Last month the 28th Olympics in the modern era was held in Athens, Greece and drew 10,500 athletes from 202 countries. We have also the Paralympics games for the physically challenged. Maybe soon we could have a Gay Pride Olympics with all the training that some of you are having in fitness centres and the upgrading of your appearances that Jamie mentioned last Sunday. Not upgrading Jamie but makeover and for some extreme makeovers. However, there is a story of the first Olympic games of the animals in the primeval forests. In sharp contrast there were only four events staged – climbing, running, swimming and flying The further contrast is that there were only four animal athletes – squirrel, rabbit, frog and bird,.

On a nice sunny day in the forests the game began. When the participants were flagged off for the climbing event we find the squirrel scampering quickly up the tree. The bird was just flapping her wings and stayed on the ground, the rabbit was hopping two steps up and falling two or three steps down. The frog could not wrap his hind legs around the tree and kept sliding. The squirrel secured the gold medal in the climbing event. For the running event the rabbit was jumped first off the block and crossed the finishing line. In the swimming the frog left the rest splashing in the water and emerged the winner. In the flying event of course the bird came out with flying colours. What is the moral of the story, “You should’nt fly when you don’t have wings. When you get into a team of diverse animals and share the individual skills you will have a dream team capturing all the gold medals for all the different events.”

A few weeks ago my wife and I were invited by Eileena of Redqueen to an Art Exhibition at the Pelangi Pride Center in Rowell Road. I saw a very diverse group of people in the Centre and some of them with different and colourful hairstyles. There were about thirty or forty cramped in that small space and supporting one another as they faced their common situation including the problem of HIV/Aids. They found a common social space and a safe haven. It is a more diverse group than we have here in FCC. I did not recognize anyone there who has been to FCC. They have people of different religions, those who have abandoned their religions and those who do not have any religious affiliation. In that evening there was a creative group displaying their artistic pieces in various forms of visual art and poetry.

It all began in 1998 with Eileena posting on a website and inviting those lonely lesbians to come and get connected in a safe place. It soon attracted 1,000 on the email list. They responded because they needed help and wanted company. So Redqueen organized events and more importantly they found a space to meet and affirm one another. They saw their true selves in The Looking Glass, a counseling programme. They informed themselves in gay and lesbian books from the Library and attended teaching sessions. What an important service you have rendered Eileena.

Earlier this week some of us were delighted with the presentation by Brother Mike Broughton on Catholicism. We were entertained and what is more important enlightened by what he said. His style which was like a standup comic kept us laughing that evening by the way he described the serious theological issues that we face today. But what he said was significantly important and I agree with almost all of it even though he is Catholic and I am Protestant and his performance is quite different from mine. He blends in well with this stage setting here in the Attic. Domic with his creative and literary skills has written a full and accurate report of the presentation with the captivating title “Mad over Madonna” and the clever subtitle “In my Baba’s House” Which Brother Mike described his Catholic Church.

We as Christians can be rather exclusive at times and we have a tendency to exclude those who do not share our views. Of course we are more comfortable with our friends and less hospitable to strangers. For instance, have we shown enough concern with the situation that there are disproportionately so many more male than female in our congregation. You wouldn't cut off you left hand because it is the opposite of your right. Then why should we cut off our sisters because they may be more emotional. You wouldn't cut off your nose because it is too high. Then why should we cut off our brothers because they seem to be so patriarchal.

It is necessary for us to reach out and embrace those who are different from us.

We also have one exclusive form of worship without giving space to other forms of worship as if ours is only one true form of praising God. Both the formal and the informal, the traditional and the contemporary cater to different people. Charismatic worship is actually not contemporary or new. It has an ancient lineage as much as traditional worship.

It is important that we respond to the different spiritual needs of people.

I have gone encountered this situation when I was assigned to work in Christ Methodist Church in Katong after the Rev George Wan tried to resist his transfer out by whipping up the charismatics to support his stay. The congregation was split and I was sent to bring them together as one congregation in spite of their differences. It was no easy task. I was vindicated when one of the strong charismatic leaders came around a few years later and regarded me again as a friend. We must not crowd out or isolate the other. One needs to appreciate and respect one another’s differences.

