The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for June18, 2006

Texts: Mark 4:26-34

Title: “With What Shall We Compare?”

              With what can we compare the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or what parable will we use for it?  It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

              The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.

              No, what I read does not arise from some newly discovered biblical manuscript.  Though his divine powers may well have equipped Jesus to foresee the emergence of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), there existed in Jesus’ lifetime no entity recognizable as the church we know today, let alone a Presbyterian Church.  Only later, at Pentecost and after, would what we know as a church take form, the Apostle Paul and others, busily devising language such as “church” and “body of Christ,” to describe this new creation God wrought through Jesus.

              Make no mistake, the kingdom of God and the Presbyterian Church are not synonymous.  There exists a whole lot of “kingdom of God,” filling out the space around our Presbyterian footprint.  What I want to emphasize in inserting Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) into the text where Jesus has “kingdom of God,” is not that the kingdom of God bears the Presbyterian seal, but that God values his Presbyterians as valued partners in kingdom making, these Sunday morning gatherings of ours our most overt sign to the world that we are partnered up with God. 

              Jesus Christ resorted to parables, little common place vignettes from life to help explain concepts like “kingdom of God.” Others have followed his lead. I could produce substantial works of theologians and biblical scholars hundreds of pages in length written on the subject “kingdom of God.” These works, informative as they might be, would very likely exhaust our attention span in short order.  Jesus took this different tack.  The kingdom of God is as if someone should scatter seed on the ground.  It grows, the sower knows not how, but produces this full grain which feeds and sustains life.  The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, small, but give it time and it becomes something huge with great branches.

              The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a long-standing partner in God’s mighty efforts.  I could produce substantial works by theologians, biblical scholars, and church historians to describe the many ways in which the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has contributed to God’s efforts at kingdom building.  Trust me, there is a lot to learn on the subject of this old denomination of ours, and I would like to share some of that information with you this morning.  I want to stress again that when Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God and what that kingdom is like, he is referring specifically to what he is doing in the world through his church, and we Presbyterians are very committed members of that church, and have been since the sixteenth century.

              Our distinct contributions as Presbyterians to kingdom building is subject matter I seldom treat beyond new member classes or elder training, Scripture, prayer and song making the more compelling claim on the time allotted us on Sunday morning. The 217th General Assembly of our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) currently in session in Birmingham, Alabama, however, provides a unique opportunity to celebrate our Presbyterian heritage and our efforts in kingdom of God making. 

              This General Assembly of 2006 is the 217th General Assembly convened.  Think about it.  Datable from the last decade of the eighteenth century, the seventeen hundreds, until today, Presbyterians have been gathering in one large assemble to conduct the business of the church. This year also marks the 300th  anniversary of American Presbyterianism. Before Washington, Jefferson or Franklin there was a Presbyterian presence in  America.

                     With what can we compare the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or what parable will we use for it?  It is like a mustard seed, friends, and in our case the seed has been germinating a very long time. Now let us talk about some of the characteristics of our seed that are responsible for its uniqueness.  

                     Let’s begin with John Calvin.  He was unique, a brilliant and committed follower of the Lord, and the closest thing we Presbyterians have to a founder.  John Calvin did not set out to found a church, not at all. Calvin, and other churchmen of common mind, wanted to rescue the church from the scandal it had become. Their salvage mission shook the very foundations of the church, calling down the wrath of the Catholic hierarchy upon these courageous churchmen. Despite setbacks, however, their protest built strength, ultimately spawning a break away movement, in effect, a second church.  Calvin was prominent in giving this new creation its theological moorings.

                  Calvin is responsible for enumerating the key theological tenets to emerge out of the Protestant Reformation.  This he did in several biblical commentaries, and treatises, and the work with which he is most identified, his “Institutes of the Christian Religion.”  Written in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the “Institutes” are still consulted as one of the primary and most complete resources on so-called “Reformed” thought.    

                  So what is “Reformed” thought?  Reformed thought is the accumulation of theological insights into the nature of God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, and the Church, subjects such as sin, salvation, grace, heaven, and hell, that emerged during the Reformation movement of the sixteenth centuries.  A movement headed by notables such as Martin Luther, Helmut Zwingli, Martin Bucer and John Calvin, these men established their reform on the bedrock of Scripture, believing that the word of God, suffering profound neglect under the pope, was a “mighty fortress” in their controversies with the pope and the church councils. In their efforts they emphasized the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture, justification by faith, covenant, divine election, and the priesthood of all believers.  Our Book of Confessions, eleven documents written over the past five hundred years, gives a thorough treatment of the key tenets of the Reformed faith. 

