The following is the sermon shared by MWC Vice President, Janet Plenert (Canada), at the Joint Anabaptist Worship Service in Bogotá, Colombia on 18 May, 2014. This united service involved people from all three Anabaptist national churches in Colombia: Iglesia Cristiana Menonita (Mennonite), Iglesia Hermandad en Cristo (Brethren in Christ), and Iglesias Hermanos Menonitas (Mennonite Brethren). It was a wonderful time of fellowship and communion together. Click here to see more photos from the Worship Service.

Focus Statement:  The church must stand united for a cohesive witness if it is to confront the injustice of the world, and transform it into communities of grace, joy and peace, (i.e. not empty the cross of its power)

Today you are to be congratulated!  Why?  Because you are here, together, united, willing and delighted to worship together, to stand together, to be one body, one unified voice unencumbered by your differences, focused on what unites you.  So on behalf of Mennonite World Conference, I congratulate you, and I invite you, right now to congratulate and welcome someone near you who you don’t know very well.  Stand up and greet someone near you! 

There are many things that could divide us in this room, yet we are here together.  Here YOU are, as Colombian Mennonites, Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in Christ – together.  Here WE are, as Colombians, Canadians, Indonesians, Costa Ricans, Zambians, Dutch, and more – together.  And yet our communities and our world are neither united nor peaceful places.  As we stand together:

• A Palestinian home is bulldozed because it is on land claimed as an Israeli settlement
• Sang-Min, a young Mennonite in South Korea sits in jail where he will spend 18 months because of his refusal to serve his term in the military.
• A mother in Vietnam comforts her child who suffers from cancer – the lingering result of Agent Orange from the Vietnam war
• Aboriginal people in Canada weep as they tell their stories of physical and sexual abuse in church-run residential schools during the 100 years that Canadian law forcibly tried to eradicate their traditional culture and language
• Women in many countries, desperate to support their families, are caught in human trafficking and the sex industry
• Syrian refuges wait, and wonder, as war and terror define their future

We live in a harsh and often painful world.  You know that only too well here in Colombia.  Yet we live in a world where hope also exists, where tiny lights of justice shine brightly.  It was a Colombian, speaking at a Colombian ecumenical Peace Summit in San Andres, who said ‘the church is the only institution in the world that exists in every ‘rincon’ (corner) of the country.’  Because that is true, there is hope!  There IS hope, because the church of Jesus Christ IS, and because the church of Jesus Christ exists throughout the world. 

The fact of standing together in unified worship and witness is significant as we think about our world, and as we study our scripture passage today.  In 1 Corinthians 1:10 – 25.   Paul was speaking into a context where divisions existed within the church, where people were not coming together as one body.  People within the church were appealing either to Paul’s teaching or to Apollos’ teaching, or that of Cephas.  They were using the distinction’s they had learned from their spiritual teachers as a means of quarrelling and division.  They were focused on being right, on promoting and validating the authority of their pastor (or their church) rather than on the meaning of the cross for the city and world around them.  And word of these arguments was spreading.

Paul writes to the Corinthians and he pleads with them in the name of Jesus Christ to “say the same thing”, to be in agreement, to have the same judgement.  Why?  Why can’t they focus on their differences as Paul’s followers and Apollos followers, as Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in Christ, or as Congolese and Canadians?  After all they are all following Jesus!  Because, Paul says in verse 17, Christ sent us to proclaim the gospel, not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.  Paul calls the church, which is already experiencing divisions, to heal itself – to restore itself to completeness and wholeness.  The witness of the cross seems to depend on it.  The proclaiming of the gospel seems to depend on it.  The transformation of the world seems to depend on it.  

The proclaiming of the gospel may seem foolish to the world.  It is not a message of worldly power, of worldly kingdom.  It is not a message of achieving peace or freedom through the use of military might.  It is not a message of wealth and power leading to order and control.  It is a message of death bringing life.  It is a message of the fools shaming the wise, the weak shaming the strong, the lowly and the marginalized bringing down the respected, the Jews and the Gentiles together being saved.  It is a message of the marginalized being brought into citizenship.  It is a message that requires those who believe, to stand together – in spite of their difference - to have the ‘same judgement’, to not be quarreling and in public disagreement.  To be divided weakens the proclaiming of the gospel and empties the cross of its power.

