Unity in Christ

(Texts: Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4, Psalm 37,
2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10)

October 3 was World Communion Sunday. Started by the Presbyterians in 1936, this Sunday in which Protestants of many denominations across the globe celebrate communion, has been embraced by a variety of Protestant traditions. (I’ll note that this isn’t a big deal in Catholic and Episcopal circles – they celebrate communion every Sunday, so in a sense for them, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday.) But on this one Sunday a year, we Protestants try to get our act together, to set aside our many differences and distinctions to gather together at the Lord’s table.

Our Old Testament reading this morning is from the book of Habakkuk, one of the so-called “minor prophets”, so named because of the length of the book, certainly not because of the importance. He prophesied in the years preceding the exile of Judah to Babylon, at roughly the same time as Jeremiah, whose writings have been the basis for some of our Old Testament readings in September, and to which we’ll return later in October.

The first sermon I remember hearing on this text was when I was a teenager, in the 1970’s. Our youth group was visiting Teen Challenge, a Christian drug and alcohol recovery program. The preacher linked the opening words of Habakkuk’s complaint of being surrounded by violence and injustice, to what was going on at the time – remember, in the 1970’s the Watergate hearings, that eventually led to President Nixon’s resignation, were dragging on and on. Our soldiers were bogged down in the Vietnam war. At home, there were oil shortages and lines and rationing of gasoline. Inflation was starting to pick up, so that peoples paychecks perpetually bought less and less. It seemed like the whole world was going crazy, spinning out of control. At that sermon I heard as a teen, it seemed like Habakkuk’s words were coming to life – destruction and violence all over the news, justice at best only partially prevailing. And Habakkuk’s complaint seemed right on point – “God, have you gone deaf, dumb, and blind? Can’t you see what a mess things are, how bad things have become? Can’t you hear the prayers of your faithful for deliverance from all this violence and corruption?” I can’t remember all the specifics of the sermon – I do remember him going on and on and on about wickedness in high places and corruption in the halls of justice - but the preacher hammered home the final verse of our reading today: no matter how bad things seem, ‘the righteous shall live by faith.’”

In some verses from Habakkuk not included in the lectionary reading, the prophet Habakkuk receives his answer from God: Judah is about to be overrun by the Chaldeans, and her people marched off to captivity in Babylon. And Habakkuk isn’t crazy about God’s answer. In fact, Habakkuk thinks that God’s answer itself is crazy – “why are you using a nation even more corrupt and more violent than we are, to punish us.” And that’s when we read about Habakkuk stationing himself on the ramparts, waiting for God’s reply to his complaint. And he hears God’s reply: “Write the vision, make it plain, so that a runner may read it.” Today God would likely have told Habakkuk to put his vision on a great big billboard, so people driving by on the highway can read it. For despite all that is going on around Habakkuk, God’s plans had not gone off course, that though the exile will indeed be harsh, God would ultimately punish Babylon and restore Judah. “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”

I believe it was in the spirit of “writing the vision, making it plain, even putting it on a billboard” that World Communion Sunday was created. For the 1930’s were a time of great hardship during the worldwide economic depression, and a time of great division, at home or abroad. Hitler had just come to power in Germany a few years earlier, and he was making over German society in his image. And the churches struggled to respond to all the economic dislocation and political disruption going on at that time. But the creators of World Communion Sunday had a vision that they wanted to make plain, like a human billboard – no matter how divided the churches were on matters of doctrine and practice, they could come together at the Lord’s table in communion.

The vision of World Communion Sunday marked the start of a new phase of cooperation between the Protestant churches. This is the cooperation that is lived out in missions such as Church World Service, supported by events such as the recent CROP walk. On a more local level, this vision of unity plays out in gatherings such as the Bridesburg Council of Churches. Though our congregations have many differences, yet we can come together in the name of Jesus Christ for worship of God and service to neighbor.

Coincidentally, the phrase “Make the vision plain” was used in 2006 as the name of the Penn Southeast Conference’s five-year plan for evangelism and church revitalization. This plan called for greater cooperation and greater unity among the churches of the Penn Southeast Conference, and greater cooperation and unity between local congregations and their local associations and the conference. The local churches could no longer go it alone in today’s society. There was a recognition that the churches of our conference had to share ideas and pull resources together if we were going to survive. 2011 will be the five-year mark, and the vision is becoming plain, with new churches joining the UCC and established congregations learning new ways to share the Gospel with their friends and neighbors.

We at Emanuel, we, too, are called to make the vision plain. We too are called to faithfully stand our watch, to faithfully station ourselves on the rampart, awaiting God’s word, as we do here each Sunday, sometimes with many guests in attendance and other times with only a handful of our own members. We cannot leave our post – we must stand our watch, station ourselves on the rampart. We too are called to write the vision, and speak the vision, and sing the vision, and email the vision, and blog the vision, and Facebook the vision – to make plain the vision of the Good News of Jesus Christ. We’re called to make it plain, like a billboard, so big and so obvious that nobody could miss it. For Emanuel Church is to act as a great big billboard, a great big neon sign, pointing to Jesus.

The vision Habakkuk received did not avert the exile to Babylon, but pointed to something better on the other side of that calamity. The vision of unity created by World Communion Sunday, the vision of greater cooperation among the churches of the Pennsylvania Southeast conference, our own efforts to make plain the vision of the Gospel, likely will not make an instantaneous change in our circumstances – but it may change the way we see our circumstances – not as a final word of doom, but as a difficult road we need to walk with Jesus, on the way to something better. I’ll close with these words from the 3rd chapter of Habakkuk, which we can use as a prayer in difficult times:

Habakkuk 3:17
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.

Amen.
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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson) www.emanuelphila.org