(This sermon was given September 3, 2009 under the arbor at St. Matthews UCC, Maiden, NC, as part of their annual revival services.)
“Pakistan to Hickory: An Evangelical in the UCC”
Romans 10:9-15
Thunderbolts
It is a special joy to be here tonight, for many reasons. First, over the last few years especially Linda and I feel we have become friends with many of you, and also with your church. We’ve been through some challenging things together, and you have been a great blessing by remaining in the UCC and joining Faithful and Welcoming Churches.
And so it was an added joy when you called Ray and Kathy Jachowski. The more Linda and I get to know them, the more blessed we feel to call them friends and colleagues, and the more grateful we are to know that they have been called to minister here.
A third reason it’s a joy to be here is that I’ve never preached in an outdoor arbor. It isn’t just being outside – it’s all the symbolism and rich heritage that is represented by being in this place. You are the only German Reformed congregation in this area, as far as I know, to preserve this tradition of outdoor revival services from the mid-nineteenth century until now. For me to be a part of that heritage is humbling.
Then there is another point of joy that is an “LOL” moment from where I stand. (For those of you who are more behind the times than I am, LOL means “laugh out loud.”) You do know, don’t you, that the North Carolina Classis of the German Reformed Church withdrew from the General Synod in 1853. There were many factors in that separation, but among them were the fact that the two primary professors at the denominational seminary in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, were highly critical of revivals and camp meetings. Instead, they favored liturgy, creeds, catechisms, and the value of church history.
John Williamson Nevin wrote a book to condemn Revivalistic methods such as emotionalism and “the anxious bench” in 1843. Philip Schaff’s trial for “heresy” in 1845 was instigated in part by North Carolina pastors. I’ll guarantee you that 150 years ago, the names Schaff and Nevin were mud in these parts. Nothing good could come from those Mercersburg Theology people.
So please do not tell Rev. John G. Fritchey, who founded this congregation in 1837, that the current pastor of St. Matthews is on the board of the Mercersburg Society! It encourages me greatly to know that these explosive controversies of the past can be overcome. In this case it has a lot to do with the spirit of this wonderful congregation and the grace of this particular pastor.
All of this actually leads rather naturally into my own journey of faith as an “evangelical,” which is my assigned topic for tonight. My mother was a revivalistic, Bible belt Baptist who married the son of a mainline Yankee Methodist preacher and missionary. At Mom and Dad’s wedding rehearsal my grandfather, the officiant, pulled out his service book and Mom exclaimed, “You’re not going to read the prayers, are you?” To which her soon-to-be father-in-law, who was not a Mercersburger but could have been, “Virginia, I can send thunderbolts through you with my read prayers.”
Most of my life I have lived and ministered in this tension between Bible belt revivalism and mainline intellectualism. Feel your faith. Think about it. Read the Bible. Study your history. It’s about a personal decision. It’s about belonging to the church universal. Go to Sunday School. Partake of the sacraments. Make sure people know how to go to heaven. Make sure people are fed and clothed.
More than any other movement, in my view, evangelicalism embraces all of those. Here’s a brief history lesson. The word “evangelical” has been used at various times in history as a synonym for Protestant. That’s how it is used in the United Church of Christ, because one of our branches, the German Evangelical Church, was a union of Reformed and Lutheran churches who, when they joined together, were the primary alternative to the Catholic church.
I have been invited here tonight to tell my story as an “Evangelical.” What does that mean?
The way I will use the word “Evangelical,” I’m talking about how the word has been used since the middle of the last century. Billy Graham is the most well-known Evangelical.
Billy Graham started out as a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists were – and are – all about defending the faith, defending the Bible. The American South did and probably still does include the world’s highest concentration of fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalists draw the circle of Christian very clear and very tight, and they don’t associate much with people, even Christian people, who think differently on any point. The only reason to associate with the world is to convert them to Christian fundamentalism.
Well, along came Billy Graham, and he began to believe that if we were going to reach the world with the message of Jesus, we had better love people, we had better go to people who need Christ, and we had better start opening our arms to work in partnership with Christians who might see some things differently than we do but still believe in Jesus. That’s an evangelical. We still believe in the Bible, but we’re not content to sit off in a corner somewhere defending it and accusing everyone of heresy if they don’t cross their t’s and dot their i’s exactly like we do.
