We Belong to Christ

In this series of sermons about “what matters,” this one is central.  What does it mean to “belong to Christ,” really …?

 What Matters: Part Four…We Belong to Christ

Romans 14:7-8; 1 Corinthians 12:12-21 

We belong to Christ. Of the six statements of “What Matters” that I am preaching on this fall, this is the one most likely to make us squirm.

We proudly proclaim that “We are people of God’s extravagant welcome.” We acknowledge that “We are a covenant people, a united and uniting church.” We celebrate that “We are one at baptism and the table.” But this one gives us pause. We are uneasy about “belonging to,” and we are uncertain about “Christ.”

Actually, we are perfectly fine with “belonging to” when it is an organization or a club or the church. That kind of belonging makes it clear that it is our initiative that is involved, that we have chosen to be part of a group, and we give it the amount of time, money, and energy that we choose to.

This morning, in fact, the new member committee and I will be meeting with people who are interested in becoming members of our church. They are taking the initiative to come to the Inquirers’ Class, they will choose (or not) to become members, and they will determine the amount of time, money, and energy that they will invest in their church membership.

What they need to know is that they will be choosing whether to become part of a church that doesn’t belong to us. It doesn’t belong to the Minnesota Conference nor to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ. Our church belongs to Christ; we belong to Christ.

When we welcome new members into our congregation on November 8, they will be asked a two-part question. Most folks find the second part easy, and many folks find the first part, well, not so easy. Here is the question: “Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ, and do you purpose to live according to His law of love?”

When we talk about this question in the Inquirers’ Class, I usually refer to our congregation’s covenant, which we have been speaking as a blessing to one another for the last several months: “We covenant together with God and one another, trusting in God’s continuing guidance, to seek to understand and do God’s will, to explore the mystery of Christ, and to witness to God’s reconciling love.”

So what we belong to is a mystery. You probably know that faithful men and women, scholars and clergy, have always labored to reach into that mystery. You might hear the phrases “low Christology” or “high Christology” to describe some of those efforts. Those with a “low Christology” focus and are moved by the humanness of Jesus. Their style of discipleship is to study the words and teachings and actions of Jesus, and to use them as guides for faithful living. Those with a “high Christology” focus and are moved by the divinity of Jesus. Their style of discipleship is more likely to involve personal devotion in prayer and a mystical experience of Christ in their lives and in the world.

Most of us are somewhere in the middle. We relate more easily to the human Jesus, but we are also moved and touched by the divine Jesus Christ – what Marcus Borg calls “the Post Easter Christ.” But wherever we may fall individually on this oversimplified dimension of Christology, today we make this claim: that however we understand the person and presence of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is bigger than we are – bigger than we are personally, bigger than we are as a congregation or a national church, bigger than we are as part of all of Christendom. And because Christ is bigger – more holy, more profound, more cosmic in presence and action – because Christ is larger than any of us (or all of us put together), Christ cannot belong to us. If we are seriously about our discipleship, we confess that we belong to Christ.

Here’s how we say that to God in the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith (which you can find as #885 in the hymnal):

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Savior,

you have come to us and shared our common lot,

conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to yourself.

There it is: the irreducible tension of our belief in Christ: the man of Nazareth and our crucified and risen Savior. To this paradox, we say “yes.”

And our “yes” matters. It matters because saying “We belong to Christ” relativises all of the other claims that are made on our lives, our hearts, and our consciences. We are not asked to renounce those other claims; we are only asked to respond to them in the always-greater context of the claim of Christ. And so we honor our loving obligations to family and friends, our responsible obligations to workplace and community, our patriotic obligations to nation – but we honor all of those in relation to our sacred obligation as disciples of Christ.

There are times, of course, when these obligations seem to conflict with each other, times when the demands of our lives seem more powerful than the directives of our soul. Let me mention two of those.

First, around us in the larger culture are loud voices that tell us we are “on our own,” responsible for everything in our lives – all the decisions, all the events, all the choices. But if we listen to those voices in the context of what our congregational covenant calls “God’s continuing guidance,” that is, the stillspeaking voice of our faith, if we listen in that context, we realize that we are not entirely in charge of our lives. We have willingly, lovingly, faithfully put our lives in the care of God. As we will sing together in a few moment: “We are not our own ..” [Hymn #564, text by Brian Wren]. W

And in the church – certainly in our church – we are often caught up with our passion for justice and our dedication to peace. We are so caught up in these struggles that we lose track of the underpinnings of faith that brought us to those convictions. We believe that we know what is most needed, that our ideas are more ethical, more moral, more – well, more holy than anyone else’s. But if we listen for the continuing guidance of God, the voice of Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit, we sometimes find that we are being asked to take a different action than we first believed. We are reminded to be a bit more humble in our zeal, a little more compassionate in our rebellion. In the context of our work, even our convictions come under the critique of our faith.

There are many reasons that people choose to become members of a church, but one that I often hear is the deep desire to be part of something larger – something larger than ourselves, larger than the facts of our daily lives, larger than the meanings offered to us by a capitalistic and consumer culture. There is the desire to give our offspring the gift of this larger truth, and to share in a community where challenges and struggles are heard and pondered and met in the context of that greater truth.

So let us thankfully and humbly name that larger truth, in all of its mystery and power: We belong to Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer for October 11, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of our hearts and minds, this morning we offer our prayers for those circumstances in our lives that we cannot usually bring ourselves to say aloud. Help us to name before you and one another the disappointments, shames, sorrows, and shortcomings that eat away at our faith and our wellbeing.

We pray for our relationships that are conflicted, dispirited, or unfulfilling.

We pray for ourselves and our loved ones who live with mental illness.

We pray for ourselves and our loved ones who live with chronic health conditions.

We pray for those whose access to health care is limited by finances, geography, or prejudice.

We pray for everyone who has been betrayed, cheated, or defrauded.

We pray this morning for those who live with addictions and alcoholism.

We pray for those who have lost their employment, and those who have not been able to begin their work lives because they cannot find a job.

And since our miseries are often accompanied by economic challenges, we pray for wisdom about money, time, and emotional energy.

Finally, we pray for the secrets of our hearts that we can speak only to you.

All of these things we pray in the name of the one who listens with loving attention to all of our sorrows, and who bears them with us, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …

(May 31, 2009)

(August 23, 2009)