To the Session of First Presbyterian Church of Griffin

Tonight as I lay in my bed before turning out the lights for sleep, I finished a book over which I have been laboring for a number of weeks. The book is a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor who was executed in the last days of World War II. After the war in Europe was over and it became clear to his family and friends that he had not survived his imprisonment by the Nazis, an English clergyman and friend held a memorial service in London for him and all those who had died in Europe opposing Hitler and the Nazis. In the book I was reading, the author quoted the memorial sermon of the pastor, which was based on a quote from 2 Chronicles
20:12, "Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee." At the end of the sermon, the pastor referenced the familiar lines from the Apostles' Creed as follows:

Yet our eyes are upon Thee. We believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting....."

As I read these words, it occurred to me that God was sending a message through this sermon delivered sixty six years ago. The phrase 'communion of the saints' lept out to me from the page. In these times of strife and economic hardship, we are particularly called to the communion of saints. I am no theologian or Bible student. I do understand that the communion of saints refers more to our ultimate reunion with those who went before, but tonight I read that phrase in a broader mode as I considered how I fit into the communion of saints in Heaven as well as on earth today.

Two years ago this past July, my father passed away in Dunwoody. As we prepared for the memorial service at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Sandy Springs, I was thinking more of my family traveling up from Florida and down from Tennessee and the members of the church and community who were friends with my parents or knew me from my time as a boy growing up in Dunwoody and in Sunday School. As the afternoon of the memorial service arrived, I was gratefully surprised to see members of our church family in Griffin coming up the walk to the narthex of the church, sitting in the pews I grew up in and sharing words of comfort and consolation with me at the reception.

I perhaps felt no greater connection to this communion of saints since Kate was baptized and later confirmed. I will always be grateful to those couples who came up from Griffin to support me and the rest of my family. It was a moment of touching communion with my brothers and sisters and an outpouring of their love.
When I think of 'the communion of saints' it is hard to break free of my memory of that afternoon gathering in Sandy Springs.

But now I fear we as a congregation are suffering from a weakness in the communion of the saints. For some time now, we have suffered from a feeling of the loss of connection with our friends here. The first time occurred when Cindy developed pneumonia and was missing from church for several months. No one called. No one asked me where she was when I was in church. People who we had been very close with throughout the years were absent.

Today, so many of my friends are now going to other churches. I don't see any great effort to reach out to them. There seems to be a lack of effort to preserve our sense of communion. I confess that I, like many of us, share responsibility for this break in the fabric of our communion. We all must consider how we can reach out to others in our community. I think if we are to preserve the mission of this church, we must pray and work to strengthen the communion of the saints. I understand that there are many reasons why people leave the church. I understand that Americans are culturally individualistic by nature.

But when we speak the creed, we state that we believe in the communion of the saints. The passage from 2 Chronicles instructs us to look to Jesus. In one of his parables, Jesus told his disciples that the shepherd would leave his flock to ensure the safety of the lost lamb. Are we not called to search for the lost lambs of our congregation? This church has been a shining light in this community and the world. God calls us to see after the lost lambs wherever they might be. We must make an effort to preserve the communion of the saints as we acknowledge in our creed. Amen