people have a difference and go to the courts to settle the matter.  The experts in law draw up a legal document that state the rights of each party involved and ask the two conflicting parties to come together on the basis of that legal document. 

All the chances are the breach will remain unhealed, for peace is seldom made on the basis of any legal document.  But suppose that someone whom both of these conflicting parties love comes and talks to them, there is every chance that peace with be made.  When two parties are at odds, the surest way to bring them together is through someone whom they both love.  That is what Christ does. Christ abolished the law that divides.  Christ is a person and He is our peace. Christ invites us all into a relationship with Him.   It is in a common love for Christ that people come to love each other. 

Division in the Early Church 

It was very well known throughout the Ancient World that the Jews did not hold the Gentile world in high esteem.  They said the Gentiles were created by God to fuel the fires of hell; that God loved only Israel of all the nations that he had made.  It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile woman in childbirth, for that would be to bring another Gentile into the world.  The barrier between Jew and Gentile was absolute.  In fact the temple was built with walls and barriers to keep Gentiles away from Jews and far away from God.  Laws, legalism, traditions are all barriers that keep people from being unified and keep others from being with God.  Abraham the father of the Jewish faith was blessed by God to be a blessing to others.  The Jews were favored by God not for the purposes of excluding others but in order to embrace others.  Instead of sharing the love of God with others the Jews built a society to keep the Gentiles outside and looking in. Before Christ the walls were up but after Christ the walls came crashing down. 

On the cross there are two planks of wood; one of the beams is vertical and the other horizontal.  On the cross God reconciled us to himself in the vertical way.  We have peace with God because God embraced us in our sin and did not hold our sin against us.  In the same way on the cross God reconciled us to each other in the horizontal way.  Christ on the cross took that very hostility you feel right now towards someone and crucified it to death in his body.  We have peace with each other because God has destroyed the walls of hostility thus making two people into one.

The Church Divided by Barriers

The problem of barriers is by no means confined to the ancient world.  Father Taylor of Boston has said, “There is just enough room in the world for all the people in it, but there is no room for the fences which separate them.”  Sir Philip Gibbs in The Cross of Peace wrote: “The problem of fences has grown to be one of the most acute that the world must face.  To-day there are all sorts of zigzag and crisscrossing separating fences running through races and people of the world.  Modern progress has made the world a neighborhood: God has given us the task of making it a brotherhood.  In these days of dividing walls of race and class and creed we must shake the earth anew with the message of the all-inclusive Christ, in whom there is neither slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female but all one in Christ. 

The ancient world had its barriers.  So, too, does our modern world.  We are divided by political boarders, economic status, color of skin, views on gay marriage and abortion.  We are divided by class, by our ethnic traditions, and by our religious creeds. 

In the past the church has fought and divided over how to participate in the Lord’s Supper and the mode of Baptism.  Today we fight and divide over structures of government, building campaigns, communication efforts, fiscal matters, and so on and so on.  We are focused on our selves and our own self interest and agendas instead of being focused on Christ.  Christ is our peace.  He is your peace and He is my peace and He is their peace.  We have peace with God because of Christ and we can have, should have peace with each other because of Christ.  Christ is peace for Republicans and Democrats, for pro-life and pro-choice, for homosexuals and heterosexuals, for the married and the divorced, for born agains and mainliners, for the spirit filled and the liberationists. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.  However religious people and political leaders are asking us to take sides and build new fences and maintain old ones.  So we listen to them and go out and find people who think and feel like we do and build a fence around our little club and post our sign that instructs others to keep out.  We tend to hurl insults at those we don’t agree with and we talk about them with great contempt and hostility always behind our wall of hostility. 

Tearing Down the Walls

But Christ came to end all of that partitioning.  Christ came to destroy any and all dividing walls that can come up between people.  The gospel of Christ is asking us to tear down the walls that divide us and to strive and struggle for peace and unity! Being a peacemaker is not easy.  It cost Jesus his life.  Making peace always involves sacrifice.  Sacrificing our pride, our rights, our hurts, our pains in order to make peace is the way of Christ.  This is the Gospel any other message is a false gospel. 

