08-26-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Larry Peters

 

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO BE A CHURCH?

Rev. Larry Peters

August 26, 2012

Ephesians 4:7-16

  In 1972, an Episcopal priest by the name of Terry Fullam, was teaching at a college in Rhode Island when he received an unexpected phone call from St. Paul’s Church in Darien, Connecticut.  The vestry of that church asked the college professor to consider becoming their pastor.  He met with their search committee a few days later.  He told the committee that he had several questions for them.  But, after a long pause, the one question he did ask was:  “If this church were to disappear tomorrow, would anyone miss it?”

  A startling question it is, but also a good one to consider.  As the church, is our ministry of such importance that anyone would miss it if it were no longer available?  Someone once told me that if you want to find out about the effectiveness of a church’s mission and ministry, ask the people of the community.  They will either tell you, or they will have no idea what you are talking about.  If the response is the latter, then the church has some work to do.

  So when the question was asked; “If this church were to disappear tomorrow, would anyone miss it – a ton of silence fell on the room.  No one breathed; all looked straight ahead for several seconds.  Then they began to look at one another.  Finally someone said, “Probably not much.”  They had come to a moment of truth, and were caught in their embarrassment.  Fullam pressed on with another question: “Do you really want to be a church, or are you actually looking for a chaplain for your club?”

  What is the church?  The definition that we have in our scripture readings today is that the church is the body of Christ.  Christ our Lord is the head of the body.  And the people who want to follow Christ the Lord make up the members of the body.  We come together because we love God and we love other people.  God loves us and gives us special gifts to prepare us for the work of service in Christ’s name.   In service to other people we build up the body of Christ, the church.  We come together with one purpose in mind.  We grow up in every way to Christ.  Under his control all the different parts of the body fit together.  When each part works as it should, the whole body grows and builds itself up through love.  This kind of love is what we are created for.  Our Lord God says; “I created you – you are mine.  I know you; I have called you by name.  You are precious to me.  I give you honor, and I love you.  You are created to be my people – to love me, and to bring me glory.”

  This is what God expects us to be.  This is what is required of us.  If we really want to be a church, then we will do our best to meet these standards.  We will not accept that the church should degenerate into something less.  Our modern American culture undermines the definition of a Christian, watering down the Christian faith until people tend to perceive the church as some kind of social club where not too much is expected of us or from us.  The problem is that in such churches you will find little of the joy and deep satisfaction God created us to experience.

  I would like to take this opportunity now to tell you about the joy I experienced while attending a Leadership Training Course for Stephen Leaders that was held at Pittsburgh just a little over three weeks ago.  I am very thankful that you provided me the opportunity to go to this training.  Before I left, I understood very little about what Stephen Ministry is.  Now, I am very excited to be part of it!  I believe that the Stephen Ministry here is established and well received within our church and community.  I believe that your Stephen Leaders and Stephen Ministers are very good care givers; and I know them to be very encouraging.  Also, we are blessed to have the strong support of our church staff and our Pastor, which I have come to understand is very important.  And certainly all of us, at some point in our lives, could benefit from the type of care that Stephen Ministry provides.

  Part of what I would like to do, as I have the opportunity to preach and to visit with people, is to build awareness and ownership of Stephen Ministries within our church and community.  I would like to be able to understand the situations that people face, the kind of needs that they have, and to tell them of the help they may find through Stephen Ministry.  And I want to be able to support our Stephen Leaders and Stephen Ministers in the great work that they do.

  The definition of a Stephen Series, which is a name given to the steps involved  for managing a congregation’s Stephen Ministry, is a complete system for training and organizing laypeople to provide Christian care.  It is important to understand what Stephen Ministers are and what they are not.  They are trained Christian caregivers.  Stephen Ministers are not counselors and they should not be referred to as such.  Their role is to listen and care – but not to counsel or advise.  Stephen Ministers do not call on anyone abruptly or without their consent.  They are assigned only to people who agree to receive the care of a Stephen Minister.

