Why Am I a Presbyterian?

Dwelling Place of God
August 2, 2015
Why Worship God?
September 13, 2015

“Why Am I a Presbyterian?”

Some have called this a post-denominational age.  It used to be, say before John F. Kennedy was elected President as a Catholic and that was a big deal, that denominational identity was critical to more people.   It reflected ethnic connection.  And geography.  And often class.  Now statistics suggest Americans today are less connected to denominations than at any time in our history.  The Post had an article yesterday about how 77% of Catholics who have left are unlikely to return to the denomination despite liking Pope Francis.  In the future the greater church will look different than it does today.

I think there is value in both denominational identity and openness.  My own story is Presbyterian mixed with much diversity.  I grew up in the Presbyterian church.  But I went to a Methodist seminary because I worked full time through it and the geography mattered.  My first sermon was at a Southern Baptist church.  My last sermon at my first church was about Zen.  My spiritual life was influenced by my grandmother’s Quaker prayers.  My spiritual guide in college was Catholic.  My favorite counselor throughout times of challenge was a Congregationalist.  If you have read Ted Cruz’ new book A Time for Truth you know he incorrectly refers to me as an Anglican minister, although Bridget and I talk about how much we like some episcopal churches.  I have been heavily influenced by my relationship with BJC and different Muslim friends. 

Yet through all the influences, travels and experiences, I remain a Presbyterian.  The identity is important to me.  It’s why whatever city I go to I look for a Presbyterian church.  Presbyterians have made all sorts of contributions to the world.  But more, there is something about our values which helps us understand God better.  I am proud to call myself a Presbyterian.  I hope you are too.   Let us pray.  Let us pray.  Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us.  Open to us the meaning of your word and the reality of your love for each of us.  Amen.   

In the summer of 1984, I sat in the sanctuary of a church in Ohio to make a decision.  It was an 18th century congregation, a lovely 1920’s sanctuary in a Gothic building on the corner of Wilkinson and 1st.    It was early evening.  I had been there to visit a friend who was on staff helping the youth group which I had been a part of, and I sat down on the steps to think and pray. 

I was born a Presbyterian.  Taken to Sunday school and worship there, but like most of us eventually, at that point I was thinking about what I wanted to be in every sense, including in religion.   We are born in a faith but we must choose to stay or leave.  I suppose we all wonder if we had been born some other faith whether we would have made that our preference.

I was a student at that time, and had read about religious critics and demographers and their concerns about the church.  But church was home.  I had been baptized there, was part of choirs there and went on mission trips.  If I had a decision to make I would make it there.  So I sat in the dark and prayed on the church sanctuary steps. 

It began a tradition of my returning to Presbyterian churches to pray for important decisions.  I would sit in the pews at a Presbyterian sanctuary in Princeton New Jersey a few years later trying to decide where to go to college.  In a room in 4th Presbyterian in Chicago in 1995 thinking about whether to transfer grad schools.

In a small chapel in a large church in Washington DC year later as I thought about vocation and calling.  Presbyterian churches have been places I have gone to help me make important decisions.

As I sat on the sanctuary steps, I acutely remember realizing how small I was in the midst of a great sanctuary.   No one else was there.  I would have to take responsibility for my decision.  I would have to make it.  I would have to own it.   But at the same time I wouldn’t make it alone.   If I had a decision to make, I wanted God involved.  More than that, I felt God wanted to be involved.  For God was present in that sanctuary. 

In that realization was the root of the Presbyterian values I have come to cherish.  We are a people who take responsibility, but we don’t go it alone. 

In 2017 the world will celebrate the 500th anniversary if the Protestant Reformation.  In 1517 Martin Luther went to a castle church in Wittenberg and nailed his 95 complaints to the door, stating this challenges and problems with the church.

The Protestant Reformation came to being in Germany.  A French lawyer by the name of John Calvin took to the Reformation theology and fled France for Geneva and developed a series of revolutionary ideas.

He based them in no small part of those of St. Augustine and all coming from the Apostle Paul.  Especially Paul’s letters to the Romans, Ephesians and Philippians. 

Perhaps no book more than Romans underscored the ideas that became the hallmark of the Reformation.   Sola gratia, sola fide came from it.  Ideas about the centrality of grace and faith.  Paul wrote to the Romans that God initiates our saving grace, but we must accept that grace through faith.   We respond to God by taking responsibility for our life here.  The root of the word “responsibility” is “respond,” the response we make to God’s initiative of faith through the spirit.

Paul says we are “one of another.”  We are connected.  Out of that connection we are called to take responsibility for living our faith.  To take responsibility to love, serve, bless others, live in harmony, and show humility.  When we see the pictures and read of the terrible refugee crisis in the Mideast and Europe I think about this responsibility to others.  Paul punctuates this passage saying, “….so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”  A statement of taking responsibility for connection. 

John Calvin took Paul’s ideas seriously.  He believed Christians must take responsibility, but don’t go it alone.  That we are connected and responsible to each other and the world.

Calvin built on Luther’s idea of a priesthood of all believers arguing that individuals should have the right to their opinion’s being respected and to participate in their governance.  

