Sermons at St. John's Presbyterian Church

Church Connection

Transcribed from the sermon preached November 14, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 65:17-25, I Corinthians 12:12-27

Where do you find God?  The most common answer nowadays is probably, “In nature.”  A sunset on the ocean, a spring rose garden, a mountaintop. Such places evoke a sense of the miraculous, a sense of gratitude, a sense that there is a Divine benevolent power.

Part of the reason for this common encounter with God in nature is that, if for a moment, we leave the cares and chaos of human life and society behind.  There are some exceptions, but much of our new age spirituality and our Westernized Eastern religions encourage this spiritual detachment, the creation of our own sacred space, our own sacred journey apart from others.

It often does seem easier to listen to God without other people getting in the way, without institutions or legalists and doctrine getting in the way.  So it is common today to hear people say, I am spiritual but not religious.  Or, I am a Christian, but I don’t go to church. 

Now I get all that.  There is hierarchy and bad history, petrified doctrine and all too human people in the Church. I often have a conversation with someone who wants to educate me about the ugly history of the Church, how the hand chopped off the toe, how the whatchamacallit was marginalized by the wigglywadgit.   What folks don’t realize is that since seminary is basically three years of history classes, ministers get a full dose of the ugly parts of the church.  And if that isn’t enough, then when we graduate, we get to try and be ministers and work with people. 

In Church, we come together to worship God our Creator, and the God of grace made known through the person of Jesus Christ.  We are also called, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be together in community.  So we come together not only to worship, not only to meet or find God, but to be the Body of Christ; to be in community, to share our gifts, to work toward a New Heaven and New Earth where joy, health, justice and peace prevail.

If our goal as an individual is to find God, then perhaps the best way to do this is to get rich so we are not so preoccupied with the basic necessities of life, and can buy a house in a beautiful natural setting and make multiple trips to spas and spiritual retreats.  Check out how capitalism sells in a yoga journal: The home of natural bliss, the Zen kitchen, the find yourself retreat on Maui. I am attracted by this idea of our own personal kiva, too.

While Jesus frequently took solo time in the wilderness, on the mountain or lake to pray and be alone with God, he was constantly drawn back to people, back to the community, back to teaching and working for a new Jerusalem world of peace, justice and mercy.  More fundamental still is idea of incarnation: God was not afraid to leave his castle in the sky, not afraid that His holiness would be contaminated here in History; on the contrary, humbling himself, taking human form, he became a servant. So we sense the presence of God in community – and where those things that break community, sin violence and injustice, are resisted.

We who follow the Way of Jesus Christ are called to be with people, despite their hang-ups, despite our hang-ups.  One of the most common misconceptions of people, who start the Church, is that the people, who are doing the work and looking like they own the place, are especially talented or especially faithful, or especially Christian. 

The other side of this coin is that I am not; I do not have what it takes, I am not talented enough, I don’t have the right belief, my life is too messed up, I am not Christian enough, I am too different.  I couldn’t possibly fit in.  I could never have a sense of ownership here.  Who needs a kidney anyway? The left hand is doing fine without the right!

I had that feeling for a long time.  God was on my mind, I loved to commune with God in nature, but the church often made me angry, much of the Bible didn’t make sense, I valued my freedom, and besides, my faith was weird, and I doubted I had the talent to be a good member or servant.  The thought police would find me out as an imposter.

Now there are different levels of Christian maturity, different levels of experience and education, but looks can be deceiving; each person has strengths and weaknesses, each goes through stages of life where we feel strong in our faith or weak, able to serve or more in need of nourishment, when prayer and faith comes easier and times when it comes hard.  Sometimes our feet need a rest, so we can read.  Sometimes our mind needs a rest, so we go for a walk. Every one of us is here, not by merit but by grace.

In Protestant churches, this idea that we are saved by grace and not by works is so frequently heard that it is easy to let it slip away as so much mumbo jumbo, as if the preacher were Charlie Brown’s teacher.  But it really is true.  If we waited to join and contribute to community until we had our lives straightened out, until our faith was straightened out, then there would be an empty building and a lot more lonely people.   