                  Scripture was the central to the reformers enterprise. Never lived a people so in love with God’s word.  Calvin and the others were students of the ancient languages, Greek and Hebrew, and were well read in the biblical scholarship of preceding generations. Friends, we Presbyterians are heirs to a tradition of biblical scholarship second to none.  Even today some of the best scholarly work being done in Old and New Testament studies is being done in the seminaries of the Presbyterian Church. 

                Committed to biblical and theological scholarship, and all related subjects that might shed light on God’s word and work in the world, Presbyterians worship God with the mind as well as the heart. Those ordained to pastor congregations have, from the denomination’s foundings, been expected to be persons of deep spiritual commitment, but also persons intellectually seasoned in the rigors of college and seminary studies. The Presbyterian pastor was predictably the most well read and broadly experienced person to be found in the cities and towns springing up as the population in America migrated westward.

                 We Presbyterians take seriously the life of the mind as a gift of God, we also prize the diversity of gifts God has placed in human hands.  We believe that all persons enjoy an endowment from God to be used for the common good. Pastors are called to lead, but we resist placing the leadership mantle solely upon his or her head alone. Presbyterians embrace a shared leadership model. Authority does not reside in the hands of a priest or pastor vested with the power to make decisions unilaterally, rather we maintain a representative form of government, the congregation electing and ordaining elders to serve with the pastor in the leadership of the church.  The representative model of leadership employed in the local church also carries up the church’s hierarchy, with equal number of pastors and elders serving in the presbyteries, the synods, and the committees of the General Assembly. The voting rights of elders and ministers at all levels of governance are equal.  Lay and clergy each have one vote in the councils of the church. Many believe that James Madison, principal author of the U.S. Constitution, and active Presbyterian layman, drew upon his experience in Presbyterian governance in composing the Constitution. 

                 We Presbyterians value the gifts of the spirit and the intellect.  We entrust leadership responsibility to those elected by the congregation.  Guided by the Holy Spirit we seek to faithfully serve, our ministry objectives set forth in our denomination’s mission statement, “The Great Ends of the Church.”  If anyone ever approaches you to ask what we Presbyterians are up to in the world you can tell them that our business is “the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and [listen carefully] the exhibition of the kingdom of Heaven to the world.

                Allowing that the kingdom of Heaven cited here, and the kingdom of God that Matthew refers to are identical, we can see how neatly we Presbyterians fold into Jesus’ plans. What is the kingdom of God like, it is like a bunch of Presbyterians showing there stuff in the world, proclaiming the gospel, sheltering, nurturing, and offering relief to the children of God. It is those same Presbyterians faithfully preserving the truth, and promoting social justice and equity.

                  With what can we compare the Presbyterian Church?  We are like all the other churches in the kingdom who are committed to faithfully serving the Lord.  We like them view ourselves, to use these words found in our constitution, the Book of Order, [we view ourselves] “as the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity.”  In other words, we are seed in the field, leaven in the loaf, light in the world.  We like our sister churches recognize that harvest time has yet to come, that our role until that time is to give a faithful accounting of ourselves before God and neighbor.

                We Presbyterians are not the church we once were.  Our membership is less than half what it once was. Our 2.3 million members practice their faith in over 11 thousand congregations, many of them very fragile, in many cases numbering one hundred members or less.  Those of you who lived in New Orleans in the fifties and sixties, even the seventies, remember when there were a half dozen or more Presbyterian congregations in this city numbering five hundred members or more.  Today there is but one.

Even as Presbyterians have gotten older, we have failed to attract and assimilate young people into our churches. Many churches feel challenged to find more “contemporary” means for presenting the gospel.  Thus far those efforts have met with little more than mixed success.  

             While attrition by aging and death of our membership is responsible for major membership decline, we have increasing become a church divided theologically and biblically.  Qualifications for ordination, and social witness policy, among other things, have exposed sharp divisions in our ranks. The work of a taskforce charged by the 213th General Assembly in 2001 “to lead [and I quote] the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment of our Christian identity in and for the 21st century,” has completed its work, but its resulting efforts have created even more controversy.  Presbyterians tend to be tenacious in our commitments, that tenacity often hampering efforts at reconciliation.  

