April 23, 2018 is the 50th Anniversary of the birth of The United Methodist Church. It's the church in which I was raised. It's the church in which my father first, and later my wife, answered God's call to ministry. Flipping through some of my dad's sermons, I found one he preached just weeks after the 1968 merger that produced the United Methodist Church. Here's some of what he had to say about that union:
"Amid pomp, drama and color, the United Methodist Church became a reality at 9:49 AM on Tuesday, April 23, 1968 as two bishops joined hands over a cluster of symbolic documents. Bishop Reuben H. Mueller of the former Evangelical United Brethren Church and Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke of the former Methodist Church joined their voices in saying, 'Lord of the Church, we are united in thee, in thy Church, and now in The United Methodist Church.' Then, 10,000 persons filling the Dallas Memorial Auditorium exclaimed in one booming benediction, 'Amen!'
And so it was done. A new church was born. In the twinkling of an eye, you and I as former Methodists and former Evangelical United Brethren became the inheritors of a church. Off and on since 1802 there had been union negotiations between Methodists, Evangelicals and United Brethren. And then in this brief ceremony, 166 years of talking find a consummation."
The United Methodist Church was a product of the "ecumenical movement," and my father was quick to note that "[t]he word 'ecumenical' means the whole inhabited world. It means that all together we are one in Christ. It leaves no one out. Hence our subject this morning of 'Union with Unity.' You may have all the union you want, but it's all an empty sham unless that union is filled and flows over with unity. Church union without unity may be compared to the hollowness of what we call a 'marriage of convenience.' In true union, in true marriage, the parties must love each other. Love. That's what we're talking about, isn't it? We're all United Methodists now; that is a fact. But do we love each other? ...
Throughout the years of negotiations for this union, leaders on both sides were careful to point out that a new church was being formed. The product of a union, they said, would be a renewed church, not Methodist, not EUB, but entirely new. This assurance was probably felt to be necessary for the little EUBs, who may have felt a loss of identity from being swallowed up by a church ten times its size. This assurance probably was resented by some Methodists, who felt a certain smug complacency with their size and success. But, you know, somehow I always felt that this promise our leaders made us of a new church was something they couldn't deliver. They knew that, I'm sure, and so they meant it to us as a kind of challenge and not a promise. You and I make a new church by realizing our unity in Christ here and now.
Unity is a hard thing to come by even in this age when we talk so much about it and run around madly tying up unions. Still we are divided. All Christians cannot sit at the Lord's Table together; local churches cannot see their way clear to enter into group ministries; individuals within a local church can bicker and fuss and criticize and divide and paralyze. Too much ego; no room for love. Too much investment in self; no room for the mutual subjection Paul said was so necessary for a true marriage union.
Now practically speaking, how do we who are now united in the United Methodist Church receive this gift of unity that Christ offers us? Our differences, born in ego, can dissolve in our devotion to a common task to which we give our strength. Not just any task, but THE task - the only task worth our life's devotion - service to the King of Kings.
Our sole purpose for unity within the church is to perform our ministry, our mission, our work in the world. Only as we plunge into that work, that mission, do we realize our unity. The 'church' does not refer to an organization; it is an action word describing a fellowship of people who are doing things, actively demonstrating to the world the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their lives.
We get union by sitting down and talking about consolidating committees and drafting rules of order. We get unity by rolling up our sleeves and sweating and working together in our common mission.
Amid pomp, drama and color, the United Methodist Church became reality at 9:49 AM on Tuesday, April 23, 1968. Did it? That's up to us."
From: "Union With Unity"
Scripture: John 17:6-21
Preached May 19, 1968
at Adams Shore Community Church
Quincy, Massachusetts
And so it was done. A new church was born. In the twinkling of an eye, you and I as former Methodists and former Evangelical United Brethren became the inheritors of a church. Off and on since 1802 there had been union negotiations between Methodists, Evangelicals and United Brethren. And then in this brief ceremony, 166 years of talking find a consummation."
The United Methodist Church was a product of the "ecumenical movement," and my father was quick to note that "[t]he word 'ecumenical' means the whole inhabited world. It means that all together we are one in Christ. It leaves no one out. Hence our subject this morning of 'Union with Unity.' You may have all the union you want, but it's all an empty sham unless that union is filled and flows over with unity. Church union without unity may be compared to the hollowness of what we call a 'marriage of convenience.' In true union, in true marriage, the parties must love each other. Love. That's what we're talking about, isn't it? We're all United Methodists now; that is a fact. But do we love each other? ...
Throughout the years of negotiations for this union, leaders on both sides were careful to point out that a new church was being formed. The product of a union, they said, would be a renewed church, not Methodist, not EUB, but entirely new. This assurance was probably felt to be necessary for the little EUBs, who may have felt a loss of identity from being swallowed up by a church ten times its size. This assurance probably was resented by some Methodists, who felt a certain smug complacency with their size and success. But, you know, somehow I always felt that this promise our leaders made us of a new church was something they couldn't deliver. They knew that, I'm sure, and so they meant it to us as a kind of challenge and not a promise. You and I make a new church by realizing our unity in Christ here and now.
Unity is a hard thing to come by even in this age when we talk so much about it and run around madly tying up unions. Still we are divided. All Christians cannot sit at the Lord's Table together; local churches cannot see their way clear to enter into group ministries; individuals within a local church can bicker and fuss and criticize and divide and paralyze. Too much ego; no room for love. Too much investment in self; no room for the mutual subjection Paul said was so necessary for a true marriage union.
Now practically speaking, how do we who are now united in the United Methodist Church receive this gift of unity that Christ offers us? Our differences, born in ego, can dissolve in our devotion to a common task to which we give our strength. Not just any task, but THE task - the only task worth our life's devotion - service to the King of Kings.
Our sole purpose for unity within the church is to perform our ministry, our mission, our work in the world. Only as we plunge into that work, that mission, do we realize our unity. The 'church' does not refer to an organization; it is an action word describing a fellowship of people who are doing things, actively demonstrating to the world the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their lives.
We get union by sitting down and talking about consolidating committees and drafting rules of order. We get unity by rolling up our sleeves and sweating and working together in our common mission.
Amid pomp, drama and color, the United Methodist Church became reality at 9:49 AM on Tuesday, April 23, 1968. Did it? That's up to us."
From: "Union With Unity"
Scripture: John 17:6-21
Preached May 19, 1968
at Adams Shore Community Church
Quincy, Massachusetts
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