“An Editorial For Our Times”
Unity in the essentials
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Text: 1 Peter 3:8-12
The great Adlai Stephenson, who was the American ambassador to the United Nations for a number of years during the Kennedy administration and a man whom I have always held in high regard, once made a comment about editors: “An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and then publishes the chaff.” Adlai Stephenson had been burned a few times by newspaper editors over the years, and was just a mite sensitive about it as, indeed, many politicians, leaders and people of notoriety have been over the years. Editorials can be quite scathing.
So, too, if you have written a book. An editor can be simultaneously your greatest friend and your absolute foe. As someone who has written a book or two and has had the red ink of an editor run through my work, I can attest to the exclamation of one writer, who said, “And where were you, Mr. Editor, when the pages were blank?”
Editors have a thankless job. Whether they write editorials in newspapers or they edit other people's work, editors have a hard time. I think that is one of the reasons why in newspapers I first turn, (after the sports section, which by the way, I always read first, which is no surprise to anyone) to the editorial page. But after I've read the editorials, I immediately go to the Op-Ed pieces, the opinion pieces, often opposite the editorials.
I think back, for example, to the time immediately after 9/11 and the work of Anthony Lewis, whose Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times were insightful, prophetic and, I might suggest, well worth reading again, they were that insightful.
Similarly, I've enjoyed reading Richard Gwynn's Op-Ed pieces after the invasion of Iraq. You look back and read these Op-Ed pieces now and you realize how interesting they are when juxtaposed with the editorials, how they complement them.
But the thing about editorials, whether they are newspaper or magazine articles or Op-Ed pieces, is that they point the way forward for society. Their words are not absolute, they are not the decision-makers, it is not for them to carry out the ideas, but editors and Op-Ed writers simply point the way. Others may follow, or not, as they see fit.
Now, today's passage from the book of First Peter is in many ways an editorial piece for Christians. It is an editorial that guides the Christian community, but unlike most editorials, it is for all time. Writing as he was at a time when Christians were being persecuted for their faith, when they had been blamed for the problems happening in Rome, Peter gave encouragement, pointed the way ahead for the Christian community and gave them guidance in a dangerously pagan society. In a world that was looking down on Christians, Peter tried to lift them up with a word of hope and inspiration, and keep them focused on the things that really matter.
The passage today from First Peter is an editorial piece of immense magnitude, but it is also the word of God and because it is the word of God, it is not only an editorial piece for the end of the first century A.D., it is also a passage that can be read for all time. In it there are gems. If we as Christians open it up and read it, we will realize there are signposts, guidelines for the way we live the Christian life today. Most notable is an opening line of the editorial, “I want you all to have the same mind.” Another translation of that is “to have the same heart,” because the heart was seen as the place where emotions influence the mind, where they have their beginning or genesis. “Be of one heart, be of one mind.” This was his initial call to Christians who were suffering in a time of great dissipation and danger.
Throughout the 2,000 years since Peter wrote these words, Christians have indeed struggled with what it means to have one mind. After all, we don't all agree on everything, we don't all have the same mind on many different events, activities, or even directions for a church. That is why I've always loved a very famous quote ascribed to St. Augustine, but was probably not written by St. Augustine but by someone later: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, but in all things charity.”
Now, what the writer was trying to suggest was that there are certain things that are indeed essential to having this one mind, but there are other things that are not as essential, where there is room, where there is liberty to differ, but that everything should come under the umbrella of charity. It seems to me that the essential thing in unity is the role and the place and central location of Jesus Christ. I think that thing that we need to have as Christians is a deep and profound fidelity to Jesus.
You might say that that seems self-evident. Surely if you're going to call yourself a Christian just as they did in the time of Peter in Rome, this is a given, but I'm afraid, my friends, that isn't necessarily so. I believe there is in the church universal today an erosion of that foundation. There is debate about whether Jesus is central to God's economy of salvation, God's activity in the world. I do not believe that you can have the unity that is required if you don't have the common confession and indeed, the common dependence upon faith in that Christ. For Peter this was essential.
Since Peter's days even if you accept the centrality of Christ we have turned other, non-essential things into absolutes. This was really brought home to me on an episode of the David Letterman show some years ago when Emo Phillips, the rather crazy comedian, was making one of his many appearances on that show. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, but I thought when I heard it that it was most timely. Phillips told the story in the first person: “I was chatting with a friend of mine whom I hadn't known long, and I asked him, because I wanted to know, ”˜Are you Protestant of Catholic?'
My friend said, ”˜I am Protestant.'
So I asked him, ”˜What franchise do you belong to?'
He said, ”˜I'm a Baptist.'
