Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from August 15, 2004

“Reconciling the World to Yourself”

(Exploring Our Faith, Part II)

Rev. Thomas Ratmeyer

Scripture:

Romans 8:31-39

This is week two of our three week series on the UCC (United Church of Christ) statement of faith.  I invite you to look in the bulletin and find the insert on which it is printed.  Find the middle part which is printed in bold, which will be what we talk about today. Last week I alerted you to the fact that this statement of faith is written in the form of a prayer. What an inspired choice!  This makes it not a factual description of our faith, but a communication with the one we believe in.  It is quite powerful that instead of reading this as a creed we read it and say it as a prayer together. 

This week I’d like to alert you to the fact that it is written mostly in the present tense.  There is one line that is written in the present perfect. I am reminded of my early English education in German High School where we learned when to use present perfect and when to use past tense. Both cases describe something that happened before now.  You use present perfect if what happened is still connected to what you are doing right now.  I have come here this morning and I have been alone then, but I am now with you and I am still here.  So, having come this morning that is something that happened in the past, but it’s still connected - I am still here.  On the other hand, I came to Mystic three years ago.  That’s not over and done with, but it’s definitely in the past.  Notice this statement of faith expresses everything that God does in the present tense.  Or in a time, a way of describing time, that is very much connected to the present tense.  The language we use to describe God’s action in this prayer talks to a God that is right here with us.  A God that is actively engaged with us, in relationship with us, relevant and timely.  A God that takes us into the dawn of tomorrow rather than us waking up tomorrow and deciding whether we want God to still be there or not.  No, God takes us into tomorrow. 

You call into being, you seek to save, you judge.  You have come, and you bestow upon us.  You call us and you promise. 

Today we give witness to our faith in Jesus Christ focusing on that center piece that is written in bold.  Let me read that part to you: “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.”  I would like to break this up and talk about every single one of these pieces just so we have a chance to interact with that before we pray that together at the end of the sermon. 

“In Jesus Christ.”  Let’s stop right there because every time we say his name, it is a statement of faith.  ‘Christ’ is not the last name of Jesus.  ‘Christ’ is a statement of faith and in calling Jesus ‘Christ’ we call ourselves Christians.  If we wanted to talk about Jesus in a neutral way like a religious scholar who studies religions rather than confessing a faith, we would have to talk about ‘the Jesus that Christians call Christ.’  Every time you say, ‘Jesus Christ’ whatever else you say, you have confessed your faith.

“The man of Nazareth” A human being. How important it is whether God revealed God-self in a son or a daughter, I don’t know. It is important that God revealed God-self, if you want to be aware of inclusive language for a moment, in a human being. And its important for us to know the background. I find that in this country, which is a country of immigrants, the question of ‘Where are you from—what is your background?’ is one of the first questions we ask one another, one of the first ways of having a sense who it is we are talking to. If I ask the question about background in my home in Germany, I will likely get an answer about the educational background, the career path, and the work that somebody has done, the life-story background, if you will. If I ask the same question of someone here, I will learn that he is third generation American with a history in Sweden and his mother is from Eastern Europe. So for us the question of background is very important, and it is a very important identifier, that we encounter this Jesus whom we confess as the Christ with a location in mind and a life-story. He is the man of Nazareth.

“Our crucified and risen Savior.” Five words with incredible wealth of meaning attached to each one of them. Our Savior—what ever we are saying that Jesus has done is immediately connected to our lives—Jesus has done it for us. This is not just the savior, it is our savior, and he reaches into our lives, he changes our lives. Crucified—he has gone through the whole of the human story. He has been subjected to a violent death. He knows what it is to be human more than you and I. But then, because he is divine as well, he conquered everything that is human limitation and rose from the dead. That makes him not just ’our’ but ‘our Savior.’ Just think of those five words and how many stories and passages in the Bible you can attach to ’our crucified and risen Savior.’

“You have come to us.” Don’t we sometimes think that we come to God? It’s not true. God has come to us. God has come to us and God continues to do that. God came to Abraham and hit his life like a meteor. God said ’I want to be in a personal relationship with you. It is not enough that I have created this world and that I’ve put people on it, ad it is not enough that you have some sense of who I am. I want to be I in a personal relationship with you, and I want everybody who comes after you have his or her life be affected by that relationship as well. I want you to be my people. Then I will come back, because it is not enough that there will be one people that have my name, but I will come back in human form, and then there will be the new Israel, the new descendents of Abraham, which will be all believers. And then, I will come back as the Holy Spirit, and I will be a part of your life. I will be present with you, not as a historical event, not as a faith event in the past, but as your present event.

