Sermon: Going beyond the A-B-C's and even D's of being a nice church; living into the E, F, G and H of Christian community
Have you ever been to, or been part of a church that just didn’t seem to “have it”? Where everyone was nice, everything was good, and they did the right things, but something was missing – where some spark or passion, some flow of deeper vitality just wasn’t there?
A
number of years ago – maybe fifteen, I was guest preacher one Sunday at a local
church while their minister was on vacation.
I looked forward to it because it was one of the larger and historically
more prestigious churches in the Presbytery.
The
day I was there, though, I still remember as one of the darkest and most
depressing experiences of church worship I have ever had. The sanctuary was large and beautiful. The liturgy was well-thought-out, the lay
leadership skilled and experienced, the music well-chosen and potentially
inspiring. The people who were there
were nice; more than that, they were good, moral people involved in all kinds
of good things in the world.
But
all through the hour of worship I felt something was missing. In the absence of whatever it was, the
sanctuary seemed more dark than light , the people more depressed and tired than
joyful, their gathering more yearning and anxious than vital and hopeful.
That
happens in churches – more often than we realize, and I’m sure it happens here
at times as well.
Years
before that, back in the mid-eighties when I studied for a year in Boston I worshipped
for a while at a church that had been recommended because of their minister,
who was regarded as one of the brighter lights and leaders of the denomination
– a great preacher and a good leader in thoughtful mission to the world. I looked forward to it; it seemed Sunday
morning as well as Monday to Friday were to be part of my education in
ministry.
But I
stopped worshipping there after three or four Sundays. I found it too tiring because of what I felt
about the minister’s burden. It seemed
to me he was so skilled, so in touch with things, so determined that the
congregation be led on a journey of faith into greater mission to the world,
and so aware of his call to lead them there that the whole of the worship
experience seemed to rest on his shoulders, and the success (or failure!) of it
seemed to hang on his every word and gesture.
It was so carefully designed and constructed and so dependent on his
delivery of what was promised, that I found myself exhausted by the end of it,
by the fear that maybe this time it wouldn’t work, something would go wrong, and
everything would shatter and fall into pieces because of it.
In
all that minister was doing and carrying on a Sunday morning, and what the
congregation let him do and carry, it seemed there was something missing. That happens among ministers – more often
than we realize, and no doubt it also happens with me.
The
problem is not new. The problem of
“something missing” is as old as the church.
In today’s story from the Book of Acts – the book of the earliest
communities of Christ, the leaders of the brand-new Jesus movement sense
something missing in the new church in Ephesus.
What they diagnose it as is the absence – or at least the
not-yet-presence of the Holy Spirit and the congregation’s not-yet-openness-to the
flow and the deeper vitality of the Holy Spirit within their gathering.
Paul says, “Did
you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They reply, “No, we have not even heard that
there is a Holy Spirit.”
“Into what then
were you baptized?” he asks. “Into
John’s baptism,” they answer.
To which Paul
says, “You have to
realize John baptized with a baptism of repentance. He invited people – as prophets do, into
moral community – into turning from evil, doing good and trying to change the
world around them for the better. And that
is good; the world needs communities and networks of good and moral people.
“But he also pointed
people to One who was still to come with something more and new – Jesus, who
would baptize people in a new and deeper way into the life and flow of the Holy
Spirit – into a new and more intimate relationship of God and humanity, a new
way of being human beings, and a way of being together not only nice and moral in
a way that the world always appreciates, but deeply spiritual and holy in ways
that are understood only by those who are inside it themselves.”
On hearing this,
the believers in Ephesus are baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, Paul lays his hands on them,
the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and they speak in tongues and prophesy – all twelve
of them who are there.
In many
communities of the earliest church, speaking in tongues was seen as the sign of
really participating in the life and flow of the Spirit of Christ in the world. It was a sign of being opened to, and filled
with a power and a life from beyond themselves.
It was a language that neither Rome nor Jerusalem controlled or understood. It united believers across other boundaries
and differences that divided them. It
lifted their spirits with a beauty, vitality and hopefulness that was not of
their design, but a gift from of God. It
caught them up in something greater than themselves, and helped free them to
follow the leading of God in ways that others – even very good and moral
people, often were not.
We’re somewhat
leery of this, of course, and even Paul came to see that speaking
in tongues is not the only sign – and not the best test of whether a congregation
is open to the Spirit or not. In I
Corinthians he says the deepest gift of all, and the greatest sign of a church
living deeply in God’s flow, is love – love of God in all we do, say and have; and
love of neighbour as ourself.
And it’s in that
vein – in that spirit, if you will, that this morning I suggest a few things we
might be on the lookout for today as signs of living beyond niceness and
goodness, in the deeper, more holy flow of the Spirit of Christ and of God at
work. I want to mention four things and
for ease of memory I offer them as the E, F, G and H of being in deeper
community with Jesus beyond the A, B, C and even D of being a good and moral
church.
