What God Wants This Church to Do
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
September 13, 2009 Launch Sunday
Matthew 28:16-20
On this Launch Sunday, 2009, it seems appropriate to begin with some reflections on church, but first, a story told by Fred Craddock. Some of you have heard this before. He writes, "On one of my trips some time ago, I arrived at the place where I was supposed to hold services on Friday evening, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning.” (They are serious about church in the South!) “When I pulled into the parking lot of the church, a funeral was concluding. People were moving to their automobiles, the hearse was still there. The minister saw me, recognized me and motioned for me to come over. He was standing next to the widow. I didn’t want to intrude. I felt awkward. He introduced her, he introduced me. I said to her, ‘This is no time for you to be meeting strangers. I’m sorry and I’m really sorry about your loss.’ Her husband had been killed in an automobile accident and left her with four children. I said, ‘I know this is a difficult time for you.’
“She said, “Yes it is. So I won’t be at the services tonight, but I’ll be there tomorrow night and I’ll be there Sunday morning.’
“I said, ‘Oh you don’t need to.’
“‘Oh yes I do,” she answered.
“I said, “Well, what I meant was that it’s a very hard time for you.’
“And she said, ‘I know it’s hard. It’s already hard. But you see, this is my church and they’re going to see that my children and I are okay.’”
And this, shared with me some time ago by our own John Simmons. The young man had wild hair, a T-shirt with holes in it, ragged jeans and no shoes. He was a student at the local college. Truly someone who walked to the beat of a difference drummer, but also someone who was very bright and who really wanted to learn more about this Jesus fellow. Across the street from the college was an upper-middle class church, somewhat conservative, well-dressed, and pretty mainstream. They had talked for years about developing a campus ministry, but had never found the right formula. One Sunday, the young student, named John, decided to pay the church a visit.
He walked in wearing his standard uniform – no shoes, jeans, ragged T-shirt and wild hair. The service had begun, the church was packed – no visible room in any pew. John worked his way down the middle aisle, looking for a seat. Needless to say, he attracted just a bit of attention. People who looked like him never attended this church. He got closer and closer and closer to the pulpit, still finding no where to sit. And so, finally, he just sat down on the carpet near the front. Well, things like this never happened in this church on a Sunday. Never. You could feel the tension in the air.
Then from the back, one of the ushers – long time church member, in his eighties, three piece suit, pocket watch, silver hair, very dignified, very traditional - this usher began slowly making his way the middle aisle to the front, where John was sitting on the floor. Everyone in the now silent church could hear the click of the old man’s cane as he walked down the aisle. All eyes were focused on him. They knew this man, they knew what he would think of an unkempt college kid sitting on the floor of his church. Whatever was about to happen couldn’t be good.
It seemed to take forever for him to reach the young man. Total silence, even the minister had stopped and was watching. What would happen? Finally, when he reached the front, the old man dropped his cane and with great difficulty – three piece suit and all – got down, sat on the floor next to the young man and looked up at the minister in the pulpit, ready for worship.
Well, when the minister finally regained his emotions, he said, “What I’m going to preach today, you are never going to remember. But what you have seen today, you will never forget.” That’s church!
And finally, this memorable - at least memorable for me – Doonesbury cartoon strip. Mike Doonesbury and “The Rev.” are standing outside the Little Church of Walden. Doonesbury asks, “So how’d your new church get started, Rev.?” He answers, “Aerobics.” “Aerobics?”
Says the Rev., “I needed something to attract folks from the community. The focus group suggested an aerobics class. It worked. So I added yoga and bingo, and then a new 12-step program, and then we opened a soup kitchen which led to cooking lessons. Before I knew it, I had my own denomination!”
Says Doonesbury, “So that’s how religion spreads!” Whatever works, I guess.
“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations…” The great commission, the final teaching of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew. And what are we going to do with it? What does it mean for us? Are you ready to go out there and start ringing doorbells? Stop people on the street and ask them if they are saved? How do we handle the Great Commission? How do we share the Good News? Today we have invited our neighbors, people in the Sebastopol community, to join us both for worship and our picnic after church. How do we share the good news of the Gospel with them? Just what does God want this church to do? Or for that matter, what is the good news we have to share? It’s got to be more than an aerobics class.
