“The Altogether Christian”

Scripture Lesson: Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon Transcript for February 15, 2009

By Pastor Andy Kinsey

“…whosoever has this faith, thus ‘working by love,’
is not almost only, but altogether, a Christian.”

- John Wesley

Prayer of Preparation

O God, for the witness of your church everywhere we give you thanks, for the power of your Word to lead us into truth and peace we praise your holy name, for this time of worship in your Spirit, we listen. Amen.

The Message

It is always difficult, I think, to share with others about family life! While we are definitely proud of our families, and while we have much to share about families, we are also reluctant sometimes to communicate more deeply about the problems we may have in our families.

This is especially true when it comes to the way we may understand our church family, or our denominational family, or the religious heritage of our family.

To become a part of any church is to become a part of a family, whether Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran, or Independent, or Roman Catholic. Whether we know it or not, we enter into a family.

Today, as we end our series on addressing important social issues, we do so by looking more closely at a part of the United Methodist family: the 100th Anniversary of the Social Creed. As a “church” family, we pause to reflect on a piece of our tradition we may not know much about, or we may not have thought much about.

In fact, if you are new to the United Methodist Church, you may want to pull a chair up to the family table as we share this morning. The Social Creed is part of very long history in Methodism. It has guided the Methodist Church through some very stormy times. On the other hand, if you have been a member of the Methodist family for a while, you may want to listen again to how Creed’s witness has been influential in the church, and how it has addressed the needs and problems of society.

Either way, I invite you pull up a chair, or, a pew, as the case may be!

Personal Observations

For in introducing the Social Creed this morning, I would like to state up front that, as a longtime member of the United Methodist Church, I feel a certain kinship with this part of our family’s past. I can see the value of the Social Creed – though I can also see where as a family we may want to share a few concerns at times!

I begin with these thoughts in mind because, as a pastor, I have had the privilege of working with all kinds of families! And no matter the family size or structure I feel I can safely say that there are always concerns and issues to address. There are always limitations in our families.

Newly married couples, for example, often learn very quickly that there are rules, often unspoken, as to how families work! Right? Who really speaks for the family – the husband or wife? Who really decides where to celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving? “Now, you know, Barb, we haven’t been able to go my parents for several Christmas’ now!”

As I can share from my own family experience, these are not abstract questions! Over the years, when Peggy and I have sat down with our respective families we have learned a great deal about what to share and what NOT to share! Amen! And yet, what we have learned is that in spite of our own imperfections as a family, Christ’s love is able to redeem and heal and work out God’s intentions and purposes.

All families, biological or denominational (or, even non-denominational) have built-in limitations! Recognizing those limitations is part and parcel of receiving God’s grace!

The Methodist Family

And so, as members together of God’s family, I simply would like to invite you to listen to a part of our family history, to a part of a story of influence and witness.

For it’s a story that has its roots in the life and witness of a family by the name of Wesley, particularly the lives of two brothers, John and Charles Wesley, Anglican priests who, captured by God’s Spirit, set out to renew the Church of England, and lead persons into a deeper relationship with Christ.

The vision of the Christian life they cast is a vision grounded in the passage we read a moment ago from Matthew’s Gospel – grounded in loving the Lord our God with all our mind, heart, mind, and soul, and loving our neighbors as ourselves (Mt. 22:34-40). The Christian life is to be a life marked by an intense love of God and neighbor.

Christian Life –

Love of God & Love of Neighbor

For the early Methodists, the Christian life is born by the reception of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart, bringing forth new life, and then living a life of holiness, or sanctification, a life growing in God’s grace.

Simply put, the Christian life is a life of total commitment and devotion to Jesus Christ – through prayer, worship, study, fasting, and communion on the one hand, and serving and helping those in need on the other.

Therefore, according to the Wesleys, all holiness is really social holiness.

All holiness is social holiness.

The Christian life is not a private affair. It is not meant to be lived in isolation. It is not a solitary thing. In fact, to turn Christianity into a solitary religion is to destroy it.

That’s not what the gospel is about. That’s not what the Christian life is about. Rather, the Christian life is meant to be lived in community, with others. It is meant to be lived in all areas of life.

A change of heart is to lead to a change of the world, as we offer Christ on the one hand, and as we reach out to the “least of these my brothers and sisters” on the other. Personal piety and social holiness go hand in hand.

The Christian life, therefore, is a journey: Once God’s grace changes our hearts we move to serve others; we begin to grow and become more and more like Christ, bearing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

In fact, the title of our sermon today – The Altogether Christian – is taken from a comment Wesley makes in a sermon where he says very clearly that the goal of the Christian life is faith working itself out in love – that in spite of the hatred people may have toward those who work for good, those whose lives reflect God’s love into the world are “altogether Christians.” They are “altogether” serving the Lord. They are “altogether” doing what Christ commands. (“The Almost Christian,” John Wesley’s Fifty-Three Sermons).

