Dr. David D. Young
June 24, 2007
John 17: 17-26, Colossians 1: 11-20
"Who Are We?"

Who are we? Who are we, really? That is an existential question and by necessity we must start with the self. It is an important question to ask from time to time.

Who am I? In a very real sense, it takes an entire lifetime to answer that question. Oh, I can say, minister, husband, father, friend, neighbor, Christian, volunteer and so on and so on, but those are roles and functions. To get at the essence of who I really am, to get at that is a much deeper question. In fact, I’m not sure we ever completely know who we are. For we are a mystery. I am a mystery and you are a mystery. If you look deeply into yourself you will come to realize that there are things about you that even you don’t know. It takes a lifetime of discovery, of going deeper to learn more of who we are. So, indeed, we are mysteries.

It was the great philosopher, Descartes, who after wrestling with this question said, "I think, therefore I am." William Sloane Coffin, Jr. who, for many years was the Senior Minister at the Riverside Church in the city, and by the way he preached his candidating sermon here in our church before he went to serve there. Coffin, died this past year, but one of the things he said before he died, reflecting on Descartes' statement, he said that Descartes was wrong. "I think, therefore I am," is nonsense, said Coffin. "I love, therefore I am." I would like to suggest that they both only had it partially right. Because before either of those things can be affirmed, we must recognize one of the most important realities of our faith and I need to tell you that it sustains us when we come into this world and throughout our earthly journey, and when we leave this world. And it is this - I am loved therefore I am. I am loved, therefore I am. You see, we are loved into creation, we are loved into being, and we are loved into whatever life comes beyond this life we now live.

Every time I meet with young families to talk about baptism we talk about a newborn baby and what it’s like the first few days of life. I always ask, "What does a baby do when it is first born?" The answer is almost always the same. They eat, they sleep, they cry and they make messy diapers. But they’re not capable of loving back. They really can’t be responsive the first hours and days of their life. How do they learn to respond and eventually learn to love? Because they are loved by their family, by Mom, Dad and others in the family.

As scripture tells us the reason we love God is because God first loved us. I am suggesting we are loved into being, we are loved into creation. I am loved, therefore, I am. The love of God for us, God’s children, knows no bounds of time and space. It is in the words of the psalmist, "from everlasting to everlasting." We could spend a lot of time struggling with who we are individually as a child of God. If you’re not quite sure who you are, just check your name tag and that will tell you who you are. But today we are going to reflect on who we are, that is the question. Who are we as a people of God, who are we together and even more broadly, than who we are as this local church, who we are as the United Church of Christ.

Now, locally we are known as First Congregational Church and that’s who we’ve been for well over 350 years. That’s our local identity and our name, but our denominational identity is part of the United Church of Christ. This weekend the UCC is turning fifty years old and there is a major blowout celebration in Hartford to commemorate this wonderful celebration and anniversary of the UCC. It’s our General Synod, being held for the first time in Connecticut, where they will be hosting some 8 to 10,000 people at the Civic Center in downtown Hartford. A number of us from the church ordered a bus yesterday to be a part of that, we left the church at 6:30 yesterday morning and didn’t get home until 10:30 last night. It was a wonderful adventure that some twenty-five of us from the congregation participated in.

You know in a General Synod, especially in this 50 year celebration, it is sort of like a family reunion, especially if you haven’t been to one in a long time. There are people there you don’t even know, distant relatives you’ve never even met, but, once you meet them you find all these connections, hear stories and learn all these things you didn’t know. We did lots of that reconnecting yesterday. We saw Tom and Brenda Stiers, Beverly and Ralph Ahlberg and many others. We saw Phillip Thalheim from our church who is a delegate to the synod. Just a wonderful gathering of so many people, so different, but, yet so much a part of the United Church of Christ. The slogan this year is not that we are fifty years old, but that we are “fifty years bold!" because we want to reflect on who we are. Who we are as the United Church of Christ.

It began long before 1957 when as one of our speakers yesterday suggested that somehow the Congregationalists caught a virus called ecumenism – the ecumenical movement, and as such we became compelled to begin to truly work and partner with other Christian denominations as to what it might be to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ and to try to overcome our differences. So visions were born out of that sense of ecumenism which ultimately led to the merger in 1957 of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Churches, both of which had merged earlier in the 1930’s. So they did what many young couples do today when they have children or are getting married, keep a hyphenated name, keeping both family identities. So the Congregational Church when it merged with the Christian Church became the Congregational Christian Church. And when the Evangelical and Reformed Churches merged they became the Evangelical and Reformed Church. When these two groups were going to merge in 1957 they had to decide whether they were going to be the Congregational Christian Evangelical and Reformed Church, putting all the names together. Which is what couples are going to have to decide when they marry someone with a hyphenated name, it gets very cumbersome and comical. So what we did was we decided to throw out all those names and take on a name that represented who we are and what we are and that we are a united and uniting Church of Christ.

It was very intentional to put the term Christ in our name because out of those differences that came into this merger, we can celebrate our differences in the midst of our unity in Christ. We can celebrate all these differences of background, belief and tradition because our unity in Christ is stronger and it is all born out of that text that Rick Derr read to us out of John’s gospel. Jesus was in intimate prayer with his Father and he prayed, "that they may all be one." In verse 17:23 Jesus didn’t say that they might be two or three, five or six, several, dozens, hundreds or thousands which we’ve splintered into in the Christian tradition, but that they may all be one. So that is a very, very important part of who we are.

