Faith Through the Decades: The 1960's

(preached on Sunday, September 13)

I remember being elementary school and sitting in the bank drive through with my mom. It was 1983 and the voice on the radio was sharing a this day a history moment. It happened to be the 20th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My mother just started to gaze off into the distance. The DJ went on to say that in honor of the day, the song, Abraham, John and Martin would be played. As the music started, my mother’s distant gaze became soft tears. Abraham, John and Martin, written in 1968 and performed a variety of artists is a tribute to the memories of icons of social change. But in particular, the icons of social change in the 1960’s, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. It was written as a response to the assassinations of King and the younger Kennedy in April and June 1968.

As we drove away and the song came to an end, my mother started giving me a history lesson on the assassination events and the powerful memory of knowing where you were when you heard about the assassination of JFK. Along with the other assassinations in that decade, the turbulent times around the civil rights movement, the red scare and cold war, and the entry into the Vietnam war not only proved to be an eventful decade, but for baby boomers like my mother … the 1960’s was the most influential decade on her in shaping her outlook, her politics, and even her faith.

Now if you were to look at what decade was most influential on you as you developed as a person, what decade would that be? Now I know that some of you have many decades to choose from and others of you the choice is rather easy thus far. But given the historical events you have live through, the tragedies and the politics, the societal movements and the wars, what decade has most shaped your outlook, politics, and faith? That’s the question I would like you to consider as you share with your neighbor this morning. I will give you about 30 seconds.

We starting a new theme in here this weekend known as the Decades of Faith, starting today with the 1960’s. This is something we have been wanting to do for a number of years here, not only from a music standpoint, (has the band been great, or what?) but also from the perspective of how the events of a decade and our own American mindset has influenced the movement of the church and our own faith. But the reason for the timing of this theme as we head into fall is due to the 50th anniversary of Faith UMC. This weekend marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first worship service at Faith, the sixth birthday of fusion, and the third anniversary of being here in the Worship and Life Center and Education wing. With a whole calendar of events this year celebrating 50 years as a community of faith, we will kind of culminate everything on November 22 when our Bishop, Bishop Palmer will be joining us and leading us in worship.

But the 1960’s is where we start as we consider the very formative time for the Faith community during this time. Up until the 1960, Christianity was successful in its growth across America. After World War 2, after troops returned home and started to build their families, church membership and involvement became a central aspect of the American life. Champaign is no different. Many young families were settling on the west and southwest side of town and First Methodist Church downtown saw that need and wanted to expand out this way and a vision was cast for a congregation on S. Prospect Ave. Faith Methodist Church is what it would be named.

But as the 1960’s unfolded, the religious climate in America started to change. Prayer and Bible reading were removed from the public schools; nuns and priests started leaving their orders for secular lives, While these issues aroused much emotion, other, deeper social currents concerning race, gender and sexuality, war, and the role of churches in society changed the religious landscape of the United States. The apparent religious revival of the postwar period ground to a halt in the course of the decade. According to one historian, people stopped talking of a new revival and began to discuss decline. Look at America’s perspective on Faith; in 1957, 14 percent of the Americans polled said religion was in decline in the United States. In 1970 that figure had increased to 75 percent believed Religion was in decline and the numbers from church reports support that data.

The 1960’s was a turning point in history and in religion. The 1960’s was the first decade the history of the United States in which church membership in the U.S. did not increase. What was going on politically and socially had an impact on the church, no question. Fear of communism, the civil rights movement, and the fall of the icons of social change (MLK, JFK, RFK) led to a disillusionment with faith matters and churches really struggled with their identity. Do we or don’t we, as Christians, raise questions about the Vietnam War? Do we get involved in the civil rights movement and work to end segregation? Do we march with Martin Luther King, Jr, or is that too social justiceish for the church? As Christians can we question the government? These were radical questions for an institution that had seen freedom and growth since America was settled by the European Christians. (Pause) In many ways these questions persist for us today as well.

While church historians look to the 60’s trials and tribulations and the influence of music and the freedom of speech against the war and independence of a Woodstock and the Born to be Wild persona of the 1960’s, while church historians point to the 1960’s as the death of God … perhaps the 1960’s was enough to raise questions that helped define the meaning of Jesus Christ in the church more than what historians will ever care to admit. (Pause)

Last Sunday when we gathered in here … we heard Jesus in the midst of dealing with defilement and how the religious leaders became obsessed with the laws of cleanliness. His message last week was one drawn from the Old Testament … Remember that you too were a foreigner in a foreign land and God redeemed you. What that means is that everyone one of us have faced our own struggles, temptations, sins to the point where everyone of us has been on the outside … everyone one of us and if it weren’t for grace … everyone one of us would still be foreigners in God’s kingdom.

