Responsibility (Micah 6:8, Matthew 5)

1. On Signal Hill

Friday evening, Ginger, Ethan, Zander and I went out to a restaurant to enjoy some food and watch the Laker game. At the restaurant, everyone’s attention was on the before-game events memorializing Kobe Bryant and the others who died in last week’s helicopter crash. And when there was that 24.2 seconds of silence, everyone in the restaurant - even the staff - was silent and still.

I’m not a huge sports fan, so I might not be getting this quite right, but it seems to me that, over his career, Kobe Bryant grew and matured off the court as well as on. He understood the importance of one’s responsibility to one’s team, and later, he came to understand one’s responsibility to one’s family, as well as one’s responsibility to the community and world at large.

It just so happens that, even before last week’s tragic event, I felt called to preach today’s sermon on that type of responsibility.

There is a place on top of Signal Hill where I have gone to several times to pray and meditate. It’s on the east side of the hill, near the pull-up bars, and not far from this staircase that I like to run up and down. 

From that spot, I can see the airport and the pyramid at Long Beach State. I can see Supreme Scream at Knott’s off in the distance, and beyond that, the snow-covered peaks of Mt. Baldy and Mt. San Gorgonio.

The paths, the stairs, and the pull up bars on Signal Hill have become for me places that help me keep myself physically strong.

And that spot where I like to sit has become a place that helps me keep myself mentally awake. It's a place where I sometimes sit… and think… and pray.

2. Waiting for a Word

It may surprise you to hear me say what I'm about to say next…  

...but when it comes to prayer... I’m still learning. 

One thing I’ve been doing, since the start of the year - that I have found helpful to my prayer life - is this… After running up and down the stairs, and along the paths; and after doing as many pull ups as I can; I like to sit on that cement pad.

Just sit.

I just sit … and I listen.

Some people, when they sit and pray or meditate, they try to block everything out… That doesn’t work for me.

Instead of blocking everything out, I try to bring everything in. I do this by listening to all the sounds, noticing every sound I hear, and I try to identify each one… Birds, chirping… people walking by… kids playing basketball or soccer in the park… freeway traffic… airplanes taking off and landing… factories humming… oil well pumpjacks whispering and whirring…

And then, I listen for a word from God. Because God  is in all those sounds. 

I’ve only done this a few times at this location. The first time I did it, I didn’t know if a word would come. 

But a word did come. Literally. 

And that word was LOVE.

Sitting there, looking out over the world, and hearing all those sounds, I realized that, in a world filled with so much fake news and false accusations, it’s more important than ever to speak the truth…I’ve been trying to speak the truth in every sermon I’ve ever given. However, speaking the truth isn't effective unless it’s spoken in love. If it’s not spoken in love, then we should just keep quiet. Truth that isn’t spoken in love isn’t going to help anyone or anything.

It was a good word: love.

A week or two later, I was back. And again, I sat, and I listened.

And the word that came to me this time was PRAYER. Which makes sense, because here I was, trying to be better at exactly that - trying to be better at praying.

Strangely enough, a few days later, each of us here at church received a star, and each star had a different word written on it, and the word written on my star was PRAYER. So it was clear to me that I needed to continue with these I times of quiet meditation.

I had another opportunity to sit in that spot not too long ago, and again I waited for a word to come. I heard the sounds of traffic and factories and people walking by, and my mind drifted as I wondered just how all these people relate to one another in community, how they do (or do not) work together to create a better community… and the word that came to me then was RESPONSIBILITY.

Specifically, the responsibility we have to each other. To our neighbors.

3. Brother’s Keeper

It bothers me that so many people in this country feel so little responsibility toward others. They take care of their own, and that’s it. They don’t want their taxes going to fund programs that benefit other people. They don’t feel obligated to care for or look out for others. They are only concerned about their rights, and say things like, “I can do whatever I want… it’s my right…” without considering how their actions might be affecting those around them.

The rights we have certainly are a blessing… One of the greatest gifts and blessings we have in this country is our rights and our freedom. Freedom is not something we should ever take for granted.

