Gracious God, how good it is to be here together on this July morning.  How good to turn to you.  We look to you for the strength to be friend of all - the foe, the friendless - to be giving and forget the gift, to be humble for we know our weakness, to look up and laugh and love and lift.  Startle us now with your love.  Open your Word to our hearts and our hearts to your Word.  In the spirit of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

June 25th marked the 45th Anniversary of the United Church of Christ.  The 24th General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the governing body of the United Church of Christ, is meeting this week in Minneapolis.  Our own Lael Murphy is attending General Synod as a representative of Old South Church.  This is an excellent time to look at the United Church of Christ and consider who we are, what we believe, and what the future may possibly hold.

For some here this morning this is familiar material, so you can sit back, relax, and mull over what you are going to have for brunch and plan the rest of your day.  For others this will be the first introduction to the United Church of Christ.  If you are not at all interested in the topic, you may sleep quietly, if possible with your eyes open.

In the United Church of Christ we share a common heritage with all Christian churches as we trace our origins to the day of Pentecost, found in the second chapter of the book of Acts, when the Holy Spirit descended upon those first followers of Jesus and the Church of Jesus Christ was born.

For the first thousand years of the Church’s history the only expression of the Church was the Roman Catholic Church, save for a small group in Egypt known as the Coptic Church.  In 1034 the Orthodox Church, known as the Greek Orthodox Church, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church.  In 1517 there came the second great split in the history of the Christian Church known as the Protestant Reformation.  In the United Church of Christ we trace our origins to the day of Pentecost and to the Protestant Reformation.

Our story resumes in England during the reign of Henry the 8th.  Henry at first kept the Reformation out of England.  For this the Pope gave him the title; “Defender of the Faith.”  Then, Henry’s marital problems caused a falling out with the Pope and Henry was excommunicated.  In turn, by royal edict Henry confiscated all of the Church property in England and, with a stroke of the royal pen, the Roman Catholic Church in England became the Church of England, known to us as the Episcopal Church.  In the interest of time I am presenting an abbreviated version of amore complex and longer history.

A church created as a result of a king’s marital problems is not off to a happy start.  Soon two groups sprang up determined to reform the Church of England.  One was known as the “Separatists” who, as their name suggests, wished to separate from the Church of England, as they believed it was hopelessly corrupt.  They came to America in 1620 and we know them as the Pilgrims of Plimoth Plantation.  The other group were Puritans, who sought to purify the Church of England.  They settled in Boston in 1630.  The Pilgrims and Puritans, through necessity, drew closer together in the New World and in 1648, under the terms of a document known as the “Cambridge Platform” joined together to form the Congregational Church.

Moving quickly through three hundred years of church history, in 1932 the Congregationalists joined with the Christian Churches to form the Congregational-Christian Church.  In 1957 the Congregational Christian Churches joined with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (themselves the product of a merger) to form the United Church of Christ, our nation’s newest denomination.

Today we are a denomination of some 6,000 churches, with National Headquarters in Cleveland, with 35 Conferences, one of the largest being the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ with headquarters in Framingham.  Dr. Nancy Taylor is our Conference Minister.

This is a very brief overview of who we are.  Now for what we believe.

II.

It is important to see that there are many beliefs we in the United Church of Christ share with other mainline Protestant denominations and with the Roman Catholic Church:  belief in God, in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, in the gift of the Holy Spirit, in the central place of the Bible.

The Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ, read earlier in this service, expresses well the theological stance of the United Church of Christ.  It is not, however, a creed.  A creed is often used as a test of faith, something to accept, before you can become a member.  Many of you have come from a Creedal church.  In our tradition, the Statement of Faith is not a test, but a testimony.

In the United Church of Christ there is a commitment to what is known as “responsible freedom.”  As individual members we are free to believe and act in accordance with our understanding of God’s will for our lives, but always in the context of a loving covenantal relationship with each other.  In the United Church of Christ we affirm the truth of the Reformers known as “the priesthood of all believers.”  This is most important in our life together.  All members are called to minister to each other and to share as equals in the life of the church.  Lael, Jennifer and myself have been ordained to serve among you as your pastors.  You are called to be the ministers of the ministering community.

Also, in the United Church of Christ each local church is autonomous. We do not have an ecclesiastical hierarchy, with top-down authority. Again, many of you have come from a church with ”top-down” authority.  But as we are called to be in covenant as member of the church, so the church is called to be in covenant with the churches of the Massachusetts Conference and with the other congregations of the United Church of Christ.  Some have called us the “untied” Church of Christ, but this is not true, for we are united in a covenant relationship.

Again, in the United Church of Christ we think of this as responsible freedom - not simply freedom, but responsible freedom, accountable to God and to each other, and to the other churches of our fellowship.  The motto or slogan of the United Church of Christ comes from the Gospel of Saint John - the prayer of Jesus for his disciples, “That they may all be one.”  This reflects the spirit of unity on which the church is based and points toward the ongoing work to heal the divisions in the body of Christ.

Also, in the United Church of Christ, when we say “You all come” we really mean it.  In the United Church of Christ, at our best - and we have not always been at our best - we extend a warm welcome to everyone.  As in the spirit of Christ’s invitation carved into the stone of this church’s portico:  “Behold, I set before you an open door.”  And further expressed in the words on the back of the worship bulletin:  “A Note on the Inclusive Dimension of God’s Grace.”

Who we are, what we believe, and what the future may possibly hold.  Well, commenting on the future is always, at best, precarious.  The United Church of Christ, along with other major Protestant denominations, has experienced a significant loss of members over the last decade.  Are mainline churches becoming sideline churches?  Some think they are.  I believe there are a number of signs that the Spirit of God is at work in this church and in the United Church of Christ, calling us to become faithful witnesses to God’s love and become an agent for positive and constructive change in our society.  Whether this happens or not depends on people exactly like ourselves here at Old South and in churches across the United Church of Christ.

In our Gospel reading of the morning, Saint Luke tells us of Jesus sending out the seventy to preach and teach and heal.  Then Luke goes on to say: “The seventy returned with joy.  ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submitted to you.’”  Notice they returned with joy, not discouraged, not disheartened, not defeated, but with joy.  Then those wonderful words of Jesus, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”  Isn’t that wonderful?  I love those words - “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”

One of our leading United Church of Christ ministers used to proclaim on Easter morning:  “The victory has been won; the mopping up operation has begun and it won’t be easy, for the devil is well entrenched, but the victory has been won.”  “I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”

God is at work in the world!  No doubt about that!  Will we respond with faith and courage, love and generosity, commitment and compassion?  Upon our decision the future hinges.  In this church and in the United Church of Christ we have received a magnificent heritage.  Now it has become our turn.

For some reason the leaders of our denomination have become captured by the words of Gracie Allen, who I never thought of as a great theologian, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”  I much prefer the words of John Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrims, who, when they set sail on the Mayflower, preached a powerful sermon at dockside, saying: “There is more light and truth yet to break forth from God’s Holy Word.”  We journey on, side by side, hand in hand, confident in the truth of those words.  And to God be all honor, power and glory forever more.

In the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.