Author Archives: Maxie Dunnam

Note from the Editor: This week at Wesleyan Accent, as we scan, with grief, ongoing news from seeker-sensitive Protestant megachurches and Roman Catholic dioceses, we are reaching into our treasure trove of archives to reexamine different aspects of leadership. Our contributors over the years have written thoughtful, challenging reflections on leadership from a variety of perspectives. 

Today we share this meditation from Dr. Maxie Dunnam, an activist in the Civil Rights Movement.

March 22, 2014 was a day of huge importance for my city of Memphis. Like many significant events, I’m afraid it went unnoticed by most. Two churches, Second and Independent Presbyterian, held a public service of confession and repentance.

Few of us would not recognize our need for individual repentance. None of us are without the mark of Adam; what we would do, we do not, and what we would not do, we do. We need repentance and forgiveness.

But this was public, corporate repentance.

Fifty years earlier to the day two young men – Joe Purdy and Jim Bullock – had visited Second Presbyterian together as part of a church visit campaign, called kneel-ins. Before the young men could reach the entrance, a church representative asked Joe, “Are you African?” When he said, “No, I’m American,” he and his white friend were refused entrance. They returned the following Sunday (and the six Sundays after that) with a growing number of friends of both races who stood outside the church in silent protest of the church’s refusal to welcome them. Though few knew it at the time, the men responsible for repelling the visitors were enforcing an explicit policy of segregation adopted by the church’s session in 1957.

In The Last Segregated Hour, Stephen Haynes, a Religious Studies professor at Rhodes College, does a great job of telling the story, including how it is remembered and the ongoing implications.

Independent Presbyterian Church was founded because Second Presbyterian reversed its position denying the Kneel-in Protesters’ presence in the church, and allowed them entrance. Numerous people opposed that decision, left, and founded a separate church (Independent Presbyterian), which had in its constitution the commitment to preserve racial segregation in the church.

Fifty years later, the pastors and leaders of both congregations felt a need to make a corporate response.

Thank God for pastors and lay leaders who recognized that history is important, and when unrecognized and unconfessed, sin poisons the body. We don’t keep secrets, our secrets keep us.

Jim Bullock, one of the students turned away from Second Presbyterian Church fifty years ago, and one of the speakers at the 50th anniversary commemoration service, has written about the event on March 22 for the Presbyterian News Service:

March 22, 2014 is a day I shall not soon forget. When I woke up my stomach was already churning. The rainy weather seemed to bode ill. I made my customary stop at Starbuck’s where I had my customary grande chai latte. But I could not get my stomach to settle down. Hope and fear were churning away in my gut and the words of a colleague – “you know, this thing could go really badly” – echoed in my ears. I arrived half-an-hour early at the location where the day’s events were to take place (typically, I’m at least five minutes late everywhere I go). I walked inside the church and looked around until I found the room where I was to meet several other men for a time of prayer. The prayer time had been my idea, and I was glad I had suggested it. Inside the room were representatives of three local churches – Idlewild, Second and Independent – which have little in common beyond the name “Presbyterian.” In fact, the churches represent different denominations that define themselves largely in opposition to one another. But there we were, praying for reconciliation – among us, and among the people who would come to Second Presbyterian Church that morning to commemorate the traumatic events that had split the church fifty years earlier.

As the prayer time went on, I found myself crying tears of joy. A day we had hoped for, imagined, and dreamed of was finally here. The Spirit seemed to be honoring our vision of a service of truth-telling and reconciliation at the site of one of the South’s most notorious acts of racial exclusion.

Interestingly, the public confession of particular, individual sins has ballooned in the past three or four decades in the plethora of “confessional” self-help groups that have emerged (for alcoholics, over-eaters, drug abusers, sex addicts). Yet, our ability to acknowledge the existence of large-scale, all-permeating corporate sin has dramatically decreased. We have our time of corporate confession in our worship services, but that has become so perfunctory that its purpose and power is blurred. Maybe corporate confession is dulled in meaning because in our preaching and teaching we have dramatized glaring private sins readily recognized and named, while the “hidden” sins of attitude and omission get no attention.

Scripture is full of God’s call for corporate confession and repentance…the recognition of the sins of the nation, the sins of “the whole people of God.” So what happened in that service on March 22 was not only good and redemptive for the soul of those two congregations, it was good for the whole church…perhaps a model for all.

I may be making too much of it, but I think it is also significant that this public service of confession and repentance for racism took place two weeks before our remodeled and expanded Civil Rights Museum is to be reopened in Memphis (April 4). We are dull indeed if we can visit the museum without feeling we are a “people of unclean lips and we live among a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5) We need to repent, not only privately, but corporately.

Honor comes to us in all sorts of ways. When we think of personal honors, we usually think of the ways we have been recognized and affirmed in a formal way. But some honors, just as or more meaningful, are not formally bestowed. To be among the 2,300 people invited to witness the private funeral of Billy Graham was a surprising non-formal honor which moved me deeply.  Though I did not have a personal relationship with Billy (I refer to him that way, because that’s the way he would have it), I met him on a couple of occasions.

Because of his biblical and theological perspective, people often fail to reflect on how creative and innovative he was: the way he pioneered the use of radio and television; the way he harnessed print media; the role he played in launching a world-class magazine; and his influence in higher education, particularly theological education.

