You’ve heard the one about the British soldiers. The order is whispered by the commander: “Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance!” But by the time the order is passed on from solider to solider it ends up as: “Send three and fourpence. We’re going to a dance!” What we say, and how we say it, and what we are heard to say matters.

Last spring during our Lenten series on the Church, Matthew Myers Boulton, Professor of Worship and Preaching at Andover Newton Theological School, said that Christianity is an argument.

I think what he was getting at is that, despite the claims of some, Christianity is not one, seamless, monolithic entity and never has been. There are many permutations of the Christian faith. God, Jesus, the Church, and the Bible are subjects about which we can and do disagree and argue.

As Christians we argue among ourselves about who and what Christianity is and means. Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox argue. Northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere Christians argue. Liberal and conservative Christians argue … and so do Pentecostals and evangelicals.

In addition to these internal or internecine arguments, from the beginning Christianity has had an ongoing outward argument with the world … a lover’s quarrel with the world. Christianity can’t help but pick an argument with the world … with the world’s ways of violence and nationalism.

Professor Boulton has a point when he says that Christianity is an argument. But let me try this out on you. What if we were to say instead, that Christianity is a conversation? It’s a least worth trying to converse before we escalate to the level of argument.

The story we heard from Mark’s Gospel this morning, the story of the Rich Young Man, unfolds as a conversation about salvation … a conversation between Jesus and the rich young man. If you look and listen carefully, however, you will detect additional voices, voices representing others who want in on this conversation.

For instance, the disciples are listening in on the conversation. Mark tells us they are variously perplexed, astounded and desperate to prove that unlike the rich young man, they have what it takes to inherit eternal life.

But there are yet more conversations partners gathered around this story. Mark, the Evangelist, added his voice when he committed the story to parchment.

This morning our Bible study participants conversed about this story. Right now, in pulpits across this country, preachers are preaching and teachers and teaching this story. The whole church is conversing today about this story.

But there are yet more conversation partners.

Different versions of this same story of The Rich Young Man are found in Matthew’s Gospel and in Luke’s Gospel. Biblical scholars believe that both Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark’s Gospel to work from. Neither of them chose to copy Mark’s Gospel word for word. On the contrary, they both chose to edit, embellish, and rearrange the story to suit their purposes. In this sense the four different Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – are evidence of a lively conversation between these four early evangelists.

If the church fathers wanted to end the conversation about Jesus and replace this conversation about Jesus, they would have found a way to pare the four gospels down to one gospel: one single, defining story about Jesus. Instead, we have four stories about Jesus. In other words, we have a conversation.

Christianity is a conversation.

A few weeks ago Bob Chase, from the UCC Office of Communication reminded us of an African proverb: “Until the lions can tell their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

The Christian church at its best has been about the business of inviting others into the conversation and giving voice to the voiceless … letting them tell their side of the story. When God said to Moses, “Let my people go!” God was giving voice to the voiceless and welcoming slaves to the table for conversation.

When Jesus engaged a Syrophoenecian woman and when he spoke to lepers, he was inviting the disenfranchised to the table to tell the story as they knew it.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. worked for voting rights for people of color, he was giving voice to the voiceless and inviting more people to the table for conversation.

If you look at it in a certain light, Jesus’ three-year trek throughout Palestine was one, long, extended conversation … admittedly it was interrupted by some rather heated arguments. What did Jesus and his conversation partners talk about? They talked about God, faith, food, health, wealth, marriage, divorce, caring for each other, salvation, prayer, the future, family, worship.

Today we have the joy and privilege of participating in and witnessing the Installation of Quinn Caldwell as the Associate Minister at Old South.

One of the gifts Quinn brings to Old South is the gift of his unique voice … the gift of his participation in this on-going conversation that is Christianity.

Quinn brings to the conversation a poetic facility with words … a love for words and a way with words.

 He also brings to the conversation the experience and the voice of a younger generation. For the most part, when Quinn is sitting at a meeting of a board or committee or task force he is the youngest person at the table. Quinn brings to this old church the voice of a new generation of Christians.

Quinn also brings the voice of the LGBT community to the table. That voice, once on the margins of our congregational life, is now at the center.

I dare say that Quinn did not know what he was going to face during his first year of ministry at Old South. Only a few months after Quinn started, my husband, Peter, became ill. Over and over again Quinn stepped in when, often without much notice, I stepped away. Over and over he rose to the occasion providing professional, pastoral leadership to Old South.

Today we install Quinn to this ministry. In some ways it is merely a formality as he has already won our hearts and earned our respect. But what we are doing here this morning is not just between Old South and Quinn. Tom Clough is here … an official representative from the wider United Church of Christ. Chris Braudaway-Bauman is here, a colleague in ministry, representing UCC clergy.

Their presence and participation reminds us that Old South is not just a cozy church family beholden only to ourselves. Rather, Old South is a Christian institution with a public ministry and a public voice. Since 1669 we have been engaged in, and we have shaped, a public conversation about the church, the nation and world.

            In her book about Old South Church, Ola Elizabeth Winslow wrote this: “Deep under the foundations of the three buildings that have housed its worshippers lie whole chapters of American history and the slow emergence of certain ideas and principles upon which this nation is built – liberty, freedom of conscience, human brotherhood.”

            Those ideas and principles emerged through conversation and argument. Since 1669 Old South has been at the heart and center of the public conversations that have shaped both nation and church.

            Next Sunday I will announce a new undertaking upon which Old South will be embarking … at the heart of that undertaking is a conversation about the next chapter in the story of Old South. It is a conversation in which we need your voices … and God’s voice.

Until then, let us celebrate this moment, this installation. The hymn we are about to sing, one of the great hymns of the church, was chosen by Quinn. Through the words of the hymn we ask God to grant us wisdom and courage for the facing of this hour, for the living of these days; wisdom and courage to make our broken spirits whole; wisdom and courage in the quest for liberty.

Such wisdom and such courage are only available as the church of Jesus Christ converses, widely and often, deeply and passionately about the church, the nation and the world.