4

PRESBYTERIANS AND God'S BUSINESS OF RECONCILIATION
Il Corinthians 5:16-21
dune 26, 1983

John M. Buchanan
Jeffrey Hawthorne

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.

week before the eyes of the entire world. It spoke more
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about reality,\ about the way it is with the human condition

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- it contained more unvarnished truth, that is to say -
ee

than all political platforms and religious creeds combined.
: 2—E———

I refer, of course, to the mie visit of Pope John

Paul II to his native Poland.

While a segment of the press concluded that the effect

of the visit will be minimal - that there will be no actual
De osti ie bres aid
loosenin of the martial law imposed by Poland's military

Seer

government, most thoughtful analysts were saying that the

Pope had touched something profound in the nation's soul,

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and that nothing could ever be the same.
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Listen to James Reston, for instance, in the New York

Times:

"Tee's not difficult to understand why the Polish

} government was worried about inviting the Pope

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of Rome to come back to his native land. \ He may

be more dangerous to the Communist philosophy

than all the missiles of the west. \. tht POpe-ha s
dominated the life of this...country these” past
few days with his fait his patieffce, aid his

eloquefice.

Even the old walls of Warsaw echo with the sound

af his voice and the music of the church. | You

will know that Communism has finally prevailed
alee

in Poland when it repgoduces the architecture,
Eee

the painting, and the hymns inspired. by Poland's

painting y nspired. by
nationalism and religious tradition." (NYT,
green ——enani

6/19/83)

At a breakfast meeting this week for church and business

leaders in Columbus, our new Roman Catholic Bishop, James

Griffin, toid the assembly that in God's eyes, and for the
pcre ae A
£ th h h'sic ther r 1 boundries
purposes o e chure S concern ere are no clear ndri
between religious and secular affairs. | Bishop Griffin noted

how eas it is for Americans to applaud what John Paul II

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is doing and saying in Poland, but that it is not so eas
to address poverty, injustice, and subtle forms of oppression

in our own country.

In fact, it is both intriguing and disturbing to note

that the two main actors in the ieee could be charac-

terized as a me

cler Union organizer.

Neither type is popular with the mainstream of American

Protestantism. \ In fact, neither type is ever welcome in

the halis of those who hold power - regardless of the name

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of the system.

What the Pope is. saying, by his pilgrimage, by his

visits to industrial work places, by his making common cause

with the labor union movement, is that all of life is the

business of God: a:\, not just the way Mass is. said, put the

way the children. of God live and move and he have their being.

The world, the whole wide world is the context for God's

pecan eee \
presence, - God's activity, God' S mission. There are no _boun-
dries between the sacred and the secular. . You cannot read
ese ne : wt &é

the Bible at all and believe that God cares more about the

way people say prayers and sing hymns than about the way

Lael aaetet 7

justice is practiced | in _Society.

That is what St. Paul wanted so desparately for the

earliest Christians in Corinth to understand.\ The purpose
a

Do nasci :|

of God's coming in the first place was not to create an

isolated enclave of pious individuals dedicated to protecting

their own flanks cand F OM worldly incursions, but, in his own

words, feos was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

—

-i-

, -_

a a
The world is~the 7) here aré no neat boundries

a a oll a,
between what matters~to God and_his church and what doesn't

: The world is the context, and once we learn that
Pa Le > itearn
difficult lesson, it is clear_that in the wide context God's

business is reconciliation...the bringing together of that

oe

which is separated, the healing of that which is broken

apart.

The world is the context and reconciling is the mission:

Christians with cheterteus, [xe be sure: | and rich with poor,

i,

—— ae

and black with white, \ and young with old,\ and female with

nele, \ and liberal with conservative, pnd East with West,

_ —_ ——

a indivi i they. can

— ——

beeome—with-that which teeps them from. it.
P
s_—thnem rt

Reconciliation is what the Christian enterprise is
— anlar
about and every time I think for a minute about our own

2

as Presbyterians I realize that this is our genius.

Since John Calvin settled in Geneva and set about reordering
—_—oeoeoer nd

eee

the entire life of that city, we Presbyterians have known

—erss
V—_—_—_———_____.

that the context is the city of humanity, and the name of

—_—_—_——_~. CC

the business is reconciliation.
amen

Once a year, we latter day sons and daughters of that
tradition get together somewhere in the United States to
think about what that means, argue fiercely, pray and sing

speae! Sua talk endlessly into the night.\\ rt is_called the

meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.

It has happened for 195 consecutive years and this year,

along with 1300 other laity and clergy, a member of this

church was there, in Atlanta, Jeff Hawthorne.

~ —_—— a

must buyin
ys
all |

CONCLUSION phere
The early Christians basa ean their own feelings,

their faith, | their sense of their own salvation. | Their

teacher, Paul, helped them to see the whole picture: the

—————

fact that while they rejoiced in their own salvation, the

saving of the whole world was God's business.

Th

And then, once they had seen the length and breadth

of it | they would know their own personal part of it more

fully, more accurately.
eg

So, one sees the panorama of the church on occasion,

but most of one's time is spent in a particular church.

And so, on occasion, one senses in one's soul the magnificent
it ts

wholeness of the Christian Faith, but ultimately one comes
|

down and home and must live within the perimeters of the

OO ——_s=5u UU Uw“ UW USS

particular life and believe with this articular, heart

and body and mind and soul.

And it is good to be reminded, finally, that God's

reconciliation does include, does begin with _- in fact,

—

the reconciliation of my life, the healing of my brokenness,

the redemption of my humanity.

SS

Having seen the whole picture, it is very good to know

that we are in it - that in St. Paul's good words _ ("rg
UR Are * WWE OAK -_
apyone #s in Christ, he-—is a new creation: \ the old has

——_—————____., —_

passed away; behold the new has come." AMEN.

—_—_—