His funeral, for which he was the primary architect, was in keeping with that ongoing stream of creativity. He was certainly one of the two or three most outstanding Christian leaders of the 20th century if not the most and would certainly have massive attention in death. I can imagine him thinking, “why not use the funeral to make a witness for Christ through the tv coverage?” And that’s a big part of what happened.

The core of the service was the witness of his children, all of them simple and clear, doing what I’m sure pleased him: not praising their father, but emphasizing his message.  The most meaningful for me was the sharing of one daughter who had a painful marriage that ended in divorce, talking about her shame and how dreadful it was to think of how this was affecting her Mom and Dad, but how redemptive it was when she was welcomed home by Billy with open arms. It was a powerful story. There was no pretension of perfection. The feeling was that we were at a large family funeral, friends gathered to remember, to share their grief and celebrate the life of a loved one.

Presidents had visited the family in the days before the funeral, and both the President and Vice President were in attendance at the funeral. Nothing was made of their presence. Most of us in attendance would not have even known they were there, but for a simple naming of them when a few other distinguished “visitors” were welcomed.

The entire service was full of worshipful and grateful joy. My emotions were stirred in a surprising way. For a time in the service I was overcome as my own conversion and Christian experience began to pervade my thoughts. Two men were dominant in that vivid reliving: Wiley Grisson, a fifth grade-educated Baptist preacher under whose powerful preaching I was converted, and my baptism by him, along with my father, in a cold creek, and David McKeithen, a seminary-educated Methodist preacher who paid attention to a poor country boy in the youth group, taking me under his wing and nurturing me in the faith, becoming my father in ministry.

Both of those men belong in the company of Billy Graham. Tears of joy flowed for my being blessed by those two men, and for Billy blessing millions.

Tears of repentance and sadness came when I reflected on the state of our nation today. During the service, we were remembering and celebrating the passionate ministry of this man who was relentlessly driven in sharing the Gospel and calling people to saving faith in Jesus Christ. I couldn’t help but think of Francis Asbury, the powerful evangelist that led so much of the planting of the Gospel and the Methodist movement in America.  Billy Graham lay in state in our Capitol building in Washington; some folks were critical of that.  I wondered if folks were critical when public monies paid for a statue of Francis Asbury on horseback, still present in our capital city.

I was sad and tearful because the signs are far from clear that we are still in the spirit of Francis Asbury, or were ever very much in the spirit of Billy Graham. So, our Methodist movement, once the most obvious presence of the Christian faith and way in this country, is diminishing in number and influence.

There are those who still insist that Billy was never as prophetic as he should have been. Some of that, though in my mind not much, may be so. As I shared in the funeral experience, my mind went back to the mid-sixties in Mississippi. I was not as prophetic, bold and courageous as I should have been, but I did take a stand for the Gospel.

Mississippi was a “closed society” as related to civil rights. Black students couldn’t get into the University of Mississippi, public schools were being integrated and private schools for whites only were rising everywhere; and not only restrooms and lunch counters but white church doors were closed to Black citizens. Along with a few other young Methodist ministers, we took a stand for justice and reconciliation. Billy Graham refused to have a crusade in Mississippi that was not open to all races.

Though not an honor formally bestowed, the invitation to Billy’s private funeral was a signal honor for which I am deeply grateful.  I have long believed that my evangelical faith calls me to be passionate in sharing the Gospel, which means calling people to salvation: personal faith in Jesus Christ which means reconciliation with God and neighbor, and personal and social holiness. Billy’s funeral intensified that belief and commitment.

It got my attention – the title of a blog post: When the United Methodist Church Sold Its Soul.  Though I originally saw it shared on Facebook, it was posted on United Methodist Insight by Doyle Burbank-Williams.

The author’s foundational claim was that the UMC sold her soul when the General Conference (the only body that can speak officially for the whole Church) adopted the mission statement, “To make disciples of Jesus Christ.”

It should not have surprised me, but it did. The author blamed our understanding of evangelism (as expressed in our mission statement) for the fact that the church is not affirming same-sex marriage and the ordination of “practicing” homosexual candidates. In making the case, the writer, in the style of many ideologues, made blanket assertions that are strangers to reality and used definitions that are stereotypes not generally true, setting up straw men to destroy. For instance, as he defined it, evangelism is, “join us the way we define us or burn in hell,” against Wesley’s “in all things charity.”

Burbank-Williams used the stereotypical notion that evangelicals share their faith to “carve a notch in some spiritual gun butt” in contrast to his claim that progressives follow Jesus because “it makes the world at least a little bit better.” He confessed, “I have no desire to share my version of the faith.” Yet, I don’t know a more dramatic expression of sharing his version of the faith than what he wrote in his post.

He criticized the mission statement “making disciples of Jesus Christ” because he claimed there was nothing about making this world a better place, or making us better. Our interest and commitment, he said, was about numbers and trying to reverse the membership decline, and, he added, “we have been obsessed with numbers ever since.”

I wonder what he thinks a disciple of Jesus does.