This is not as a
way of testing whether we are Christian or not as a church, or truly spiritual
or not. These are more simply possible elements
of deeper spirituality today that sometimes are and sometimes are not true of
us, that we can encourage and nurture when we see them emerge in our life
together, and that we can seek out and be open to in intentional ways when we
do not.
The first of the
four is Ease. A truly spiritual community
– like a moral community, is moral and good, cares about making Earth a good
place to be for all creatures, a commits itself to the kinds of actions and
programs that make a difference for good in the world. But it does this with a kind of ease and
absence of anxiety that is not always true of good people and moral
communities.
I wonder sometimes
about John in the Gospel as he goes about his ministry of prophetic preaching
and practice. He does great and
courageous work with his moral preaching, his prophetic critique of the corruption
of the government and culture of the day, and his invitation to people of all
kinds to clean up their act. He is the
epitome of the moral and prophetic voice of the community’s whole faith
tradition.
But does he
sometimes feel it’s all up to him? Why
does he get so harshly judgemental of people who don’t listen and change their
ways? And does he worry sometimes about what
he will actually accomplish – maybe create a bit of discomfort among the elite
and inspire a little bit of change for a while among the populace, but in the end
be gone with the world still carrying on much as it always has?
Being moral and
good can be exhausting. It makes you
hungry for signs of success and open to depression, despair and desperate
measures when they aren’t there.
But people open to
the life and flow of the Spirit, who know themselves caught up in something
bigger than themselves and than the world and the powers of the day, can go
about the work in a different spirit – not thinking they have make the world
good or else, but more simply doing what they can to be part of a future coming
by a Power greater than themselves. It’s
not up to them to make the new heaven and earth; they simply answer the
invitation to start living it now, as a witness to what is promised and will
surely come.
Which leads to
Freedom, and even Foolishness sometimes in what is done – two F’s of the
community of God’s Spirit.
Not everything has
to be calculated, or part of some program with a definable end, designed to
create a manageable and measurable good outcome. Rather, sometimes a community of Christ will do
something destined to fail or be a waste of time and effort, just because it
seems to be part of who Christ is and what Christ loves – like a congregation
using well-designed colourful worship bulletins that are more expensive than plain
paper; or a handful of elderly women dressing up as Raging Grannies, standing near
a naval base to sing funny home-made songs about the evil of war and nuclear
weapons; or a Sunday school class cleaning garbage off a section of highway
knowing full well that in two weeks there will be just as much and maybe even
more garbage thrown back onto it.
When you live in
the flow of the Spirit, not everything is subject to cost-benefit analysis
because who knows what seeds sown into the world bear fruit? Who knows that even the ones that seem to die
are fruitless or useless in their being sown?
Which leads in a
way to another F – Forgiveness that’s based on Grace – the G of spiritual
community, the Grace of God that passes all understanding.
In a community
open to the Spirit rather than just committed to doing good and being right,
there is room for mistakes and error, and room always for forgiveness, learning
and growth because we are not always right or good – not in our thoughts or actions,
not in the ways we treat one another, nor the ways we think of, and represent
God. We are all here by grace – and a
community of the Spirit of Christ and of God remembers this about themselves
and about others. It makes room for all who
– like ourselves, make mistakes and are broken.
Which involves then
a fourth thing – the H of truly spiritual community – Honesty, primarily
honesty about ourselves. When we count
on being nice and good, and that’s how we sell ourselves, we are not really
free to admit mistakes, reveal our warts, or share our questions and
doubts. But when we know that by grace we
are part of something bigger and better than ourselves, we don’t have to
pretend anymore. We don’t have to fear
our mistakes and try to justify ourselves when we’ve done wrong. When we hurt one another and act badly
together, we don’t have to deny or ignore what’s been done, and just blindly hope
time alone somehow heals all wounds.
Rather, we can talk
about these things – be honest about our wounds and our wounding. Through humble honesty we can grow
spiritually and find an even deeper unity that has nothing to do with being
right, and everything to do with right relations.
The world doesn’t
often teach us how to do this. It’s not part
of the old way of being human. But it is
part of the new way of being human that the community of Christ at its best is
about. Beyond being nice, good and
moral, we are baptized into a new way of living together in the world – the way
God has intended people to be all along, and that has been revealed and made available
to us now in these days in Jesus.
So in this season
of Epiphany, as we let Jesus lead us deeper and deeper into the light of God’s
life, we learn to look for these elements of openness to his Spirit – Ease in
the good that we do, Freedom and even Foolishness sometimes in what we find
ourselves doing, Grace in our acceptance and embrace of others, and Honesty
about who we really still are and what we really still do. As we see these elements of spiritual life
emerge in our life together, we can support and nurture them. And as they do not, we can choose to seek
them out and learn to grow into them.
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