One of the great Scripture texts to explain evangelicalism is Romans 10:9-15. Evangelicals have some differences among us, but we are all likely to agree on three key points – Jesus is Lord, the Bible is true, and Good news is for sharing.
Jesus is Lord
The Apostle Paul writes, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
Evangelicals believe that. We believe God has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life and died the death that we deserved, then rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father until he returns to the earth.
Evangelicals believe that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. You have to confess him as Lord – that is, as equal to Yahweh, the Creator – and believe that he died and rose again for you. Without that faith, there is no salvation in this life or the next.
After my parents married, they went as missionaries to what was then the northwestern corner of West Pakistan. I grew up 7,000 feet in the Himalayan foothills in an area not far from where Osama Bin Laden is rumored to be hiding today. There was so much snow in the winter that we had winter vacation instead of summer vacation.
We went to school in a converted Anglican church building – you had an Anglican here last night. The Anglicans had been there first in Pakistan and part of their evangelistic approach was to build these cathedral-type buildings in hopes of filling them up with Pakistani converts. Apparently the church never took off in that area, so missionaries converted it for use as a school. I was in boarding school away from my parents for six months out of the year, even in elementary school.
I remember struggling inside with how I could know I would go to heaven. I was looking for assurance of my salvation, and I couldn’t find it. As an evangelical I was supposed to pray the right prayer, asking Jesus into my heart. But I did that a lot and it never really “took.” Once at a missionary kids’ camp at age 11, I went forward at the altar call and made a public profession. Uncle Freddie, one of the missionaries, spoke about the need to make certain of your relationship with Christ, and I wanted to do that. Uncle Freddie reminded me a lot of Billy Graham.
But even into my teen years back in the States, when we attended a Baptist church, I never could figure out why I had these nagging doubts about my salvation. I had prayed the right prayer – lots of times – and I knew my heart was as sincere as it could be. But I didn’t always feel it.
At some point it dawned on me that Romans 10:9-10 doesn’t say anything about whether you feel it. It says you have to confess Jesus is Lord and believe God raised him from the dead. In other words, the question is not where my emotions are. Have I chosen Jesus Christ? As far as I know my own heart, have I trusted him and him alone to do all that is necessary to make me his forever? That’s what it means to be an evangelical. Jesus is Lord.
The Bible is true
In the next three verses from Romans 10, Paul quotes twice from what we call the Old Testament – his Bible.
“As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
Evangelicals believe the Bible is true. We may argue with each other about what terms to use to describe the Bible – inerrant, infallible, authoritative, and so on. But the bottom line is that we believe this book was written because its authors were “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
After high school, I went to Columbia Bible College to study the Bible. It was a logical place for an evangelical young person to go in 1974. If the Bible is true, then how better to invest four years of college than to major in Bible? That’s what I did. We studied some history and English and science (no math), but most of my courses were Bible courses – Bible survey, specific books, the science of interpreting the Bible (hermeneutics), how to teach the Bible, what the Bible says about various subjects (theology), and so on. I learned to study the New Testament in Greek as a 20-year-old college student.
I also met the love of my life in Bible college. Linda was from Pennsylvania, and we were both elected officers of the sophomore class. Then we were elected President and Vice-president of the choir as juniors, and by the end of that year we were engaged.
When we were looking for employment during our senior year, we wanted to do youth ministry as a step toward – well, we didn’t know exactly what. Maybe overseas missions. There was a church in the school’s placement file in Reidsville, NC that needed a Director of Christian Education. But we didn’t want to be that broad – just youth ministry. Besides, they were in a denomination neither of us knew much about, and what we knew wasn’t that inviting. They were United Church of Christ.
The college placement office sent our information to them “by mistake” over the Christmas break. A few weeks later, the phone rang on my dorm hall, and Rev. Dan Jones, pastor of First Congregational Church in Reidsville said, “We think you’re the man for the job.” I didn’t know I had applied.
The UCC was different for us, and hard at first. Remember, to an evangelical, the Bible is true. It didn’t look to us like many people in the UCC agreed with that statement. There were lots of issues where their understanding of the Christian faith differed a lot from ours. If they believed the Bible, they certainly weren’t believing what we had been taught from the Bible.