But we also do have an obligation to support one another. 

This is what the apostle Paul wrote about in the first letter to the Corinthians, and in other letters of his. “I am free,” Paul wrote. “Christ has set me free. But does this mean I can do whatever I want? I have a responsibility to serve Christ.”

And serving Christ means serving one’s neighbor.

Flipping all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, there’s a story of the first brothers: Cain and Abel. And at one point, God asks Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” And Cain replies, “How should I know? Am I my brother’s keeper?”

And one could argue that nearly every story that follows - practically the entire Bible - is meant to show that, yes, you are your brother’s keeper. You are your sister’s keeper.

This is why I remember well something Barack Obama once said, several years before he was elected president. He said:

“We are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief – I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes this country work.”

It’s the responsibility each of us have, to love our neighbor, to care for one another, to care for our community and our world…

4. A Good Turn Daily

I’m thankful to scouting for the way it teaches this kind of responsibility.

One of my earliest scouting memories, back when I was just a squirrel, was riding with my troop up Angeles Crest Highway, on our way to what I think may have been my very first boy scout outing. Suddenly, in front of us, scattered across the road, there were some rocks… rocks the size of oranges and grapefruit, and maybe one or two as big as a cantaloupe.

Our leaders found a safe place to pull over, and we all got out of the vehicle and moved those rocks off the road. And I thought to myself, “Oh, I guess this is what it means to do a good turn daily…”

It wasn’t our job to do it. One could argue that it wasn’t our responsibility. But our leaders knew that another driver might not see those rocks in time, and they could cause a flat tire, or perhaps even something worse. Our leaders taught me and my fellow scouts that day that the reason we do a good turn daily is that we do a responsibility, to look out for others, even if those others are people we will never meet. 

We are our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper.

And a lot of the good turns we do are for people we will never meet… or for people who are very different from us.

When Jesus told the story about the Good Samaritan, and how it was the Samaritan who acted as a good neighbor, he demonstrated how no person, no matter how different, no matter how hated, is to be excluded from our kindness and compassion. He showed us that in the kingdom of God, there are no boundaries. There are no walls that divide.

We have a responsibility to care for others, and that responsibility knows no limits.

5. A Responsibility to Care

It’s why we do justice, and show love with kindness, and walk humbly.

It’s why Christians and other people of faith have been leaving water in the desert southwest for immigrants coming over from Mexico. Some of those who have placed water in the desert have been arrested and taken to court for doing this, but juries have refused to convict them. 

Faith teaches us that we have a responsibility to provide water to those who are thirsty, no matter who they are. We have a responsibility to feed those who are hungry. We have a responsibility to care for others.

It doesn’t matter if they are a Samaritan, or an immigrant in the desert. It doesn’t matter if you know that person or not. It doesn’t matter if you like them or not. It doesn’t matter if they are from a different country or not, if they are of a different race, if they are of a different sexual orientation or gender identity…

We have a responsibility to one another.

We have a responsibility to care. To show kindness. To show love… and to go out of our way to exercise this responsibility… God wants us to think about how our actions affect others, and to alter our actions if necessary, so that we can be better neighbors to one another… even if doing so entails a sacrifice on our part. 

We can’t keep living as if we’re the only ones that matter. That’s why we have such terrible economic inequality today; that’s why we have a climate crisis that’s bordering on catastrophe; that’s why wars start. Because too many are only concerned about their needs, while neglecting the needs of their neighbor. 

The word REPENT that gets used a lot in church simply means to change one’s heart and one’s life. We need to repent. We need to change. We need to go out of our way, and take responsibility for the welfare of all our neighbors, and not just for ourselves.

This is a core Christian teaching

This is a teaching shared by all major religions. 

If you don’t take some responsibility for improving the lives of those around you, then you aren't being a good Christian, you aren’t being a good Muslim, you aren’t being a good Buddhist, you aren’t being a good Jew. 