The disciples I know in Memphis are the ones who are making our city a better place; they are the ones who are committed to and are making progress in revolutionizing public education so that a child’s zip code does not determine that child’s potential for a good education. They are the ones who are feeding the hungry, challenging a punitive, not redemptive, criminal punishment system, and are advocating for alternative responses than jail time for drug users. They are the ones who are caring for single moms and are providing shelter for abused women and their children.

These disciples of Jesus Christ I know are not demanding that people be like them; they are loving people where they are, and offering the transforming power Christ provides when he becomes Lord of their life. Because they are loving Jesus and loving like Jesus, most people with whom they share receive their witness gladly.

The writer who contends we lost our soul when we adopted the mission statement insists that “love God, love neighbor” would be a better mission statement from a “Wesleyan” perspective. Would you not think that love for our neighbors compels us to share Christ with them, that doing justice and loving mercy is for the transformation of the world and is at the core of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

Burbank-Williams’ assumption that the General Conference adopted the mission statement because the denomination was diminishing in numbers is patently false. Scott Jones (now Bishop) and the people who shared with him worked for years to get the Church to define herself and her mission for the sake of integrity and identity. They were not thinking of numbers but rather were seeking to be faithful to the Gospel and to renew a denomination that was aimlessly floundering because of the lack of clarity and commitment to a commonly shared mission.

The original statement of the mission was “to make disciples of Jesus Christ;” later the phrase “for the transformation of the world” was added. The first part of the rationale for our present mission as stated in the Discipline is:

to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by proclaiming the good news of God’s grace and by exemplifying Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor, thus seeking the fulfillment of God’s reign and realm in the world.

How the Church could be selling her soul for a mission like that is difficult for me to imagine.

It is obvious that there is confusion about the nature of evangelism and discipleship. We have falsely sought to separate the two. The writer is not alone in this confusion. More evangelical, independent churches have sought to make converts without making disciples; mainline churches, such as the UMC, have sought to make disciples without making converts. The mistake should be obvious from both perspectives; being a Christian means being disciples of Jesus Christ, and being a disciple involves a personal saving relationship with Jesus.

But the author seems to make all social issues equal and demanding acceptance from the church. He contends that his generation adopted a more moderate and reasoned response to biblical authority. He snidely describes the Bible as scripture as, “God’s actual words somehow divinely transmitted via inspired human conduits,” saying those with a high view of scripture pay, “no attention to changing culture or even newer and better translation of ancient words and anthropologies.”

Yet what of highly esteemed, outstanding biblical scholars like N.T. Wright, Ben Witherington, Richard Hayes, and William Arnold? Incidentally, all of these and countless other biblical scholars disagree with the writer’s convictions about human sexuality, but are constantly calling us to acknowledge and confront culture with the Gospel.

His closing focus on the presenting issue of human sexuality that is threatening the division of the UMC makes clear what his issue really is. He asserts that in adopting our mission statement, we sold our souls by formalizing a narrow orthodoxy/evangelism that denied LGBTQ persons full inclusion. That’s a long leap which I believe is not only inadequate, but falsely reasoned. This kind of reasoning demonstrates disrespect for the largest segment of the Church who are committed to scripture as God’s word and are not, by and large, backward folks who refuse to wrestle with cultural issues; this kind of reasoning has brought our denomination to the brink of division.

If there is formalized division that matches the existing crevasse, I’ll be casting my lot with those who want to live out a mission, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by proclaiming the good news of God’s grace and by exemplifying Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor, thus seeking the fulfillment of God’s reign and realm in the world.”

Take a turkey break with this piece by Maxie Dunnam from our archives.

One of our big failures as Christians is our continual refusal to discipline ourselves in living with the word of God. We need to study the Bible. It is the shaping  source of our Christian faith and way. In it we find the revelation of God which God provided through God’s Son, Jesus. It is food for our souls, direction and strength for our journey.

But not only do we need to study the Bible, we need to read the Bible devotionally, and there is a difference. The sermon today comes out of my devotional reading of the Bible a few weeks ago. But before I get into the sermon, let me share with you the way I read the Bible devotionally. Perhaps this might be helpful. In  a time of quietness, reflection and prayer, I simply begin reading a pre-selected passage of scripture. With an open mind and heart I read until some word grabs my attention. I stay with that word, allowing it to tumble around in my mind. I seek to taste the word by reflecting upon it in my mind and heart. I ask the word questions and I allow the word to ask me questions, and then out of that reflection, in that moment I form the prayer that I want to offer to God in response to his word.

I was doing this with the Psalms when I came to this 50th Psalm – a portion of which is our scripture lesson today. I came upon that 15th verse, “And call upon me in your time of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.”  Now I don’t even know what was going on in my life at that particular time that caused that verse of scripture to be so significant, except that I am like most people… trouble is often my lot. Maybe I was concerned about one of our children; maybe I was wrestling with some problem; maybe I felt that someone or something was after me, and I was being tested. I know it wasn’t a huge earth-shaking thing or I would remember it. Nevertheless there it was, God’s word for me in that particular situation and I needed it. “And call upon me in your time of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify my name.”

