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Communion Meditation

| John 3:16: 17:13-23_ “Wh PF 5 Pe

October 3, 1971

John iM. Buchanan

[Cm story is told of an incident that took place in a-low income neigh-
borhood in New York City during a census. The hour was late: ‘the census
taker was very tired: ag she talked with a woman in the last apartment of

the last building for the day she became a little exasperated at the discovery
that there were twelve children in this pied uh family. "What are their
ages?" she asked the mother. And the mother pausing and scratching her hoad —
as we all do when someone asks our childron's ages -— began: "Let's see:

Billy is cight months: Maric is - two years: Kim ~ 34." The worker inter-
upted her sharply: "no names — just ages." To which the mother responded -
"But, all my children have names."

That mother, I would suggest, was saying something very important: some~
thing that needs saying today - “All my children have names" - all of God's
children have names. In that sense she becomes, for me, an clequent spokes-—
man for the event we celebrate today —- World Communion, For that is what the
idea of World Communion is all about; all the children: all the men and
women; have names.

Coming at it from another direction, George stevens [in an article in
Saturday Review, under the title, "Above and Boyond Capital Punishment",

x Geo, Sitcoms
LS.R. 9/25/71 ] lifts up some interesting incongruitics in the changing public

mind on the topic of executing criminals. The growing sentiment against
capital punishment, Mr. Stevens suggests, is not really a result of a great
rennaisance of humanitarian sentiment. Rather, it is occurring because the
legal processes now allow a man sentenced to death to postpone his demise

for years: and that during that time television, radio and the newspapers
bring him into our living rocms. That is to say, he becomes an individual:

we begin to know him: what he looks like: how he thinks and feels: we heate”

to sec him in the context of other human relationships. siddenly he becomes

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a father, or a son, or a lawyer, or a soles Now, it's one thing for our
society to execute a murdcror ~ or a rapist. But it's another thing altogether
for it to execute someone wo know: an individual - a teal, live person we've
seen and read about.| In Stevens' words: ". . . if a convicted criminal - a
Caryl Chessman - manages to stay alive long enough after the death sontonce +o
make an impression on the public as an individual, he arouses a sense of guilt
in the public mind. This development usually leads to a clamor in the criminal's
favor or at least to\intensified pressure against the death penalty."

Thus we have the irony of people talking in terms of a "tolerable level"
of casualties in Vict Nam ~ and at the same timo the intolerability of a hand=
ful of men waiting exccution on our prisons. Now lest you misunderstand: I am
opposed to capital punishment — on moral and sociological grounds. I don't
think it's right: and I don't think it works. But that's not the point.

The point is tha We will tolerate the extermination of human beings so long
as we don't know who thcy are. But when they become individuals — when all
the children come to have names - our attitudes and opinions change rapidly -

a
and radically. And that, it seems to me, is t%e priority item on the agenda

Awarscau Sec
a sehen he To see that all men are individuals: that all men
belong to the samc fathcr:- that there is a built-in unity in the human situ-
ation} to see all of that and then to celebrate our own individuality - and
the individuality of cach other - around a thble bearing the name of tho soverign
Lord of all men — the table of Jesus Christ.

is Christians, however { 1 think we need to be as clear as possible in our

. at this point. Vague ideas such as "the human family" or the “unity
of mankind" don't help very much. We need to build our base a little more
soundly than that. The unity of mankind is not an isolated concept - rather

Svieo = Chrno

it is a conclusion we draw from the fundamental Ghristien idea, namely, that
God loves: that God loves all men: that his love for all men — deposits all

of us into a new situation in which every other man becomes a relative - a

brother - an individual. The great German ‘churchman, Martin Niemoller put it

this way: "It took inc a long time to learn that God is not the enomy.of my

!

enemics. He is not even the enemy of His seiantans
When we think about the unity of mankind deriving from the love of God
‘we are dealing with doop concepts: the practical implications of which some—
times elludo us because of their depth. dnd so we turn to symbolism: to
Symbols that summarize and demonstrate. The idea of God's love is best des— pe
cribed, then, not in the language of philosophy — but in a picture, an act, ae
a person. The cross of Jcosus Christ is the meaning of God's love. |
{bot still it can be illusive.| Granted, it is impossible to confront the
reality of Jesus Christ dying out of love for me without being moved: yet it
is possible to keep that too in the realm of ideas. {nd so to deal with God's ¥
love we have to bring it into that context we know about - our own lives. That |
is to say, the idea of God's love becomes a reality for us when wo sce the
ethical imperatives it carries with it. A loving God and a human family are
‘sterile ideas — until they begin to influence the way we behave in relation-—
ship with other men. I can't improve on the way the author of the First Epistle i
of John put it: “If a mon says that ho loves God and hates his brother, he
isa liar."
[_anboay will agree to loving mankind — so long as mankind remains an
amorphous mass out there somewhere. Tho erunch comes — the ethical crunch -
when all the children come to have nahes: when mankind becomes that particular
man.
The late Martin Luther King, in one of his sermons, had a good grip on _ cs
the issue when he said: “We should be happy that Jesus did not order us to
like our enemies. It is almost impossible to like some people. Like is a ae
sentimental aid affectionate word. How can we like a person whose avowed
aim is to crush our vory being? How ¢an we be affectionate toward a person
who is threatening our children and bombing our homes? This is impossible.

But Jesus realized that love is greater than like." ind Martin Buber, famous

Jewish theologian: "You cannot command that one feel love for a person, but

only that he deal lovingly with him."

So, when we talk about the love of God and the love of men for each other
and the human family, we're not talking about some syrupy, affectionate, liking.
That's not it at all. We're talking here about something far deeper and far
more important than that. I've been helped by the ideas of Rollo May in his
book "Love and Will". May suggests that the ability to love another person
depends totally on the ability to feel care for him. md he defines "caring"
as . - "a recognition of another, a fellow human being like one's self; « .
identification of oneself with the joy and pain of the other: guilt, pity, and
the awareness that we all stand on the base of a common humanity from which
we ali stem."

To care for and about another human being: to give him a name: to identify
with him: to see life through his eyes: to put on his shoes and try walking
in them for a minute. le can do that. That's what love means. When God
wanted to tell men that he loved them — he didn't write a poem, or construct
a philosophy — he identified with men in “tthe world. He came among us, we
believe, in Jesus Christ. He saw life through our cyes: he put on our shoes
and walked with us: he shared our joys and burdens: and he even died our
death. That says - "I love you." Jind it is to that - that kind of identi-
fication with each other: that caring love ~it is to that - you and I are
called. | jacld< gro,

—_
World Communion Sunday. Millions of people out there somewhere, hearing

the same words, breaking bread and sharing a cup. People of every race, every
nationality, rich - poor, old - ee people in India and Great Britain and
Venezuela — but also people in Central Presbyterian, and Grace Methodist and
Trinity Lutheran. They all have names. Tach of. them is a person, a child

of God, one he loves and because of that they become our brothers end sisters.

4s you commme this morning think about them.

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we |

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—

is part of the family too.
On ‘the night he was aiedink teas ers =

May we, hare this oenine — be one.

eh

~_

-

the peace of Jowes christ in a few minutes. ; oleae AG. .