We are all called to care for one another. To alleviate suffering. To bring wholeness to a broken world. 

And it can all start by doing a good turn daily.

Sermon: "Let Your Light Shine" (Matthew 5: 13-16)

Last summer, at Camp Makualla, the scouts of Troop 29 took part in the camp honor walk. At twilight, we followed a path through the forest, stopping at various spots along the way to reflect on the points of the Scout Law. Many of the scouts said it was one of their favorite activities at camp.

When we were done, we returned back to our own campsite, and beneath the towering pines and a starlit sky, Scoutmaster Gray led the scouts in reflecting on what they had experienced. To some of the scouts, he asked, “Which is the hardest point of the scout law to follow?”

The scouts who responded said, “A scout is reverent.”

I have at times asked scouts that same question during boards of review. They don’t all answer the same, but many of them do say that being reverent is the hardest point of the scout law to follow.

The Boy Scouts of America believes that every scout has a duty to God. However, the Boy Scouts of America leaves it to each scout and his family to decide how to fulfill that duty. There are many paths to God. Even though I am a Christian, I have friends who are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and B’hai, and sometimes we all get together for lunch. And we are always discovering things we have in common. We are all reverent toward God, each of us in our own way.

Baden-Powell, the founder of scouting, said that a scout fulfills his duty to God by fulfilling his duty to his neighbor.

The Bible says the same thing: to love God, you need to love your neighbor. To serve God, you need to serve your neighbor. Other religions have similar teachings.

So anytime you do a good turn, any time you are helpful, friendly, courteous, or kind, you are being reverent. If someone asks you what it means to be reverent, you can answer that being reverent means helping and serving your neighbor.

If that’s a good enough answer for Baden-Powell, it should be a good enough answer for any scout.

Loch Leven is the camp and conference center owned and operated by Bixby Knolls Christian Church and the other congregations of the Pacific Southwest Region. I have spent many days and nights there, some as a camper, many more as a counselor or director. Troop 29 was at Loch Leven a few weeks ago for your leadership outing.

Just up the hill from Loch Leven, right at the base of Mt. San Gorgonio, is Camp Tahquitz, the camp owned by the Long Beach Area Boy Scout Council.

But long before Camp Tahquitz or Loch Leven, those mountains were inhabited by a group of people who called themselves Yuhaviatum, which means “people of the pines.” When Europeans began exploring those mountains, they called the Yuhaviatum “Serrano,” which means highlanders.

The origin of the Yuhaviatam people begins with two brothers, Pakrokitat and Kukitat, who lived in the skies. These two brothers decided to create humans for the earth.

Pakrokitat, being the elder brother, spent many nights creating the people of the earth. But Kukitat hated how the humans looked (Kukitat thought that humans should have eyes in the backs of their heads and have webbed feet). The brothers fought over this and many other things.

Their fights were small at first, exchanging insults and namecalling, but the fights became violent and the most epic battles between them ensued over many moons, until finally, Pakrokitat was killed, and Kukitat was all alone.

After Pakrokitat’s death, Kukitat began to become bitter. He was alone except for the humans his older brother had created.

He began to divide the people who had settled around Mt. San Gorgonio into different nations. The people began speaking different languages, developing different customs, and dividing into smaller and smaller nations.

It wasn’t long before these nations noticed these differences, their different ideas, and just like the sky brothers Pakrokitat and Kukitat, the people starting warring with each other.

The nations believed that the source of their suffering was Kukitat, so they got together and killed him. Then they went back to fighting and killing each other, until there was only one boy left of all the Yuhaviatam people.

When that one boy became a man, he decided to restore the Yuhaviatam nation. He married a Muhiatnim woman and brought her to his ancestral homeland. They had a family, which grew and grew until it eventually became the Yuhaviatam nation, restored once again.

Other religions have similar stories, often involving siblings who end up at war with one another, leading to suffering for all of humanity. The theme is nearly universal. In Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, the two brothers are named Cain and Abel.