What a promise. Deliverance. None of us will pass through too much of our life without needing to lay hold upon that promise, because none of us will pass through too much of our life without being confronted with trouble. But as I reflected upon this staggering promise, I became aware of the fact that it was not a complete within itself. Though it’s a separate verse in the Bible, it begins with the word and. So I went back to read the entire sentence. If you have your Bible before you, look back at the 14th verse and you’ll find the beginning of the sentence. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high.” Then comes the promise: “and call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.”  That set me to thinking all over again. And the word of the Lord came to me in a powerful way. There are conditions that we are to meet if we’re going to appropriate the promise of the Lord to deliver us.

Got that? There are conditions that we are to meet if we’re going to appropriate the promise if the Lord to deliver us. God is not making a wholesale promise here. You can’t lift this verse out of its context and use it as a kind of certified check in God’s bank. Well then, since this promise is so astounding and since none of us are going to pass through too much of life without needing to lay hold of it, what are the conditions that we need to meet in order to appropriate this promise of deliverance that God gives us?

The first condition is, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Another translation says, “make thanksgiving your offering.” Now that has a specially beautiful meaning if you see it in its entire context. If you go back to the 10th verse of that reading, you’ll see God talking about all that he is and all that he has, and then in that beautiful 12th verse he says, “if I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.” What does a God like this, an omnipotent God who created and owns the whole universe – what does a God like this want? What does a God like this require of us? There it is. Offer to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Listen. God’s hunger; God’s deepest longing is satisfied by our love and gratitude. Does that make you stand at attention inside? I mean, does that make you feel tall inside? That the God of the universe, the one who created and owns the world is satisfied, God’s deepest longings are satisfied by your praise and thanksgiving?

What a way to think and live during this thanksgiving season. We need to learn that lesson. It’s so easy to forget. It’s so easy to lose touch with the source of life…how we got to where we are; all the blessing that have been poured out upon us. It’s easy to think that we are where we are today because of our own efforts. We’re like that man who was being honored at a banquet for things he had done. He stood to receive the award, but got his tongue twisted, and said, “I don’t appreciate this, but I certainly deserve it.” Well we put that sort of twist to the facts of our life. We interpret our success, our achievements and accomplishments, as the result of our own doing.

Now this came home to me in a powerful way, as I followed the devastating famine tragedy in Africa. I cut a picture off the front page of our local paper and kept it on my desk. It’s a picture of an old man, who looks to be about 100, but I have an idea he’s about 50. And on his back is the stereotypical emaciated little starving child, probably his grandchild. Three generations starving to death. Now I would feel better if I didn’t look at that picture, but I wouldn’t be better. One of the things I think about when I look at that picture is, I could have been born in anywhere in the world. Has that thought crossed your mind during the past two or three weeks? I could have been born in a place of famine, or a place ravaged by war. I could have been born in a place where people earn less than $2.00 a day. And when I think of that, it makes it easy for me to count my blessings – though I was born in rather severe poverty in Mississippi, in context of our world situation, that poverty in Mississippi would be considered rich.

Then I, I go from there. I did not earn – I simply received the gift of parents who loved me, who sacrificed for me, who encouraged me and supported me. I did not earn – I simply received the gift of a public school education. I didn’t earn – I simply received the right of citizenship in this great country, where I have the freedom to vote, and the freedom to speak out, and the freedom to enter into the political process that shapes the destiny of this nation. But I could have been born anywhere else. You see, it’s gift.

They say that Darwin kept a notebook to jot down the contradictions that he came across, contradictions against his theories, because he knew that if he didn’t jot those contradictions down, he was so committed to his theories that he would forget them. Maybe we need to keep a notebook and record those things that we have received, things that have been given to us, things that have been done for us, blessings that we had absolutely nothing to do with them coming to us. I have an idea that that would change our lives.

Now there’s a facet to this truth that we need to look at in a particular way; and it’s suggested in the particular reading from the Revised Standard Version: the word is offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Now those two words don’t seem to go together. Sacrifice and thanksgiving. I don’t know all that that means, but it means at least this – even when we are not in the mood for thanksgiving, even when we have not recorded in our notebooks that for which we need to be grateful, we need to express gratitude. I’m telling you that gratitude can transform your life. I don’t care in what condition you find yourself; I don’t care in what depression you might be; I don’t care what’s going on in your life at this moment, if you can get in touch with the God of the universe who says to you, “offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,” and do that, your life will be transformed. A sacrifice of thanksgiving means that the surface circumstances of life don’t have to merit it. Still we do it. Whatever the circumstances – our lives are to be an offering of gratitude.

But there’s more here. Another condition that we are to meet if we are going to appropriate the deliverance of the Lord, and it’s there in our text. Pay your vows to the most-high God. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. That’s the first condition to meet if we’re going to appropriate God’s deliverance. And the second is – pay your vows to the most-high God.

Not long ago, I sat with a man who was on the verge of death; cancer was ravaging his body, and he was anguishing in what seemed to be a hopeless situation. I spent about 30 minutes with him in the hospital room. His despair was punctuated with prayerful pleas that he might live a bit longer. In fact, he said, if he could make it just another year. He kept saying that he needed more time. There were things he wanted to do. Promises he wanted to keep. He wanted to pay back debts he owed; he wanted to make up for some failures that he had experienced. Here was a desperate man who wanted to pay his vows to the most-high God.

