Sermons In Time

Members One of Another

MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER
FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

WICHITA, KANSAS

April 25, 1982

We live in a time when it is assumed that the best way to live is to go it alone
Do your own thing
To wave your own flag
Build a fence

And to otherwise separate ourselves from one another. There is even a popular understanding that in some manner, to be saved, as a Christian, is an isolated experience, individual and totally personal. The Biblical witness is quite to the contrary.

We might not want to be so exclusive as to renew the ancient theological promise that outside the church there is no salvation, but the witness is quite clear -

In Romans 12, after a lengthy apology of the Christian faith, Paul pulls it ail together by saying we are limbs and organs of the same body, cannot live without each other, or in other words - "members one of another" There is no "private" or individual Christianity.

In the lectionary reading of the morning, there are 3 beautiful passages bearing witness to the risen Lord. In the first, the disciples gathered together are filled with joy and awe as Jesus comes into their midst and eats with them.

In the second, Peter's defense of the healing of the lame man in the book of Acts is an act of the Church where the lame not only walk, but are renewed and included and given new life in the name of Jesus in the fellowship of the church.

The reading from I John is a reminder to walk in the light as he is in the light is to have sins forgiven and to be in fellowship one with another.

It is as if the Lord at Easter not only brought forth a new man, a new Adam, but also a new society, a new community, a new fellowship.

That community of faith is important to us today. We only need reflect briefly to really just how important it is. Let me lift up that importance in these moments together.

1. Perhaps most obvious - It is a privilege and even a necessity for our very life to be able to be together.-

Deitrich Bonhoeffer in his book, "Life Together", says, "never take the privilege of being
Together for granted."

One only has to be reminded of a soldier on a lonely outpost, a widow far from her children, a person in a
hospital room or a person in jail - each isolated from society and unable to be with those they love to be reminded
what a privilege it is to gather together.

"And Are We Yet Alive and See Each Other Face."

The freedom to assemble is a guarantee of the Constitution and we are always dismayed when in any way this freedom is abrogated in our society. It is a privilege to be with you today.

Bonhoeffer in another setting - (Letters and Papers from Prison) while in prison just before his death, wrote of missing the people in the fellowship of the church. (He didn't miss the preaching or the liturgy - but he did long for the saints!)

"Blessed be the ties that bind our hearts in Christian love." It is in this company of others that we know who we are and what our deepest values are
.Baptism, a sign indelibly placed - "you are bought with a price."

In Ibsen's play, " Peer Gynt", there is a scene where Peer Gynt goes to visit an "Insane Asylum". In the visit the question is asked, "I suppose that here men are most outside themselves?" The caretaker says: "Outside themselves? Ah no, it is here that men are most themselves. Themselves and nothing but themselves and if they want a Napoleon, they are the man!"

Not so the church. It is in relationship to others that identity is found through baptism. Poured into a cask of self and sealed with a being of self. one is given a name - placed in a family, nurtured in fellowship and discover who one is in relationship to father, mother, teacher, friend. Support is given in a caring fellowship.

As Harry Emerson Fosdick said, "We discover who Jesus is as we walk with him." We disciver who we are as we live together.

Last fall I baptized my granddaughter at East Heights. The next week, she was to leave with her parents to Georgia. I found myself before the altar praying for Abby - grateful to God for the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
but also sensitive that I would not have the opportunity to be grandfather on a daily or even regular basis - and commended that little girl not only to her parents, but also to a fellowship of believers, who I prayed would be wholesome and capable of instilling in her a sense of wholesome Christian identity.
That she would know herself as a Child of God, loved in a community of faith - including but also larger than her nuclear family.

3. The fellowship provides us with an opportunity to be in mission and ministry and holds us accountable for our acts - what we do, how we function. It sends us out, equips us, supports us, and expects great things of our lives.

The word "Go" seems to be as important to the Gospel as the word "Come".
Throughout the centuries the lives of the saints are stories of how response has been made to the calling - and how the story of Jesus has been told again and again. As the body of Christ, every act of compassion is an act in which we participate.

Often, in the midst of "things as they are", the message, the acts of the saints have been less than we might have them to be - but the sense of accountability has been very strong. Just about the time it would appear that the church was going too far in some direction, there have been those from within to say -

Hold it! and call it back to its central message or call it forward to the needs and demands of a new time as:

The Community of Faith - Members one of Another.

Today, we may experience it as a new focus in our life - to know who we are for the first time in relationship to being loved and cared for in a supportive fellowship.

We may be longing to be related and rejoice in the reaching out of a friend, or just the sheer joy of being accepted and included in a group for what we can contribute.

Or we may today sense that call to obedience that need to be in mission in peacemaking or in caring or in making a friend of one who has been an enemy.

Whatever! The important thing to remember is: You do not walk alone. We do not live in isolation and we are called of God into a fellowship.
If we walk in the light as he is in the light,
We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

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