A SENT PEOPLE
Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Mark 1:14-20
[Since spoken communication differs from written, some of the grammar and syntax of this transcript may seem awkward in written form. To keep integrity with the spirit of the original delivery, the transcript seeks to stay close to the exact words spoken.]
My usual title for this sermon, on this particular Sunday that rolls around every year, this Sunday of our annual meeting, is The State of the Communion. It's a Sunday when we reflect together on what it means to be the church, and to reflect on the particular ministry of this church. So that's the scope of my sermon today--the state of the communion. And as I begin that, I want to begin where I left off in my sermon from last week.
As you'll recall, last Sunday I made the point, or one of the points I was trying to make, is a point that the theologian Karl Barth makes in his theology. I was trying to make the intentionally provocative assertion that Jesus came to destroy human religion. And I think I mentioned that I made that point during a guest teaching appearance at one of the classes at The Lawrenceville School. So I said during the class, "I believe Jesus came to destroy human religion" and then one of the more piquant students in the class said, "Well, who pays your salary then?" These students at The Lawrenceville School, you know...there's a reason that's one of the best prep schools in the country. So, you know, if Jesus came to destroy religion, why is it that I'm making my money, my living, off of religion? So maybe a little bit of clarification is in order here. As a jumping off point for our reflection about what it means to be the church.
Maybe it would be good to define religion in this way: human religion happens whenever there is an encounter with the Divine. Somehow the Divine, which is by nature beyond our reason--beyond our conceptualization, beyond time and space--somehow the Divine comes into the realm of the human, and our response to it is religion. And that's not bad in itself. But what happens inevitably, because of human weakness, and what we call sin, is that we try to box that encounter into our own human-sized box. We try to box God, who is incapable of being boxed in. We try to stick God into our human box, our human mode of conceptualization. And last week, literally, we were talking about how the ancient Israelite religion saw God in a box: in a place, a city, Jerusalem, and in a place, a temple, and in a box within that temple, called the Holy of Holies. And that text from Mark is about how, on the cross, God tore the veil of the Holy of Holies of the temple in two. Basically what God is saying on the cross is a no to our human box making--our human boxing-in of God. I hope that helps clarify what I was saying.
But here's a further irony that we need to keep in mind. You know, if Christ came to destroy our tendency to put God in a box through human religion, the paradox is this: we still need religion. So my paycheck is safe, you see? We still need people to bear witness to a God that says no to all our idol-making. And we need to be humble about any way in which we might be purporting to conceptualize God. You know, that's the tension in which we exist. Maybe a way to say it...maybe it boils down to this fairly simple point. (And we had a lot of discussion about this sermon topic last week, which is a great thing). Maybe it boils down to this: that we ought not confuse God with the church. We need not to fit God into even a church-sized box.
Right, so I think that's important. Because I know a lot of folks who've come into the ministry of this church who've been burned by the church. We can get into the mode of thinking that, this person is the church. I came into this church because this person's so dynamic, or because this program is so compelling, and so on. And when that person disappoints us, we think God is disappointing us. When that program is not quite so dynamic, we get disenchanted. And so people fall away from the church, because we confuse God with the church. The church has done a lot of damage through the years--God is not the church. So we always need to be humble about what it means to be the church. And especially so that we don't put God in our own church-sized box.
But here's the other side of this tension. We need to be humble but we also need to be bold. Because we believe as Christians, that the church is, in fact, the hands and feet of Christ. This is, we are the presence of Christ in the world. Do you get that? We together, you there, me here, all of us together with all of those everywhere who confess Christ as Lord and Savior...we are the presence of Jesus, right here and right now. Isn't that kind of awesome to think about? You know, we blithely say that we are the Body of Christ--everybody has a different function and purpose within that Body, as Paul says--but do we really get what that means? That because of the Holy Spirit working in and through us, we are Christ's presence here and now, through the ministry of the church.
And that's the point I want to make today. We need to be bold in saying, and believing, that we are the presence of Christ. Not because we are particularly gifted--yes, God has given us gifts--but it's because God equips us for that task. So we need to be both humble and bold as we think about what it means to be the church.
So this is really where I want to jump off in my sermon today, to talk about this particular church, and our ministry. I want to emphasize the idea that the church exists for mission. That we are a group of people sent out into the world, as Donald McKim says in this wonderful worship note that I shared with you in the bulletin--I hope you're reading those, by the way, the worship notes that we put in the bulletin. And we've of course, cribbed from Don McKim's desk a number of times. He says "the church is sent into the world to represent the reign of Christ on Earth." How we are together is meant to point to what heaven is like. And so he says that, "the church exists for mission as a fire exists for burning." We cannot be the church unless we see ourselves as a people sent by God, into the world, to represent the kingdom of God.