Alas, he was too late. But it isn’t too late for us. Are there commitments that you made which you haven’t kept? Are there vows to the Lord that you have not followed through on? This is what the Lord is saying to us today – listen – Do the things you promised when you received my love and forgiveness. Keep the vows you made when you accepted my salvation. That’s the word of the Lord for us today.

It’s one of the most fantastic promises in scripture: call upon me in your day of trouble, and I will deliver you. But that promise is based upon two conditions – One, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving; and two, pay your vows to the most-high God. We can keep both of those promises today. The question is, will we. It’s the only way we are going to know deliverance.

In early November 2015, Bishops of the United Methodist Church across the continent of Africa issued a statement to the global fellowship of The United Methodist Church. The statement called on The United Methodist Church both to confront global terrorism and to hold the line on church teachings regarding human sexuality.

The November statement has come at a time when church leaders are preparing for General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking body. The Bishops recommended that the 2016 General Conference include daily prayer, “for the return of our denomination to biblical teachings, the unity of the church” and the end of “global terrorism (remembering the millions of refugees) and the cessation of wars around the globe.”

In recent months, the world has watched with shock and dismay the massive human rights abuses against innocent, helpless and defenseless families, especially women and children, and the horrible refugee crisis that has engulfed and overwhelmed parts of Europe and Africa, with no permanent solution in sight. This crisis, is no doubt the result of the ongoing bloody and brutal civil war in Syria, the ISIS insurgency across parts of Europe, as well as the Boko Haram and Al-Shabab insurgencies in parts of Africa.

In Africa, the Boko Haram insurgents continue to carry out atrocities and mayhem against innocent citizens in towns, villages, cities, and religious facilities (mosques and churches) in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, etc. Young men and women are being manipulated to carry out suicide bombings to destroy innocent lives and property. The Al-Shabab also continues to unleash untold havoc against innocent civilians in Somalia, Kenya, and other parts of Africa.

The Bishops said that they are “deeply saddened” because they see both the Bible and the United Methodist Book of Discipline being ignored in the ways in which some United Methodists minister with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. The Bishops from African conferences noted that church teachings only affirm sexual relations in monogamous, heterosexual marriage, and not in same-sex unions or polygamy.

We are deeply saddened that the Holy Bible, our primary authority for faith and the practice of Christian living, and our Book of Discipline are being grossly ignored by some members and leaders of our Church in favor of social and cultural practices that have no scriptural basis for acceptance in Christian worship and conduct. Yet they continue to attempt to persuade members of the Church to incorporate these practices as an accepted code of conduct within global United Methodism.

As leaders of the church in Africa, we call upon all United Methodists, bishops, clergy and laity to an unreserved commitment to the Holy Bible as the primary authority for faith and practice in the church. We call upon all members throughout the connection to adopt practices consistent with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.

Six weeks after the United Methodist Bishops’ statement, on January 14, the Anglican Communion world leaders temporarily restricted the role of the U.S. Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the Episcopalian’s embrace and performance of gay marriages. Episcopalians were barred for three years from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion while a task force is formed that will try to reconcile conflicting views over sexuality in the 85-million-member family of churches.

The Anglican Communion consists of “national” churches, the Episcopal Church being the Anglican body in the United States.  The United Methodist Church is not a “communion,” or family of national churches; it is one church, with one doctrine and discipline. We have the World Methodist Council, which, though in an obviously limited way, would be more like the Anglican Communion; however,  The United Methodist Church is “one church,” not a “communion of churches.”

If the unity of a “communion” is dependent upon order and covenant in relation to Scripture and doctrine, as the World Anglican Communion is insisting, how much more is the unity of The United Methodist Church, as one denomination?

The United Methodist Church in Africa makes up about 35% of our global United Methodist membership. That is not a minority voice. If we are going to be a “world,” and not a “national” church, then we cannot ignore that voice.  Nor can we try to organize our life in such a way that one part of the church has one order and discipline related to Scripture and doctrine, with another part a different order and discipline.

In both the November statement and the Anglican Communion decision, it was the dynamic voice of the emerging church in Africa that was being heard.

The question is, will we remain willing to hear it?

It is absurd to apologize for mystery.

Keep that sentence in your mind now because I will be coming back to it in the sermon today, and may be coming back to again and again in this series of sermons which we begin this morning. It is absurd to apologize for mystery.

Some of you movies buffs will remember an Italian film entitled Le Dolce Vita. As that movie opens, a helicopter is flying rather slowly and not very high above the earth. Slung from the helicopter is a kind of rope halter in which there is a statue dressed in robes with arms outstretched. Now and then it becomes rather amusing as the camera focuses simply on that statue, and it looks as though the statue is flying through the air alone. It passes a field where some men are working in tractors. They look up and see this sight and become very excited. They begin shouting to one another and pointing and then one of the fellas recognize who it is a statute of and says, hey, that’s Jesus. The others become even more excited. They throw their hats into the air; they wave and they scream, but the helicopter moves on. It comes into the edge of the city of Rome and is flying rather low over an apartment building, on the top of which is a swimming pool surrounded by beautiful girls dressed in bikinis. The helicopter does a double take as the men flying it see what’s going on there. It comes back and it hovers over the swimming pool and in an effort to attract the girls’ attention, the men began to shout down at the them, asking them for their telephone numbers, telling them that they’re going to finish their mission – taking the statue to the Vatican – and would be quite happy to come back when they finished that mission.