At that first General Synod in 1957 in Cleveland, Ohio which is where our national offices are now housed, Fred Hoskins, one of the leaders of the church, said this, "We move in the hope that God will provide us with light according to our need, guidance according to the demands of the time, and strength to the requirements of every situation. Our hope is that we may keep ourselves enough out of the way that God can move in and find us useable instruments for doing God’s will." I love that phrase, "that we can keep ourselves enough out of the way so that God can move in" and use us as instruments for doing God’s will. Vision and courage were part of that first General Synod and they’re still part of who we are today. Who are we?

Our roots go all the way back here in New England to a church from the earliest onset of our nation where we were always championing the cause of those who were marginalized in our society. Those who were outcasts, those who were oppressed, we’ve always been there as a church, always been there as a voice for the voiceless. We were heavily involved in the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage. We were the first to ordain a woman well over 150 years ago, we ordained the first African American and the first openly gay person. We were intimately involved in the Civil Rights movement, working side by side with the farm workers in their difficult situations. Always involved in Peace Advocacy, and of course the Open and Affirming process of which this church has been a leader in and many of our churches are moving in that direction if they haven’t already. But we are much, much more than that. Who are we of this United Church of Christ?

We are 1.3 million members, representing 5600 congregations across the country. We have 300 health and human service institutions, 32 colleges and universities, 7 seminaries. But we are much more than statistics. We are people who have wonderful stories to tell, and we spent a lot of yesterday, hearing about and sharing stories that represent who we are as the United Church of Christ. We have much to celebrate and much for which to give thanks.

At the celebration yesterday there were many dignitaries and special guests. Bill Moyers was one of the keynote presenters, and he by the way, is an ordained Baptist minister. And he was a very active member for many years in Garden City as one of Ralph Ahlberg’s parishioners and that was talked about in a very nice connection with Ralph and Beverly.

Barak Obama was there. I need to tell you while some people will say that’s a political statement, Barak was asked to speak well over a year ago long before he was ever known to be a national candidate for President. He was asked to speak not on politics, but on his faith and how that impacts his life in the public sphere and he did that and he is, by the way, a twenty-year member of one of our UCC churches in the Chicago area. He talked about the influence of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in his life.

We’re 50 years young - we’re 50 years in the making. Who are we? You know, you tell someone you’re a part of the United Church of Christ and they give you a sort of glazed over blank look. Because most people don’t know what the United Church of Christ is. If you say Presbyterian, Methodist or Lutheran they at least have some idea of who they are. But the United Church of Christ is very young. Fifty years may seem like a lot, but it isn’t as denominations go. In the scope of church history we are a very new and young denomination. That is why people don’t know about who we are. They confuse us with the Church of Christ from whom we are very different. But I won’t go into that today, unless you don’t want to wear makeup, you don’t want to dance, don’t want to play cards, etc.

As I’ve been reflecting on this question of who we are it’s come to me that we also have to recognize and ask the question, probably more importantly, and that is who are we yet to be? It is not just a matter of knowing who we’ve been, but who are we called by God to be? I believe that the best may yet be to come!

Who are we? As we face the future as the United Church of Christ that is both a scary and exciting proposition. We will need the same vision and courage as our forebearers and as was mentioned yesterday, even fifty years ago as we began as a denomination, there was a gap between the vision and the courage to be this new church that was being called into being. But people always stepped in to bridge that gap.

As we move forward we will need vision as a church. So I hope that we will be a church on the grow. A church that knows what it is to grow in our spiritual life, in our faithfulness and in our outreach as we seek to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will need joy and gratitude. We will need dedication and commitment. We will need love and hands ready to serve and give. Oh, and we are called to reconciliation. Did you catch it in the second lesson that Rick read for us? Just the last verse. For in Christ "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him, God, was pleased to reconcile to himself all things." Not some things, not some people, not the good people, not the "in" crowd, but all. All things, "whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross."

The work of reconciliation when taken seriously in today’s world will be dangerous and difficult. It will be challenging. It will not be easy work. To reconcile the differences in our world today will be some of the most challenging work we will ever take on. But I believe that is who we are called to be, as we move forward into the future. Consistent with our forebearers in the faith who were always giving voice to the voiceless, championing the cause of those who could not speak for themselves in a society where people are divided up. We’re all God’s children and we love equally and live together in harmony and peace.

You see, we believe that God is still speaking. That is one of the things going on in the United Church of Christ today, that God is still speaking and there is campaign going on right now with a comma based on a statement that Gracie Allen said to George Burns once early in his career when he was feeling down and discouraged. It’s hard to think that George Burns ever felt that way, but he did and Gracie said to him, "George, don’t put a period where God has placed a comma." You know I think we need to remember that at times when we’re down and discouraged. That it isn’t the end, it isn’t the final word for us. There is always more to come and that is what we affirm. God is still speaking, that God did not just speak in the days of the Bible and it’s all over and done, but God is still revealing God’s truth to us now.

It is important for us to know that there was something before the comma and so we do affirm our tradition, our heritage and the scriptures, but we also look forward to what is yet to come. If we are to be Christ’s people in this world, Christ’s Church, we must do it with our hearts, our minds, our souls and our hands to be Christ’s body. Because Christ is not physically with us anymore and without us there is no body of Christ to be this loving agent in the world and to the world. So we must make a difference as the United Church of Christ as we move into the future, into what is to come.

One last thing I want to share with you. Jesus loves us, Jesus loves us this we know because the Bible tells us so. We are loved into creation to be Christ’s body to the world. Amen!