Why are you here? Why are you here? The question posed on the surface is not a metaphysical one, but quickly turns into one. Why are you here, at Third Presbyterian Church, on this morning? Not metaphysical, on the surface, but surely autobiographical. What brought you here? 

My premise is that for as many people who are in this room this morning there are reasons why you are here. Perhaps it was the building. Perhaps you were driving up, or down, East Avenue, and the building itself caught your eye, elegant, majestic, sturdy, the chapel or sanctuary. Perhaps you were first here for a community meeting, a program of some kind, a forum. 

Perhaps you visited other places when you came into town, some Presbyterian, some not, and you landed in this place. Perhaps it was a program for your children, now long grown. Perhaps it was a sermon you heard, a theme or a turn of the phrase or a perspective from one of the faithful servants who occupied the place where I am now privileged to stand. Perhaps you converted, or, are even in the process of converting. Perhaps your mate was one thing and you were another and this place was the compromise, or not the compromise. 

Perhaps you were a life-long Presbyterian from wherever it was that you moved and you could not imagine being anything else. Perhaps you were a life-long something else from wherever it was that you moved and this place drew you in. Perhaps, like some grown adults in this congregation, you were born into this place, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago – and either extraordinary force of habit or extraordinary gravity, or, extraordinary affection, keeps you coming here. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. 

Why are you here – why did you come the first time – why do you keep coming back? 

This Sunday is known as Reformation Sunday. It is the closest Sunday to October 31; the day in 1517 that German priest Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, the “protest” of Protestantism. In ways more distinctly Presbyterian, we remember names like John Calvin, whose understanding of the need for reform in both theology and church practice took the Protestant Reformation to a new level. We remember names like John Knox, who took a particular brand of Calvinist, Reformed Protestantism, mixed it thoroughly with the political and religious milieu of 16th century Scotland and allowed Presbyterianism to emerge. 

Presbyterianism, based on the Greek word presbyteros, elder, the word used in the New Testament to suggest a council of decision makers. Our brand name, Presbyterian, therefore, is based not so much on what we believe, though it is, as to how we do things. 

We are Christians, first and foremost, believers in and followers of Jesus Christ. We adhere, in ways lesser or greater, to the theological notions of John Calvin and other early reformers who hung some theological constructs together in a system. And we adhere, in ways greater than lesser, to a way of being structured, organized, presbyterian with a lower case “p.” 

We remember all that on this Reformation Sunday, but never for its own sake. In generations past, this day had a different flavor to it. It was often a day to give thanks for who we weren’t – namely, Roman Catholic. Thankfully, the approach is healthier these days, more positive, a time to remember who we are. 

And so the question, why are you here – a question that conjures up some fond reminiscing and a little bit of soul searching.

The original title for this conversation was “Why I am Presbyterian,” or ‘Why I am a Presbyterian.” But the “I” in the title seemed a bit too much, although it’s always a bit autobiographical. On the Wilkinson side of things, my grandfather was English Methodist, my grandmother was English Presbyterian. Reportedly, the negotiation was brief. That same grandmother introduced my parents at a wedding reception at a Presbyterian church – the clearest and most compelling argument for predestination that one could ever conceive. 

I, therefore, was born into a Presbyterian manse, baptized in a Presbyterian church, confirmed in a Presbyterian congregation, ordained as a Presbyterian elder as a young person, educated at a Presbyterian college and Presbyterian seminary. It’s all rather disgusting. My rebellion from Presbyterianism lasted all of about six hours, in college, where, after skipping church one Sunday morning, a fierce combination of guilt and habit and honest affection drew me back. 

I can’t imagine doing anything else, or another context in which to do it – and unless Major League Baseball needs a commissioner some day or I write that great novel that is always percolating in my head, I cannot imagine ever doing anything else. I realize every day the limitations of our theology and our system; but it’s as good as any and on some days it actually soars above the limited, fallible humans who conceived it and run it. 

And so on this Reformation Day you may be here for some of the same reasons. There may be others. The sermon title morphed from “Why I Am Presbyterian” into something else because it stretched the canvas a bit more broadly. “On Being Presbyterian” is not so brilliant either, but I did want to suggest that “being Presbyterian” at least connected to “thinking” Presbyterian and “doing” Presbyterian, not so much allegiance to a brand name but commitment to a way. 

Being Presbyterian suggests both a group of beliefs, i.e. John Calvin and John Knox and all those framers who centuries ago helped give shape to this thing in this land, and a way of enacting those beliefs, a set of practices, behaviors, for living in the church and in the world. What do we believe? It is a great question, coupled equally with the great question about how we live out our beliefs. It is almost a reckless thing to try to lay it all out in one conversation, as if all of our tradition and all of our theological volumes and all of our histories and autobiographies – that elusive notion of tradition – could be summarized in one sermon. 

When a person wants to know I usually invite them to come and check us out. Visit us at worship. Come to adult education. Volunteer – come and get your hands dirty and your mind agitated a bit. 