It’s a rather amusing thing to see and Frederick Buechner describes the kind of reaction the audience had in a college town where he saw that movie. At first it was an immediate reaction of laughter; laughter at the incongruity of it all. On the one hand, the sacred statue dangling from the sky; on the other hand, the profane Italians and the bosomy young bathing beauties. One of them cold, remote, so out of place, hanging there from the sky; the other made of flesh so radiant with life. When the thing comes on and the people begin to laugh, no one doubts as to what they’re laughing at and no one doubts as to whose expense it is. But when the helicopter gets on into the center of Rome, the dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral looms up from the earth, and then for the first time, the camera people focus in just on the statue, and very soon this figure of Jesus fills the screen. And then the move on in, zoom on in, until only the bearded face of Jesus fills the entire screen and there’s no more laughter. All is quiet and still; there is complete silence, because it seems as though they are seeing their own face for the first time. A face that they may not have seen before, but a face that they somehow know belonged to them, or that somehow they know they belong to. It’s absurd to apologize for mystery.

And there’s mystery here; mystery in the way that Jesus comes to us; mystery in the way that when we, in his presence, in our heart of hearts, have to be still and quiet and look and listen and ask, what have you to do with me Jesus of Nazareth? Or, what must I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?

This is a season of reflection and assessment. The season when we focus our eyes in a disciplined gaze upon Jesus. The season when we position ourselves in relation to Jesus in order to receive his judgment and his grace. To facilitate this long look at Jesus, I’m going to preaching a series of sermons on the great claims of Jesus. Those passages in the scripture where Jesus says, I am, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the light. In these sayings of Jesus, these great claims, he writes his autobiography. It is as though in words he is painting a self-portrait, and this is what we want to look at.

And we begin today, with that one word from our scripture lesson – I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. Let’s put that verse of scripture in the immediate, as well as in the larger context of the scripture. Jesus has performed a number of miracles, miracles of healing. Just the day before, he has performed that miracle of multiplying the loaves and the fishes and feeding the multitude of 5,000 people. At the close of the day, the disciples take a vote and move across the Sea of Galilee, but Jesus goes off alone to be by himself and quiet and to renew his soul in relation to God. On the next day, the crowd, wanting to see Jesus again, decide to go over where they saw the disciples go, thinking that the disciplines may know where Jesus is. When they get there, Jesus is with them. They didn’t know it, but he had walked across the water and joined the disciples in that miracle that amazed the disciples themselves. And when they see Jesus there, they ask, when did you come here, Rabbi? Jesus didn’t answer their question, but rather he pressed the deeper issue of hungering and thirsting after righteousness. And he said to them, you’re really not concerned about who I am as the powerful Son of God, you ate your fill yesterday of the loaves and fishes, and that’s what you’re interested in. Then he laid his claim upon them, do not spend yourself, he said, for bread that perishes, but seek that bread which is God’s offer of eternal life. And then he made the connection between what he had done in feeding the multitude and what had happened in the wilderness when day in and day out Moses and the wandering Jews had received Manna from heaven.

Listen to those verses there, 32 and 33, “then Jesus said unto them, verily verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world. Then said they unto him, Lord ever more give us this bread. And then Jesus made his claim. I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst.” It’s absurd to apologize for mystery.

So we’ll not bother to apologize or to explain or to rationalize, but simply nail these truths down as the core of our learning today.

One – life depends on bread. We can’t live without being physically nourished – life depends on bread.

Two – this physical bread is God-given. The anonymous poet stated it clearly, back of the loaf is the snowy flour and back of the flour the mill and back of the mill are the wheat and the shower and the sun and the father’s will. Physical bread is God’s gift.

Three – for all of God’s children to have this bread, we humans must corporately labor and share. For all God’s children to have this bread, we humans must corporately labor and share. Augustine put it a pithy sentence – without God we cannot, without us God will not. Get that. Without God, we cannot, without us God will not. God will not make a loaf without us, and we cannot make a loaf without God. So in a loaf of bread we have symbolized the fact that we are dependent upon bread, we’re dependent upon God, we’re dependent upon each other. So we need to remember that the way this world is constituted, there are those who will not eat unless we provide them the bread to eat; that is, unless we provide the necessary resources by which they can get bread. So, again, for all God’s children to have this bread, we must humans must corporately labor and share.

Now a fourth learning. While in its most elementary form, life depends upon bread, bread only nourishes life, it doesn’t make life all that God intended it to be. Now I wish I had time to talk about this at length. Parents, it is not enough for you simply to provide food and clothing for your children; it’s not simply enough for you to provide them a good education; it’s not enough for you to simply provide them the physical necessities of life. Husbands, wives, it’s not enough simply for you to share together in the parenting process; it’s not enough for you simply to provide sexual satisfaction for your mate; life demands more than that. Life demands relationship; caring and sharing, tenderness and affection, giving as well as receiving love. There must be shared values and commitments. I don’t believe people fall in love. People grow in love. And people don’t fall out of love, they cease to love because they cease growing in love. There is a quote with one great truth – “if thou hast two loaves of bread, sell one and buy lilies.” Now that’s the truth. Life needs more than bread; it needs lilies. It needs love and light and beauty and blessedness.

