We
live in a divided, polarized society which disturbs many of us, and it should. But I’m sure you realize this situation is
not new. It’s happened before, even in
the church. For example, in 1809 the
divisions and competing factions in the church were so damaging and
pervasive that a Presbyterian Minister, Thomas Campbell, called them a sword in the body of Christ “rending
and mangling” it into pieces. He
and others went on to found a movement for unity that eventually became the
Christian Churches. He made that
statement in a document that became a guiding force in our churches called the Declaration and Address in which he challenged
the sectarians in the church to unite.
Listen carefully to the first two propositions.*
Proposition
One: that the church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and
constitutionally one, consisting of all those who in every place that profess
their faith in Christ and obedience to him in all things according to the
scriptures …
Proposition
Two: That although the church … must necessarily exist in particular and
distinct … (congregations), locally separate one from another; yet there ought
to be no … uncharitable divisions among them.
They ought to receive each other as Christ has also received them to the
glory of God … . In saying this he
simply wanted to implement what Jesus prayed for.
Two
thousand years ago Jesus saw the danger of division among his followers and
prayed on the night before he was crucified,
“Father, I pray for those who will believe in me …,
that all of them may be one, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may
believe that you have sent me.”
A few
years later the Apostle Paul saw division threatening the church at Corinth and
that, furthermore, their sinful divisiveness went totally against an essential
aspect of the Lord’s Supper. He said in
1 Cor 10:16-17, “The
cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of
Christ? The bread which we break, is it
not the communion of the body of Christ?
For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of
that one bread.” That one
bread of life is Christ himself. We have one bread, one body, one table
that’s big enough for all.
In
this time of polarization we lift up the vision of unity as we partake of
communion. In the past some churches
have used just one cup and one loaf of bread to do it. In England some Christian Churches still do
it this way. For most of us it is enough
to let the individual wafers and cups symbolize that unity and to imagine a
table big enough to include all who, as Campbell said, “profess their faith in
Christ and obedience to him in all things according to the scriptures.”
*Declaration and Address and the Last Will and Testament
of the Springfield Presbytery.
Indianapolis: International Convention of Disciples of Christ, 1949.
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