Friendship as Founding Principle

Transcript

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[0:00] and today's sermon text is super short. How do you like that? Really short. It's just one verse. It's from Psalm 119, 63. Today's sermon is a little different. It's a story about the foundation of our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church from 1885, and I thought I would preach it because we have our two covenant churches here together, and I think it's good for us to refresh every now and then what it is our denomination believes, some of the things that are distinctive about it, and some history around it, and I think some of these things will guide us into the future. Also, I think before long, our new superintendent will hopefully come and greet both of our churches together as they have done before, but I had a good conversation with our superintendent a while back. I think it was in July, and he definitely wants to come visit, and he wants to preach, so we were really... I really look forward to that, but that's not set, probably 2024, but we want to really kind of reinforce our connection with our denomination, and as meetings come up, there are denominational meetings both in our conference, the Pacific Southwest Conference, and our national gathering, which is every year. I always encourage people to either find out what's happening at those

[1:19] meetings or attend those meetings, either as delegates or as guests, and just see how the denomination works together. I would like to repeat our reading for today, Psalm 119, 63. I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, and we ask that you would add your blessing to it, in Jesus' name, amen.

[1:48] Now, I like it a different way, too, this text, and we can hide the text now. It says, a different translation says, I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts. And that was chosen as the foundational verse of the denominations founding meeting, I guess, or organizational meeting back in 1885. And partly that was because they were known as the mission friends, and they really emphasized their friendship and relationship with each other. So I want to tell you that the church you're sitting in right now is part of this larger denominational body that was founded in Chicago, Illinois, on February 20th, 1885. That's coming up on 140 years ago, isn't it, right?

[2:39] And you can imagine what it was like that February day in the Midwest. If you've been in Chicago in February, you know what it's like. It's freezing cold. It was incredibly cold that day. In fact, it had been snowing so much that there were 10-foot-high snowdrifts. On the railroad tracks, that's how people got around, right? No cars yet. There were 10-foot-high snowdrifts on the railroad tracks, and that actually kept some of the delegates to this founding meeting from arriving until the third day. They didn't even get there on time. But inside the meeting place in Chicago, the atmosphere was warm. There were Christian brothers and sisters, probably, but mostly it was men who was doing this, we have to be honest, Christians from all around gathered to take up the question of whether all the independent Christians who were coming in the year 1085, 10 that they could pool their resources, do more for the kingdom of God, build a seminary, have a standard set of rules for ordaining their clergy, and so on. And the thinking was that they could do more together than they could each individually, even if you added it all up. And so on the first night, they meditated on this passage, I am a friend of all who fear you. Friendship and communion

[4:16] with others is possible because they fear the same God, fear means respect, and they commit to the same life that God calls them to. And if believers can band together in friendship to form a church, could churches form together? See, right? If friends can come together and be stronger as Christians in a church, could churches band together to be stronger together as a covenant, as a denomination? And so, the the ! The question wasn't settled. They wanted to get together to explore the possibility with the goal of making a denomination. They said pretty much, if you're coming to this meeting, you want to, we're going to discuss it, but the goal is to form a larger body. If your church doesn't want to be a part of that larger body, you don't have to send a delegate to this meeting, you don't have to join this larger body, and we'll still love you, but you don't have to be a part, you don't have to join, right? So that's why they called the meeting. The next morning, there was a rude awakening. This is the fun part of the story, okay? There was a certain man named J.G. Princell who arrived at the meeting, and he wanted to receive credentials as a delegate, and that, there was a problem because Princell, he was a friend of many of the people who were there. They

