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BEHOLD A IEW THING
Isaiah 43:14-21
May 19, 1968

There is probably nothing quite so difficult as coping with something brand new.
it is never easy to see a new thing. Our minds are connectional devices which operate
by establishing links between that which it familiar and that which is to be learned —
and something altogether new cannot be linked or related to anything. Like a computer
that shorts its circuits trying to assimilate a piece of information for which it is
not already programmed, the human mind frequently rejects newness of any sort. Newness
is unsettling: it cannot be categorized. Newness is discomforting because it cannot be
predicted.

. But beyond this, something new often repels us because it always. involves a certain
risk. A commitment to a new idea, a new nation, a new job, even a new wife does in-
volve 2 step into the unknown — that is - a personal risk. This is so simply because we
are never in a position to predict the implications and end-results of any now venture.
By its very nature newness is synonymous with an uncharted course into oan wunlnown future.

Consider, for instance, the birth of a child. I think all of us look back with
fondness at our naivete prior to the birth of our first child. All our planning and
arranging was not sufficient to prepare us for that day the two of us became three. What
parent among us does not periodically find himself amazed at the newness — the unrehearsed
quality of life actuated in him by the simple fact that he is a parent? -

On 2 personal level, newness of any type is difficult to comprehend, difficult to
anticipate and difficult to assimilate even when it comes. And if this is tzve personally,
it is evon more significant on a broader, historical level, Generally spealting, we are
very mach bound to the immediacies of the present tense: we lack what the scholar would
call, “historical perspective". That means, simply, that very few of us are able to
understend the long-range significance of the very events in which we are participating.

Fortunately, however, there ore in every age men who rise above the crowd and re-
mind us of the significance contemporary events have within the whole context of history.
Winston Churchill was abundantly that kind of man, one who long before the rest of his
countrymen intuitively sensed the threat of Nazism, and who then chronicled the war, battle
by battle, not for the sake of a dry record but with the vision of one who comprehends
the meaning and long range significance of events eve-n while they are happening.

I think John F. Kennedy was another such man with a perspective for history. He was
keenly ouoare, as no other president since Lincoln, of the historical significance that
attaches to the presidency. He knew that the destiny of America, and in a larger sense,
the fate of mankind rested on small, seemingly insignificant decisions made by individually
insignificant men: and everything we did, was done in this context of historical per-
spective. ,

' Such a man was also the prophet who wrote the portion of scripture read this morning
as the Old Testament lesson. He too was a man who possessed the "“over—view'. From his
position in Jerusalem he could see the significance of events happening on the horizon,
and he saw his prophetic task in terms of announcing that significance. !

Iiost of his countrymen were captives in Babylon. More accurately, they had been
captives: they were taken as exiles from their own land after the Babylonian armies
overran Jerusalem. But after several decades their captivity had evolved into a rather
comfortable sojourn. They had begun to put down roots: some had adopted Babylonian
customs. The temporary exile began to look like a permanent arrangement.

But the captive Jews in Babylon were blind to a new thing that was happening. To the
NorthEast the Persian armies of Cyrus the Great were gathering momentum - and the Baby
lonian empire was living on borrowed time. The prophet saw in this historic drama the
hand of God working to redeem his people. This is the burden of a letter he wrote to
them, the letter which occupies the 40th through the 55th Chapters of the Book of Isaiah.
It begins with the moving and familiar words, "Comfort, Comfort my peoplc, says your
God," and rises to prophetic articulation in the imperative, urgently stated, "Behold,

I am doing 2 new thing: now it springs forth: do you not perceive it?"

=a 9

I am bringing all of this to your attention because the Jews, like many people
before and after them, were afflicted with a certain near-sightedness, and could not
see the new thing that was already happening. They were bound up in the present tense,
the mundane matters of daily living and therefore insulated from the great historical
drama into which they were being drawn. In retrospect, we look through the eyes of
faith ond believe that God was acting to redeem and renew his people. ‘Je Imow that
Cyrue did defeat the Babylonians and did send the Jews across the desert to their
homeland, and did grant religious freedom to the extent that the period became a
rennaissance of the Israelite faith. We've had.2,500 years to think about it. But
they did not know it, until the prophet called their attention to it, and even then
they probably passed him off as a pious visionary - even as we would be\ wont to do.

This transaction is important today, because whether we are aware of it or
not, wo are involved in a great new thing: a movement involving millions upon
millions of people: a movement that will one day loom large in history. This will be
known as the ecumenical era ~— but I fear that most of us, most of the timo, are
afflictod with that same near-sightedness that prohibited the Jews from secing what
was happening to them.

When we reflect on the events of just the past decade it is clear that something
new is happening to the people of God with a bewildering rate of speed. As a boy,
in the pre-ecumenical era, I was cast in my neighborhood as a peacemaker between the
Roman Catholic Shaughnessy children on our left, and the Conservative Baptist Esteps
on our right, a combination that seemed intent on fighting the 30. years Var all over
again. The only thing the two hostile factions ever agreed on was the fact that the
Presbyterian Buchanans were doomed. John Shaughnessy was quite certain that I was
going to hell and apparently he had it on good authority. One day I wont to Confession
with him, and Frank Estep was equally certain that I was going to hell because I had
seen the evil interior of a Confessional. And my Presbyterian father despaired that
I did not have any Presbyterian friends who neither knew nor cared who was going +o
hell. Wo have come a long way. Newness has happened — often in spite of us.