Are we supposed to take stories like this literally? No. The idea that stories like these are to be interpreted literally is actually a relatively modern phenomenon. Ancient people read them symbolically. They didn’t take them literally.

But they did find in those stories deep and powerful truths that helped them understand who they were as a culture, who they aspired to be, and the temptations they faced that could keep them from being who they were meant to be.

The fighting continues. It’s all around us. But prophets and wise teachers tell us: “The world doesn’t have to be like this. There is a better way. We are different in many ways, but really, we are all brothers. A better, more peaceful world is possible.”

In the Bible, that better, more peaceful world is described by the prophets as a place where even predators and prey – wolves and lambs – live together in peace. It’s a world where people practice love, justice, and compassion.

Jesus called it the kingdom of God. The book of Revelation calls it a new heaven and a new earth. It is a second chance at creation, much like the restored Yuhaviatam nation that the one boy who was left after all the fighting worked to create.

And just like that one boy who was called upon to restore the world to wholeness, each of us is called by God to help make this new world a reality.

Think you’re up to it?

In the Bible, God called people to change the world, but they all had doubts. Moses said he couldn’t do it because he was a poor public speaker. Jonah didn’t think he could do it, and he even tried to run away from God when God called him. Jeremiah didn’t think he could do it because he was too young; “I’m just a boy,” he said. The disciple Peter said he couldn’t do it because he was a sinner.

But each of them succeeded. How? By being true to themselves. They didn’t try to be someone they weren’t. They were themselves, and that was enough. Just like Hiccup in the movie “How to Train Your Dragon…” he wasn’t like everyone else… he was different… at first his difference looked like a weakness, but it ended up being his greatest strength.

The Bible says that God created you in God’s own image. The Bible says that you are a beloved child of God, beautiful to behold. Just as you are. You don’t have to change who you are to do your part. Maybe you think you’re too young, not smart enough, not athletic enough. Maybe you think you’re too fat or too skinny. Maybe people have put you down – or maybe you put yourself down – because of your race, or because of your sexual orientation, or because of what you look like…But you’re just making excuses. Just like Moses, Jeremiah, Jonah and Peter.

God created you just the way you are. You have everything you need to be true to your calling.
Be true to who you are, just like Hiccup.
Be true to who you are, just like that lone Yuhaviatam boy who returned to his ancestral land to re-start his nation and culture after years of fighting and war.

And if you are true to who you are, and you follow the teachings you have learned, like the scout oath and law, you will show that a better world is possible. That is how you can let your light shine.

By being trustworthy, you will help change the world. In the world, people lie, but you can change the world by being trustworthy.

By being loyal, you will help change the world. In the world, people stab one another in the back, but you can change the world by being loyal.

By being helpful, you will help change the world. In the world, people aren’t always helpful; they only care about what’s in it for them. But you can change the world by being helpful.

By being friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, you can help change the world.

Be true to who you are, true to the person God created you to be, and live by the things you have learned, and you will help change the world.

"Kindness" (Galatians 5:22-26)

In the ancient, Greco-Roman world, lists of virtues were common; lists like the one we just heard read, from the book of Galatians:  “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

A similar list appears in the book of 2^nd Corinthians: “purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God.”

Of course, the boy scouts of their own list, called the scout law.  Say it with me:  a scout is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

The words on these lists are not all the same, but the way of living they describe is.  A life of character, a life of integrity, a life that is good… this is something that is true from one time to the next and one culture to the next.  The words may not be exactly the same, but they are very similar in meaning.

Now, strangely enough, if you were listening closely you might have noticed that there is one word that does appear on all three of these lists; one virtue that is listed in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and in the scout law.  Did anyone notice what that one virtue is?

Kindness.

Kindness appears on the list in Galatians.

Kindness appears on the list in 2 Corinthians.

And kindness appears in the Scout law:  “a scout is kind.”

Here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, we have a mission statement.  It’s printed in your bulletin.  It’s based on Micah 6:8 and it says that our mission is to “seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.”

