By Parrish W. Jones
©copyright, September, 1998
All rights reserved.

[NOTE: This sermon was preached for the Presbytery of Redstone Meeting on September 15,1998. We were hosts on this day to three Mexican visitors from the mission site in Mexico with which we have a covenant relationship. The service was also a service of communion.]

Jeremiah 1:4-8
Ephesians 2:1-10
Matthew 28:18-20

The lessons that we have read today have always been a part of my personal Bible. That is the parts of the Bible that I turn to time and again to remind me of my faith. They also speak themes which I think are central to what binds us together as the people of God whether it be in our particular churches, the Presbytery of Redstone, the Presbyterian Church (USA) or the church catholic.

God speaks to Jeremiah to tell him that while he was still just a glimmer in his father’s eye, God had plans for Jeremiah. There are times that I believe that is so in my own life and I know it is so for the church. No matter what I do I cannot get away from God. When I returned to school to study for my Ph.D. at Florida State, I was discouraged with the church, uncertain about my future as a minister, and ready to get out. But God had other plans and as surely as I stand here God gently led me to the right pastor, the right experiences, and the right churches to keep me in the faith. Of course, God had already prepared for this time by giving me deep roots in the faith at home, at church, and in experience. Then with my second wife, the Lord led us to friends: a Roman Catholic Priest, a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister and his wife, and a Roman Catholic Nun. Their presence to us could only be construed as a miraculous event as they saw us through the tragic last days of her life. Then they stood by me as I recovered from the grief of those days then celebrated with Mary Ellen and I as we shaped our relationship.

That kind of providence has also drawn you and me together. I often think of the hodge podge of people—ministers, elders, deacons, church men and women—who make up our churches and presbytery and denomination and wonder, "What could God expect of us but fighting and grief and bitterness?" And we have experienced much of that. We have also experienced times of joy, elation, and had cause to celebrate the goodness of the Lord in the life of this Presbytery.

I believe that grief and bitterness often come from a lack of humility in the face of the providential care of God—a humility born out of the truth that I am not who I am because of anything I have done but solely because of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Paul said it well in the text from Ephesians, "You have been saved by grace through faith, not by any of your own doings, it is a gift of God."

Of course, those of us who have studied the Reformation movement know that here lies one of the two Reformed principles on which we are reformed and always reforming. Salvation is by faith alone.

I remember on one fateful Saturday morning several years ago when we were debating some issue like abortion, homosexuality, or re-imagining that one gentleman rose, went to the microphone and said, "Why can’t we just get back to the simple truth of the Gospel?" Then Fred Gnatuk spoke out, "Tell me what that is, then maybe we can."

The fact is that we all know the simple truth of the gospel. It is spoken quite clearly in that verse from Ephesians, or John 3:16, "God loved the world so much that God gave the only son God had so that whoever believes in him will never die but have life eternal." How many others can we quote that speak the simple truth so clearly that the words begin to focus the faith of even our youngest children.

But, the reason we cannot just focus on the simple truth of the gospel is that we hope most Christians will want to understand not just the simplicity of the gospel but also its profundity. That is where the rub comes. We can all agree on the simple truth, its trying to understand and interpret the profound truths that grow out of that simplicity that separates us. After all, is it not a profound thing that God is so gracious that the only requirement of salvation is faith, and even that faith is a gift of God not a work of human doings.

So we search the scriptures because we know through God’s providence in our lives that scripture is the sole and final authority for shaping our lives as Christians and as the church. We can all affirm this truth, the other principle on which we are reformed and always reforming. Yet, we do not agree on the interpretation of scripture.

Some of you know that I was raised a Presbyterian but then in youthful rebellion joined a Southern Baptist church. I was educated in a Southern Baptist College and Seminary. I served several Baptist churches before returning to school for my Ph.D. I was attracted to the Baptists by their teaching on the Priesthood of All Believers, that every Christian had the right and responsibility to interpret scripture as he or she is guided by the Holy Spirit. I learned an astonishing thing in that non-creedal and non-confessional denomination. Many thought their interpretation of scripture was THE correct interpretation of scripture. To disagree with their interpretation of scripture was to disagree with the Bible. The obvious conclusion was that if you did not believe their interpretation, then you did not believe the Bible. I discovered that what appeared to be freedom was actually a prison.

