Last November at a conference dealing with the current crop of issues in the Presbyterian Church, my friend Mary Naegeli began her address to the convocation with this quotation from one of the great sources of theological understanding of the twentieth century, the pages of the comic strip Peanuts. Here’s the quote: “No problem is so big or so complicated that it can’t be run away from.”ⁱ Have any of you ever had a problem from which you wished desperately just to run away?

Since I last preached in this pulpit I have celebrated the 24th anniversary of my ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church. I have also spent an intense 10 days engaged in political struggle at the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. I have spent and will be spending considerable time in my role as the Moderator of San Diego Presbytery in the difficult process of helping our local congregations deal with the aftermath of this past General Assembly. And right here in our own congregation we are preparing to discuss together whether or not we will move forward with a large and complicated building project. I’ve also had a few days of vacation, which really just gave me a little time to sit back and think about this whole enterprise of being Christian and of being so actively involved in my own little corner of God’s Kingdom. I have come to realize that Christian life and Christian ministry are filled with both good and bad problems. That is just the way it is.

I know that all of you have your own set of problems and issues with which you are dealing in your work and your families and your personal lives, and I hope that at least some of what I’m going to say will have some direct bearing on those aspects of your lives, too. You and I share part of our Christian lives with each other through the life of this church, and so we are all involved to some extent or other in the conversation about our need to expand our church campus, in the conversations about various issues that currently confuse and concern lots of Presbyterians, and, by extension, in the many larger issues that face the entire body of Christ throughout the whole world. If you are serious at all about following Jesus Christ, about loving God, about discovering the true nature of your existence and your purpose within the continuing presence of God in the Holy Spirit, then you already know this simple fact to be true: While the Christian way is the best way to go in this world, it is not immune to conflict, corruption, concern, and confusion. To follow Jesus is to go against the grain of the way of the world and against the grain of the world’s ways to which you and I have become so accustomed, and when you go in the opposite direction from everyone else, it is not an easy thing. Truth be told, the way of Jesus is the only way that leads to life, but in this world, it is a way that takes us through some difficult times.

This fact of Christian life is nothing new; in fact, it has been with us from the very beginning. In the little letter of Jude, written perhaps very early in the second century after Christ, there is a simple affirmation of this characteristic: “Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” “Contend for the faith.” “Contend” is a strong word, a fighting word, a word of sweat and struggle and effort, a word of courage and conviction, a word that is worthy of a Savior whose life began with a frightened king trying to kill him and ended with a threatened aristocracy that did kill him.

From the very beginning, contention was part of Christianity. Jesus contended with the Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes, trying to teach them the truth about God. He contended with the disciples, trying to do the same thing. When Jesus was gone, his followers had to contend with each other as they kept learning about Jesus’ way in the world. And they had to contend with the world outside the faith, as other beliefs, other philosophies, other lifestyles competed with Jesus’ message. From the very beginning, people who love Jesus have had to contend with a world that does not love Jesus, and people who love Jesus have had to contend with each other as we have struggled to discern together how it is that Jesus meant us to believe and to live. And the contention goes on. In Jude’s day, there were some Christians who believed that following Jesus meant a person no longer had to follow the moral law handed down from Judaism, or any moral law at all, for that matter. And there were some Christians who believed that following Jesus meant that as long as you knew the truth about who Jesus was you didn’t have to worry about what you did with your mortal and earthly life. The two groups were called Antinomians and Gnostics, for those of you who like to keep track of such things. And, by the way, the opinions of both groups eventually were repudiated by the church as a whole.

To track the history of the church is to follow the many issues and divisions and arguments and then finally the agreements and solutions that Jesus’ followers have reached as we have lived out the meaning of Jesus’ message in our own lives. It is also to learn of how the church has united together to contend not only with the issues within itself, but with the even larger issues of a world that could care less about Christ. And you and I continue to live in that history. My friend Jerry Andrews, speaking at the same conference that I mentioned earlier, said this about the Church of Jesus Christ:

Thinking theologically about the Church requires holding at once two realities—our life is lived within the eternal and perfect life of God and our life is lived in the midst of our fallen generation. The first reality is a gift given by God to the Church. The Spirit baptizes us into the Son who, in unending and uninterrupted union with the Father, assures us of our eternal union with the life and love of God. We dwell in the midst of perfect peace, unity, and purity. The second reality is a necessary part of God giving the Church as a gift to the world. The alienation of the world from God and the alienation within the world is the environment in which the Church lives out and announces the reconciliation of God in Christ. That alienation is experienced within the Church. We dwell in the midst of an imperfect peace, unity, and purity.ⁱⁱ

You and I much prefer to live in the glow of the first reality, the beauty and hope and healing and love of the presence of God. We look forward to the end of history when we can live in that shalom, in that peace. But for now, we also live in the second reality, the imperfection that is within us and within our church and within the world at large. And so we must contend for the faith.