Here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, we end many of our worship services with a benediction that comes from the book of Numbers:  “May God bless you and keep you, may God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you, may God look upon you with kindness and give you peace.”

When I first noticed how often kindness appears in scripture, in lists of virtues, I was surprised.  I always thought of kindness as something like petting a kitten.  How cute.  Take a picture of it and stick it on a Hallmark card.

It seemed very… nice, and all… but not something that was terribly important … not one of the things that I needed to strive for in life … not something that I needed to make a priority.

Loyal.  That sounds important…. Brave – yes! And trustworthy:  that’s heavy-duty.

Kind?  Not so much.

After all, who needs kindness?

I enjoy reading biographies, and I recently read two biographies that I found fascinating:  one on Steve Jobs, and the other on Walt Disney.  Both, great men; neither one known for being exceptionally kind.

Both pushed the people who worked for them hard.  They both had employees who quit or went on medical leave because of the stress and anxiety that was inflicted upon them by working for Steve Jobs or Walt Disney.

Kindness didn’t create Apple.  Kindness didn’t build Disneyland.

Yet, despite all that, kindness is one of the most important Christian virtues … one of the most important human virtues.  Kindness means recognizing the humanity in other people.  Kindness means not seeing others as tools to help you accomplish your own goals, but seeing them as fellow travelers on the journey.

A person who is kind looks at another person and understands that there is more there than meets the eye, that there is more there behind the mask and under the skin, that in every person, there is joy, sorrow, dreams, disappointment, hope, regret, and fear.

A person who is kind recognizes how precious each and every human life is, and how fragile each and every human life is, and that a truly great person builds people up rather than tears them down.

Overflowing gratitude is a characteristic of a person who is kind.  If someone does something for you, you go out of your way to let them know how thankful you are, how much you appreciate them.

A kind person is compassionate.  If someone is upset, or having a hard time, or just not fitting in, you take the extra time to stand by them, accompany them, hold their hand.  It’s easy to say, “forget you,” and go off and do your own thing, but that’s not how a kind person acts.

God’s very nature is compassion.  It is God’s greatest desire and deepest passion to comfort those who suffer.

Now, there are all kinds of suffering.  A person who has just had someone they love die is suffering.  A person who lost their job is suffering.  A person struggling to find out who they are and struggling to find their place in the world is suffering.

A person who struggles at academics or sports, who failed his last test or got picked last for the team, is also a person who is suffering.  A person who got stuck doing KP while everyone else is running around is a person who is suffering.

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I’m washing the dishes, and someone comes in and offers to help even though they don’t have to.  Over the past eight months I’ve fixed quite a few Wednesday night meals here at the church, and it’s so nice when someone offers to help clean up afterward.   And I still remember when I was a scout, when my patrol leader told me it was my turn for KP, and another scout who wasn’t even assigned KP stuck around and helped me do the dishes. 

That simple act of kindness made my whole day – made the whole outing so much more enjoyable for me – and probably did more than anything to keep me in scouts and eventually achieve the rank of Eagle.

Jesus’ greatest concern was for those who had been shown little kindness by the world.  The leaders in his day – the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees – insisted that there were certain people with whom one should not associate:  lepers, beggars, prostitutes, people with physical deformities, people who took care of pigs or worked with leather, people who worked as tax collectors, people who, like the Ethiopian eunuch, sexually different, and a whole bunch of other people whom they labeled as “sinners.”  They would not allow such people into the temple, they told jokes about them, and they showed them no kindness.

These are the people Jesus reached out to.  To those who had been shown little kindness by the world, Jesus showed great kindness, great compassion, and great love.  And it made all the difference in the world.  It brought them healing, wholeness, and salvation.

So don’t ever underestimate kindness.

I mentioned that Apple and Disneyland were not built by kindness.  At times it does seem that too much kindness can get in the way of accomplishing great things, that one really does have to fight to get to the top.  Steve Jobs and Walt Disney were not known for their kindness, and that, it seems, helped them do great things.

Well, can you think of someone who was just as great, or even greater, because they showed kindness?

