The Undivided Church

Good morning, Friends! It’s great to see you all again! This month has been so unpredictable. We listen to the forecasts. We watch the TV. We know a storm might be coming. But we really don’t know till it comes.

Then we dig out. I spent 12 or 15 hours in the last two weeks, shoveling snow and chopping ice. Sometimes, we just have to wait till it melts.

Anyway, welcome back! I’m glad we’re all here! And I’m glad we’re able to worship together again.

There have been lots of other storms going on as well in the last month. We’ve seen so many protests, so much fear and anger, all over the country.

We don’t know what’s going to be in the news, from one day to another. It’s exhausting. I sometimes think there are people who just want us to feel exhausted, to be anxious and angry all the time.

You can relax! I’m not going to talk about the protests. There are plenty of other places you can read the news.

I want to talk about something different. How does all this affect us? How does it makes us feel? How do we respond to those feelings? And how does all this affect us, as a church?

To get us started, I want to read you just a short section, from one of Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth.

A couple of weeks ago, we read the section just before this. Paul said, “Christ Jesus chose you to be his very own people, and you worship in his name, as we and everyone else does who call him Lord. My prayer is that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you and will bless you with peace! God will keep you strong to the end, so that when his day comes, you won’t be afraid of being condemned. God is utterly dependable, and he has called you into fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That’s what we read a couple of weeks ago. Now, let’s read on, and hear what Paul says next.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Then Paul goes on to describe the situation that has him concerned. He says:

My brothers and sisters, I have been informed that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another one says, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

“Let me ask you this,” Paul says. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

OK, here’s the quick version of today’s message: lots of things around us are really bad and really crazy. But please don’t let all this divide us as a church.

People ask me all the time where I stand on different things. People at Springfield have all kinds of opinions. But most of you don’t come here, to talk politics. I think most people come here looking for a safe place to worship. No one comes here to be scolded, or yelled at.

I’ve said this before – I respect all of you. We all come with different ideas, from different places. We always say we don’t judge each other, and now isn’t the time to start.

I’d like to ask you something really different today: Who are your role models, in times like these?

We all have people we look up to for an example. The ones you listen to may be different from other people. But who are your role models?

I’d like to think that all of us here look up to Jesus. And it’s interesting, that Jesus didn’t say a lot about the politics of his day.

Think about it for a minute: almost nobody in Israel liked the Romans. A lot of people expected that if Jesus really was the Messiah, that he’d start a revolution, or at least lead a protest to kick the Romans out. But Jesus didn’t do that.

Jesus healed the servant of a high-ranking Roman officer.

When they showed Jesus a piece of Roman money, Jesus said, “Caesar collects those. Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but give God what belongs to God.”

When Jesus was on trial, before the Roman governor, Jesus said, “We belong to two different kingdoms. If this was my kingdom, don’t you think my followers would fight for me?”
The Roman governor said, “Oh, so you are a king!”

Jesus said, “This is why I came, to witness to the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth, hears my voice.”

Jesus told a story one time. He said, “There were these two different people who built houses. One built their house on a rock. The other built their house on a sand pile at the beach. Then a big storm came! The house on the rock stood solid. But the house on the sand fell down, and what a mess that was!”

Which house are we? What’s our foundation, the rock or the sand?

Almost every week, we talk here about Jesus. And Jesus brings us hope and strength and comfort. But the reason we come here, isn’t just to be comfortable. We come here to learn for ourselves, how to stand on the rock.

Jesus never said it was going to be easy. In fact, he often said it wasn’t. He said we’d be misunderstood, persecuted, arrested, and hauled up in court. It happens.

But he also said, that he’d be with us. That’s the promise. “I will be with you. . .”

Hang on to that thought.

Another role model we look up to, is Paul. Paul, who was totally wrong at first about Christians. Paul started out thinking that the only good Christian was a dead Christian.
But then, God kind of changed his mind.

Paul spent the rest of his life, telling people the good word about Jesus. He walked thousands of miles, on foot. He got arrested, shouted at, shipwrecked, beat up and run out of town.

In one city, people were so angry at Paul that his friends had to lower him over the city wall, in the middle of the night in a basket, on the end of a rope.

Paul was always deeply concerned for the unity of the churches he started. People in Paul’s churches argued all the time – not that much different than today. If you read the Bible, they argued over whether you could be a Christian and eat meat. They argued about whether to have church on Sunday, or if all days are just the same.

Most of all, they argued about where people came from. Did you have to be a Jew, in order to become a Christian? Or could just anybody be a follower of Jesus? What country did you come from? What language do you speak? Who were your ancestors? Were you circumcised or not?

People argued about that one, throughout Paul’s entire life. It was the #1 hot button issue, and it never went away.

In today’s reading, Paul says that people were arguing about which preacher saved them. Was it Paul? Or another teacher named Apollos? Or a teacher named Cephas?