Now the fifth learning, the biggest truth. Jesus said it, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That is Jesus’ answer to the devil when after 40 days in the wilderness, he had been fasting, and was terribly hungry, and the devil said to him, why don’t you turn these stones into bread in order that you might eat. And Jesus’ response was, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” For us Christians, we know that we not only live by the words of God as we find them in the scripture, we live by the word of God who is Christ himself.

Here it is in a story out of Great Britain. An old scrubwoman was taken ill. Her friends managed to get enough money to get her into the hospital. During her convalescing, she went up and down the corridors of the hospital meeting the other patients and visiting with them. She became very close friends with a 12-year-old boy across the hall from her. Johnny was his name, redheaded, freckle-faced, a kind of stereotypical 12-year-old. They became fast friends. The little boy was very sick. One early morning, a commotion awaken the old scrubwoman and very soon the mother of Johnny came rushing into her room saying, the doctors are here and they say Johnny has only 10 or 15 minutes to live – he loves you so much, won’t you come and say something to him. Well that was a tough task for a simple woman, but with the courage of a great Christian, she walked across the hall, sat down by the bedside of Johnny, took his frail hand between her calloused palms, looked him in the eye and said, “listen Johnny, God made you, God loves you. God sent his son to save you, God wants you to come home and live with him.” Johnny lifted himself feebly up on his elbow, a smile, a faint smile came on his face and he said, “say it again.” And the old woman repeated it. “Johnny, God made you, God loves you. God sent his son to save you.” And a big smile came on Johnny’s face and he said, “tell God thank you.” The old woman knew it, the 12-year-old learned it, man shall not live by bread alone, but by the words of God – more than that – by the word of God, Christ himself.

And that brings us to our focus today. The bread that will be brought to the altar in a moment, is symbolic of it. It is absurd to apologize for mystery.

This is the ultimate truth of the Christian gospel. The bread must be broken in order for us to be nourished by it. And that’s what this sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is all about. The body of Christ continually broken, that the salvation and the continued life of Jesus Christ might come to you and me. That’s a mystery. It’s absurd to apologize for mystery, we simply receive it.

Go back to our scripture lesson – the crowd was thinking, if not saying, “wait a minute. It was Moses who gave our ancestors bread in the wilderness. Do you mean to tell us that you can do the same thing?” Jesus said, it wasn’t Moses. It wasn’t Moses who gave you bread in the wilderness, it was God. And God has sent down his bread from heaven to you. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. And the crowd said, Lord, give us this bread always.

The texts for this sermon come from Romans 1:8-13 and Romans 15: 23-29.

Apart from the Gospels, the Epistle to the Romans is the “pearl of great price” in Scripture. It was Martin Luther’s study of this book that fired the Reformation. Luther contended that, “the Epistle to the Romans is the masterpiece of the New Testament and the very purist gospel…it can never be too much or too well read or studied, and the more it is handled the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes.”

One of the greatest fathers of the church, Chrysostom, had it read to him twice a week. The poet Coleridge said it was, “the most profound writing that exists.” I hope you know your Methodist history well enough to know that when, in his deep soul searching, John Wesley went to a prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, the leader was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans; and Wesley testified that while the leader read, “I felt my heart strangely warmed; I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

There is no possible way to express the monumental role this Epistle has played in the history of the Christian movement. In all of Christian history, Romans has been pivotal.

In a few verses from the first chapter of the Epistle, Paul expressed his desire to go to Rome. Only recently did I note that Paul expressed his same longing as he was closing his letter. In between those expressions of deep desire in Chapter 1 and Chapter 15, Paul spells out in the most deliberate and studied way his understanding of the gospel, and the core of the gospel message, justification by grace through faith. And after using all his genius to write this brilliant argument for the Christian faith, Paul expresses again his passion to share that faith with the Romans, in verse 29 of Chapter 15: “know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ.”

I can’t imagine that my longing and passion for sharing the Gospel comes anywhere near that of Paul, but my passion is great, and my age and years of ministry have not diminished that passion. In fact, the passion is greater because I don’t know how much longer I have, and I don’t know how many occasions I will have to share it. Paul’s confession is mine: Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel.

I want to do it now by simply outlining what the full measure of the blessing of Christ is.

First of all, Christ comes to free us. Let that sink in. Let it permeate every fiber of our awareness. Christ comes to free us.

Among Christians in one section of Africa, the New Testament word for redemption means “God took our heads out.” It’s a rather strange phrase, but when you trace it back to the 19th century when slave trading was practiced, the meaning becomes powerful. White men invaded African villages and carried men, women and children off into slavery. Each slave had an iron collar buckled around his neck. To that iron collar was attached a chain which was attached to the iron collar around the neck of another, and on and on, until a long chain of people where marched off to the sea shore where a ship waited to take them to England and America to be sold into slavery.

From time to time, as the chain of slaves would make their way to the coast, a relative, loved one, or friend would recognize someone who had been taken captive and would pay a ransom to the captor for the collar to be removed and the person to be freed. Thus the word for redemption: God took our heads out.

However we state it, whatever image we use out of our own culture, redemption means that God’s action in Jesus Christ sets us free from the bondage of sin, guilt and death. Christ comes to free us.