How about Gandhi?  He changed the world through the power of kindness.  Gandhi once divided power into two kinds. “One,” he said, “Is obtained by fear of punishment, and the other by acts of love.”

How about César Chávez?  As much as he fought against the injustice of agribusiness, it’s hard to find anything written or spoken by him that is unkind toward the wealthy landowners and growers personally. His witness was made powerful by his kindness, and the dignity he afforded to every human being, no matter who they were. 

How about Martin Luther King, Jr.?  He once said, “one of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites—polar opposites—so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.” But “power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

I don’t own any Apple products, but I do have a great admiration for them and a great respect for all that Steve Jobs was able to accomplish.

I have been to Disneyland.  In fact, I love Disneyland.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I’m pretty much a Disneyland freak.  A couple of years ago, I had an annual pass, and if I had the money, I’d buy one every year.

But as much as I admire Apple products, and as much as I love Disneyland, I think I could probably live without them.  In fact, most days, I do. 

I can’t imagine living in a world without kindness.  I can’t imagine living in a world that didn’t have Martin Luther King, Jr., or César Chávez, or Gandhi, and their witness to the God of love and kindness.  What a terrible, awful world that would be, a world that didn’t have kindness.  

It sounds so cliché to say, “be kind to one another.”  But really, what could be more important?

A Movement for Wholeness (Matthew 5:13-20)

This is the third time I’ve had the opportunity to preach on Scout Sunday here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, and it is indeed one of life’s highlights for me. I think of both the church and scouting as two different families to which I belong, two different families that helped make me who I am, and it is so neat for me to have those two families join together each year on the first Sunday in February.


The past two years, I know I mentioned, if only briefly, about how certain experiences in scouting helped shape my faith. I’m sure all of you who were here last year and the year before on Scout Sunday remember those sermons very well. Word-for-word. You’ve got the notes at home, and you read them every day. Right?

Today, I’m going to do something a little different. Since a number of you are guests with us today, I thought I’d spend some time talking about who we are as a church, what kind of church we are, and so on.

We are, as you know, Bixby Knolls Christian Church. We are in covenant with almost 4,000 congregations in the United States and Canada which, collectively, are known as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It’s a long, awkward name, especially with the parentheses, so we often refer to ourselves as just “Disciples,” for short.

The Disciples began two hundred years ago in the Ohio Valley. Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander – Scottish immigrants to America – were frustrated with the fierce denominationalism of the time. In those days, the Methodists hated the Presbyterians, the Presbyterians hated the Anglicans, the Anglicans hated the Catholics, and so on. A member of one denomination would not be welcomed all that warmly in another denomination’s church – unless, of course, that member was willing to convert.

This made things difficult, because the Ohio River Valley was, at that time, a rural frontier. Established congregations were few and far between. What would you do, for example, if you were Methodist, but the only church near you was Presbyterian? Both Thomas and Alexander Campbell were ministers in their own denomination, but they were increasingly becoming dissatisfied by all this.

One day Alexander went to worship at a local congregation. As was the custom, he met with the pastor of that congregation in the week prior, so that the pastor might examine him and make sure he was “worthy” to receive communion in worship Sunday morning. Those who subscribed to the right confession, who were a part of the right church, received a token at the examination, which they were to present on Sunday morning before receiving the bread and the wine.

On Sunday morning, people came forward, presenting their tokens and receiving communion. However, Alexander’s conscience was troubling him. Even though he had a token, it didn’t seem right to him that some were allowed to partake and others were not.

He waited until the very end, trying to decide what to do. He was, I believe, the last one to come forward, and when he did, he threw his token down, turned, and immediately stormed out of the church. He believed that Christ invites all people to the Lord’s Table, and that no one should be turned away.

And so, one characteristic of the Disciples of Christ is that everyone is always welcome to gather and partake at the Lord’s Table.

Meanwhile, some distance away, another pastor named Barton Stone was entertaining similar thoughts. He and some fellow pastors got together and decided to form their own presbytery, the Springfield presbytery, which would be more open and welcoming.