I am reminded of a poster that MCC produced a number of years ago.  It was very simple.  It said “Let the Christian’s of the world agree to not kill each other.”   For hundreds of years, wars have been fought where people calling themselves Christians fought against one another, and killed one another.   Political divisions and allegiances were stronger than spiritual ones, and brothers in the faith killed one another.  What kind of witness is that in the world?  Where is the power of the cross?  There is no redemptive or salvific power of a cross that is carried for the purpose of conquering the world.  This is what Paul wanted to avoid – a cross emptied of power.  Where would the world be today if Christians had always refused to kill each other?  Where would the world be today is Christians had always refused to kill anyone?

A few years ago, MCC arranged a dinner with Iranian President Ahmadinejad as a way for church leaders to dialogue with him about his positions and views.  The President is a bold global figure well known for inflammatory remarks against Israel.  The dinner was met with significant protest, primarily by other Christians who protested outside the hotel venue.  Christian brothers and sisters held signs saying:

• why are peace churches so anxious to talk with a man who wants to destroy Israel and the United States?
• The Christians who eat with this man do not represent the Christians;
• don’t make peace with the devil;

Jack Suderman who represented Mennonite Church Canada at the gathering said afterwards, “The assumption is made by the protesters that talking to each other means being allies in common causes. They seem to forget that peace ultimately needs to be brokered between enemies. It’s not necessary to do so between friends.” 

I am sad to think of the witness of disunity, anger, and struggle within the church that is caused by such public protest of Christians against Christians.  It demonstrates a cross emptied of its power.

And so it is all the more important that we are here, together, today.  It is all the more important that as Mennonites around the world we strive to resolve and heal the divisions among the body.  It is all the more important that Mennonite World Conference exists, as a cohesive, unifying presence of our people around the world.

As we think about Paul’s encouragement to heal and to be in agreement, we need to remember that heal divisions, we need to understand one another, and thus we need to face one another.  While this may be obvious, it is often the case that those who hear of diverse and disagreeable opinions in one part of the church, turn their backs.  Instead of going for coffee or drinking mate together, we more often chose to not talk to the other. When a church in one part of the country disagrees with a church in another part of the country, it is easy to just ignore it, because we are busy enough with our own agenda.  And the disagreement grows to division.  At the very least, and as a starting point, we must look one another in the face if we are to understand each other and begin to heal divisions.

We must also be committed to one another.   Like ties that bind a family together, the church must also be bound together with an unwavering commitment to one another.  Strong opinions can be – respectfully – expressed, debates can happen, questions and concerns can be appropriately raised.  But at the root of all of this, commitment to the common witness, the foolishness of the cross, is what we need to focus on.  The witness of the gospel is weakened and I believe the cross is emptied of its power if we are not committed to one another.  This is essential to being a community of God’s people.  And it requires patience with one another, longsuffering, hope, and gentleness. 

These processes require time.  Sometimes, a great deal of time!  MWC and the Lutheran World Federation actively met for 5 years to work at healing profound divisions between our faith communities that began almost 500 years earlier!  Writing our MWC Shared Convictions – that which we as 101 members churches in 58 countries declare together to be our core convictions - was a process that took more than 10 years!  We don't live the convictions in with the same emphasis, nor focus, nor in the same way.  But the slow and careful process eventually resulted in our global family of faith being able to stand together, believing these statements are faithful to our best understanding of foolishness of the cross lived out through our global family.

If we as a global community of Anabaptist followers of Jesus can heal any differences among us, if we can come together in worship and witness, then we will be an example in the world of the power of the cross, no matter how foolish it appears.  If we can stand united as Anabaptist followers of Jesus, then we can begin to more actively participate in the healing of the larger divisions in the  Christian church.  And I believe, the more we can stand together and say the same thing, the brighter the light of the gospel will shine into our world.  What if all the Koreans in both Koreas stood together in refusing to take up military might?  What if the Americans Christians had refused to kill and use chemicals in Vietnam?  What if Canadian churches would stand united, and give the same message about reconciling with our Aboriginal brothers and sisters?  What if ALL the Christians homes and church buildings in Latin America were peace sanctuaries where everyone was treated with dignity and respect?  What if Christians searching for land 500 years ago had refused to steal land rape the earth of its resources?   What if?  The foolishness of this sounds ridiculous in this complex world of today.  Foolish.  We have been called to proclaim the gospel… Christ crucified….. God chose what is foolish to shame the wise, to bring healing and salvation and justice.  God chose things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that ARE.

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may never be tempted to empty the cross of its power.

May God bless us with anger at divisions, injustice, and oppression, so that we may be midwives of unity, justice, and peace.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that together we can make a difference in this world, transforming it into a world which is ruled by the power of the cross:  justice, mercy and the love of God.

Amen.