Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
September 15, 2002 ² Launch Sunday
Genesis 12:1-3; Acts 3:25
I have shared with you before a cartoon which shows a church with a bulletin board out front announcing….The Lite Church:
24% fewer commitments
7.5% tithe
15 minute sermons
45 minute worship services
Only 8 Commandments – your choice
EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED IN A CHURCH…AND LESS
No you can’t sign up for that church today! But it certainly is one way to view church – on the periphery, not asking too much, not doing too much, not getting in the way, not challenging us or pushing any of our buttons, just kind of there when we need it. The ultimate consumer church. Church Lite!
But there are other views of church. Dan Wakefield, in his book, Returning: A Spiritual Journey, writes, “Going to church, even belonging to it, did not solve life’s problems – if anything, they seemed to escalate around that time – but it gave me a sense of living in a larger context, of being part of something greater than what I could see through the tunnel vision of my personal concerns. I now looked forward to Sunday because it meant going to church; what was once strange felt now not only natural, but essential.” Church and faith and worship, not at the periphery of life, not just there when it is convenient, but rather at the core of life, at the essential center.
Now, considering what I do for a living, you might guess that I’m not too fond of the “lite church” model, although it would certainly leave me with more time for fishing. I’m much more fond of thinking of the church as being located at the essential middle of each of our lives - faith and life, Word and deed, linked together, you can’t have one without the other.
I like this true story told by Robert Coles in his book, The Spiritual Life of Children. He writes about Ginny, a young girl from a poor family, who is bright, articulate, imaginative and has a keenly developed spirituality. Writes, Coles, “One day Ginny was walking home and along the way encountered an elderly woman who seemed lost and confused. Ginny asked the woman if she needed help, and the woman responded with relief, ‘If you could, that would be wonderful.’ Ginny discovered that the woman had been walking to visit her daughter, but had gotten disoriented. She showed Ginny the written directions she had, and Ginny knew immediately where she had gotten lost and where she needed to go. Although Ginny was now late for her home chores, she sensed that getting this troubled stranger safely to her destination was the chore she most needed to be doing. She traveled with her, talked gently to her, listened to her as the woman spoke of the pain of her life, and safely guided her to her daughter’s house.
“When they arrived and Ginny started to leave, the woman grasped her arm and announced that God had sent Ginny to her and that later she would pray a prayer of thanks to God for having Ginny there. The woman then gave her a kiss.
“On the way home, Ginny wondered what it would be like to be old, wondered if she were old and in need, if God would send some kid like her to help. ‘Maybe God puts you here,’ Ginny thought, ‘and gives you these hints of what’s ahead, and you should pay attention to them, because that’s God speaking to you.’
Concludes Coles, ‘There on the road, as a young girl helped a stranger in need, performing the chore she knew most needed to be done, the presence of God became a local issue.”
Enabling the presence of God to be a local issue, here and now, in people’s daily lives. That is what the church needs to be about, that is what puts the church at the essential center, which is where it needs to be. And it’s much too important a job for church lite. But how to do it?
God calls Abraham and a part of that call is this: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Peter, in his Pentecost sermon, reminds the people, many of them new converts to Christianity, of their Old Testament heritage, telling them that since they are descendants of Abraham, the call of Abraham now applies to them. They are now the ones through whom, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ” We are their descendants; the call now extends to us. Ready or not, we are called to be the bearers of God’s blessing to “all the families of the earth.”
Okay, but just what does that mean? What is this “blessing” we are called to be? Lewis Mudge, a retired professor of theology down at San Anselmo, talks about blessing with these words: “To ‘ask’ a blessing, as we do before meals, is to ask God’s favor, God’s empowering presence, for who we are and what we do. After worship we pray a benediction: ‘The Lord bless us and keep us; the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us; the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us, and give us peace.’ These words, better than any dictionary definition, tell us what a blessing is. It is a powerful, providing, peacemaking, benediction; it is trusting that God’s favor enables our well-being. We are called, in our manner of life, to be such a benediction – a blessing - to our fellow human beings.”
Being a blessing, bringing the blessing. Something to think about on this Launch Sunday, this day when we begin a new program year. Do we want to do that? How are we going to do that?
Over the years, I have often asked people what they look for in a good sermon. The predominant responses usually sound something like this: “I like a sermon that helps me to think about things in a new way…I like a sermon that engages my mind, that leads me, challenges me to deeper thinking and reflection, that helps me grow in my faith.” I like those responses. When I am at my best, I like to think I preach engaging, thoughtful sermons, sermons that are more than background noise while you mentally make your Sunday shopping lists. And when I visit in another church, these are the kinds of sermons I like. And yet, is that all there is? Are worship and preaching just sitting, listening, and taking in? Have you ever said or heard something like this: “I think of church as a filling station. I come here empty, and during the service I get filled so that I can make it through another hard week.” And there is nothing wrong with that. I’ve often said it myself and it is my hope that weekly worship can do just that for each of you.
And yet, again, is that all worship is? In the words of one colleague, “We deceive ourselves into thinking that we have done the faith when we have merely listened, reflected, pondered, agreed. No, the test for good worship, the mark of a good church, is not what we do here, during this hour of worship; it’s what we do outside these doors for the rest of the week. The world is quite right in judging the truth of the gospel on the basis of the sort of lives the gospel is able to produce.” I think of the old saying, “When all is said and done, there is usually more said then done.” Are we a blessing? Do others experience through us something of God’s benediction? Like young Ginny in the story I shared earlier, in the way we encounter each other, in the way we treat each other, in how we listen and talk to each other, do we make the presence of God a local issue? Do we bring the blessing? While the world says, “I will be there if nothing else comes up,” can we be a people who simply say, “I will be there.”
Preaching professor, Tom Long, tells this true story: “Many years ago, I spoke with one of the church leaders who was arrested during a time of particularly harsh oppression in South Korea. He had just been released from a Korean prison where he has served a two-year term as a political prisoner. What was his crime? Preaching and teaching the kingdom of God. He told me that conditions in the prison were so grim that he began to lose hope. Day after day, he found his faith ebbing away. He stopped studying the Bible, he stopped praying, and he stopped hoping and believing. Every few weeks, the government would march him back into a courtroom to give him the opportunity to renounce his political and theological views. Finally, after months of deprivation, he had decided to give in – to recant.
“When they brought him into court, he was surprised to see his wife and several members of his church sitting in the gallery. He had not seen her for months, and the tears welled in his eyes. The judge told him to stand up and called on him to renounce his ‘traitorous’ views. He stood wearily, ready to recant, when suddenly he heard his wife and his Christian friends saying with one voice, ‘God is alive! God is alive!’ It was all they were able to say, for quickly they were removed from the courtroom. But it was enough. He sat down without betraying his faith, renewed in his confidence that God is, indeed, alive.
“I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing.” It is my hope that on this Launch Sunday, along with everything else, we are launching a year of blessings. Perhaps it won’t be quite as dramatic as what happened in that Korean courtroom. It may be as simple as sitting with someone who needs a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on. But in the days, weeks and months ahead, I suspect – I know - that each of us will have the opportunity to bring the blessing, to make God alive, to make God local in the life of another. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by. It is our call. It is our blessing. And as Ginny discovered on that dusty country road, it is the chore that most needs to get done.