So, where are you? Do you feel pain in your heart, a heaviness of spirit because there is a broken relationship? Parents, do you have children you are separated from? Is your marriage in trouble? You and your spouse have drifted apart…or the relationship is severed because of infidelity? Christ comes to free us.

Do you feel helpless because you or a family member is bound in the tenacious grip of alcohol, drugs, gambling or some other destructive habit? Christ comes to free us.

Is you energy drained because you have been living too close to moral compromise? Christ comes to free us.

Are you preoccupied with sexual lust? Christ comes to free us.

Are you addicted to pornography? Christ comes to free us.

Could the blessing be greater? Christ comes to free us.

The blessing may not be be greater, but it is fuller. Not only does Christ come to free us, he comes to fit us; Christ come to fit us, to transform us for Kingdom living.

Go to another section of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Have you ever noticed the dramatic difference between Chapter 7 and the first verse of Chapter 8? In the last part of Chapter 7, he describes the anguishing war that is going on inside him. He feels that he is being brought under the captivity of sin. He moans,”For the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do.” Then he groans, “O wretched man that I am…who will deliver me from this body doomed to death?”

That‘s the way Chapter 7 closes. Then the very first verse of chapter 8 is this glorious word: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Do you see the tremendous difference between Paul’s condition, which he expresses so dramatically in chapter 7 — “O wretched man that I am” — and the beginning of chapter 8 – “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”?

What a huge divide! How do we leap over it?

We don’t.

People may tell you that you simply need to give your sins Jesus; and they say it so glibly: just give your sins to Jesus. That’s impossible. We can’t give our sins to Jesus; if we could, we’d all be saints.

We can’t give our sins to Jesus. We give ourselves to Jesus and He takes our sin. He transforms us and fits us for Kingdom living.

There’s a story about a man who was tired and weak all the time, drained of energy. Finally he decided to visit his doctor. “Doctor,” he said, “I feel drained and exhausted. I don’t seem to have any energy. I have a chronic headache. I feel worn out all the time. What’s the best thing I could do?” The doctor knew something about the man’s wild and fast-paced lifestyle. “What’s the best thing you can do? You can go home after work, eat a nutritious meal, get a good night’s rest, and stop running around and carousing all night — that’s the best thing you can do.” The man pondered for a moment, then asked, “What’s the next best thing I can do?”

Too often we decide for the next best thing because we are not willing to be who God called us to be. We are not willing for God to transform and fit us for Kingdom living.

Listen! Holiness is not an option for God’s people. God says, “Be holy as I am holy.” We can’t leave that word back in the Old Testament, as though it had no relevance to us. Over and over again in the New Testament, we’re called to be “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” Holiness is not an option for us as Christians.

We are where we are as a nation today because we have become a people and a place where “everything goes” –
Where as many Christians as non-Christians are divorced yearly,
Where our city is full of children without fathers,
Where some government leader is caught lying and cheating almost every week,
Where the Supreme Court has made a decision that completely disregards God design and Christ’s understanding of marriage –
We are where we are because we have ignored God’s call, “be holy as I am holy.”

There ought to be about us Christians something that distinguishes us, that sets us apart in our ethical understanding, in our moral life, in the way we walk, in the way we talk, in how we live together in our family, in how we raise our children, in how we treat our wives, in how we treat our husbands, in the way we think about issues like abortion, same sex marriage, sexual brokenness, gambling, extravagant consumption, in how we treat the environment, in how we treat prisoners and the attention we pay to the poor, in how we order both our private and our public life.

In Ezekiel God says to Israel, “The nations shall know that I am the Lord, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes.” Listen friends, the world is not paying attention to the church today, and will not pay attention to the Church in the future until those of us who call ourselves Christian vindicate God’s holiness before their eyes.

Again, holiness is not an option for God’s people. God calls us to be holy as he is holy. Now listen — only Christ can make us holy. He fits us for Kingdom living.

And that leads to this final word. Christ comes to free us; he comes to fit us for Kingdom living, and he comes to fill us, to fill us with his Holy Spirit. And that’s our need, friends, the power of the Holy Spirit.

How we need the Holy Spirit. I believe the reason most of us are impotent in our discipleship, the reason being a Christian is a debilitating struggle for too many of us is that we do not claim Jesus’ promise, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.”

We don’t spend enough time on our knees. We trust Jesus with some things some of the time when we need to trust him with all things all the time.

We have all been troubled by what happened in Charleston, South Carolina a few weeks ago. Nine persons in church, in a Bible Study, were shot down by a man possessed with the demon of hatred. What moved me most, and challenged me to the depth of my soul, was the response of some family members of those who had been killed. They attended the session when the judge was setting the bond for the young killer. The judge allowed some persons to speak to the man who had killed their family member. I couldn’t believe it. Person after person not only expressed their grief, but they told the young man they forgave him.

Could you have done that? I can’t imagine I could. Where did that kind of power come from? Those folks would be quick to tell you. It comes from Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. I want the kind of power those folks had.

So I have come to you in the full measure of the blessing of Christ. Christ who comes to free us, to fit us for kingdom living, and to fill us with his presence and power. That’s the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel. I don’t want to miss any of that, and I don’t want you to miss it.