When I began to worship once more in a Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee, the pastor and I discussed this and I came to realize that the confessions protected Presbyterians from that pernicious attitude. We recognize that the confessions are our interpretations and that they can err as surely as my personal interpretation does. We believe that all of our interpretations are constantly in need of repair and reform.

The good news about that is that we can argue about our interpretation and leave knowing that we may both be wrong. Perhaps, one day the Lord will open the windows of heaven and help us know the truth for sure. What has been grievous in the Southern Baptist Convention is that they have sacrificed what was the strongest missionary program on earth on the altar of orthodoxy. Sadly, for the Presbyterian Church, we did that a very long time ago. In this I fault the liberals no less than the conservatives. We have both been inclined to dogmatism, a sort of double-edged orthodoxy.

We have a heritage that is capable of the strongest focus on what we are about as a church. We do not have to have unanimity on all doctrines and practices. We simply need unanimity on a few matters. First that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and he told us to go into the world and make disciples. To cooperate and go forward in evangelism and mission, I need only agree with you on two other things: one is that we are saved by grace through faith. The other is that the guidebook for the life of faith is the Holy Scriptures. And I do not hear Presbyterians disagreeing on those two things.

Today, we have a brother and sisters with us from Mexico. The practices of the church in Mexico are quite different from our practices. Most of us would feel quite constrained by the social restrictions that are generally held by the Presbyterian Church in Mexico—no drinking of alcoholic beverages, no smoking of tobacco, no dancing. Women must wear dresses not slacks or shorts. Men and women do not wear clothing that shows either the shoulders or the chest. Some of that is changing particularly within the churches close to the border, but still they are more restrictive.

But their conservatism on those matters and our liberalism does not matter because we have a common purpose in our work together. There is something far more essential than how we interpret those things. What matters is that as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are invited to the same table with our Lord, and we are sent away from that table to preach the good news of the gospel. To offer first the pure milk, as Peter calls it, but then to gather those whom God has called that we may grow up in Christ and receive the heartier sustenance of faith.

I have discovered that all of us are committed at that point. We all embrace one another there and we must remember THAT during our internecine battles. I am thankful that one of the more conservative pastors of the Presbytery, Bill Sikolsky, entrusted one of his lay persons and four of his youth, one of whom was his daughter, to travel across this country to another country with three of the more liberal pastors of the Presbytery. I am thankful that even though Bill and I notably disagree on many of the issues which have been debated in Presbytery, that we can embrace one another as brothers in Christ and entrust our children to the spiritual nurture of the other. We can do that with each other because we are confident that God has a grand plan that God is working that we cannot begin to fathom. Regardless of our differences, God has called us together to participate as brothers and sisters in the mission of Christ.

I fear that where we fail most often is to feel like brothers and sisters at all. I know the bridges that are crossed when one feels true communion with others. I feel that growing communion among some of us. I feel that communion with a good friend who is such a conservative member of the Presbyterian Church of America in Johnstown, that he almost left it for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Yet, Gary and I and our families have forged a relationship that could only happen because of our common commitment to the Lord. He knows, even if he cannot understand it, given what he considers my heretical theology, that I am commited to the Lord Jesus Christ as surely as he is. When he had a life-threatening crisis two years ago, it was not a member of his church or his pastor whom he called to come to his side but me. I went, and we shared, and we grew that day and the days that followed. I recall that relationship because I remember the wisdom of David Walker, former member of our Presbytery and family counselor, who never spoke to an issue which was being debated except to say, "These issues belong around the family dinner table. We are hardly a family, therefore these issues are inappropriate to this body."

As much as I want to see great things happen in Agua Prieta with the ministry of Frontera de Cristo and the Lily of the Valleys Church, I want to see that common mission, which forces us to look beyond our noses, draw us together as the family of God. Then when we debate, as we surely will, we will do so with love in our hearts for one another trusting that our opponents in debate are our true brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we sit at table in God’s kingdom today.