If forced to summarize I turn to certain touchstones. Norman Maclean’s lovely novella A River Runs Through It is one. Maclean wrote: “As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace…I never knew whether he believed that God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty…My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.” (pages 2-4)

That works pretty well for me. Luther’s original point was grace – that we are saved by grace through faith. Calvin and his buddies took that in new directions and expanded it a bit. A belief in a big God – we sometimes use words like sovereign and transcendent. 

And because we believe big things about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that mysterious thing called the Trinity, we also have believed big things about humanity. Mostly they have not been good things, with not very warm and fuzzy terms like “total depravity” and “idolatry” and the like. But we never stop there. 

We have said three things – grace and faith and the Bible. It sounds so much better in Latin. Sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura. Grace and faith and scripture order who we are and what we do. Worship focuses on these things. Education focuses on these things. Service and outreach focuses on these things. But the point always is grace, always grace, a big God, a loving God, a gracious God, whose desire it is to make us whole and free. Whole and free, free from the worry about doing anything or saying anything or even buying anything to earn our salvation.  We are free from all sorts of things – free from the fear of life, free from the fear of death. And we are free to do all sorts of things – to enjoy God forever, as our old Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us. 

And so we take theology seriously. It matters, and we have fought and will continue to fight over it. But more so than the theology of being Presbyterian, the issue is much more deeply the practice of doing Presbyterian. Oliver Cromwell was once reputed to say that he would rather face a thousand bowmen with spear drawn than one Presbyterian fresh from prayer. 

Being Presbyterian and doing Presbyterian has meant many things. It meant that one of our forebears, John Witherspoon, was the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence. It meant that the way we do things in the church – decently and in order and by representative democracy and by committees, committees, committees, is a pretty good way of doing things in the civic government as well. It means that there are schools and hospitals dotting the land and the world that bear the name Presbyterian. It means that our Stated Clerk, Eugene Carson Blake, got arrested in the 1960’s trying to desegregate a Baltimore amusement park. 

In former times, doing Presbyterian meant that we elected Presbyterian presidents and that Presbyterians roamed the corridors of power in government and commerce. That has changed, I would submit, and for many reasons that is a good thing. 

All of this is shifting, as you well know. We live in an era full of “posts –“ post modern, post Christian, post denomination, post whatever. It’s a good time, I would submit, because we hold our tradition and our theology and our practice to the bright light of day to see what is faithful and authentic, what has integrity, what matters for peoples' lives and souls, what matters to the very important enterprise of transforming the world. 

And some of the old touchstones still work. Truth is in order to goodness. God alone is Lord of the conscience. These remain “go to the mat” commitments for how we live, for how we teach our children, for how we engage the world. We believe, not better or more than anyone else, but with a clarity and distinctiveness that has defined us and that continues to compel us, that we are called to transform the world, that we are given a vocation, a gift, to make a difference in all the spheres that a big, sovereign God has created – in the work place, in the market place, in the board room, in the court room, in the school house, on the playground, in the public square. 

And, I would submit, being Presbyterian has something to say about the way we face our post-September 11 world. Being free from fear means many things. Being called to transform the world means many things. Being a child of God and a disciple of Jesus Christ and a subscriber to a Presbyterian way of thinking about things and doing things means many things, but it certainly means that we take the world seriously, and believe we have a contribution to make to the debate about proper response and just war and what peace looks like and what reconciliation looks like and what justice looks like. A deep humility and a full confidence that we have something to offer to one another, to the broader church and to the world that is a glorious, bewildering, imaginative mess. 

And so more than 2000 years later, and nearly 500 years after that specific protest was first lodged, the question remains: why are you here, what got you here, what keeps you coming back? What drives you crazy about the church, and more so, what do you love about the church. Every conceivable answer, I would submit, resides in each of us. But the exercise for the day might be this one – to look deep within us at our own soul, and to look deeply into the soul of the church, this church, the Presbyterian church of which we are a part – to look at the soul and the ethos and the architecture, walls and floors and windows and doors. What merits a protest? What merits reform. What merits a celebration? What would we hang on our door for all the world to see? 

To be Presbyterian means so much; to do Presbyterian means so much. He told a story one time about religious life, about a rich religious official and a poor, outcast tax collector. Such may be where we reside this day. To pray ferociously and fervently, but to do so humbly and modestly. It is a unique proposition, perhaps even a slightly Presbyterian proposition, reflecting the best and not so best of humanity. It is what we offer to the world, a world searching for answers, a world searching for institutions that make a difference, a world where both protest and reform seem so diluted. 

And so we gather this day in celebration and recognition of where we have been and even so, where we are. We gather not to thank God for who we are not, but who we have been, and who we are. And, in a broken and fearful world, filled with wandering people like you and like me, we gather to be Presbyterian, for such a time as this, because we have been given a gift, the church, and because grace is so much better than all the other alternatives. 

“Our hope is in no other save in Thee./Our faith is built upon Thy promise free./Lord, give us peace, and make us calm and sure,/That in Thy strength we evermore endure. Amen.