But first, it’s confession time, pastoral confession. When I’m traveling by myself on an airplane, or maybe I’m at a gathering where I don’t know anyone and they don’t know me, and someone asks me what I do for a living, I don’t always tell the truth. Sometimes I say that I help non-profits make money, which is sort of the truth. It just seems that whenever I tell a stranger that I’m a pastor, well, things just get weird. Usually two things happen. Often that person will proceed to tell me the many ways he or she and been hurt or disappointed by Christians and churches over the years, or, when they find I am a minister in the United Church of Christ – open and affirming and all that – they want to examine me to know if I’m really a Christian. Are you saved? Do you people really believe in the Bible? And so, often it’s easier just to keep quiet. Even for a minister, sharing the faith can be hard. But then I think back to that opening story. “This is my church and they are going to see to it that I and my children are okay.” I wonder, might her words have something to tell us about the sharing of the good news? She didn’t’ need a logical explanation of God’s love. She didn’t want any words. She had experienced it in the support and nurture of her church. She had seen the good news in action.
And it’s my hope and prayer, that as we look forward to a new church year, what she experienced in her church, we can experience in this church; that the love and care others saw happening in her church, our community will see happening in this church. Let’s not talk about the good news of God’s love. Let’s dare to make in happen right here, right now. It was T.S. Eliot who asked, “What life have you if you have not life together?” Of course, it has also been said that community is the place “where the person you least want to live with always seems to live.” But, again, isn’t that really where the spirit and inspiration of Christ come in – always walking us into each other’s lives, teaching us how to engage and even admire those who may think and live quite differently? That’s how it is in a community where people with a dizzying variety of backgrounds and experiences take an interest in the mystery and mess and truth of each other’s lives, learning, you might say, how to breathe together as God’s people.
And so, we need to let the world know, we need to let each other know, that we aren’t just play-acting when we come here on Sunday. Jesus isn’t just some kind of celebrity we like to talk about once a week. He did not come to be admired, he is here to be loved. He did not come to be used whenever it might be convenient, but to be listened to and followed. And this happens, good news happens, when we come together in a compassionate community that bridges differences of race, identity, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation. It happens when we genuinely care for each other, welcome diversity, encourage openness and creativity. And that is good news in a world that continues to worship the false gods of divisiveness, distrust, and us versus them.
And then one final thought about church and sharing the good news on this Launch Sunday. I’m always inspired by that story of the old, dignified usher, coming down, sitting on the floor with that student. For he truly was thinking and acting outside the lines, beyond the boundaries, and inviting the congregation to join him in considering a very different point of view. Maybe to take a risk – break new ground. And that is also sharing good news.
Hope Morgan Ward, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, shares this story: “As a volunteer for Special Olympics, I was the lane five coach. Two students approached the starting line. The gun went off. The race began. I coached the student in lane five toward me. Suddenly he slowed down, waiting for his friend. When his friend caught up they ran together, stride matching stride, until they crossed the finish line. ‘We tied!’ they shouted with joy. ‘We tied!’
“There was some consternation among the line judges. The scoring books had no place to record a tie. But the two boys continued to celebrate together, ‘We tied! We tied!’
Concludes Bishop Ward, “In a world where winners are expected, a new world was introduced on the wings of these young runners. A world where it is more blessed to run together than to win a race. Blest be the tie. Blest be the pure in heart. From time to time, we are graced with a glimpse into the world to come. And it is coming. It’s here.”
Well, that’s also how we share the good news. We announce and live out that new world acomin’…a world where it just might be more blessed to run together than to win.
During some of the darkest days of the Civil Rights Movement, days when it seemed like nothing was ever going to change, Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “If we are arrested every day, exploited every day, trampled over every day, don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate. We must use the weapon of love. We must have compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize that so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. But we stand in light at midnight; we are always on the threshold of a new day.”
Let this be a community of a new day, a community where we receive our identity, our commission, not from the market economy, not from the prophets of fear and division, not from a world still enamored with violence, but from the creator of heaven and earth, from the Prince of Peace; not from what appears safe and secure and easy, but from faithfulness and loyalty to the way of Christ. In the words of a colleague and friend, Rev. Steve Sterner, “It is always a risk to give up something that you’ve done for a long time, even if it’s not satisfying or fulfilling. It is always a risk to change an attitude or a life style. It’s always a risk to change the way you deal with other people and try to sole problems. But unless the risk is taken, you never come to the experience of not only seeing the light, but also living with others in the light.” Sometimes you meet the most interesting people when you sit together on the floor.
So what do you think, folks? As this new church year begins, are we ready to be a community of risk takers in the name of love, in the name of compassion, in the name of community, in the name of justice, in the name of God’s new world? Which is to ask, are we ready to be the church God calls us to be?