Ilewmess is happening rapidly - so rapidly in fact that seven local congregations
decided to exchange delegates on this day, and before we even sat down to talk
about it, the seven separate denominations had become six. Just three weeks ago the
Evangolical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church merged to become the
United Hethodist Church.

lliow what exactly is happening and who among us are seeing it. Specifically the

Consultation on Church Union has happened and is happening. In 1960 four donominations,
responding to a sermon preached by Eugene Carson Blake in Grace Cathedral, San Fran-
cisco, ontcred 2 loose conlition to explore the possibilities of future merger. That
coalition grew to 10 member denominations including 25 million Protestants. Meeting
annually it has set down guidelines in theology and structure and mission, and re-
cently committed itself to some kind of real oneness by 1970 at the latest.

But the Consultation on Church Union is not the whole story by any means, nor
has it happened spontaneously. In a sense, if we can use some “historical perspec—
tivos" the Consultation is the most recent manifestation of a process that began at
the time of the Protestant Reformation. That event, marked a renewal of the church
of Jesus Christ in diversity. Our common reformed tradition begins then ond has sought
separate tributaries for 450 years. But in the early years the process of diversity
and separation began to slow down and reverse itself. Particularly in the area of
missionary activity major Christian bodies began to work together in the carly 1900's
and in that common missionary concern the Ecumenical Movement was born. .

The World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches and an abun-
dance of state, county and local councils came into being and gave concrete expression
to the new movement toward oneness. Vatican II broke in on the scene infused with
the spirit of John XXIII and the doors of understanding ond communication have been
wide open ever since.

-3-

And now COCU - 2 dramatic new thing happening in our very midst. I want very
briefly to say three things about this matter that concerns us greatly on this day.

First - the aim of the Consultation, "a united Church, truly catholic, truly
reformed, truly evangelical" is terribly practical. Speaking in terms of pure
pragmatism, some kind of structural unity will inevitably make the church a2 more
effective servant of her Lord. Let me illustrate by way of my own experience.

f am involved in the work of National Missions and one of our prinary con—
cerns ot present is the Town and Country Church. In hundreds of towns and hamlets
in Indicna there are four, five, ten small churches, each struggling to stay alive, -
each competing fiercely in a static or declining population, each doing less than
it ought to be doing because the first concern is just to stay alive. Tach denomina—
tion involved, with a few notable exceptions, is theoretically committed to merger

consolidation, on the premise that a united church of 500 members is going to do
a better job for the community than 10 churches with 50 members. But at present
the process by which these mergers is brought about is nightmarishly complex.
Five or six committees meet, five or six denominational executives negotiate, months
pass, and then - maybe — we get action. Structural unity would be, in this case,
the greatest thing that could happen to bring now life to the rural chuvchos.

fiong with this I believe we must understand that unity does not necessarily
mean the death of our separate traditions. Each one of us is rooted in our own
traditions: thereare things about our churches that we hold very dear. Church Union
does not mcan the demise of this at all. Let me quote from "Principles of Church
Union" published by COCU; "Visible unity should take away from us nothing oxcept
our separateness, and add to our common treasury as mich as possible of what is
good ond true in the tradition of the constituting churches" (p.14)

Church union is, first of all, practical: but more importantly I believe it
is the will of God. We share one extremely important conviction at this point:
that is, that the Church belongs to God. He created it: he calls man into it: he
sustains it and guides it and stirs it up and renews it and sends it ever out into
the world —- not just the Presbyterian Church - nor the Methodists - nor the Catholics -
but His Church, comprised of all men who confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and
Savior. I think we need to think about the Church in those terms: I think we need to
undorstend that the degree to which our local congregations, and our denominations,
are ours, is the degree to which they cease being part of the Church of Jesus Christ.
We're not talking about private clubs at this points; local associations of congenial
people — but the people of one God called by Him to one mission in ono world.

Im the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed for his disciples, anticipating
the difficult days ahead, and this is what he said: "Holy Father, keep thom in thy
ame which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.* (John 17:11)

Ne are already one. Our unity was born in that prayer, in that Lord who
called to him not Episcopalians, Congregationalists and Baptists - but 211 mon.
Certainly Church Union is the will of God.

Third, lastly, most importantly of oll: I believe the primary mover behind
all of this is God himself. Of course, that is a confessional statomont and not
easy to document. But the men who are directly involved, the best men wo have in
our respective denominations, the men whose lives have been given to tho service
of one donomination, do not hesitate to testify that theSpirit is moving in their
midst. They express an urgency, a reckless abandon, an immediacy that ia.
infectious.

Recently I was engaged in conversation with an individual who fclt that the
whole ccumenical endeavor was the work of the Communists. I find this not only
preposterous, but bereft of any confidence that the Holy Spirit is a reality in

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the Church. It is not plot. It is rather the Spirit of God himself, moving inexorably,
inevitably, mysteriously, to bring down the barriers we have built betwoon us,
to bring us to concrete expression of the oneness he has already givon us in Jesus
Christ? I believe it is so.
A new thing is happening. We live in a world that cannot be bothered with
- Christian “in-fighting", a world grown cynical at the sinful competitivoness between
the followers of Jesus. It is a world that needs to know the love and grace of
God: 2 world badly in need of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Gospel is not
fragmonted: it comes to all men through the Church —- as it faithfully obeys its
Lord. It is this that adds urgency to the concern for oneness and unity.
‘Dehold, I am doing a new thing:
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

"oly Father, keep them in thy name, that they may be one."

Amen.

O Thou eternal God, we are grateful for the moving of thy spirit again
within thy Church. Keep us from smugness in our own traditions: break dom
the wolls between us: draw us together - that thy church might be renewed and
strengthened. Through Jésus Christ our Lord. Amon.