Home

   Sermons

   Scripture
     Readings

   Ministries

Youth

UMW

Family Ministries

Child Education

Adult Education

   The Spire

   Staff

   History

   Bookstore

   Donations

   Contact Info

Office Hours

M-Th 8:30 - 3

Closed Friday

 

Telephone

(503)640-1775

 

Address

168 NE 8th

Hillsboro, OR 97124

 

Directions

   Email

General Info

 

Office

 

Spire

 

Webmaster

 

Gwen Drake

Pastor

 

Christine Webb

Director of Family

Ministries

 

Lefty Schultz

Visitation Pastor

 

Laura Lillegard

Office Manager

 

David Walters

Music Minister

 

Youth E-mail

Youth Ministry

 

Oregon-Idaho UMC

 

Main UMC Website

Boy Scout Tr #240

Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-16

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

The city of Ephesus, located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in present day Turkey, is commonly acknowledged as the first and greatest metropolis of the Roman province of Asia Minor. Ephesus, because of its location by the sea, played an important historic role in the movement of Christianity from Palestine to Rome. Ephesus was the crown of Paul’s missionary activity. Paul wrote his letters to the Corinthians from Ephesus. According to the book of Acts, Paul lectured in Ephesus for 2 years. Tradition has claimed that Mary, the mother of Jesus lived and died in Ephesus.

Ephesus was well known for its philosophers, artists, poets, historians, and rhetoricians. It was a fast-growing city located at the connection of river, land and sea routes. The population was estimated at 250,000.

This little bit of background helps us to understand how important the church was in Ephesus. The church was a bridge between two worlds--Israel and Rome. It was a gentile city with a large Jewish population. It was a city where Paul preached enthusiastically about his hope of the mission being accomplished, his goals completed, his vision realized. He preached about unity--one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God. Paul had a glimpse of the Kingdom, that realm of God-centered-ness, in the church of Ephesus. Paul believed that unity was possible, that peace was possible even in a church that experienced the pain of division. Yes, even a first century apostle lived in a fragmented world, a diverse world, a world full of self-interest groups, subcultures, caucus groups, pressure groups. It was not easy to get it together or keep it together at the church in Ephesus. In congregational disagreements, they fought hard for what they believed. Through the generations following, people have fought hard for what they believe. We still fight hard for what we believe. Yet, how are we still able to come together on Sunday morning to worship with people we do not agree with? How on earth do we keep the church together? What is it that brings us to the table on communion Sunday to share from one loaf and one cup?

Is it because of the United Methodist Book of Discipline? Is it because you have a new, flashy preacher? (She’s humble, too.) Is it because of the people you go to lunch with after worship? How have you kept this church together? Why don’t we just fall apart and go our separate ways? After all they are many, many other churches in this area that you could go to.

Paul says very clearly in our text today--that the mark of the true church is its unity. “See how they love one another,” outsiders said of the first churches.

Yet, HOW can we be united. Look at us--some are older, some are younger, some are college educated, some not, some are employed, some retired, some looking for jobs, some of us have descended from Europe, some from other continents, some are republicans, some of us are democrats, some are verbal, some are quiet. Imagine trying to have a political discussion on the most current and pressing and controversial issue right here and now! No thank you! See the walls between us start to form. With so many differences, what could possible make us one? How do I know I can trust you? Can you trust me? In the arguments, disagreements, and misunderstanding of living life together--what on earth could make us one?

I feel fine enough about you now, sitting in the sanctuary on Sunday. Buy try challenging my most cherished prejudices, my way of doing things, my values, and there goes the fellowship. My warm, fuzzy feelings for you are not enough for me to to sustain love for all of you (and I suspect it is the same for you.)

Unfortunately, many of our efforts at unity in the world are based on sentimentality. I like you because you like me. I like you because we have a lot in common. What sort of unity is that?

What we need is some way to be together despite our differences, something greater than our differences, some great cosmic wholeness.

Thus, Paul refers us to baptism. In baptism, we see that “there is one body and one Spirit...one hope...one Lord, one faith...” This particular text from Ephesians may have been part of an early baptismal ritual. Then Paul lists all of the officers and leaders of the church and says that all these leaders have one main function--to build UP the body of Christ, to help everyone grow UP into unity. That’s my main role as pastor--to help build you UP in unity. We are like a body, says Paul, a body with many different members, many different parts, yet the body is one. John Wesley said it this way, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials freedom, and in all things charity.’

Think of the people right here in this congregation whom you would not have known, if you had not been baptized into the church. Think how much poorer your faith, your life would be without these adopted brothers and sister sitting next to you, behind you, in front of you.

Baptism tells us that God did not mean for ANY of us to exist alone. Baptism is God’s idea of “family values,” a family gathered NOT on the basis of common race, nationality, geography, status, class, gender. A family by virtue of baptism.

Genesis tells us that the world was created when God’s Spirit hovered over the waters and brought forth life out of nothingness and order out of chaos Creation came forth from the waters. Every time we baptize someone it’s like a recapitulation of creation. It is Genesis one all over again, here at our church. From these waters, life is being brought forth, strangers are being made into family.

So, when one of our older members is not able to come to church, we can’t say, “Well, she’s somebody else’s mother, somebody else’s problem.” In baptism, we are family. She is OUR mother in need.

And when one of our teenagers is going through a rough time in life and needs help sorting things out, we can’t say, “Well, his parents really have a problem on their hands with that boy.” No. This teenager is our child, too. At baptism we all assumed responsibility, we participated in the adoption. The teenager in trouble in OUR child in need.

Here, at the baptismal font, multitudes of strangers gather, generation after generation. Amazingly, their differences seem to fade in these waters. We are all beginners here, infants in the faith, everybody needing someone else in order to survive, to grow and to mature in the faith. The old distinctions--male, female, black, white, rich, poor--don’t seem to work anymore as one comes up dripping from the waters. Here we are, people still being born, still being cleansed of our separations, people with no earthly reason for being able to live together, except that we have each heard the same call, answered to the same name, came from the same font to follow the same Lord.

So when we look at each other sitting with us in the pews on this fine August morning--let us remember our baptism. I don’t mean remember your baptism literally for many of your were baptized as infants as I was. I mean remember that you are baptized which means we are all in this together, we are all family. I believe that is what Paul is getting at when he begins this morning’s passage from Ephesians by saying, “I therefore...beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called...one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope...one Lord, one faith, one baptism...”

Paul is pleading with us to remember our baptism by the way we live together, by the way we listen to one another, bear one another’s burdens, care fore one another’s sorrows, celebrate each other’s joys. Remember your baptism because baptism says this: We are all in this together!”

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Amen.

Note: Thanks to Will Willamon for his thoughts on baptism.