Look back the corridors of history to the situation in the Greek city of Corinth. Corinth was a great metropolitan city even in those early days in the first century Common Era. It was situated in a bustling trade route between east and west. The port was nearby and many ships docked there. People from all over the world stopped there. It is like what we have in Singapore when we have more international tourists coming through annually than the people residing here. Corinth too had residents and visitors of many different nationalities attracted by commerce and trade. People travelling from all over the world found it a flourishing center for trade. People from both Rome and the East established businesses there Corinth was a cosmopolitan city.

Paul, the first Christian missionary came to Corinth around Year 50 Common Ear. He founded the church and through his letters we find the church reflecting the composition of the city. It included Jews and Gentiles. Many of Paul's converts were from the lower classes but some were wealthy. There were slaves and the free, the rich and the poor. The Corinthian church had within it diverse people.

The little Christian community Paul established had problems arising from its diverse nature. Paul was writing to a congregation that's pretty much splintered, they're struggling in a very multi-cultural, multi-racial, religiously pluralistic city. Jews and Greeks are not an easy mix. The Greeks hated those cliquish, self-righteous Jews. And the Jews couldn't stand those pagan Greek. Again, Greek culture and Hebrew culture are so different. One is occidental, the other is oriental. The Greeks were people of the head, Jews were people of the heart. The Greeks think linearly, Jews think poetically. There were people from the East and people of color from the South. The free people looked down on the slaves. Some Jews refused to sit in the same place to eat with the Gentiles. Even at their church family night suppers the rich would feast while the poor had to wait until they finished and at times left nothing for the poor who had to go away hungry.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, this diversity spelled trouble and disunity even in the Church. The Christian church in Corinth was divided into theological camps. It wasn't just the nationalities of the people that were varied, but also their means of religious expression. People were arguing about everything. Even then, there were so-called liberals and conservatives, moderates and fundamentalists. There were Jewish believers and Gentile believers. Jews despise the Gentiles because the Jews knew the Hebrew Bible better.

In their community in Corinth other spiritual gifts were represented. Some speak in tongues and they were the charismatics.. Some people had a gift for understanding God's will, they were prophets. Some had a gift for interpreting the Bible they were preachers and teachers And the prophets thought everyone else should stop and consider what God wanted. But all their gifts were important to the life of the church. They all contributed to glorification and praise of God.

So Paul writes carefully these words of advice: "There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit . . . varieties of service but one Lord, varieties of activities but one God . . . to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good . . .in the one Spirit we are all baptized into one body–Jews or Greek, slaves or free."

Often people are slow to accept those different from themselves, and the Corinthian Christians were no different. Paul knew that the diversity of the Church was its strength. And he found a beautiful way to explain it to the Corinthians. He said the church is a body. The church is the body of Christ. A body it is made of many different parts. Every part is necessary. A body needs different organs to perform different vital functions. And without all the organs functioning the body would die. In a body, diversity or form and function are a matter of survival. Every part of the body needs every other part.

The heart of Paul’s argument–and this is both new theologically and also basic to the Christian faith–is that diversity is God’s idea. Diversity is God’s gift to the church. Diversity is part and parcel of God’s good creation. Diversity is good. The one who is different is God’s gift to you. It is rooted in the very character of God. And so to deny it, to treat people differently, to do violence to people, to oppress, on the basis of their otherness, is not simply an affront; it is a denial of the reality and love of God. It is that fundamental.

Roy Clements has an article in his website on “Diversity in the modern church.” He mentioned how ice is a kind of parable of human society. When God freezes water what does he make? He makes snow. Examine one of those snowballs under the microscope and you will find it is composed of millions of tiny crystalline flakes - and every one of those snowflakes is different... a unique individual. What do you get when human beings freeze water? Ice-cubes! Identical blocks of boringly homogeneous uniformity! God loves diversity. He has structured the whole universe to express the delight he takes in it. And nowhere more so than in his creation of the human race. Everyone of us is a unique individual too, and in far more complex and beautiful ways than snowflakes are

There is, in God’s kingdom–and therefore there must be in God’s church–a place for everybody. It is a heresy when they regard themselves as the church for the saints and not for the sinners as well. Furthermore, diversity is for the common good and according to God’s intent and purpose.

We see Jesus in his own ministry reaching out to the racially and ethnically marginalized to those who are religious and physically unclean in his day – the Samaritan woman for example. It was Jesus who welcomed at his table those who were different–the poor, the sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors.