This is the vision that has guided Methodists for over two centuries –to not only call persons to faith but then to lead them to create schools, clinics, and shelters. It’s the vision that has led Methodists to speak out in society against child labor, gambling, addiction, slavery, prostitution, violence on the one hand, and to speak up for the role of the laity in the church in preaching the gospel on the other. The clergy were never meant to dominate the church!

I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that not since the Protestant Reformation has a movement so affected the whole of Christ’s church than the way Methodism has! In fact, we really cannot understand the Christian family today without understanding what the Wesley family and the Methodists tried to do (e.g., the Pentecostal movement, the Holiness movement, the Social Gospel movement we cannot understand unless we understand the power unleashed in this Wesleyan way of life).

Personal Confession

I know personally I could not understand my own life and family without this story playing in the background. And while I have been tempted on occasion to jump ship and find another church family, I have realized that, of all the different branches of the Christian family tree, this is the one branch that most clearly strikes a balance between social and personal, head and heart, mission and service, prayer and worship.

And so, if I could find a way to state as clearly as I can what it is that attracts me to this way of life, to this way of being Christian, it is that we as Methodists do not simply have a love of mission, but we also have a mission of love.

A Love of Mission – A Mission of Love

Always Together! Altogether Christian!

If there is one thing I think John Wesley got right, it is that that the gospel, the Christian life, is about living a life of holy love! Not simply with family and friends, not simply in the church, but everywhere, in the world, in society, in the economy, in politics, in international relations, in the environment, as Pastor Bob shared last week. This gospel we live is meant for everyone!

The Social Creed

Therefore, the Social Creed we celebrate today and the new Social Litany we shared at the beginning and will share at the end of the service – speaks to and lives out of this way of holy love!

It is a creed we cannot understand unless we see it as a way our church family has said – “This is important. This is what we value. This is what the gospel leads us to affirm.”

Sound simple? In 1908, during the height of the Industrial Revolution, with gulf between rich and poor growing, with labor unrest everywhere, the Methodist Church stated very clearly what it believed, affirming justice for all people in all stations of life, affirming “the principle of arbitration in industrial dissensions,” working to abolish child labor, regulating “the conditions of labor for women,” working for a day of rest one day a week, working toward a just wage and “the most equitable division of the product of industry.”

In 1908, all these statements (and more) were geared toward addressing specific social ills.

1972 Social Creed

Later, United Methodists would utilize and change this Creed to speak out against other forms of injustice and oppression. That’s what the Social Creed printed in your bulletin states. You may refer to it there.

In 1972, on the heals of still more changes, the United Methodist Church found it necessary again to speak up and out for the gospel, affirming again

the good gifts of God’s creation,
the blessings of family and community,
the dignity of all persons,
the right and duty of all persons to work for the glory of God and the
good of themselves and others,
the role of collective bargaining, responsible consumption, and the
elimination of economic and social distress,
the rule of justice and law and personal freedom,
affirming again the need to manifest in all of life the love of God.

(Copies of the 1972 United Methodist Social Creed are available upon request. This is a paraphrase of what the Creed actually states.)

For 100 years these Social Creeds have built upon the Methodist church’s witness, providing the framework for understanding “the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society,” for doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8), for protecting the widow and the orphan and the worker from exploitation (Exodus 22:21-22, Deuteronomy 24:14-15). [Persons may also obtain copies of the 1908 Social Creed in the Church Office.]

For 100 years these affirmations have provided resources for the United Methodist Church’s life and mission. They have reminded the church that the gospel way of living, the life of holiness, is not “detached” from life but very much “attached” to engaging the problems of life; the gospel not only comforts but also disturbs, shakes up, challenges.

In fact, there is, as Pastor Bob said on Wednesday night during our devotions, a kind of “holy discontent” that comes with living the Christian life: You look out on this world, and you see the injustice, you see the problems, and you say with Jesus and the prophets, you say with Popeye when he confronts Bluto: “That’s all I can stanz, I can’t stanz it no more!”

I can’t stanz the growing gap between have’s and the have not’s,
I can’t stanz the hypocrisy, the racism, the consumerism.
I can’t stanz the corruption in Washington and the greed on Wall Street, and the way persons exploit others for gain.
I can’t stanz the gap between those who live with the welfare of others in mind and those who live with no mind at all!

Holy discontent! Not discontent to just get mad. We have enough of that; and it doesn’t help anybody. But discontent that arises out of God’s own discontent, that arises out of God’s own concern for the welfare of others, that comes from God and leads back to God, reminding us all that we as Christians are to do these things together.

That kind of discontent! The kind of discontent that is altogether
Christian – altogether committed to serving, altogether devoted to mission, all together in the grace and love of God! Altogether Christian – All Together!

So let me ask you: after listening to this, what do you think? Do you still want to be in the family? When you go home and read and chew on these Social statements, will you want to return to the table?

As a member of the family, I pray so! I pray so, for altogether I believe it is the right thing to do. All together it is, as God’s family!

Amen.