What Gets Us Through?

The recent sudden death of Tim Russert got me thinking. All the words written about him in the last week have made clear how important his faith was to him. It wasn’t the accolades he won, the money he made, the famous people he interviewed that made him who and what he was, but rather the faith which he espoused.

Commentators reminded us that he was the product of a working class family in South Buffalo and that rather than trying to lose that identity as he moved up in the world of politics and journalism, he treasured it. It made him who and what he was. Tim Russert’s Christian faith, lived out in the Roman Catholic Church gave him the resources for traveling the road of life.

The words of the Bible read each week; the spiritual presence of the body and blood of the Lord in the Eucharist; the catechism memorized, these are what sustained his journey. He was part of a community of faith which was not only local but world wide, which stretched back into time, built upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles. The history, the story, the words and the actions of this community carry us through the tough times.

I remember hearing about a woman who was in New York City on September 11, 2001. Her hotel overlooked the twin towers and she saw the planes hit and the towers burn. The words of Scripture, the prayers she had learned as a child all came back to her and enabled her to struggle through this terrifying ordeal.

When the times are tough and the going is rough this is what sustains us; not the accolades, not all the activities we are engaged in; not position or prestige; not all the fleeting things of this life, but the words of faith which have been passed down through the ages and the sure and certain knowledge that as the “Heidelberg Catechism” puts it: “not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.”

I just returned this past Wednesday from the annual convocation of the Mercersburg Society.This year we met at Princeton Theological Seminary. "What society", did you say? What in the world is the Mercersburg Society?" Good question. The name comes from the little Pennsylvania town of Mercersburg, where in the mid 19th century, the German Reformed Church(one of the four predecessor denominations which later came together to form the United Church of Christ)had their seminary.Mercersburg was not a big city and still isn't. Today on that campus sits Mercersburg Academy,an expensive prep school.
Out of this very rural place in the mid nineteenth century came the Mecersburg theology, a way of thinking about the Christian faith which stressed an organic faith and the importance of the Eucharist and the faith of the un-divided church (pre-Reformation).This opened the way for the modern ecumenical movement and contributed to church union. All this from a tiny little ethnic seminary in rural Pennsylvania.

The society is committed to taking the insights of the Mercersburg theology and putting them into practice in the life of the church today. It is not about some antiquarian interest in a liturgy which came out in 1856, but using the insights of the Mercersburg theologians for the life of the church today. We see the fruits of this thinking especially in the worship life of the church; worship grounded in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the Lord's Supper as the "innermost sanctuary of the whole Christian worship." The language may be different and the music different, but the ultimate purpose and meaning of worship is the same: to give glory and praise to God and to build up the Church of Jesus Christ. If you want to see what the Mercersburg theology is all about take a look at hymn #225 in our hymnal, "Jesus I Live to Thee." That says it all. Look also at John chapter 15.

So much for Mercersburg.
Princeton is a wonderful university town and it just so happened that when I was there, the university was in the midst of reunions and graduation and so the town was filled with both somewhat moth eaten old Princeton Tigers and bright and fresh new ones. If you want to feel younger, hang around a college town. There is a lot of talk today about how to stay young. Let me suggest that one way is to be around people who are younger than you are. Young people challenge us to think anew. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong, but they are usually interesting. As the church moves forward the retaining of the young is a priority. Everyone knows this. I have never heard of a church that didn't want to have younger members. Well maybe there might be a few. Let me suggest that the way we do this is to challenge young people to grow in their faith and to move outward in mission and ministry. We do this already in our youth ministry and in a concrete way in our mission trip for youth. We also do it in the more formal Christian education ministry. I really believe that young people today want to be challenged as well as supported in their faith journey. They make us better people and we hopefully do the same for them, and we do it all together in the family of faith, the Church.