I remember hearing that the church had had a split before we came when about a fourth of the membership left. Those folks wanted the church to leave the UCC – I think it was over the Wilmington Ten. Some of you remember that. I remember thinking they had made a mistake by staying in the UCC.
Before long, though, Linda and I realized there were lots of churches that would be open to and even wanted a pastor who believes that Jesus is Lord and the Bible is true. There was an open door to evangelicals. So we went back to Columbia for seminary with the intent of returning to the UCC for pastoral ministry.
Along the way lots of those same issues, and more, have arisen time and time again. I have become less narrow in my circle of Christian fellowship and trust. I accept as brother or sister all who confess Jesus as Lord. It’s not my place to judge.
As for the Bible, I certainly have my views on what it means that the Bible is true. But the great dividing line for me is whether a person looks up to the Bible or down at the Bible. Do we look up to the Scripture as God’s authoritative word? Or do we look down at it as the writings of humans who were doing the best they could but are really no more authoritative than a copy of Moby Dick?
Good news is for sharing
Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions in Romans 10:14-15:
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”
How can they? Good news is for sharing.
Evangelicals believe the world needs Jesus. I don’t mean that we believe it would kind of be a nice thing if maybe we shared him. I mean that we believe the world needs Jesus. That the love of God compels us to spread the message that Jesus is Lord and the Bible is true.
We also believe, however, that God is the One who ultimately changes people and cultures. So, different from fundamentalists, you don’t find many evangelicals yelling at cars from street corners or leaving gospel tracts on rest stop urinals. Evangelism is about relationships, it’s about following the Spirit where he leads us, it’s about trusting God to work in his time and in his way.
It’s also about being available whatever, whenever, wherever. Seventeen years ago I invited Uncle Freddie to preach at Emanuel UCC in Thomasville, where I was pastor. In addition to preaching the Gospel, Uncle Freddie would always issue a call for public commitment to do whatever, whenever, wherever God wanted.
I signed one of those little commitment cards, not knowing what it might mean. Linda and I were still both open to anything God might ask of us.
That fall, some members of the Pulpit Committee of Corinth Reformed Church in Hickory contacted me repeatedly about becoming their pastor. They had to be very persistent, because we loved Emanuel Church and loved Thomasville. Finally I said to a Pulpit Committee member, “I don’t think God wants us to leave, but how do I really know what God wants? We will at least look at your (church) profile.” Whatever, whenever, wherever.
We have been at Corinth now for sixteen years. They have been wonderful years in the church, but as you well know, the last few years for any Bible belt church in the UCC have been challenging. When I asked my church to stay in the UCC, I said to them, “God has never called me to the comfortable place. He called me to where I was needed.” I believe the UCC needs evangelicals.
I could run the other way and join a denomination where everyone is evangelical. Then I could just complain that those awful people I left don’t believe that Jesus is Lord and the Bible is true. But the truth is, I’ve found lots of UCC people through the years, many of whom do not consider themselves evangelical, who do believe that Jesus is Lord and the Bible is true. You are among them. As for those who don’t, “How can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
My parents went to Pakistan almost forty years not because they thought they could turn around the whole country. They went because God called them to a place where they were needed. Evangelicals believe good news is for sharing. You go where you’re called and give the message God gives you. The rest you leave to him.
So my journey around the world brought me to the UCC, to North Carolina, and here to you.
My only comfort
One closing thought. When you keep your distance from people, you often think you have nothing in common. As I came into the UCC, and specifically into the German Reformed stream of the UCC, I found that there was much that I could embrace and love.
One of those commonalities was the Heidelberg Catechism. Most of it could easily have been written by an evangelical. It could easily have been written by a nineteenth century Bible belt revivalist. Maybe if our Southern forebears had not thrown stones at the Mercersburg folks (and vice versa), they would have found much in common.
You can’t get any more “evangelical” than the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism.
What is your only comfort in life and in death?
“That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”
Did you notice the “I,” the “me,” the “mine.” It’s personal. Assurance of salvation comes when the Holy Spirit works in me to help me see my need. I confess that Jesus is Lord, and that he died and rose again for my salvation. It’s what he did, not what I do. That’s evangelical. That’s Reformed. That’s just Christian.
Amen.