             Three hundred years behind us, some 2.4 million people across this land are active members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We who are part of that number can take pride in the heritage in which we stand.  We have groomed scholars, preachers, and Presbyterian laymen and laywomen who have done extraordinary things to God’s glory. Look no further than our lay laid Christian education and mission outreach programs.

             We have done good work, and we have never shied away from controversy when principle is at stake.  We are ardent in defending our commitments, even at the risk of creating dissension within our own household. We Presbyterians freely acknowledge that our discord has been divisive, bringing disunity in the body of Christ. We make no false claims to righteousness, openly confessing our fallenness before God and neighbor each Sunday we worship.  We are by no count a perfect people, we fervently believe, however, that our faith justifies us in the eyes of God.

             With what can we compare the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that grows into a great tree. We Presbyterians can take justifiable pride in the shape the tree has taken, but with humility we echo the words of the Apostle Paul, “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

               Even as our General Assembly meets in Birmingham to take up the business of the church, to celebrate and debate together, we know that the future of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is not theirs, or ours, to decide, for it is “only God who gives the growth.” Yet we are not for that fact mere bystanders in the drama God is enacting, we are people who stand in a lineage of articulate and faithful Presbyterians who have helped generations of people gain a more perfect grasp on what God is up to in our world. Each of us can learn more about what God is doing through this great church of ours, and, importantly, each one of us has been gifted by God to involve ourselves in the doing. AMEN

PRAYER

              O God, we gather before you as Presbyterian Christians, proud to be members of a tradition of belief and practice that has made significant contributions to the life of Christ’s body, the church. We thank you for John Calvin whose love for you found expression in prayers, sermons, and theological works of extraordinary insight and number. We thank you for the women and men who have perpetuated his legacy in the seminary classroom and pulpit, praying that you will continue to inspire women and men to take up the important work of biblical and theological scholarship.  Likewise we pray that your Holy Spirit will work mightily in the lives of those who preach and teach in the churches, praying that all prayers prayed and all words spoken in your name may be established in the truth you reveal.

              May your Holy Spirit, O Lord, direct the deliberations and actions of our General Assembly as it meets in Birmingham.  Embolden the commissioners to speak and vote courageously, especially when addressing matters deemed controversial.  If decisions made cannot be reached unanimously, O God, may the dissenter be forbearing, and willing to acknowledge the validity of the opposing view.  We continue to pray for unity in the church, even as we pray that you will forgive us for our factionalism. Be with Jean Marie and Rick Ufford-Chase as they conclude their terms as Moderator and Vice-Moderator of the 216th General Assembly.  Be with newly elected moderator, the Rev. Joan Gray, and her vice moderator Robert Wilson.

              O Lord, residents of our city are wary of the threat of storms as the new hurricane season begins.  In your mercy spare our region from a reoccurrence of last summer’s violent weather.  Abide with our governor, the mayor of our city, FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, and others who have responsibility for hurricane preparedness that the resources of each may be wisely deployed.

              O God, source of unconditional love and compassion, we pause on this day to recognize the special gifts that have come to us through our fathers. We acknowledge the influence they have had on all aspects of our lives, grateful for the lessons they have taught and the wisdom they have imparted.  Even as we ask your blessings upon the families who will gather today to honor fathers, we pray for those who have recently been deprived of their fathers through death or divorce.

              Strengthen those who are vulnerable today.  We pray for those who struggle with illness or depression.  We pray for the destitute who have no place to call home, no family to whom they can turn.  We pray for those who feel overwhelmed as a result of the loss of a job, divorce, or personal tragedy. We pray with those who know the profound emptiness of loss, the grieving widow or widower, the grieving son or daughter.

              As our future in Iraq is debated we pray that the newly established government in that country may gain the respect of its citizens.  We pray for the cessation of violence, even as we mourn the ever increasing toll levied on the innocent.  We pray for our countrymen who serve in the military in that land, other government personnel, and all who are working with the indigenous population to improve the quality of life they may enjoy.      

Be with this congregation, Lord, that committed to the upbuilding of your kingdom on earth, we may wisely and courageous use the gifts you have given us.  O God, light of the nations hear our prayers for we call upon you in Jesus’ name.