In the mind of the One who calls the worlds into being, I might have more to learn.

Text: Ephesians 4:1-6

Date: October 3, 2009, Western North Carolina Association (UCC)

Untied to united

I am grateful to have the opportunity to preach at this morning’s worship service.  The theme suggested to me is “From Untied to United: Bound Together in Christ.”  My task, then, in the next fifteen minutes or so, is to suggest a strategy for our association, conference, and denomination to live out its name: the United Church of Christ.

No problem.  I only need one word, not fifteen minutes.  Being a typical preacher, however, I’ll take the fifteen minutes to explain the word.

The inspiration for my word of choice comes from the sixteenth century Swiss  pastor John Calvin, whose 500^th birthday we celebrated this summer.  I rose during a “Speak Out” moment at the UCC’s General Synod in Grand Rapids to honor Calvin’s milestone.  The Preamble to our UCC Constitution says that we “claim as our own the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers.  Calvin is one of the big three.

Calvin believed the root sin is superbia – arrogance.  He believed the basic virtue to which human beings must aspire is humilitas – humility.  If I could choose one word with the power to move a denomination, an association, a nation, a business, a church, or a family from being untied to united, it would be humility.

In the dedication to his commentary on Romans, Calvin noted that faithful interpreters of the Bible often come to different conclusions about its meaning.  He said this is because no one person knows everything.  God, Calvin said, wants his servants to be humble when reading the Bible, and he wants them to keep in dialogue.

Unfortunately, the legacy of John Calvin is not one of humilitas.  His followers have far more often exhibited superbia about their beliefs and writings. 

Calvin’s advocacy of separation and schism undermined humility as well. In large part due to Calvin’s seed thoughts, five centuries after his time we live with the freedom to believe what we want to believe, and associate religiously with those of our choice.  Don’t misunderstand me – I wouldn’t change that system. 

But freedom of choice in matters of faith undermines humility.  Because we can believe what we want, we all believe we are right.  (If we were wrong, we would change.)  The churches we choose voluntarily are assemblies of those who are as right as we are – or at least right enough for weekly contact.

It becomes more complicated when churches group themselves in associations and denominations.  We don’t have to agree on as much, because we don’t see each other as often.  It’s harder to be united.  If we’re going to get there, we need humility.

Humble and gentle

In the first part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he explains the basics of the Christian faith.  Starting in chapter four, he tells us how we should live in light of the gospel.  We should live lives that are “worthy of the calling we have received” (v. 1).  His very first instruction?  “Be completely humble and gentle” (v. 2).

Humility was not a virtue in Paul’s world.  The word means “lowliness” or “littleness,” and Greeks did not think being a nobody was a desirable trait.  Paul was countercultural in lifting up humility as a virtue toward which to aspire.

Let me tell you a story I’m not proud of.  In 1978, I was a student at a leading conservative Bible college.  We used to have chapel speakers tell us they had been all over the world, and there was no finer school than Columbia Bible College.  I believed them.

I remember thinking as a 21-year-old college senior, “Here I am living in the most enlightened generation ever, and I am studying at the best school, spiritually speaking, in the world.  Further, I’m one of the student leaders.  I wonder what that makes me?”

Thirty years later, I have an answer.  It’s a biblical answer.  A four letter word.  “Fool!”  Front and center for Paul’s way of thinking like a Christian is the awareness that neither I nor the people I hang around with nor the mentors I admire have all the answers.

Every effort

Humility is more than just attitude.  It is action.  Paul continues, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (v. 3).

Unity requires effort.  Humility needs work.

Some years ago, I discovered a rather remarkable manuscript that emerges from our shared tradition here in the Western North Carolina Association.  Written just after the end of the Civil War, it was a pastoral letter to the churches of the North Carolina Classis of the German Reformed Church.  The letter was signed by Jeremiah Ingold, a leader among those pastors who later founded the church I serve in Hickory.

Some of those pastors and elders had been slaveholders.  Now the war was over, and the side they believed was right had lost.  The letter called on their brothers and sisters to accept defeat as God’s just verdict:  “Humbly accept God’s dealings with you.”

Many fathers and husbands had been lost.  Economic difficulty and uncertainty were rampant.  The letter urged church members to submit to the United States government, and to be generous to the poor and needy.

Most remarkable was a paragraph in which the pastors and elders addressed the situation of the freed slaves.  Remember, we are only a few weeks out from a humiliating defeat.  The letter said the churches should provide homes, jobs, education, and worship for the freed slaves.  “Let all men seek to be faithful in the new relation to which we are placed to the colored race, lest God again scourge us.”

I do not know the response that letter received.  I do know how tragic it is that this humility, this attitude of acceptance and service, this advocacy for opportunity for African Americans is exactly the opposite of what happened across the South.  We still see scars and experience consequences of southern racial superbia. 