In France during WWII some soldiers with their sergeant brought the body of a dead comrade to a French cemetery to have him buried.  The priest told them gently that he was bound to ask if their comrade had been a baptized adherent of the Roman Catholic Church.  They said that they did not know.  The priest said that he was very sorry but in that case he could not permit the burial in his churchyard.  So the soldiers to their friend sadly and buried him just outside the fence.  The next day they came back to see that the grave was all right and to their astonishment could not find it.  Search as they may they could find no trace of the freshly dug up soil.  As they were about to leave in bewilderment the priest came up to them.  He told them that his heart had been troubled because of his refusal to allow their dead friend to be buried in the churchyard; so, early in the morning, he had risen from the bed and with his own hands had moved the fence to include the body of the fallen soldier.  Christ has not only moved the fence but he destroyed it.  Fences are exclusionary but embraces are inclusive.  Christ on the cross because of love held his arms wide open welcoming us to embrace him.  Christ holds his arms open to all of us and accept his embrace.  We his followers must also open our arms up to others to make room for them to be apart of our fellowship.

Building Up Unity

Consequently, when you and I become a part of God’s family by allowing Christ to embrace us and when we embrace others we are no longer identified with our old labels. 

When we are in Christ we are no longer identified by political affiliations, by denominational categories, by national identity, by ethnical heritage, by religious traditions, but we are given a new identity in Christ.  In Christ there is no Jewish Christians or Gentile Christian, simply a person in the household of God.  In Christ there is no liberal Christian or conservative Christian, simply a child of God.  Our citizenship no longer resides in our country of origin or the country in which we live our allegiance is only to God because we are now in Christ.  There is no Catholic or Protestant in the Kingdom of heaven just followers of Jesus who have been made one in the body of Christ by Christ.  Jesus said, unless you give up everything you cannot be my disciple. 

That means we have to give up anything and everything that gives us our identity other than Christ himself.  Paul said, I consider all the gains in my life, my education, my family background, and my religious career, I consider them all rubbish compared to the knowledge of being found in Christ.  As follower of Christ our identity is in Christ and in nothing else if not then we will continue to divide ourselves and put up barriers which is contradictory to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Being One in Christ

Two weeks ago members of this church all white and wealthy went to New Orleans to be with black and poor.  The two groups came together in fellowship.  In Christ there is no black or white, no rich or poor.  In New Orleans these members found themselves reconciled to God and reconciled to their fellow human beings because we were all found in Christ.  A new program has started in this church.  It is a food co-op.  Families on the East Bench and in Federal Heights will serve lower avenues low income people by providing food and fellowship. The color of skin will not matter, the amount of money in our pocket books will not matter, and the creed in which we speak will not matter because in Christ those walls of division are knocked down.  Two people from two very different backgrounds will be made one by Christ.  Adult members of this congregation have volunteered to mentor teenage foster kids.  In Christ there is no young and there is no old.  The two groups will become one in Christ.  They will be reconciled to one another through Christ.  25 members of this church over the next 10 weeks will sit in a class, some republicans other democrats discussing the issues that divide us and we will discover that in Christ there is no republican and there is not democrat, just fellow sinners saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ all striving to follow Him. 

Is the church irrelevant today?  As long as we remain divided I am afraid the answer is a shameful yes.  However, if we continue to strive and struggle for unity and peace around the person and principles of Jesus Christ then the church will once again be the tool God will use to bring peace to His fracture world.  If we work on unity, if we refused to be divided not only will the church become more and more influential we will become what God destined us to be; irreplaceable.  When we love each other the way the Father loves his Son, then people, like my friend, will not want to stay away from the church but he will run to us and find our arms wide open and ready to embrace him and in that embrace he will be reconciled to God and we will all be united together all as one in Christ.