2005 Mission Tour

“One Body”

A Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
The Day of Pentecost
May 15, 2005

Stanley N. Webster, Pastor

Second Presbyterian Church, Portsmouth

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body– Jews or Greeks, slaves or free– and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

My meditation on this passage this week has been particularly satisfying because of the place in which I opened my Bible. My study would begin early-around 5:30 in the morning, because the sun would wake me up. The days are longer in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic (in the former Czechoslovakia). I spent the week there as a member of our Presbytery’s Mission Tour 2005-a visit to early Reformation sites and to one of our sister churches-the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.

St. Paul’s words came to life as I sat and read them in the dormitory of the Protestant seminary, number 9 Cerna Street in the beautifully preserved center of the ancient capital of the Holy Roman Empire: “You are the body of Christ, and individually members of him.” (v. 27, King James Version) As the body is one and hath many members, and all the member of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” (v. 12, King James Version) The setting helped me hear the truth of the unity of the universal church of Jesus Christ-the fellowship of all who have faith in him. Signs in the hallways were to me a complete mystery. The words were strange to me, never having studied a Slavic language. To order from a menu, I had to find an Italian restaurant! I couldn’t call a taxi. Once I tried to tell a waiter that I hadn’t gotten a glass of water at the meal. He went and got another waiter, who in turn stared at me and shook his head. The plain English coming out of my mouth was, to them, gibberish! I walked about Prague amazed at what I now consider the most beautiful city I have seen. The strangeness was fascinating for a while. But then it started to get frustrating. To be an outsider-not to be understood can get old. I didn’t even know how to say yes and no! I didn’t have the words with which to say thank you to people in their own language. I was a tourist, an observer-a person on the outside looking in.

In that setting I understood the impact of the Genesis text we read at Pentecost:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:1-9, New Revised Standard Bible)

The Rev. Beverly Schmidt planned the Mission Tour 2005 in her desire to break down some of the barriers that exist between the churches of the U.S. and the Czech Republic. She recruited 23 or us to travel to Europe from May 1 to May 14, 2005. She lined up members of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren to talk to us about the life of the church.

Joel Rumel, the Moderator of the national church, talked to us about his vision of the church’s mission. He said the marks of the church-that is to say the activities that identify the true church-are 1) preaching; 2) the sacraments and 3) a life lead in conformity with #1 and #2.

Professor Peter Morée gave us a thumbnail sketch of the history of the church. The Reformation was happening early in Moravia and Bohemia (now called the Czech Republic)! Jan Hus was a university teacher who taught form the Scriptures, made bold proposals for changes in worship, and called for an end to unethical practices in the church. Hus was burned at the stake in 1445 in Konstanz (now in German). The people of the Hussite churches have through the centuries promoted a return to the teachings of Jesus and have stood for high standards of Christian living. I was most impressed by the Hussites’ insistence on non-violence in situations of political or religious oppression. It is wrong for us to teach the Reformation as if it began with Luther in 1517. The story of Jan Hus and his followers cannot be omitted! Indeed, as we saw in our side trip into southern France, the Reformation was a widespread movement that sprang up independently in many parts of Europe.

Today’s Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren finds itself a minority church about 2 per cent of the population of the Czech Republic. Pavel Nychopen, in a conversation with us, called the Czech Republic “the most atheistic country in the world.” Nychopen, the director of “Diakonia,” sees service ministries as the primary means of communicating the gospel in such a context. He said, “People don’t care about the church. People don’t care about our worship services. But they do listen when we show we care about their elderly mother, or their children, or the poor in their neighborhood.” He outlined an impressive program of ministries that address concrete human needs. The Czech Brethren run 33 centers of a ministry called “Diakonia.” (That’s the New Testament word for service.) The Czechs are working to rebuild social services that were dismantled during the years of Communist rule (1948-98). “The work is difficult,” he said. “We have Western prices and can only pay Eastern salaries.” The church’s SOS ministry responds to mental health crises. Asylum is offered to victims of domestic violence. One of the major societal problems is addiction to alcohol and drugs. The church concentrates on ministry to Roma children. The Roma (formerly called gypsies) number 300-400,000 in the Czech Republic (population 10 million). The church’s most recently developed ministry is care to the dying through hospice.

We visited the Sporilov congregation (located in a suburb of Prague) that has entered into close partnership with a social service agency called “Walking Together.” The congregation is struggling to build a new building in the center of a high-rise housing project where 100,000 people live. The church’s attendance is about 40 on an average Sunday.

We also visited the church where the Rev. Jan Dus preaches. He took us into the beautiful 18th century building the congregation built in six months after the issuance of the Edict of Toleration. That edict allowed Protestant worship after centuries of Catholic domination under the Hapsburgs. Jan Dus struck a chord in our heartstrings when he talked about the great difficulty his congregation is experiencing in handing the faith down from the older to the younger generation. While the political situation is vastly different from ours in the United States, the social realities are surprisingly similar!

The words of St. Paul resound in my heart after this full week of visits and learning about the church in the Czech Republic. I’ll share a moment from our visit to Litomysl. The group went with Angela Safrankova-Radiven to take a tour of the city that required a great deal of walking. Alma Kahl and I decided to stay with the bus. The bus driver, age twenty, was called Jacob. I asked Jacob, “Do you speak English?” He shook his head, smiled, and answered, “A little.” I understood him to mean we couldn’t talk. But Alma was undeterred. She hit him with a series of questions in English. She wouldn’t give up. He started answering, slowly and hesitatingly. Before the group had finished their tour of the city, we were deeply engaged in conversation with Jacob. The arrival of John Michael, a mission worker of the Presbyterian Church, enabled the conversation to go deeper. We heard about his Catholic faith and his philosophy of life that sounds more Buddhist than Catholic. We heard about his career aspirations-to be a philosopher. He talked about his favorite book-Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Perhaps the most vivid mental photograph I have from the trip is the picture I saw from my seat in the bus at the end of the day as Alma got off the bus, assisted by Jacob. She reached up and gave him a hug, which he returned warmly.

How many words did that take? The separation of Babel is defeated. We are made to drink of one Spirit. With Christ, there should be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. We are the body of Christ and individually members of him!

Now to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be honor and glory now and forever! Amen.