June 8, 2003 - Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-21
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John 15:26-27
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John 16:4b-15
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“The Church – A Marked People”

Today is a hallmark in the life of First Congregational Church. Our life is made up of ‘marks,’ the achievement of goals we’ve set, targets we’ve managed to hit, and boundaries that we’ve set for ourselves and then reached. June is a month filled with such marks. It’s the traditional month for weddings, for graduations, and, depending on the date of Easter, for confirmations as well. These are all significant marks in our lives as individuals and as members of a family, a community, and of a church -- a community of faith.

It’s not at all inappropriate, then, that we celebrate these marks by sending a remembrance. Very often the brand name of the card we send is ‘Hallmark and that in itself is somewhat appropriate. The term ‘hallmark’ actually descends from the medieval guilds. In this case, the ‘hallmark’ was that of the Goldsmiths’ Hall of London where gold and silver objects were marked for authenticity, genuineness. To this day fine jewelry and metalwork is hallmarked. So like fine pieces of workmanship, our lives and our church have marks that attest to their authenticity. Traditionally those marks of the church have been that it is one, it is holy, it is catholic, i.e. universal, and that it is apostolic. With very little work I think that we can demonstrate that those marks are evident not only for First Church, but for the great majority of Congregational churches and, indeed, every other Christian Church.

Today, however, I would like to take a different tack on the concept of the marks of the church. Some years ago I was privileged to spend time with members of the Coptic Orthodox Church. This is the ancient Christian Church of Egypt which traces its origins to the preaching of Saint Mark the Evangelist. In my encounters with these dear people, who have experienced a great deal of persecution and discrimination in Egypt, I noticed that all of them had a little cross tattooed rather prominently on the underside of the right wrist. I asked about this and was told by one of their bishops that this custom came from the early days of the Christian encounter with militant Islam. Every baptized infant is marked with the sign of the cross, both symbolically and literally, so they never forget who they are.

That’s a rather dramatic testimony, but certainly appropriate to their culture and situation. There are Christian Churches which impart various signs during baptism or confirmation to convey the ‘mark’ that the individual has symbolically received. We Congregationalists tend not to do this. Early on we determined that the simple sign of the laying on of hands accompanied by prayer was sufficient. For us the truest mark is made by the ‘owning’ of the covenant by a willing heart and by a mind that has been informed by God’s Spirit and Word. We do not denigrate or say any other way is incorrect, simply that this is the Way that we seek to walk as God’s free and gathered people.

The Scriptures today, I believe, show us that the Way we walk together does show the Church to be a marked people. The Acts of the Apostles tells us what it was like on that very first Pentecost Day when the Church was born and marked by the Spirit’s presence. It’s important for us not to look back with nostalgia for a day that was, but to look for the Spirit’s fire present with us here and now. God’s intimate presence is what the Spirit brings and it is God’s “mighty acts” and presence that we’re to communicate. If we’re not experiencing that mark of the Spirit’s presence, perhaps rather than seeking the gift of tongues we need to seek the gift of ears? We need to listen deeply with the ears of the heart to God and then respond. One commentator I read quoted the poet W. H. Auden: “Rejoice: we who were born/congenitally deaf are able/to listen now to rank outsiders.” With the gift of ears who knows what new sounds, new voices, new words we might hear? To hear in a new way, to listen God and others deeply, to experience God’s Word spoken to us in fresh ways is what we’re about. The Church is marked, then, by being a listening, a communicating people.

We are also marked as a people of action because we have been given the gift of an advocate, the one called alongside to help, the paraclete. Jesus tells us that the Advocate will guide us “into all truth.” The Spirit will take us deep into that which has been handed on to us about the mighty ways in which God has acted and will also show us new things and new ways to think about them. This “old, old story” of ours is always new because it is constantly being told in the lives of those who respond to it.

As we are marked by listening, communicating and acting, we are marked by our willingness to love as freely and as extravagantly as God has loved us in Christ. That kind of loving leads to a totally different way of seeing the world and concepts we use to interpret it. I so like what L. William Countryman has written on this point that I want you to hear it:

All sorts of things that seem self-evident in the world – sin, righteousness, judgment – will look very different to those who receive the Spirit because they will no longer judge in the world’s ways, but with the understanding that comes to them form Jesus. “Sin” is not merely a list of things condemned by the religious, but rather the fundamental turning away from God’s creative love. “Righteousness” is not a claim on our part to deserve God’s good will, but God’s own assertion of love for us. “Judgment” is not the parodies of it we perform, but the ultimate (and no doubt surprising) vindication of the faithful.

This does not mean that Christians have a unique claim to the possession of truth. Many people may claim to have encountered the Spirit when they have not in fact done so; others, who really have done so, may make no claims. Accordingly, the mystery of truth remains hidden and largely unknown. One trait of being in Jesus’ Spirit is a combination of inner clarity and certainty with the humility and tact called for by our recognition of the possibility that we are wrong. The one truth the faithful disciple is most certain of is forgiveness! {New Proclamation Commentary, Harold W. Rast, ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press: 2003), p. 74}

I think it’s no small mark of love to be able to admit we might be wrong or to seek forgiveness. The essence is that we focus not on ourselves but on God and seek to know God’s presence in our lives each day.

The Church is a marked body and today we have added new members to our number who bear their marks in ways different and exciting and new. The challenge before all of us is to simply live out those five simple components and what binds us together as God’s covenanted people:

n      To share in the worship and service of God.

n      To grow in the knowledge and expression of our faith;

n      To reach out with compassion to those in need.

n      To treat each other with love and understanding.

n      To return to God a portion of God’s gifts.

In those five covenantal elements we will find the marks of the ‘true Church’ of oneness, holiness, and catholicity. We will also find there the marks of listening, communicating, acting, and loving. Basically, if those five elements of life together in God’s Spirit show themselves in our daily lives, then we’re hallmarked as the genuine article – we’re marked as God’s people, doing God’s work. In closing, if I might borrow from someone’s trademark, we are to become the gift that keeps on giving – it is what it means to be a marked people.