From there in Mark 7, we follow Jesus to where he is no longer distinguishing between the children on Israel and the outsiders … but his ministry has expanded to include everyone. It wasn’t just about his disciples but in dealing with the religious leaders and those on the outside of the Jewish faith and outside of the church. Mark 8 is a turning point, in many ways, as we start to see Jesus feeding the “crowds”, responding to challenges by the church as they questioned him and he questioned the church. Mark 8:22, he heals a blind man using his spit to make mud … again shaking the cultural and religious foundations by using something unclean to bring cleanliness and inclusion.

So we pick up right after that. Mark 8:27-38. I invite you to follow along on the screen this morning.
27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" 28 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." 29 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. 31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." 34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life [b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? 37 Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? 38 If any of you are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Jesus is on the road with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asks his followers, “Who do people say that I am?” What’s the word on the street? What are people Twittering about me?

The disciples answer, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets” (v. 28). Then Jesus makes it personal, and asks, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers him, “You are the Messiah,” a term which means “anointed one,” the divinely chosen leader of the people.” This answer is perfect, but Jesus is keenly aware that many people are looking for a military Messiah — God’s Commander in Chief — to drive the Romans out of Jerusalem and restore the kingdom to Israel. Jesus starts to again counter those perceptions with a teaching that makes it less about the church and more about the world. And that’s why Jesus begins to teach them that the Son of Man “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (v. 31). To be the true Messiah, Jesus has to undergo suffering, death and resurrection — there’s just no way around it. So the role of Jesus requires a cross before a crown.

And he expands his teaching after that to say, if you want to be a part of this … you too will have to choose a cross. You too will have to not only decide what I mean to you, but you too will have to choose whether you are willing to give up your life for the sake of the Gospel. When you discover who I am, when you accept you I am … when your testimony is on your lips, will that translate to your life and are you willing to live it?

This constant growth in the church up until the 1960’s brought some complacency … and instead of people choosing Jesus Christ it became a matter of being Christian because you were born into it. Jose Luis, our missionary contact in Juarez talk about his frustration of being a protestant in Mexico while Catholicism is not only the predominant faith, but it is the only faith recognized politically and socially. He will tell you that people are Catholic in Mexico by tradition, not choice. So the independence and freedom of the 1960’s led many people to question the establishment of institutions such as the government and even their own faith. And there was this sudden sense of choice found in a new found freedom in the Baby Boomers.

But this is no different than what we find in the Gospel. Jesus comes forth and says you know … there is a line now … if you want to follow me … you have to make a choice and live it. We have heard Jesus tell us over and over to take up your cross …what that perhaps means for us today is that deeper discipleship is found when we choose the cross for ourselves to carry. Which is fantastic for the sake of the church. So membership declines? What we learned from the 1960’s was that the church needed to be in the mode of making disciples rather than members and that the church was to be about doing the Gospel in the world as opposed to being the Gospel and expecting the world to come to us. Some look to the 60’s as the death of God .. I see it as a rebirth of discipleship that allowed those born to be wild to discover who Jesus Christ was for them.

It’s no wonder that Faith UMC, here found success in it’s first decade because of the openness of the church and the willingness to allow people to be guided to discover Jesus Christ for themselves. And that is in our DNA today as a congregation because the social and theological and political scale is so diverse here that it is something to be celebrated today. Who do you say I am? Not by tradition, or by what others tell, but how have you chosen to follow Jesus Christ?
So when we hear about social change and after the assassination of a social change icon like Martin Luther King, Jr …then there is a touch upon our hearts.

For my mother, these people questioned an establishment that she felt took her own independence. My mother’s parents, especially her father represented an establishment that my mother truly struggled with. On matters of racism and sexism, my very white grandfather ruled the roost. Every Sunday morning, when she was in grade school, a white bus pulled up to the front of the house and my mother and her siblings filed onto the bus and were in the Pentecostal church a good part of the day until the bus brought them home. There wasn’t any independence for her and when she graduated … her dad got married and found their own place in life.

But it wasn’t until much later in life when her faith started to mean something to her. My father was the same way …put on a bus to attend church .. but he had no siblings to go with him and it wasn’t until shortly before his death that he chose Jesus Christ.

Who do you say I am? We have to answer that question for ourselves … and there is a freedom around that which is found in our experiences as spouses and children and parents and employees and in servanthood. Who do you say I am? That Jesus calls us all to different passions and places of servanthood and discovery in our faith. Who do you say I am? Is a question that tradition can only partially answer, but our profession found in experience raises our faith to a new level. Who do you say I am? The lives we live in our geographical locations and the history of events that surround us lead us to not only question who God is …but also leads us to live a life that is dedicated to Gospel living and doing.

May God grant us … a grace and dedication and profession this day as we discover for ourselves … who do we say Jesus is.

In Jesus Name, Amen.