The ruling idea since the beginning of time was a person’s religion and governance was what the ruler said it was.  Individual desire was not the decider. In Christian history, throughout Europe, people were killed if they did not convert to the ruler’s faith or organization.  This happens too often now as well.  

Calvin was far from perfect and evolved over time and others had this idea too, but from John Calvin comes the idea that authority, as he built a community in Geneva which lived this out, comes not from the top down but from the bottom up; that people have the God-given right to their opinions and ideas and to elect leaders in the churches and in their political entities.

Calvin believed each individual has rights.  So Presbyterians developed a core principle that no church, or government, can make a law to bind a conscience.  It is still in our Book of Order.  This idea spread to American government, in part because of Presbyterians.  20% of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were Presbyterian.

In it and the Bill of Rights is the idea that government cannot force a person to think a certain way.  Our nation was founded on the idea of individuals taking responsibility, participating in their governance and expressing views.  All are very Presbyterian.

Presbyterians have lifted the idea of individual freedom in reference to Nazi Germany, civil rights, freedom to marry and freedom from government intrusion and coercion.

For people to lead, they needed to be able to read scripture.  Presbyterians thought that to be a free empowered people, people must be educated.  So they began investing in schools, starting colleges, creating seminaries, requiring pastors to learn Biblical languages.  

David Ignatius wrote in his Washington Post op ed this Wednesday about the importance of caring about the past.  About why collective history and tradition should be remembered in a society.  From our history comes many critical ideas which formed our nation and are critical for our church.  We have a tradition of an empowered laity.  Of every Christian taking responsibility for the church, much like every citizen must take responsibility for the nation.

Presbyterians took Calvin’s biblically based ideas and developed a system where Elders, called Presbyters, lead church.   We are not a church where one person makes all the decisions.  We are a representative community through our session. Presbyterians come together in groups elected by the people and serve to make decisions. When we elect elders and deacons, as our nominating committee is getting ready to consider, we recall that the ideas behind them are historically Presbyterian.

Calvin’s hope was that we all take responsibility and become an empowered laity, an empowered church.   So Presbyterians have taken seriously the idea that Christians are responsible to seek truth and to express truth in new ways in every age.  We don’t look to a hierarchy to make decisions for us.  We take responsibility.

Calvin and the early Reformers who gave birth to Presbyterianism read Paul and believed we do not go it alone either.  That Christians are connected and responsible to each other.

That led Presbyterians out into the world, to care about people and to be involved with their needs.   Our denomination continues to make that a priority, which is why Bradley Hills cares about service.

We are all part of a tapestry of relationships in our Presbyterian family. We’re in this life together.  We support and pray for each other.  Those elected as ruling elders to serve on their sessions may also be called upon to serve as commissioners to presbytery, synod, or General Assembly.   Churches and bodies and councils take responsibility for others.

A number of ideas from our Congregational vitality task force report will be shared with our congregation later this month.  Out of it come the very Presbyterian principle that we need to be involved and take responsibility for our church.  We don’t go it alone.  We are led by the Holy Spirit, and therefore connected to each other.

I am proud to be a Presbyterian.  We steward an amazing portfolio of gifts, resources, tradition and values.  I am proud of our values.  As we trace them through Calvin to Paul in the Bible, they help me understand God.  They help me live out my faith.  In living out our responsibility to God we grow to understand God better.  In Scottish Presbyterian theology they hold that God is the author as well as the answer to our questions.  God initiates the inspiration for us to take responsibility to seek God in order to find God.  We are not just decent and in order, we are responsible.  We are not a frozen chosen, we are alive with the spirit.

Last Wednesday I ventured upstairs to the youth lounge late morning as our confirmation class was having its first meeting.  A dozen young people had met downtown at 5:45am at So Others Might Eat to begin their year together with service.  So they were tired.  Pastor Kori and Cathie Lutter had the young people sharing their autobiographies.   Sharing about themselves for exactly four minutes.  They could not go longer, nor could they go shorter.   They had to stick with four minutes because there are 12 students in this year’s confirmation class to speak, plus we three adults, and lunch was coming.   But they also had to speak for four minutes answering a series of questions to share their background so they would get to know one another. 

That is a microcosm for Presbyterians.  Yet we are not alone.  We have to express ourselves, exercise our freedoms and steward the time we have been given.  But we are also connected and accountable.   We are not islands. 

What a time for our young people to be learning these values?  For confirmation is the time when youth make a decision.  I was born a Presbyterian.  I have stayed one because of the values, the people and the presence of God.  As with me at that age, most of those in confirmation are there because their family is Presbyterian.  But at confirmation a young person decides whether to say in the tradition. 

Presbyterians baptize infants because we believe that God’s grace comes before our believing.  We have confirmation as we are growing towards adulthood because we believe each person must take responsibility for their faith.

They decide for themselves whether to become active, adult Presbyterians.  Our class started their time together serving the less fortunate in the DC area.  Demonstrating responsibility, stewardship and connectedness to the world and to each other.

What better way is there of thinking, preparing, living, and getting along in the world than taking responsibility for one’s community, church, denomination and faith in response to God’s grace?  Connected to each other. Empowered by the Spirit. 

Oh, by the way, the decision I had to make on those sanctuary steps those many years ago, was whether to finish confirmation class and declare my intention to join the Presbyterian Church. I am glad I did.