World Communion: A God’s-Eye View

2 Timothy 1:1-14
World Communion Sunday 2010

If you are a parent or a grandparent of more than one child, then you have probably marveled at one time or another at how two children reared in the same household could be so different from each other. If you have at least one brother or sister, sooner or later you have wondered at the differences between them and you.

There was Jacob the homebody, soft and quiet and close to his mother; and there was his brother Esau the hunter, rough and ruddy and close to his father. There was Rachel, graceful and beautiful, and her sister Leah of the lovely eyes. There was Joseph the dreamer and his rash-acting brothers who sold him into Egypt. There was Mary the devoted student and Martha the diligent hostess. The differences between brothers and sisters reared in the same household can be so great that sometimes a person’s closest “kindred spirit” is not found among one’s own siblings but among children reared in another household. Think David and Jonathan, Mary and Elizabeth, Jesus and John the Beloved. Kindred spirits. Soul mates from different families.

For all our marveling and wondering, we can account for most of those differences—and the similarities, too. Except in the case of identical twins, no two children of the same parents have exactly the same genetic make-up. The differences begin in our DNA. Beginning even in utero, no two children experience exactly the same environmental influences. For the simplest of examples, a first child born into a nuclear family experiences a very different interpersonal environment than a second child experiences in that family. For the second child, there are not two but three faces and voices and bodies interacting with them. And a third child grows up in an entirely different interpersonal environment than either the first or the second. There are not three but four, and they’re all different. The differences in their genes and the differences in their experiences even within the same household result in distinct personalities, disparate identities, different strengths and weaknesses, dissimilar tastes.

On this World Communion Sunday on which brothers and sisters in “the household of God,” as the church is called in Ephesians 2:19 and 1 Timothy 3:15 and 1 Peter 4:17, share in the bread and the cup of remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, we would do well to reflect—even if only briefly—on the nature of our kinship, our sisterhood and brotherhood in the household of God.

I’m suggesting we take a “God’s-eye view” on the matter. Now, you and I both know that there is no one any more presumptuous than the person who proposes to see things as God sees things. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” says God (Isaiah 55:8-9). We all know that there is no one more preposterous than a person who purports to see as God sees. “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been God’s counselor?” God’s judgments are “unsearchable” and God’s ways are “inscrutable,” says the apostle Paul (Romans 11:33-34). No one sees as God sees. We all recognize that it is intellectually and psychologically and spiritually impossible for a finite being to comprehend an infinite point of view.

And yet, Scripture is every bit as insistent that there are times and places and persons who are called on to “write the vision” they have seen, to “make it plain” (Habakkuk 2:2; compare Revelation 1:11). From time to time, God says to a mere mortal, “What do you see?” (Jeremiah 1:11,13; 24:3; Amos 7:8; 8:2; Zechariah 4:2; 5:2; compare Acts 11:5-9). By suggesting that we take “a God’s-eye view” on World Communion Sunday, I recognize that I can be called “presumptuous” and “preposterous” but there is a vision of “the household of God” that World Communion Sunday represents and that vision should be written and made plain. And here it is: If in God’s household, God had wanted an “only child” of a church, God could have and would have made it so. If in God’s household, God had wanted an “only child” of a church, God could have and would have made it so.

From the earliest decades of the church’s existence, there were distinct personalities, disparate identities, different strengths and weaknesses, and dissimilar tastes in the various congregations of the New Testament. In Jerusalem, there was a very Jewish church that was law-abiding as well as gospel-proclaiming. In Corinth, there was a predominantly Gentile congregation that was a free-spirited, overly enthusiastic. And there was a church in Galatia in Asia Minor torn between the two, pulled by unnamed teachers in the direction of the law and scolded by Paul to go with the Spirit. There was a church in Antioch that was cosmopolitan, and missionary-sending. If the New Testament is to be trusted and believed, then in the household of God that is the church there have always been multiple siblings with distinct personalities, disparate identities, different strengths and weaknesses, and dissimilar tastes, owing to their different DNA, their different environmental influences, and maybe even their divergent callings as the people of God in their time and in their place.