The Gospel tells us, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that we are loved, forgiven and chosen by God, and we are called to come together in community to worship and serve, now, as we are.  So this is the precondition for being a disciple of Christ, a member of the body: to have faith that we are loved and forgiven. The result of this faith is freedom, freedom from focus on our weakness, and thus power to focus on our strength…on what we have to contribute.  The result is what Paul Tillich calls the courage to be: “The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.”  We may not have legs that run after kids, but we have hands to write.  We may not like public speaking, but we can count.  We may not have the mind of a theologian, but we can be kind and generous.  We may not know the old tradition, but we have new passion and energy.  Everybody has a part, and everybody is needed, everyone has a reason to be.  I am thankful for all the care and work that went into hosting presbytery. So many people did so much. Our part of the meeting went great. Thank you.

Of course, another fear is that with belonging comes responsibility, obligation.  We are too busy; there is too much going on; we want to keep our options open.  Now if you had a bad experience with another church or if you were led into this church because your life hit a dead end and you are searching for new life and new direction, it may take a while to gain trust in a place and people, to decide this is a place where you will be fed or encouraged to serve by God.  And that is fine.  Take the time you need. 

But there is a part of our postmodern culture that would have us never commit, never obligate ourselves too deeply, to always keep our options open.  But the Gospel tells us that love, God’s love is encountered in relationship, and the love of relationship requires commitment.  Despite who we are, despite who they are, we are going to join together into one body and help one another.  We will choose to do some things that are inconvenient and require our time.  We will try a job that we have never done because it needs to be done and God is calling us to do it.  And we will find ourselves next to someone else we think we have nothing in common with.  And with time, in relationship, we discover our uniqueness, but also our commonality. 

In Christianity, there really is not personal salvation, or as the Depeche Mode sings it, “My own personal Jesus.”  We do have specific, personal sins, which need forgiveness, and Jesus loves and forgives us personally, he cares and hears our prayers as the song goes.  But Christians and the church are always called back to community, always called back to be a light on a hill, the bride of Christ, the covenant people, a branch of the vine, a member of the body of Christ which works to exhibit and further the Kingdom of God to the world; a kingdom, as Third Isaiah dreams upon return from Exile, where there is health and justice, where workers build houses and inhabit them, and field workers get to eat what they plant, where people enjoy the work of their hands and do not labor in vain, where peace breaks out and wolf and lamb feed together.

So being a part of the body of Christ, there is some inconvenience to our personal life, as there is with any relationship that considers the needs and uniqueness of others, and works for the good of all.  But the paradox is that in service we are served, in giving of ourselves we find strength of self.

Robert Bellah, the Berkeley sociologist and author of Habits of the Heart, which traces the decline of civil community in American life, wrote a biographical essay entitled “Finding Church, Post Traditional Discipleship” (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=438) In the 50s Bellah was convinced of the value of Christian faith by his Colleague at Harvard, Paul Tillich.  But since he considered his faith personal he felt no need to join a community or tradition.  But years later here in Berkeley, after writing his famous essay on American Civil Religion, he felt drawn by his own writing and the reception it had in the faith community to join a church.  Bellah writes:

 “Both the Protestant principle of voluntarism and the modern respect for autonomous decision make it natural for adults to choose their own religious affiliation. Here I would adopt the analogy of Hegel's conception of marriage, namely, that it is a contract to enter a noncontractual relation. It is a contract in that it is entered into freely. It is noncontractual in that it is in intention indissoluble. Hegel, a devoted Lutheran, allowed for divorce on the grounds that we are sinners and may not be able to live up to our intention, but the intention is never to be taken lightly.

“Even though my church identity did not finally clarify until the past ten or 12 years, I feel it is no longer an open question for me. I suppose there might be developments in my parish or my denomination or myself that might cause me to change, but they would have to be drastic indeed to undermine what I now consider a settled commitment. In any case I hope never again to be cut off from the body of Christ in the concrete sociological meaning of that term. A period of seeking, when one tries out various options, would seem normal in our kind of society, but I would not recommend my protracted process.

“I did not undergo an existential decision to "return to religion" out of the pure innerness of my personal situation. Even my initial shift in point of view that allowed me as an adult to consider religion as a viable option came from my exposure to Tillich and his confident assertion that Christianity is not "belief in the unbelievable." And my later turn to more active fellowship in the company of believers was motivated as much by a feeling that the church had need of me as it was by any private needs of my own.”

So by the grace of God through Christ we gain the courage to be, as Tillich says, “to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.”  Encountering one God, one Spirit, one baptism, We gain the courage to be in community, with others who dare to be, to play a unique part and share our unique gifts in the Body of Christ, and together we hope and work for a world where joy, health, justice and peace prevail.