One Bread, One Body - October 5, 2014

“One Bread, One Body”

Richmond Congregational Church, United Church of Christ

Rev. Katelyn B. Macrae

World Communion Sunday – October 5, 2014

Text: Exodus 20: 1-20

Prayer: Dear God, May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. O God our creator, redeemer and sustainer. Amen.

Today’s text from Exodus is known as the Decalogue – or as we commonly call them, the Ten Commandments.

What do you think of when you hear the Ten Commandments?

Perhaps you might picture Charlton Heston playing Moses in the movie the Ten Commandments, holding the stone tablets.

Or maybe a particular commandment comes to mind –

Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Or, do not covet your neighbor, and your neighbors property.

Or perhaps you think about the debates about displaying the Ten Commandments in Courthouses and on public property?

But the question for today is really a question of purpose and significance. The Hebrew Bible is full of laws such as the priestly codes in Leviticus. There are guidelines about diet and clothing, and what is clean and unclean. In the book, the Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs, the author tries to live all of the biblical laws over the course of one year. AJ finds it nearly impossible to live all of the laws at the same time – following one law means violating another. Many of us our violating that law right now by wearing mixed fibers – even my preaching robe is a mixed fiber garment! But these laws came later than the Ten Commandments.

For the Hebrews, wandering in the desert after escaping from Egypt, these ten laws, also known as a Decalogue, we are an initial way to establish how they should conduct and comport themselves together. They had been oppressed in Egypt, they didn’t have the power to make their own laws.

Now they are a new people, shaping and forming a new identity. These laws help them draw some guidelines and basic cultural norms – this is how we’re going to be, and this is what we agree on.

Later, more laws were added to govern more specific things as concerns arise. The Ten Commandments are both a legal and a cultural founding document, much like our Declaration of Independence and Constitution in the United States or our Constitution in the United Church of Christ.

The Premble to the UCC’s Constitution “affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.” The preamble to the United Church of Christ’s Constitution, like the Ten Commandments, lays out foundational core beliefs which shaped a covenant between God and the People. In the case of our denomination, the Preamble exemplifies the theological consensus that brought four distinct traditions, and two denominations, the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches, together in covenant at the uniting General Synod of 1957.

As a United Church of Christ congregation, we continue to relate covenantally with other local UCC churches in our Champlain Association, to the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ, and at the national level to our denomination, which gathers every two years at General Synod to conduct the business of the church.

In the United Church of Christ, each level of the church is encouraged to honor our covenantal relationship. We balance our covenantal relationships with congregational autonomy. Each level of the church, can speak two, but not for, any other part of the church. At its best, our polity, the way we are governed, allows the United Church of Christ a great flexibility and opportunity to be on the vanguard of responding to social justice concerns. For example, the national setting can pass a resolution about worker justice, and develop resources to help states and local churches respond to the issue. Or, as the Association in San Francisco did in 1972 when they ordained William Johnson, the first openly gay male to be ordained in modern times. The Association ordained Johnson prior to the national setting passing a resolution allowing the ordination of people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

Our denomination has great theological diversity – there are very conservative churches, and some that identify as post-Christian. We don’t always agree. And yet, we are still a part of the same denomination – called “in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.”

A few weeks ago, Jim Thomas, the Associate Conference minister in Vermont came and met with members of our Stewardship Team on a Thursday evening. Jim said that UCC Vermont churches that are vibrant hold something in common – they have an outward gaze. They care about what is going on in their community and their world and seek to find ways to respond– whether it’s through prayer, hosting meals, fundraising, mission trips, or advocacy.

At RCC this past week we hosted our 67^th annual Chicken Pie Supper. We served 642 Meals. We had so many people here that we ran out of chicken! RCC is known for our Chicken Pie. People from as far away as Canada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Alaska were here. We are a church whose identity is rooted in feeding people. We can cook! We feed people physically as well as spiritually. But what is at the root of this feeding, beyond the fun, and the fundraising and the community and the tradition – why is feeding people, and being fed, so important?

God has always been in the business of feeding people. For the past few weeks as we’ve heard in the Exodus narrative, God provided manna, quail and fresh clean water for the Hebrew people to drink while they were wandering in the desert after escaping from Egypt.

            Feeding was also central to Jesus’ ministry. Jesus dined with people that society called undesirable. He broke bred with tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes. Jesus also dined with his friends, the disciples. One night, he shared a special meal with them in an Upper Room – a meal of bread and wine.   

Today we remember this meal as we celebrate World Communion Sunday.  From New Zealand to Zimbabwe people are gathering together today for a holy meal, and celebrating both the great unity and diversity of the Body of Christ.

I think that we need this meal today, just as much as people did when World Communion Sunday first started at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh in 1933. We need this meal to remind us of our connectedness as people of God – people who strive to follow the greatest commandment to love God, and love our neighbor.  We live in a world where there is great violence and discord. We need this meal to remind us that we can find commonality despite differences of opinion. We need this meal to remind us of God’s way of love and peace and justice.

Friends in Christ, it is a blessing to celebrate and share a holy meal with you, it is a blessing to know that we are connected across time and space through people around the world, and it is indeed a blessing to be able to help serve someone else – to help feed someone else who is spiritually or physically in need.

It is not only a blessing, but it is our call, as God’s people to be in relationship with each other – to celebrate with joy, help each other with needs, and work for a world where all may have enough.

May we answer the call this day to “make this faith our own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.”

May it be so.  Amen.