[5:33] all knew him. All these people knew each other. He was an eloquent preacher, and he was respected by some people as a good pastor. So here was a somewhat important person who had a good reputation, at least as a pastor, but he was not from one of the churches that was invited, and so he didn't have standing to join the meeting. Now the meeting wanted to be open and give credentials to anyone who really wanted to show up, but that wasn't all. Princell was dead set against the idea of individual independent churches forming a larger denomination. He thought that was wrong theologically. He didn't think, he thought every church should be independent by itself. All of them should be free and that was kind of the idea that these were the free churches. They had shaken off some connection to the Swedish Lutheran Church from which they had come over the ocean. Even in Sweden they had, some of them had broken away and then some of them had come here. And so he was against the formation of the denomination. And it was a reaction, a reaction to the abuses that organized religion had had. So some in Sweden, like the organized church, the organized Lutheran Church in Sweden, there were some problems. Here's one example that, and I don't think we could ever bring

[6:54] this back, but the pastor of a parish which was sort of a geographical area, he had the exclusive right to distill liquor and sell it to the people in his church. That was part of his income. Well that's a different story. So these, these people like Prince L were like, that's ridiculous. You know, and how does the pastor say you shouldn't drink but if you do drink you have to buy it from me and it goes in my pocket. So there were abuses and there were good reasons for somebody like Prince L to say we shouldn't have denominations because they always turn into something worse. They turn into human institutions that are problematic theologically. And so he probably had a point, right? But these people were there and they said well we came here to form a denomination. We don't want it to be too popular. We don't want it to be too popular. So he talked about the de had been writing in a Chicago Swedish newspaper that the meeting would be, and these were his words, a spiritual harlotry. This doesn't roll off the tongue every day. I don't use that word harlotry often, ever. But that's what his view was. This meeting, before he came to the meeting, he wrote in the paper, this meeting is going to be a spiritual harlotry.

[8:31] And I'm going to go to the meeting and ask for credentials. OK. OK, so and he called it a transparent hypocrisy. He even suggested that the people who thought like him should come to the meeting in great numbers and outvote the ones who wanted to form a covenant. He wanted to get as many of his friends to come to the meeting, get credentials, and vote the whole thing down. But the whole point of the meeting was to really was to move towards building a denomination. So can you imagine that this delightful person arrives at the meeting he hopes will fail and asks if he can receive credentials, which would give him the right to speak at all the proceedings. So what happened next was really great. The meeting voted that he would not be given a voice. They voted that he couldn't have credentials for the meeting. But they took a long time to come to the decision. This is the important part, OK? They didn't just dismiss it out of hand. Some of them wanted to. They're like, he doesn't want to be a part of what we're doing. It doesn't make sense for him. It doesn't make sense for him to do it. But others said, well, no, he's a friend. Maybe we should listen to him. Maybe we can reason with him, right? And so they took a long time.

[9:42] But they came to the decision. They finally decided, they deliberated, that he could not have a voice. But he was a friend. And some of them thought, even if he does say something, he can't do that much harm. And if you read over the notes from that meeting, and there are at least three accounts from different people, you get the sense that it was sort of an awkward way, to start this meeting, a difficult thing that left some people a little upset. So even this founding meeting, there was a fly in the ointment from the very beginning of it. But you know what? That's OK, isn't it? Who thinks that when you start a human institution, even though it's the church, that it's always going to be perfect and harmonious all the time? In fact, I think this was a good way to start, because it forced them to make some tough decisions up front. It forced them to start talking to each other. And it gave them the realization of the reality, that there's always going to be conflict in human institutions. And conflict is normal and natural. This is how it is. A body that doesn't have any conflict isn't really communicating with itself. That's the truth. A marriage with no conflict, it's not that deep, honestly. Because you know what it's like if you're married,

[10:55] once you're done fighting, what it's like to be reconciled. It's amazing, right? So it wasn't an easy thing just to dismiss this person who really had terrible boundaries, because they cared for him. And aside from the question of whether the denomination should exist or not, they had a lot in common with him. He was a friend. So they made the right decision. They made a healthy decision.

[11:18] And they got past it soon enough, and they got on with the business at hand. And in the next few days, the church was born, the denomination was born, with a constitution and a new set of officers. And that's the denomination that exists to this day. And still exists. It's still going strong and still growing. Now, this story really highlights something about the church that we're in. And as part of that first meeting, something that endures even to this day. And you'll find it if you go to covenant meetings, annual meeting of the denomination or the conference. And that's friendship.