  Stephen Ministry is a confidential ministry.  What a care receiver tells a Stephen Minister remains confidential.  Name of care receivers and details of discussions are never revealed.  Stephen Ministry is carefully supervised.  Stephen Ministers engage in regular supervision to ensure that they are able to provide the best-quality Christian care.

  You may have seen the Stephen Ministry logo.  By describing what it means, we may further understand the type of ministry this is.  This logo consists if a cross and circle, together with a broken person and a whole person.  The broken person stands behind the cross, symbolizing the brokenness in our lives as a result of our sin.  The whole person stands in front of the cross because it is through the cross of Jesus that we again are made whole.  The circle symbolizes both the wholeness we receive through Christ and God’s unending love for us.  Also around this circle are the words that describe this ministry as “Christ caring for people through people.”

  The name “Stephen” refers to Stephen in the Bible who was the first layperson commissioned by the Apostles to provide caring ministry to those in need.  We can read in Acts chapter six how ministry was becoming too much for one person or a few to handle with full effectiveness.  So the Apostles saw the need to recruit and train others to be ministers in a specific way using the gifts God gave them.  And the church continued to grow, as the Apostle Paul says; “Christ did this to prepare all God’s people for the work of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ.”

  So there is the earliest beginning of Stephen Ministry.  People who are the body of Christ, and who really want to be a church, have ever since sought to find ways to use their gifts for service and for the benefit of all.

  In 1974, Kenneth Haugk, a pastor and clinical psychologist, was pastor of St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in St. Louis, Missouri.  He would begin and in time become known as the Founder and Executive Director of Stephen Ministries.  His strengths and heart were in caregiving ministry, and he was looking forward to making a positive impact on his congregation and community by providing pastoral care to all those experiencing divorce, grief, hospitalization, discouragement, and other life difficulties.

  Very quickly, though, he found that the needs for care by far exceeded that which he alone could provide.  He faced one of a pastor’s greatest frustrations: seeing people slipping through the cracks because their urgent needs were going unmet.  In November of 1974, he discussed the situation with two seminary friends over a cup of coffee.  The conversation turned to Ephesians 4 and “equipping the saints for the work of ministry.”  Haugk realized that God did not intend for pastors to monopolize ministry.  Rather, God gave all his people gifts in ministry and one of his roles as pastor was to equip others to use their gifts in ministry.

  Haugk returned to St. Stephen’s with a plan.  In the coming months he recruited nine lay people who had the gifts and heart to do caring ministry.  He then used his combined backgrounds in theology and psychology to develop a training program in Christian caregiving.  By March 1975 the nine were commissioned as “Stephen Ministers.”  Their first care receivers included a widower, a blind person, a young woman with cancer, a truck driver forced to retire early, and an inactive member struggling with faith issues.

  The impact was immediate.  People began receiving the focused Christian care they needed.  Fewer people were slipping through the cracks, and Haugk found he had more time to perform his other pastoral duties.  The Stephen Ministers were surprised by the spiritual growth they encountered as they saw God working through them to bring love and healing to others.

  The story would have ended there, had not two of the Stephen Ministers cornered Haugk on a hot May morning after worship services.  “This is good stuff,” they said to him.  “We are not going to let you go until you promise to bring this ministry to other churches!”  Still wearing his vestments and perspiring from the heat, Haugk gave in and agreed to find a way to bring Stephen Ministry to other churches. 

  In November 1975 Haugk and his wife, Joan, founded the not-for-profit Stephen Ministries organization and began bringing Stephen Ministry to other congregations.  And so this ministry has spread!  Meadville First Presbyterian Church is one of more than 11,000 congregations from more than 160 Christian denominations that now have Stephen Ministry.  More than half a million people have been trained as Stephen Ministers.  These numbers grow each year, along with the number of people who have been touched by God’s love through a Stephen Minister.