And we see that in our Scripture lessons today. That the church began not through a focus group, you know--let's get some people together to find out about the religious needs of people, and how we can meet them. It started with a couple people leaving behind their jobs to follow a human being, a person who turned out to be God in human flesh, their friend Jesus.
We read the story of Jonah, and we're going to reflect more on that in a sermon series coming up on hospitality. But Jonah's such a wonderful story, about how the agenda of God, the will of God, gets done even despite our willingness to do it. You know, Jonah is the reluctant prophet, because God says, "Go to Nineveh!" And he goes to Tarshish, the exact opposite direction. And he gets swallowed by a fish, and spit out, and finally goes to Nineveh, and does the minimum work, and all of Nineveh, the enemy, the arch-enemy of Israel...repents. So the good news for us is that it doesn't depend on us, and our brilliance, and our wonderful marketing plan, because God is working through us, as people sent, through the church, through our being the church, into mission. So the church exists for mission, as a fire exists for burning.
Several months ago I shared a pastor's letter...I always wonder, do people read those in the newsletter? You don't have to raise your hand now. But I knew that people read this one, because it kicked up a bit of dust. It was an article--you know, when I'm feeling lazy; I just share an article or something. And the point that this article from the Alban Institute was making was to call into question the notion that the church exists to meet your needs. It's a really big edge in the consumer-driven culture in which we're living where, you know, you can get any kind of coffee, in any sort of combination you want, and so on--in such a culture we can begin to think when it comes to church that it's all about us, and what we want out of church. We come here and we want these kind of things in our church experience. "Have it your way." And really, the author was calling onto question that mentality, and whether it's more faithful for people to come into churches understanding that we are a mission society. That we are called into the church through the master, who said, "The Son of Man comes not to be served, but to serve." That's the kind of mind we come here with: a servant's mind.
So do we come through these doors with that mentality? Thinking, "What am I doing as part of the body of Christ, to represent the kingdom of God? How am I serving?" And I think that's a different spin on how we then do get our needs met. Because we do come here with needs--we're trying to minister to each other's needs, to be sure. But if we're serving each other, everybody's needs get met in a different way.
I think it's like this--my image of two different...I won't say two different kinds of church, but two different ways of being church. I've experienced both ways of being church in the same church. But I think it's like this: it's like that story that I know many of us have heard before. But I think this describes it well. You know the story about the man who goes to sleep one night and he dreams of Hell. And in his dream of Hell, he dreams of this great big banquet hall, with wonderful gilded ceilings and beautiful paintings on the wall, and a banquet table with every delicacy imaginable--a feast. And the thing is, in this dream, everybody's starving in front of that feast because the spoons are too long to fit into their mouths. So they go hungry. And then the next night the man dreams of Heaven. He dreams of the same banquet hall, the same beautiful gilded ceiling and paintings on the wall, the same sumptuous feast in front of everybody, but in that dream people are full, because they feed each other.
I've experienced both modes of church. I've experienced the mode of church where, you know, the spoons are too long. And somebody needs to do something about that. Somebody needs to get a committee together to solve the spoon problem, because people are not eating! Have you experienced this? Maybe not just in church? I've also experienced churches where people--where things are not optimal--and things are never optimal in a church, and this year especially they're not optimal--but people feed each other.
I think that's where I want to begin this morning to talk about this year in ministry together. I guess that's a good image for us to keep in our heads this year. As I speak these words, this is the worst economic situation our country has been in, in decades. People have lost jobs. People I know about, and I think there are people I don't know about, who are suffering. Not just from the economy but from life--from illness, from sadness, from heartache. People are hurting. There's less money to go around. And the question for me is, then, how are we going to bear each other's burdens this year, in particular? That is what I think it means to be the church.
And so the question that I put to you is, how are we going to do that? How are we going to exhibit the kingdom of God? I want to lift up just a few things I think represent God working though us. In light of that, one of the things I want to make known is that the Session of this church has put together a group called The Help Team. It's a group consisting of representatives of each of our major boards, in case there is somebody in this congregation who is acutely affected by the economy. If somebody's going to lose their house, we don't want that to happen. That's a big thing. But I'm wondering if we can organize ourselves together to help someone in that situation bear that burden. So that's The Help Team. There's a group called Members Helping Members--if you've lost your job, there are people here willing to help write resumes, and help with networking. So that's one of the ways that we're going to help each other bear each other's burdens.