“And shared our common lot.” Knowing what it is to be human. For some, knowing what it is to be human means running away even as children from violence and war; having to go into exile. Some who are born into this world have to flee from persecution and violence from the moment that they are there, as Jesus ran from Herod as a child. We all have to learn, as Jesus learned in the synagogue. We all encounter sickness and we care for one another, so Jesus tended to Peter’s mother–in– law. We all confront moral complexities, trying to do the right thing, and we deal with others who are confront moral complexities—we all struggle with our moral failures, so Jesus ate with sinners. But we also try to do the right thing in some form or shape, and we try to surround ourselves with people who try to do the right thing, so Jesus ate with righteous people. And we all at one point or another face betrayal, so Jesus ate with Judas. We encounter not only sickness, but death, and we weep for those we lose, so Jesus wept at Lazarus’ grave. It is because he came as a human being that he is approachable to us and understandable to us, even as he is revealed  as divine, conquering all in the human condition that keeps us from being united with God.  

Finally, “reconciling the world to yourself.” I love that word ’reconciliation because it describes a relationship. You can only reconcile with somebody with whom you have been in relationship before. It’s a mutual act. Something has been strained between us but we can reconcile. That is what Jesus does, Jesus reconciles the world with God. Let me pay attention to words here: The biggest piece in this reconciliation is that Jesus forgives our sins in his death and resurrection. However, I find the word ’reconciliation’ even more encompassing, because sometimes what keeps us from having a relationship with God may not just be our sins, it may be fear, it may be insecurity, it may be that I am alienated even from myself, and so can’t be in relationship with God. That Jesus reconciles us with God for me is the most encompassing way to talk about this.

Paul uses the word reconciliation in an earlier chapter of the letter to the Romans. He writes “We celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:11)

            I also want to read to you once more what Lauren read, the part of Romans 8 that we know so well: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

             This is what I call a crisis scripture. It is a scripture that means something to me at any time, but one that takes on a tremendous amount of relevance when I face such adversaries. This is the scripture that becomes the message we need when we are in the face of death, when we are in the face of catastrophe; when we face our life somehow being ripped apart; when we face defeat.

            Then it is not anymore about an intellectual understanding of what God did for us or what Christ did for us, but then it is about believing that nothing can get between you and God, whatever happens. Today I think about the people in Florida. For them, turmoil and trepidation, and having your life overthrown, is not a hypothetical thought, not a sermon illustration, but is what they are facing as they stand in front of their homes that have been destroyed. They ask themselves: “What is left—where are we going to be, where are we going to sleep?” In those moments this is the scripture that lets us go to the other side and say “We will be ok. On the most important level, we are ok.”

            But yet, we don’t have just catastrophes, we have normal days, we have routine. Do you ever have a bad day? Of course you do. I have days where my communication skills just falter and fail, especially with loved ones. It is much easier with people that I work with. I have days where don’t understand the person in front of me or myself. I have days where I don’t seem to know anymore what it is all about. I have days where I feel defeated, but not in this big, catastrophic sense of Charley coming into my life, no, in a smaller sense. We need daily resurrections as well.

            I firmly believe that “nothing can separate us from the love of God” has meaning for us as a congregation as well. We call ourselves the ‘Body of Christ.’ You can understand that in different ways. If you think of the sacrament, where we parttake in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, even on a symbolic level, we become the body of Christ, we are the embodiment of Christ, in a very physical sense. That is a theological perspective. You can understand it in a sense of social justice. If we are doing the work of God in the world, then we are becoming the body of Christ. We become the hands that do the work, the feet that walk the walk and we are the mouthpiece of the Christian call for justice. We become the body of Christ. We are a family that prays together. How we lift up one another in prayer, how we have faith for one another, how this is not a bunch of individuals, but we are gathered around Christ and gathered around the Holy Spirit, that is how we are close to one another.

            Let me summarize: Jesus Christ is our Savior in the moment that we face adversaries that we don’t seem to be able to conquer. When we encounter death, sickness that is overwhelming, when we encounter something that wreaks havoc with our life, then Jesus Christ is our Savior, and nothing can separate us from God. But similarly, Jesus Christ is our Savior in the day-to-day stuff. Nothing that gets in our way is too banal to have a faith component to it—Jesus Christ is our Savior in the daily little things that we struggle with, in our daily need for resurrection. Finally, Jesus Christ is our Savior when we come together as God’s children in this church. Jesus Christ is our Savior and we are the body of Christ.

Like last week I invite you to stand and pray with me the UCC Statement of Faith: 

“We believe in you, O God, Eternal Spirit, God of our Savior, Jesus Christ and our God, and to your deeds we testify: You call the worlds into being, create persons in your own image and set before each one the ways of life and death.  You seek in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.  You judge people and nations by your righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.  In Jesus Christ, the man from 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.

You bestow upon us your Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.  You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be your servants in the service of others, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

You promise to all who trust you forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, your presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in your realm which has no end.  Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto you.  Amen.”