And Paul, to his everlasting credit, said, “It doesn’t matter! Christ is the one who saves us. Not me, or anyone else. And none of us deserve it. It’s all God’s grace.”

Over and over again, Paul said, “Don’t be divided. For Christ’s sake, don’t tear each other apart. Even if you think you’re right, don’t let your opinions turn someone away from Christ.”

From what I can tell, the people here in our meeting are pretty good about that. We have opinions, but we love each other. We don’t let our opinions divide us when we’re here. We’ve known each other for a long time. We care for each other, and we know how much we rely on each other.

One of my role models for many years, besides Jesus and Paul, has always been Allen Jay. I started reading Allen Jay, 30 years before I came to Springfield.

Allen Jay grew up at a time when Quakers in this country were deeply divided. Meetings split. Families wouldn’t talk with each other. People wouldn’t even speak to each other. The issues were always changing. Quakers argued about theology. They argued about marrying outside the church. All Quakers were against slavery, but they argued about whether we should support the Underground Railroad.

Right here at Springfield, Quakers disagreed about it. Older members felt that they had to obey the law. Younger members felt that God said, “Let my people go!”, and that meant right now. For a “peaceful people”, Quakers managed to get really hot under the collar.

Allen Jay said, “Has a separation ever caused more people to hear the Gospel? Ever enlarged the Church? Ever shown to the world more of the gentleness and meekness of Christ? Has a separation ever caused the world to exclaim, `Behold how these Christians love one another?’ Has it ever caused those who held wrong views to turn and hold right ones?”

Allen Jay is one of my role models. He’s one of my heroes. He was always grieved by people who seemed to be saying, “My way or the highway!”

One of my favorite quotes from Allen Jay is where he said, “People who have extreme views either way as a rule are not safe leaders. They can see but one side of a question. Indeed they would have people believe there is but one side, and that one is their side.”

I know too many churches like that. And I know too many leaders who think that way. They only see one side. They draw lines in the sand. They build walls around the church, instead of opening the doors.

One of my personal role models has always been my father, Edmund Brown. Dad had a way of telling stories, and then leaving me to figure out what to do with them.

A story Dad told me, just once, was from when he and my mom were living in France for a year. Dad had to so some research in France, the year before I was born. Things in France were white hot in those days. French politics were raging, and the church got involved.

My dad said he was at a service one Sunday, and during the sermon the French priest hissed at the congregation and said, “Vote for the right party – or don’t come back to church!”

Like I said, my dad told me that story only once. And I never forgot it. I know there were probably people who heard the priest that day, who left and never came back.

It’s not that having opinions is wrong. I expect everybody to think about things. And it’s not wrong to stand up for what you believe.

I’ve stood up for principles, many times. And I’ve disagreed, many times, with ideas that have been popular or widely held. I’ve been threatened and thrown out, more than once.

But I know who my role models are. They’re people who stood up for things, like women’s rights and freedom to worship, and justice, and freedom of belief.

But my role models are also people like Jesus, who never refused to sit down to a meal with someone. Jesus never refused to heal someone who was suffering. Jesus told the truth, but he also told us to love everybody.

My role models are people like Paul, who held the church door wide open, when other people would slam the door shut.

I remember reading Allen Jay who said that he never tried to push a church farther than the leaders and the members were willing to go.

Allen Jay helped to make a lot of changes in the Quaker world, but he says that he always stuck to that rule. He saw the fruits of division. He saw the church torn apart, and it was nothing he wanted to contribute to himself. So he never pushed the church farther than the leaders and members were willing to go.

A lot of the time, when I listen to people who are angry, what’s behind their anger, is fear. They’re afraid that something they care a lot about, is in danger. They’re afraid that their jobs, or their families, or their way of life, are on the line.

They’re afraid that somebody else is trying to change the rules on them. Or they’re angry and afraid, because someone else has got them all worked up about something, or they’ve heard a rumor, or bought into some fake news.

All those things matter. But what matters even more, is whether we let anyone divide us.

I think that as a church, Springfield is pretty strong. We’ve been here for an amazingly long time.

Part of the reason, as I said before, is that we respect each other. We sometimes disagree, but we don’t put each other down. We all love Jesus, and we try to never forget that.

We see things that are wrong in the world, and sometimes we speak up about them. But we try to live on the rock, and not build castles on the sand.

You don’t need to hate other people, to be strong.

You don’t always need to yell, to make yourself heard.

Your actions often speak louder than your words.

Treat each other, here and everywhere, exactly the way you want to be treated yourself.

Be careful in choosing who your examples and role models are. People who divide you aren’t necessarily on your side. They’ll use you as long as it suits them. They never stick around, to pick up the pieces.

We’re not in trouble as a church right now, and I hope we’ll never be, but please remember: we’re stronger united than divided.