This morning’s New Testament lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary for this Sunday was written to a third-generation Christian whose grandmother Lois and mother Eunice were believers. The counsel given to Timothy speaks wisdom to a particular individual in a particular household of God, the household of Lois and Eunice. But is also speaks wisdom to the sibling bodies that are churches and communions.

We sometimes call churches or communions by the untheological and unbiblical word “denomination.” That word was not coined until the fourteenth century, and it wasn’t used to refer to religious groups until the eighteenth century. The communion of the saints that is called the church is nearly 2,000 years old, but the word that dominates our understanding of the distinctives and differences among communions is fewer than 200 years old.

We are not denominations; we are sibling bodies, brothers and sisters in Christ, each of us “called with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to God’s own purpose and grace,” in the words of 2 Timothy 1:9. Each sibling body is called to espouse the “sincere faith” (1:5) that is in its DNA and in its upbringing. Each sibling body is reminded “rekindle the gift of God that is within” it (1:6). Each sibling body is encouraged to “Hold to the standard of sound teaching” that it has heard “in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1:13) and to “Guard the good treasure entrusted” to it, “with the help of the Holy Spirit living in” it (1:14). There are many different communions in God’s household “called with a holy calling . . . according to God’s own purpose and grace.”

Remember that in the gospel of Luke, one of Jesus’ disciples reported seeing “‘someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you’” (Luke 9:49-50). Just because someone doesn’t “follow with us,” it does not mean they are not following Jesus. Just because we don’t “follow with them,” it does not mean that we are not following Jesus.

In the gospel of John, in the passage in which Jesus states his claim to be the “good shepherd” of the biblical tradition, he says to those who are listening in his presence, “I know my own and my own know me. . . . I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice” (John 10:14,16). Jesus goes on to say, “There will be one flock, one shepherd” (10:17), but that is a “kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” prediction, not a temporal description. The temporal description is that there are other sheep not of this fold who also listen to the voice of Christ, who also belong to Christ.

It goes without saying that there are sibling rivalries in the household of God. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that sibling rivalries reflect ontological realities. Sibling rivalries are a reflection of human sinfulness, not of “God’s own purpose and grace.” There were, after all, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, Joseph and his brothers, Mary and Martha.

And it goes without saying that sometimes we find our closest kindred spirits not among our own siblings but among sisters and brothers from other families. There were, after all, David and Jonathan, Mary and Elizabeth, Jesus and John the Beloved.

If in God’s household, had God wanted an “only child” of a church, God could have and would have made it so. “According to God’s own purpose and grace,” there are many churches with distinct personalities, disparate identities, different strengths and weaknesses, and dissimilar tastes, yet “called with a holy calling” to espouse a “sincere faith,” to “rekindle the gift of God that is within” it (1:6), to “Hold to the standard of sound teaching” that it has heard “in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1:13) and to “Guard the good treasure entrusted” to it, “with the help of the Holy Spirit living in” it (1:14).

On World Communion Sunday, we celebrate the diversity of God’s household of many communions that are at the same time in a God’s-eye view, one holy communion of brothers and sisters in Christ.

Photo of computer-generated DNA by Geoff Hutchison, licensed by Creative Commons.

Photo of Saint Anna Orthodox Church, Rosedale, CA, by Joshua Trevino, licensed by Creative Commons.

Photo of Avondale Patillo United Methodist Church, Decatur, GA, by apmethodist, licensed by Creative Commons.

Photo of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Assembly, by christianchurch, licensed by Creative Commons.

Photo of English Martyrs Roman Catholic Church, by DannyMcL, licensed by Creative Commons.

Photo of St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Asheville, NC, by Bill Rhodes, licensed by Creative Commons.

This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.