[11:51] Friendship is sort of like this hidden glue that kind of binds the denomination together. It's still small enough where you can kind of know a lot of people in it. There's not more than 200 or 300 people in it. There's not more than 500,000 people in our denomination. That sounds like a lot. But it's still possible to go to these meetings and see people you've met before and say hello.

[12:11] And so that's the covenant way. And so this is really the verse that defines the covenant. I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts. And this has always been the first move the denomination has made. Before the founding and after it, these people were known as the mission friends. They were called the mission friends. They were always ready to extend a hand of fellowship, to those who would believe in the scriptures and who set Christ in the center of everything they did. And this is how they put it. Because you can ask yourself, well, everybody can be my friend, but we must have, we can be friends with them, but doesn't mean we're in fellowship with them. How do we know if someone we can be in fellowship with in a Christian sense, in a worship sense? They said the doors of the church are wide enough to admit all who believe, the doors of the church are wide enough to all who believe. And I would add all who are seeking, right? All who don't know yet, but it has to be narrow. And we're talking about really church membership now. It has to be narrow enough to exclude those who do not. Just like Prince L, you can't join the meeting if you don't agree with what the meeting is doing. You can't join a church as a member

[13:23] if you don't believe what the church believes. You can be, you can come and visit and you can attend, but to be a member of the church, you have to agree with what the church teaches. Now that gets to the interesting part though. What does the church teach, right?

[13:37] And we're gonna get to that in just a minute. But those founders, they thought they could have a meaningful and a productive fellowship with anyone, and really anyone, who would be bound to Christ. But beyond that, there were not a lot of theological or doctrinal statements that one had to agree to in order to belong. Now let me, real quick show of hands, who grew up in a Presbyterian church? Anyone? Yep. Who grew up in a Presbyterian church? Who grew up in a Lutheran church? Me, kinda, yeah. So those two, but there are more, they have strong, what we would call confessional and creedal boundaries around what they believe. So the Lutherans have something called the Augsburg Confession. The Presbyterians have, I can't remember them all right now, but Adele, you'll just have to tell us, because you know, exactly. No, they just slipped my mind at the moment. But also, so those are the confessions, but then there's the creeds, the Apostles' Creed, you know, the Nicene Creed, even the Athanasian Creed.

[14:38] And these were boundaries that churches made around themselves and their theology and said, you have to agree to the Augsburg Confession to become a Lutheran, become a Lutheran, member of a Lutheran church. And this is where they pulled back from some of the problems with denominations. And they said, you know what, we don't need creeds, and we don't need confessions, why not? Because they're not in the Bible. They all are derived from the Bible, no doubt. But did you know the Apostles' Creed is not in the Bible? It's not. The Lord's Prayer is, but the Apostles' Creed is not in the Bible. The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, those are distilled from Scripture, but they are not Scripture themselves. So what did they do? They drafted the Constitution, and all it said was this. In Article 2 of the New Constitution, they said this. This covenant, confesses God's word, the Holy Scriptures, of the Old and New Testament, as the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. That was it. That's their theological boundary right there, is you have to believe in the Scriptures, and that you believe that the Scriptures say something about how we live, faith, doctrine, and conduct. And so they didn't have creeds.

[15:57] And so it's very interesting, because I'm going to read a little bit of this. And we don't have it right here. But once somebody asked a covenanter, they said, you don't have any creeds, do you? You don't have any confessions, do you? And he said, well, yes, we do. And just imagine that this is a Bible. He said, here it is. It's just a lot longer than yours. You know? It's the whole book. The whole book is our creed. The whole book is our confession. That's our only one. That's it. God's word. God's instructions. It's all we have. It's all we need. And this was and is our only real theological. Statement. So you're in a church right now. And if you're in grace, you're also in a church right now that believes that the Holy Scriptures are normative for our faith, doctrine, and conduct. And as they said, I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts. This idea that you're related to God in love and respect and that you follow God's word. That's where fellowship has begun with them. So it's friendship under God's word. It's friendship under God's instruction. Friendship under God's law, his precepts. And that friendship under the Scripture also gives us freedom. So you could say, well, can I believe this?