The most important “contending” that we do is at the border between the church and the world. The Great Commission still applies: we are still about the business of proclaiming and demonstrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world in order to bring more and more people into a saving relationship with him. But so often we become preoccupied with the “contending” that goes on within the church itself. And very often the line between church and world is very hard to detect. Fights within the church are not just about the church but about the world as well.

Many of you have been interested in the current issues discussed in the Presbyterian Church, issues about ordination and marriage and homosexuality, issues about Israel and Palestine and our investments in corporations that do business with Israel, issues about reproduction and abortion, and issues about how Christians of differing positions can co-exist within the same denominational family. These are issues with which our church has been struggling for my entire ministry, and before. No doubt, some of them will continue long after I retire. In a very brief fashion, let me make just a few comments about these issues and where we find ourselves as a congregation in the midst of them.

This year’s General Assembly took more conservative and traditional turn on the issue of abortion, specifically related to late-term abortion, affirming that viable fetuses deserve to live. The Assembly backed away from controversial positions taken two years ago related to divestment from companies doing business with Israel, and instead took a much more balanced and nuanced approach to the difficult political situation there. The Assembly strongly reaffirmed our constitutional standards regarding sexuality and marriage, especially in relationship to ordination. The Assembly strongly affirmed the work of a Task Force that upholds Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of all and calls individual Presbyterians and individual congregations to stay united in one denomination despite some of our theological differences. All of this, to my way of thinking, was very good stuff indeed.

By a fairly narrow margin, the Assembly also adopted what is called a new “Authoritative Interpretation” of our Constitution that affirms the historic Presbyterian practice of establishing national standards for ordination, but allowing and expecting that local Sessions and Presbyteries will apply those standards. Here’s where the tough part comes in. To some people, and in some situations, that may mean that some homosexual persons will be ordained as elders or deacons or ministers. It is very early to tell if this will actually happen, or if it does, if such ordinations will withstand the inevitable review by the higher judicial bodies of the denomination. Let me be very clear with you about one thing: as your pastor, I stand firmly in the orthodox and traditional stream of historic Christian thought regarding appropriate human sexuality. I believe this is true of the Session of this church. And it is largely true of San Diego Presbytery. I and your other pastors have been involved for many years and will continue to be involved in local and national efforts to maintain the historic standards of our faith, and we covet your prayers and your support as we do so.

With all of this said, there are brothers and sisters who also claim Christ as Lord and Savior who hold different positions on different issues. For me, there is only one line by which a church can be divided, and that is the line of Jesus Christ. What makes a person a Christian is their belief in Christ. All who believe in him are part of my church, and of your church, too, whether they are in our particular denomination or not. When we differ, we differ as members of the same family. How we live out our unity in the midst our diversity is a complex question and one that is never fully solved, but this is nothing new in the life of Jesus’ followers and surely it is a reality with which his church will continue to struggle.

In the months and years ahead, I will expect to keep you fully apprised of the development of these and other issues in our presbytery and our denomination. But these issues will not be our primary concern. After all, we are not interested so much in standing against someone or something as we are interested in standing for some very important things. Long ago, Jude encouraged the early church to focus on building up their faith, to pray, to be aware of God’s love, to look forward to Christ’s mercy, and to have mercy and love for those with whom we may even disagree. As followers of Jesus, we are about the business of doing his business, of sharing the gospel of love with a hurting world.

Doing Jesus’ work is the best thing we can be doing, but it is not always easy. Unlike the sentiment expressed in Peanuts, we cannot run away from our conflicts, our issues, our problems. Instead, we need to have the courage and conviction that was expressed by Teddy Roosevelt in his famous speech in 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

You and I are in the arena, contending for the truth and witness of our faith, every day. But we are not alone there. Like the first Christians who met their death in Roman arenas, torn apart by lions or gladiators, we are not alone. We contend for a faith that is guaranteed by the only true God, the Living Lord Jesus Christ, whom alone we serve. What Jude wrote so long ago still is true: “Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

ⁱTheology Matters, published by Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry, Volume 12, No. 1, January/February 2006, p. 13.
ⁱⁱ Ibid. p. 1