Not long after that, they decided that the very idea or concept of a presbytery still stood in contrast to a united, welcoming church. So they got together, and Barton Stone wrote for them a document called “The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery,” in which they said: “We will that the Springfield Presbytery be dissolved and sink into union with the universal church of Christ.” No longer a part of a denomination, but simply a “Christian Church.”

Barton Stone also wrote another document, which is called the “Declaration and Address.” In it, he wrote that “the church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally One.”

Separate movements formed around Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone; Campbell’s followers called themselves “Disciples,” while Stone’s followers called themselves “Christians.” In 1832, these followers got together, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was born.

Over the years, we became more organized, developed a somewhat distinctive way of doing things, … and even though style of worship varied (and still varies) from one Disciple congregation to another , all congregations celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly, and baptize believers by immersion. Yes, we’ll dunk you all the way under!

But we won’t force you to be re-baptized. If you’ve been baptized somewhere else, you would not be required to be re-baptized before joining a Disciple congregation. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We are all a part of one church.

Despite our distinctive way of doing things, however, we refused to call ourselves a denomination. No; we were a non-denominational “fellowship” of Christian churches. It wasn’t until we restructured in 1968 that we finally admitted that we had become a denomination, but a denomination committed to the unity of all Christians.

Over the years, the Disciples have founded a number of educational institutions. Today there are 17 colleges and universities affiliated with the Disciples. Among these are the Rose Bowl Champions of Texas Christian University, and my alma mater, Chapman University. Another, Eureka College in Illinois, was attended by Ronald Reagan, who grew up a Disciple, and whose 100th birthday is today. (I only mention that because one of the scout leaders dared me to include Reagan in my sermon today, so there you go.)

Speaking of notable Disciples, John Wooden was one; I think he even taught Sunday School. And our current General Minister, Sharon Watkins, preached at President Obama’s inaugural prayer service. She was the first woman to ever preach at an inaugural prayer service.

Several years ago, under Sharon Watkins’ leadership, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) unveiled a new identity statement. It goes like this: “We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.”

I love this identity statement! I love that it refers to us as a movement for wholeness. In the Bible, the Greek word for wholeness is sozo. Sozo is often translated as healing or salvation. The wholeness, healing, and salvation of God is not something that is reserved exclusively for some future life. It is something that is accessible now. And it is we who are entrusted with bringing that wholeness, healing, and salvation to a broken, fragmented, hurting world.

There are many ways we do this. One of the ways is that we are committed to being an anti-racist, pro-reconciling church. We recognize that the sin of racism still exists in our society and in our church, and addressing that is one of our church’s priorities.

Another way we work to bring wholeness to a fragmented world is through our preference for dialog and conversation regarding controversial issues in the church, rather than polarizing “yes-no” votes. And a third way is our commitment to issues of social justice.

If we as Disciples – as a denomination – are focused on bringing wholeness to our world, then I figure that we at Bixby Knolls Christian Church should see ourselves as a movement for wholeness here in our community. We recently started a ministry called the Treasure Box which allows anyone to purchase groceries at a reduced cost. We support a number of local agencies that serve the poor and homeless. We provide opportunities for fellowship and spiritual growth.

But one of the most significant ways we bring wholeness tour community is by being the chartered organization for troop 29, ship 529, and a brand new venturing crew. These scouting units are providing leadership training and character development. Their many service projects are bringing wholeness to many in our community, serving the poor, and making our community a better, more beautiful place to live. One behalf of Bixby Knolls Christian Church, I thank the scouts, parents, and especially the leaders, for helping us be a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.

In the middle of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that his followers are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. A movement for wholeness does not close itself off from the world. It has a responsibility, as the Scout Oath says, to help other people at all times. It lets its light shine. It spreads God’s love through word and deed to those around it.

Together, all of us are doing just that. Thank you, members of Bixby Knolls Christian Church, friends, scouts, and scout leaders, for being a part of our ministry.