[17:11] Can I believe that? The answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends. Think about how unspecific that faith statement is. It says that the Scriptures are our only rule, but it doesn't say how we should interpret the Scripture. Hopefully, I think hopefully we say we won't get it too wrong. Here's where friendship comes in. If I have a really strange view of Scripture and I have it in isolation, I can continue in that false or strange view of Scripture. But if I'm in a community with friends, they can correct me. They can say, oh, no, I think you're reading the Scriptures wrong. Let's read them again together. Thus, the friendship is always sort of easing or ironing out the problems with our own false theologies that often, you know, they creep into all of us, if you'll be honest.

[17:58] So within the Christian community, we have a lot of things that we need to do. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? means or how to perform it. Pastors do, but individual people in the congregation don't. We don't have to agree on, like I said, when will the end come? What will it look like? How to interpret some of the prophetic books of the Bible? We don't have to agree on that. And we get to another kind of concept there that those aren't necessarily central to our understanding of God's redemptive work in the world through Jesus Christ. They are important, but they're not central to our faith. So that freedom is good. It means you work out your own faith in fear and trembling. But here we run into some problems too, is that that kind of freedom can be scary, right? Sometimes we like it when there's more rules and more constraints. And I think that's why the denominations like the Lutherans and the Presbyterians, the Reformed and others had to have a lot of boundaries around it and have a very detailed theology. Because there's anxiety when somebody, has a view that's different than ours. But friendship allows that difference to exist and say, well, we don't see eye to eye on that one thing. That's not the end of the world.

[19:27] It's not centered to what we all believe. So you can believe that. I can believe it. And it's okay, right? But sometimes we think we need to rein in the people who are different from us. And distrust can really make things difficult in the church unless there's friendship too. When you and I have different views of something theological perhaps, and our goal is to persuade the other one that you're completely wrong. That's my goal. My goal isn't friendship, but my goal is to persuade you that you're totally wrong. That's different. That's not friendship. That's something else. That's coercion. Then we really can't be friends, right? Because our relationship is based on distrust and winning and being right. It's not based on this commonality that we have in Jesus. And really, actually, when was the last time that happened when you had a conversation with somebody and you're like, you're completely wrong, and you talked and talked and talked and they listened the whole time. And then after a while, they're like, oh, you're right, you totally turned me around on that one.

[20:24] I mean, that has never happened to me, unless you're an amazing forensic debater, good luck. People have their own minds of things. It's only through relationships that views change, and it's actually only through the Spirit, especially on theological things, that our views change. The Spirit enables us to transform and renew our minds. It's the Spirit's power that does that. It's not my ability to do that. to persuade you of anything.

[20:52] So spiritual maturity means giving other people the freedom to let the spirit do that transforming for them. And on the spirit's schedule, too, nobody else's. It may take a while. Not your problem. Let the spirit take care of it. So there have been times in the history of the denomination where some people have tried to impose their theological will on others. But it never really worked, thank goodness, because there was too much friendship. There was too much emphasis on, well, we have to test everything by the scriptures. So in the 1920s and 30s in our denomination, that was around the time, it was a little after the time, that fundamentalism really began to grow in the United States. And the church was open to people who were fundamentalists who would come into the church and want to be members of the church.

