We Are One

Every year in teaching the Confirmation Class with our young people, I include a section on the Apostle’s Creed. I review with them each line and proposition of the creed, its meaning and history, how it came to be a statement of our faith, and what it means to us today.

And every year we get caught on the one phrase, “I believe in the holy Catholic church.” All of them have heard of, or maybe even have family members who are part of, the Roman Catholic Church and they are shocked to think that we might really be secret Catholics or that we are a part of the church with priests and nuns, bishops and the pope. I explain to them the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the protestant reformation and the emergence of the Presbyterians. I explain that the word “catholic” means “universal,” and that the statement in the creed means that we are a part of all Christian faiths. In spite of being a denomination separate from Baptists, Episcopalians, Catholics and the rest, we united with all who call on Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.

This confession in the Apostle’s Creed is a constant reminder to me that in spite of all that separates us in the Church, the differences in theology and practice, the different ways that we organize and govern our church bodies, the different styles of worship and spiritual practice, the different cultures, ethnic groups, tribes, races, languages that shape our faith and worship—the colors of our skin, the sound of our voices—in spite of (or in the midst of) all of this, we are one in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Divergences in culture, theology and practice have been a part of the church from the very beginning. One of the very first conflicts in the church grew out of a conflict in culture and the theology of inclusion. From the book of Acts, we know the story of Paul’s missionary calling to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the gentile world, the non-Jewish world of the Greeks and the Romans. Immediately the First Church in Jerusalem (a church that was almost completely made up of Jews) objected to what Paul was doing. They insisted that all new believers observe all Jewish practices first if they wanted to be Christians. Ultimately a compromise was found, one that lined out the essentials of faith and allowed both the Jewish and the Gentile church to continue.

Over the next two thousand years the gospel has spread, from country to country, from culture to culture, language to language. I think one could look at the history of the church as the history of many peoples and cultures. There were times in that history when the church grew and spread into new lands and new cultures, changing and evolving as it went, and there were times when the church was captive to one culture, one language, and one way to be Christian.

But eventually and inevitably the gospel broke free, living out the calling of the Great Commission, “Go therefore into all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28: 15) Jesus didn’t command us to speak Aramaic or koine Greek. He didn’t command us to sacrifice at the Temple or observe kosher diets. He commanded us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. He commanded us to love him, to serve him, to follow him. He commanded us to wash each other’s feet, to serve the least of these my brothers and sisters, to outdo each other in service and compassion. He commanded us to be one in him even as he is one in us.

The gospel breaks free, every time it is held by cultural biases and binders. The gospel breaks free wherever there are attempts to control it and dominate it. The gospel breaks free to preach the redeeming love of God in Jesus Christ to the whole world.

Today, the Good News is going out to all nations. The church is truly a global church. The Word of God is read and preached in nearly every language of the world. The saving grace of Jesus Christ is heard by every tongue, in every corner of the planet. Songs of praise and thanksgiving, worship and service are shaped by every culture and race. I remember standing in the pulpit of St. Andrew’s Church in Nairobi, hearing the doxology sung in Swahili. I remember sitting in the open square of a village on the border with Tanzania, in a worship service 4 hours long, hearing prayers spoken in Kikuyu and a tribal language spoken I could not understand, yet still joining with hundreds in prayer, singing and dancing confessing Jesus Christ and praising God.

I remember dancing to beat of a hundred drums in a village in Zimbabwe, praising God and thanking God for love and grace, all in the language of the Shona. I remember sharing the imposition of ashes at a Lent service at Ntamulung Church in Bamenda, Cameroon, and sharing communion with a church in Buea, all spoken in Pidgin, praising God and giving love for our Lord.

Today, the church is truly a global church. The Church is growing like wild fire, not in the mainline churches of Europe and the United States, but in what is called the two-thirds world, the rest of the world. Churches are starting faster than there are ministers to serve them. There are now more Presbyterians in Korea than in the USA, more in Kenya than there are in the USA, more in Sudan than in the USA, more in Cameroon than there are in the USA.

The Washington metropolitan region, and National Capital Presbytery in particular, is a microcosm of that same global dynamic. Immigration has brought people from all around the globe to be our neighbors. All nations, all races, all languages, all cultures are here. The school system in Takoma Park where I live has students with over 193 different languages in their classes. And I suspect that almost all of our churches in National Capital Presbytery have new immigrants visiting and many of you have members from other cultures, languages and races. We are all multiculturalists now.

And the gospel is breaking free here in our churches as well. We are starting new churches in this presbytery and most of them are formed out of new immigrant fellowships, in languages other than English, with songs and hymns other than the old standards, with instruments other than organ, with drums and cymbals, bells and guitars. Listen to Presbyterian churches on Sunday morning and you will hear Korean, Swahili, Mungaka, Douala, Pidgin, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and many others. The Spirit of God is moving, is moving in our land. Individual churches may include these voices in their worship, in their songs and prayers, or they may continue in the old ways of being church, but the Spirit of God is moving nonetheless.

The Church of God in Jesus Christ is a church of many peoples. I believe in the holy catholic church. I believe in the church universal, I believe in the church of all the world, many lands, many tribes, many tongues, and many voices. Indeed, we are many. And although we are many, we are one. As we proclaim the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, as we all place our faith and trust in him, we are one. In Jesus Christ, we are one. Across the miles and oceans, mountains and deserts, across the barriers of language, race, tribe and custom, across all the differences of voice and song, of rhythm and beat, across the differences of denomination, worship and even theology, in Jesus Christ we are one. In Jesus Christ, we are one. Amen.