Something else I want to talk about, here, is the part of our budgeting and resources in this church that goes to those organizations doing ministry beyond our walls. The ministry that we don't directly support, like Crisis Ministry, and Isles, and Samaritan Baptist Church. It would be easy for us to balance our budget by cutting that, by slashing it. But if we're asking families to give sacrificially during these hard times, it would be bad for us not to model that, too. The leaders of the church worked hard not to cut that too much. We had to cut it some, but we feel good that we haven't cut essential things that help poor people in our community. You should thank Craig Pasko and the Mission Committee for that. But it's going to be a tough thing to do. We still need to raise funds, as Roberta Gernhardt referred to at the beginning of our worship. We're going to need to do a fundraiser or two to make that happen. But that's so important, that we give our resources away, as a way to model the Kingdom of God.
I want to lift up the music ministry, a few things in no particular order, and say thanks to Jim Moyer, and Martha Davidson. And Jim, our interim Music Director, has stepped in after Bryce left in such a marvelous way, and filled that position so well. And not just doing the minimum, but offering special music and special concerts. I just want to say I'm so proud of the music program, because it's not just offering music. You are doing ministry together. You are serving God through music, and ministering to each other. If you have a voice, and you want to experience community, I commend the choir to you, because they are a community of people that deeply cares about each other, and is in ministry. So thanks be to God for you.
Our Youth Ministry. I just want to point out a few things about some things--I'm going to leave things off the list, so I hope especially if you're a visitor, your eyes don't glaze over too much. Our Youth Ministry program is not just about having fun. Of course, we can't have a youth program without having fun, but the purpose of fun is to create disciples. So the Youth Ministry is about recreation, fun, as well as worship. And Worship in a New Key is part of the edge that we're exploring. A worship experience twice a month that's not just for youth, and their families, but for everyone--a new way of worshiping. That came out of our Youth Ministry. They also study the Word of God, and most importantly they're in service. They go to Trenton once a month, and deliver food--not to different people, the same people, so they can create relationships with them. And that's how we're discipling our young people.
Our Children's Ministry. When you see Robyn Campbell, give her a big pat on the back and a big hug, because she is working hard, and she's working more hours that she's paid for. I think the main thing I want to point out here is that we have more children enrolled in our mid-week LOGOS program and our Sunday school program than ever. Our enrollment is sort of at an all-time high. But, our Sunday School teaching corps is sort of all-time low. We need teachers, big time. So if anybody feels even the slightest call to the teaching ministry, just for one rotation, we could use you. We've made a promise to those children, that we would educate them in the way of Christ, in their baptism.
Fellowship and hospitality is so important to our community of faith. The Fellowship Committee has done incredible work connecting us all in many ways, after worship and at different times. One of the new things that they're going to be doing is a program called Dine With Nine. It's a great way, especially if you're new, to get to know other folks in the congregation.
The ministry of the Deacons. And Mary Alice's work is not exclusively focused on them, but her work is so excellent, and the leadership is so excellent in our Deacon ministry. There's so many unseen ways that they enable the ministry of hospitality and compassion. And you know what they're doing when you're sick or in the hospital, when you receive flowers, or a hospital visit. One of the things they've done is a more intentional effort to greet visitors, through the visitor table in the Fellowship Center.
In Adult Education, in addition to our usual Sunday forums, we're engaged in a new experiment called The Institute for Christian Living. In our first experiment with that in the Fall, enabled 80 people in different courses to study.
A few other things before I close. We celebrate the generosity of this congregation. We raised just shy of $1.2 million through our 310th anniversary Capital Campaign, thanks to the excellent leadership and the generosity of the congregation. And we had a good time doing it. I think the most fun I've ever had in this congregation--the best snapshots in my mind--were the people dancing at the Capital Campaign Gala last Spring. And we need to do more of that--maybe we will this year. We also need to celebrate the growth of our congregation. Last year at this time we had 832 members--this year we have 856. I was surprised by that. We see a lot of new faces, and of course, now the challenge is to integrate them into our ministry. We celebrate the work of unsung heroes in our ministry together, who are, and help us to be, the hands and feet of Christ. The work of volunteers who come together to care for our buildings and grounds, through such things as painting hallways, cleaning up the grounds, planning building projects, troubleshooting IT problems in the church office. Jim Stocking helps us with that for nothing. Running the sound systems on SundayóJim Stocking, and Jen Fowler who also transcribes the sermons, does that. We have our Parish Associate, a professional minister, also mows the lawn every week without fail--Tom Baker. Betty Penrose, polishing the brass. Tom Baker and Bruce McGraw, shoveling snow. Mary Schroeder and her fellowship group, decorating the meetinghouse. Our webmasters, Joan Semenuk and Mark Smith, who do that for nothing.
How are we, in the year ahead, going to bear each other's burdens? And be a sign of the Kingdom of God, in this place, and in this time? Thanks be to God for all of you, for feeding each other. Amen.
January 25 , 2009
The Reverend Jeffrey A. Vamos
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