God’s Love Poured Out
What Sets Us Apart
Romans 5:1-5
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. June 12, 2022
In his autobiography Brother to a Dragonfly, Baptist minister Will Campbell tells the story about a conversation he had with a former newspaper editor who would chide him with the question “And what’s the state of the Easter chicken, Preacher Will?” Finally, one day, Will Campbell asked him what he meant. The man explained, “You know, Preacher Will, that Church of yours and Mr. Jesus is like an Easter chicken my little Karen got one time. Man, it was a pretty thing. Dyed a deep purple. Bought it at the grocery store.”
He explained how over time the chicken, which made his wife very happy, began to feather out and the purple mixed with red plumage. He put the chicken in the coop with the others, but the other chickens didn’t accept it. Because the Easter chicken was different. They knew it, and the easter chicken knew it. They’d peck at it, and wouldn’t let it roost with them. But over time that chicken began to change. It the dyed feathers disappeared, it looked and acted just like any other chicken.
So Will asked the man, “Well, the Easter chicken is still useful. It lays eggs, doesn’t it?”
And then came the punchline: “Yea, Preacher Will. It lays eggs. But they all lay eggs. Who needs an Easter chicken for that? And the Rotary Club serves coffee. And the 4-H Club says prayers. The Red Cross takes up offerings for hurricane victims. Mental Health does counseling, and the Boy Scouts have youth programs.”
Same goes for the Church. What sets us apart from the Rotary, 4-H, Red Cross, Mental Health, and Boy Scouts? What is the particular place and purpose of the Church? What do we do, what are we about, that cannot be found in any other voluntary organization? That cannot be found in any social service?
It is easy to fall into the rut of seeing the Church as the sum of its programming. The Church feeds the poor. The Church is a place to raise children in morality. The Church offers a place for recovery and healing. But that can’t be it. All of that can be part of it. But it can’t be the sum of it.
Paul helps to draw us back to the core of what makes the Church the Church in our reading from Romans this morning. “Therefore,” he writes, “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is the first point that sets us apart. We are set apart by the gospel we proclaim in word and deed. We are that society that proclaims Jesus victorious over sin. We proclaim that by his cross we are forgiven. By his resurrection we may know life and may have peace with God. We also proclaim, “through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” We not only proclaim the forgiveness of God, but also his grace. Not just to forgive, but to heal. To transform. And we proclaim the life eternal, sharing in the glory of God.
That is one way we are set apart, the things we teach. But there is a second way we are set apart, a second way we are the easter chicken and not just any other ordinary chicken. Or at least, a way we ought to be set apart. Paul writes, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
We are also the people who have been gifted the Holy Spirit, the presence of God in our midst. And that Holy Spirit is the love of God poured into our hearts. That one love is shared among us. So we are that society gathered in the presence of God, held by the bonds of love. That love, the fellowship and support, ought to also characterize the society of the Church. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “if you love one another.”
Here then are two characteristics that make us easter chickens, not just any old ordinary chickens. We are set apart by the good news we proclaim: Jesus crucified and risen. The forgiveness of our sins. The grace of God. Eternal life. And all of this not of our own doing, but sheerly by God’s work for us. Out of love for us. And we are also separated by that love, the Spirit poured into our hearts that binds us. That we may show in the love and forgiveness we share among one another God’s love to a world that needs to see and not just hear.
Without the proclamation, without the Spirit, the Church becomes just another social club or social service. It is God in our midst that sets us apart, because God has set us apart. It is Christ we have to offer the world.