But at least a few of our ancestors understood that humility is about action.  It is about humbling serving and providing for those you who look or act or think differently than you.  What if we as members of the UCC risked serving those we like the least?

One God

Paul continues in verse 4, reminding the Ephesians there is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.  He reserves to the end of the list, “There is one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (v. 6).  Perhaps it’s stating the obvious, but let’s say it anyway.  There is only one God, and it’s not me.  Or you.

Humility is the willingness to admit that I am one of more than two billion Christians in the world.  I might not be the best one!  My church is one of 335,000 religious congregations in the United States, and mine might not have it “together” the most.  There are more than 20,000 denominations in the world, and it’s just possible my denomination is not right about everything.  Fifty generations have come and gone since the time of Christ.  In retrospect, I can see blind spots in all the previous 49.  Could it be that my generation has blind spots as well?

Let me say that a different way.  I am one of 7 billion people on a planet that looks like a pale blue dot in a solar system of nine planets revolving around the sun.  If I could leave the sun at the speed of light (7 times around the equator in one second), it would take four years and four months to reach the next closest star.  There are 100 billion other stars in our corner of the universe, the Milky Way Galaxy.  There may be as many as 200 billion or more other galaxies. 

It is possible that in the mind of the One who calls the worlds into being, I might yet have more to learn.

Just maybe….

Humility was not a Greek value in Paul’s day.  It is also not an American value.  We do not elect politicians or choose leaders who say, “I don’t really know all the answers.  Let’s work on the problems together.” 

We also don’t read books whose authors are humble.  Maybe because there aren’t many.  People write books because they believe they have figured out the answers to questions others are asking.

Once in a while there’s an exception.  I read a book recently by Shane Hipps, who is a Mennonite pastor.  The book is called Flickering Pixels, and it’s a warning against wholehearted embrace of technology in the church.  What impressed me about the book, though, was that Hipps writes a whole chapter about the fact that he might not be right in his conclusions.

In that chapter, he tells the story of a member of his congregation named Paul who was 21 years old when he was drafted into World War II.  As a Mennonite, Paul was a pacifist and a conscientious objector.  It was his right not to go to war, but his alternative service landed him a job at a Rhode Island mental hospital.  In retaliation for his pacifist convictions, Paul was given duty on the most violent ward of the hospital, where he suffered incessant physical and verbal abuse – but he never fought back.  He took it.

Shane Hipps said he recently asked Paul, now 86, why he didn’t just go in the Army.  And why he did he not use physical force with the patients, as others did?

Paul answered, “Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek.  Jesus was nonviolent.  And my best understanding is that I am supposed to imitate that.  So that’s what I did.”

He paused, then continued.  “But…I could be wrong.”

Wow.  Sixty-five years of living out a life of costly conviction, and he can still say, “I could be wrong.”  That’s humility.

Those four words are hard to say, especially for Christians.  I can think of two reasons.  First, I believe what I believe because I believe that’s what God thinks.  The people I worship with weekly agree.  To say I could be wrong feels like saying God could be wrong.

I am not saying God can be wrong.  But I could be wrong about what God thinks. If you know my theology, you know I don’t believe the Bible is wrong.  But I could be wrong about what I’m so sure the Bible is trying to say.  It’s not even about whether I think my church or denomination is wrong. It’s about the possibility that I might be wrong.  That possibility opens my heart to listen to those who believe I am wrong.  One of the reasons I am in the UCC is because I believe it’s healthy to be around people who believe I’m wrong.  Sometimes they are kind enough to tell me so.

The second reason it’s hard for Christians to say, “I could be wrong,” is because it makes us feel a little insecure about the future. We don’t know where we might end up if we talk like that.

This sermon is not about where we end up.  It’s about where we start if we want to be united.  It’s not about my needing to say, “I am wrong.”  And it is definitely not about asking you to say, “I am wrong.”  It’s about the humility our actions, our words, even our thoughts convey to one another. 

There are certainly those who may say, “Bob Thompson has hardly been a model of humility in this association.”  I can only respond by saying I am more aware of that than you are.  I ask your forgiveness and your grace.

We can only seek God’s “right” together when we are willing to say, “I could be wrong.”  So let’s practice.  Turn to your neighbor and say, “I could be wrong.”

In the argument I had with my spouse this week, I could be wrong.

When I imagine God’s approval on what I do with my time and money, I could be wrong.

When I criticize my pastor, I could be wrong.

When as a shepherd I criticize my flock, I could be wrong.

In my political opinions, I could be wrong.

In my judgments on the motives of others, I could be wrong.

When I pontificate on which sins do or do not grieve God the most, I could be wrong.

I believe humility is the key to unity.  But I could be wrong.  Amen.