I said, ”˜I'm a Baptist, too. This is tremendous.' And for the next 10 minutes we compared notes and found out that we had so many things in common in Christian history and experience. Finally I asked him, ”˜Are you a northern, conservative, fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region Council of 1889, or are you a northern, conservative, fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?'
He answered, ”˜I am a northern, conservative, fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.'
I said to him, ”˜Then die, you heretic!'”
But we do that. We take things that are absolutely not essential and we act upon them as if somehow they are more important than our common confession in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When we do that, we do a disservice to our faith, we do a disservice to our Lord and we do a disservice to ourselves! In unity the essential things come out. The essential thing is the place of Christ and that is something we should hold onto precisely because, as Peter goes on, the very Christian life itself is dependent on that relationship with Christ.
Earlier on, in his first book, Peter writes the following words of encouragement: “If you suffer for doing good and endure it you are commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” In other words, Christ is not only Lord by virtue of our faith and affirmation, but also by our desire to be his disciples and to follow him. And then in one of the most glorious of all passages in the New Testament, in an editorial that points the way forward for Christians, Peter says that that is why you should love your brethren, that is why you should be courteous, that is why you should be tenderhearted, that is why you should care, that is why you should not return evil for evil - precisely because that is a manifestation of your unity in Christ.
I am extremely proud this morning of the young people from our church who went to El Hogar and endured some very difficult circumstances: tarantulas, searing heat, potholes and 15 people in a microvan is not easy. But they did it because they cared, they did it as an expression of their faith. When the whole idea was brought to my attention many, many months ago by The Rev. Dr. David Windsor, it seemed to me that this was something that would spark the imagination and change the lives of young people. If you heard them at 9:30 this morning, then you realize that that was the case.
Christians find that when they follow Jesus Christ and when they unify in that bond of faith they carry out the courteousness and the love and the brotherhood and the care that is the hallmark of the Christian life.
This last week I read an editorial from the Manchester Guardian that was one of the finest pieces that I have read in many years. It's an Op-Ed piece by Roy Hattersley, who for many years was the deputy leader of the Labour Party in England. He was a member of the Privy Council, the mayor of a large British city, but he is also, apart from being a man with a strong social conscience, a man who has been a devout atheist. I would say that Roy Hattersley would even admit himself that he's somewhat of an evangelical atheist. In other words, he promoted atheism and was severely critical of the Christian faith, and severely critical of people with faith of any kind.
But his Op-Ed piece this week is titled “Faith does breed charity.” As I read it I almost wept, having heard so many of Hattersley's diatribes against Christians. If there is an editorial for our time, this is it, and I want the world to hear it and I want the people who listen on the radio to hear it and I want politicians to hear it! This is what he said:
Hurricane Katrina did not stay on the front pages for long. Yesterday's Red Cross appeal for an extra 40,000 volunteer workers was virtually ignored.
The disaster will return to the headlines when one sort of newspaper reports a particularly gruesome discovery or another finds additional evidence of President Bush's negligence. But month after month of unremitting suffering is not news. Nor is the monotonous performance of the unpleasant tasks that relieve the pain and anguish of the old, the sick and the homeless - the tasks in which the Salvation Army specializes.
The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.
Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, freethinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.
The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive…
And he goes on to mention them, but then he takes a turn in his article:
Late at night, on the streets of one of our great cities, that [Salvation Army officer] offers friendship as well as help to the most degraded and (to those of a censorious turn of mind) degenerate human beings who exist just outside the boundaries of our society. And he does what he believes to be his Christian duty without the slightest suggestion of disapproval. Yet, for much of his time, he is meeting needs that result from conduct he regards as intrinsically wicked.
Good works, John Wesley insisted, are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists.
The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. The close relationship may have something to do with the belief that we are all God's children, or it may be the result of a primitive conviction that, although helping others is no guarantee of salvation, it is prudent to be recorded in a Book of Gold… When I was a local councillor, the Little Sisters of the Poor - right at the other end of the theological spectrum - did the weekly washing for women in back-to-back houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves.
It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. The Bible is so full of contradictions that we can accept or reject its moral advice according to taste. Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night.
The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army.
Wow! Not my words. I would have loved to have written that editorial, but I'd have been accused of religious bias. This was written by someone who does not start with a Christian assumption, but has seen Christian work in action.
My friends, Peter's editorial is an editorial for our time. It is an editorial that should inspire us. It should encourage us, it should inform and nurture us to “be of one mind.” In other words, to have one source, Christ. Be tenderhearted, be gentle, be courteous, love your brother and sister, do not repay evil for evil, for these are the things that Christians should do, but more importantly this is what Christians should be, like Christ. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.