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Anderson, Indiana
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A Place at the Table
Posted by
Terry
on
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 (CST)
News Courier article, Friday, April 13, 2007
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During the recent Holy Week Services hosted by First Presbyterian, I found myself in a unique and privileged situation: I was sitting at the lunch table with the pastors from three traditions very different from my own – Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, and Episcopalian. And we were getting along – enjoying one another’s company! What made that possible?
Geographically, we wouldn’t have ordinarily known one another. Jeremy Lucas (St. Timothy’s) is from Birmingham, Sam Hobson (First Presbyterian) is from South Carolina, George Dudley (First Christian) is from Massachusetts, and I’m from Huntsville. Under normal circumstances, there is no reason we would have known one another.
Traditionally, Sam and George are Calvinists, more or less, Jeremy is an Anglican and I come out of the Holiness movement – again, there’s nothing traditionally that would unite us.
So what is it that brought such diverse people together? The same thing that brought unity to Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female – our common faith in Christ. True, our worship styles are different (maybe not that different) but the focus of our worship is the same: the God who loved enough to send His only begotten Son to die for us. That love trumps our differences.
Does that mean we agree on everything? No. Will we ever? I leave that possibility open! I do know that “one in hope and doctrine, one in charity” is much easier to achieve around a table than through a wall.
We all celebrate Christian unity at least one time every week. Although we gather in different congregations, we are united by the songs we sing. Glance through your hymnal, and you’ll see songs by Horatio Bonar (Presbyterian), Fanny Crosby (Methodist Episcopal), Robert Lowry (Baptist) and maybe even Bill Gaither (Church of God) resting comfortably across the page from one another. In one service, we may sing words of faith and testimony written by a variety of people from very different traditions than our own, but that difference doesn’t negate the truth of their words or their experience with God.
Each time we gather together to celebrate the love of God, we are moving closer to God’s goal for His creation. In Ephesians 1, Paul writes of God’s plan for the fullness of time, “to gather up all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.” That’s God’s goal – the gathering up of all things in Him!
When we lay aside our differences, and embrace those things that make for unity, we allow God to accomplish His goal through us. Furthermore, we are enabling God to answer Christ’s prayer for His disciples in John 17, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” United that the world may believe – what a great motto (and goal) for the Athens community of faith!
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How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
— Ronald Reagan
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