[21:41] And if you know anything about fundamentalism, it's called that because they have a list. And they have a list of what they called the fundamentals of the faith. And they were doctrinal statements, some of them very normal doctrinal statements about Jesus and his redemptive work on the cross. But some of it was about the end times, some of it about some other stuff that wasn't maybe central. And some of them, they're all good. And listen, I have a lot of fundamentalist friends. And I want to say that most of them, almost all of them, have this deep desire to see people who don't know Jesus come to know Jesus. Praise God. I mean, there's so many people who don't know Jesus. There's a lot of great things that they're doing. But in later times and later in history, in the United States especially, fundamentalism has kind of been wedded to sort of a cultural movement, which I think is kind of toxic. So that's a different topic. But that's the problem when you have too rigid of a set of rules that can kind of go off the rails. Also, you can't spell fundamentalist without the word fun. And so they're super fun people, but they're not. But the point is, they, some of them, came into our denomination. And they were like, we think you all

[22:51] need to become fundamentalists now. Your lack of specificity on these theological issues is a concern for us. And the pushback was loving, but it was firm. And it was like, we don't need to adopt the fundamentals. We have the scriptures. And the hand of fellowship is open to you, but you cannot come in here and try to change all of us. That's not friendship. That's something else. That's coercion. Do you get the difference? Right? If I come in and I try to change everything in your house, I'm not your neighbor. I'm something else. I'm an invader. But if I come to your house and I'm your friend, and you rub off on me and I rub off on you, well, that's a different thing altogether. And so the covenant said, you're welcome in, but you can't transform this denomination into something else. As it turns out, the Evangelical Free Church, which Prince Cell eventually joined, because it was slightly less organized, it didn't have this cohesion to withstand fundamentalism. And the Evangelical Free Church, and I have many good friends in the Evangelical Free Church, but the Evangelical Free Church, really, it did capitulate to fundamentalism. And it lost some of the freedoms that it celebrated in its founding once it had taken on fundamentalism.

[24:04] Very interesting. OK. So the friendship is in the DNA of the body, has always seen that kind of move as coercive. Right? And we're not interested in power plays or coercion. We're interested in the body. We're interested in Jesus. And so even to this day, you can be a fundamentalist in a covenant church. That's not a problem. You can believe all that stuff. It's OK. You have the freedom. But the commitment to friendship means that you can't insist that everyone else in the church be a fundamentalist too. Freedom is what allows you to have a faith of your own. And friendship sets healthy boundaries on how you exercise that freedom. Are you beginning to see a picture of how our denomination sort of these? And there's more to it. We have three more sermons on the denomination, but we won't. But you see how the denomination set itself up early between the reliance on scripture alone, relational friendship, and just sort of this covenant, this idea of being with each other. And so they said, they read it out loud, I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts. And I think the problem with Princell was he was saying, I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts. And he was so sure he was right that he thought it was OK

[25:21] to insult his brothers. That's what happens when you think you're so right and somebody else is so wrong. You say things like transparent hypocrisy or spiritual harlotry, right? You can't do that. You can't. That's not the life that the New Testament calls us to. And so the people at the meeting saw right through Princell, and they showed him the door. But they held out hope that they could still be friends with him. Even after they said, you can't speak, but we love you. You have to leave. We can't have a conversation. We can't have you around today. You can come back some other day, right? Some of them wanted to let him stay if he would retract his printed comments in the newspaper. They even wanted to let him do that. Like Princell, if you get up and say, I retract what I said, those insults, if you retract that, we'll give you a place to speak. And his response was, I would take them back if they weren't true.

[26:13] So there's nothing you can do with somebody like that. And they showed him to the door. But before they did, they were like, They gave him every chance. And they loved him. But they finally set healthy boundaries around it and said, this is not the spirit that we're in in this moment. And so you can't be a part of it. So there were some tough moments in that meeting when the denomination was born. I would have loved to have been there and watched all the drama. And ever since then, there have been tough moments, right? There were years when it didn't look like we would make it because of finances. Believe it, the church almost went bankrupt at one point. And controversies. And people trying to control each other. Even scandals, of course. It's a church, you know? Things have happened. But we've survived years and in large part because of this. I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for the friendship that we have in our denomination and that we have in our church and that we have between our churches. And Father, we pray your blessing on us. As we continue to be mission friends in this world. And we pray a blessing on our denomination. And we ask it in Jesus' name.

[27:24] Amen.