It is the same Jesus who comes close to each one of us when we feel marginalized, shunned, shut out, and assures us that we are all one in Christ. And it is the same Christ who challenges each of us to move out of our comfort zone and to get rid of the fear factor. Like Christ we are to reach out to those who are different and to open up our hearts and lives and arms to all in this beautiful rainbow community of multicolored, multifaceted, multi-raced and multicultural diversity of God’s good creation.

Each brings a special gift to the community. Other people come to the Bible with different experiences and they see things differently. Together we search and try to understand the message of the Bible. Different perspectives help us to clarify our own views must not crowd out the other and learn to respect one another’s differences.

As you can imagine I am trying very hard to accommodate others who think, worship and act differently from what I am used to. I need to continue to learn and regard all are gifts from God. They are all vital to our religious life and spiritual understanding. .

We, like the Corinthians, have a lot to learn. And God has provided for us the means to learn what we need to know. It is in one another, each of us has a gift to offer the others. In a community like we have here we must mutually accept all our brothers and sisters in spite of our individual differences.

It is to the Book of Ephesians that we take this further and move from diversity to community. Paul wrote in 2:19-22: “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are into it a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

The household suggest the community. We must be willing to create spaces and places in our lives and community that allow a sense of belonging to one another. Only such genuine "belonging" can fill that void and isolation we experience inside each of us. That is why the cell group or the support group is so important. We live in isolation to our peril and we move into community for our survival especially when we face rejection from society.

Christians are called to belong to a community for mutual benefit and survival. When my son in Orlando faced the onslaught of the tornadoes, the members of the community helped one another to sandbag their homes to prevent flooding and straighten up the trees that have been slanted by the strong winds, they gel together as a community when facing a common crisis.

Any community of people will sometimes let you down, challenge your ideas, and cause you disappointment. We discover things about ourselves that we didn't know and need to learn in order to grow and develop. We have to admit that there are times that we will let people down, and they let us down. We have to embrace the idea that being part of a community is never static but always a dynamic and evolving relationship. When we belong somewhere, we have a greater security and sense of connectedness that is not broken by discord.

It is well that we recognize community in the midst of this diversity. It is a concern then as it is now in our modern, twenty-first century. In fact, it is an issue the church has wrestled with - and not always successfully - throughout its 2,000 year history. It became the first divisive issue in the life of the church when the first Christians had to face the question of whether to admit non-Jews to membership in the nascent Christian community. Few then can conceive that this great divide can be breached. It was an explosive issue in the emerging communities of faith that Paul had established. The faithful Jews seeing themselves as God’s chosen people wanted to draw the line rigidly - to resist and exclude the Gentiles from their fold. The imperative as Paul understood it has to do with calling the church to remember that in every nation, as Peter found himself telling Cornelius, all those who fear God and do what is right are accepted and embraced in the community.

The inclusiveness of the community is the litmus test of Christian seriousness about the Christian message. The existence of Free Community Church calls into question the nature of the Christian community. How inclusive is the Church? How affirming is the church to people who are different? How reconciling is the Church to differences. You have a unique responsibility and a distinctive mission to fulfill in that direction of embodying this factor of diversity in the life of a congregation. It is almost as if down through the ages the key question with which the church has been confronted is not the correctness of its belief but absolutely fundamental issue of whether the church will be courageous enough and faithful enough to transcend the artificial boundaries that we humans create and erect in every other realm of our existence - boundaries of nation, partitions of race, walls of culture, fences of ethnicity, barriers of gender, levels of class, and closets of sexual orientation. Can the church, can FCC soar above these man-made social divisions and become God's children living lives of love and doing acts of service as diverse people in our human community. Let us come together to celebrate diversity and labour together build community. So help us God.

Let us pray:

God of all creation, you are a great and gracious God, and you have in Creation your diversity. We praise you for the mosaic that you have laid here on earth. We also confess Lord, that it makes us uncomfortable and yet challenging. So we thank you that you are sovereign and we pray that this church would continue to be a place where Christians of all walks of life, every race and nation, tribe and tongue, gender and orientation can find its place of servanthood for Jesus' sake. And we lift our prayer now, in Christ’s name. Amen.