  The session that I attended in Pittsburgh was the 189^th Leadership Training Course thus far.  Our group had 381 participants representing 35 Christian denominations from 41 states and 2 Canadian provinces.

  I brought back more than my 35 pound box of materials could hold.  At first, all of it seems a bit overwhelming.  But really it is about loving and caring for people as Jesus loves and cares for us.  It is Christ caring for people through people.  Jesus makes it very simple, really.  In the way that we can, we are to be Jesus to someone else.

  After 189 training courses, there are a lot of good stories that are told – one of which I remember and want to share with you.  An American soldier in World War II, serving in the European Theater of Operations, had experienced much of combat and had seen much suffering.  But he was not prepared for the extent of man’s inhumanity to man as when his army unit entered and liberated a Nazi concentration camp.

  He saw the dead and dying.  He saw the emaciated bodies and the look of utter hopelessness.  Not only were they starving physically – they were starving spiritually.  They had absolutely nothing and the American soldier wanted to help.  But how could he help?  What could he give?  There was so much suffering, what could one person do?

  With heart-felt compassion he went over to one of those held captive under such cruelty and hugged him.  When the soldier looked up, he was surprised to see that a line had formed.  He did not think that he would be able to help in any significant way.  He did not know the value of what he was able to give.  But he had exactly what the people hungered for and needed.  He had and was able to give what they had been deprived of for so long – the love, care and concern of one person to another.

  Whether you are a Stephen Leader or a Stephen Minister, a care receiver or one who supports this or any number of ministries that we do; whether you are an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher; whether you are a secretary, custodian, musician or youth leader; whether you serve on the trustees, deacons, on session or in the kitchen, on mission outreach or in children’s school or day care; whether you are a liturgist, choir member, greeter, usher, audio or video technician – we do what we do together!  If I forgot to mention anyone, I apologize.

  We are in this together with one purpose in mind.  We are the church.  We are here because we love God and we love one another.  We love or community and we want to see it a better place to live, work and worship.  We know that God has made each of us unique and given us different gifts that we can use for the work of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ.

  Let us thank God for the ministry that we are privileged to experience and be part of.  Let us work hard together and pray that our mission and ministry will have such far-reaching effectiveness that if one were to ask a question like Terry Fullam did: “If this church were to disappear tomorrow would anyone miss it”, we, and others would be able to say: “Yes, indeed!”  And to the question; “Do you really want to be a church?, we shall be able to say: “We do!, and with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ – we are!”

 

 

 

 

 

08-19-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART XII

  Many years ago, a couple in my church came to see me because they were having problems in their marriage.  Let’s just call them John and Jane Doe.  It seems Jane had struck up an internet friendship with a man she once dated in college…and she wanted to take a trip down to Mississippi to see him.  John was upset by this, and Jane couldn’t understand why.  That’s when they came to see me.

  Now I don’t ordinarily tell people what to do in a counseling situation.  But in this case I strongly advised that – for the sake of their marriage – Jane should not go down to Mississippi, and she should cease all communication with her ex immediately.  Believe it or not, Jane was not pleased by my counsel.  She ended up going to Mississippi anyway and as John and I both suspected, this rendezvous was not as innocent as Jane let on.  John and Jane Doe ended up getting divorced.  And as it turned out, the ex in Mississippi was still married when he and Jane got together, and he had no intention of leaving his wife.  Jane was left out in the cold: no husband, no boyfriend, and ultimately…no home.

  Jane came to see me one more time.  She was clearly a wounded soul.  In the course of our conversation, she actually said to me, “Where was God in all of this?  I just can’t believe God let this happen to me.”  I’m afraid that, yet a second time, I was not very consoling to Jane.  I told her that God has given us free will.  And sometimes, God allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions.  Are there consequences to our actions, or should God perpetually get us off the hook when we claim to profess the Christian faith?  Keep that thought in mind as we move on. 

  This is the twelfth in a series of sermons entitled, “Living This Side of the Cross.”  The thesis of the series is pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4^th chapter of the book of Ephesians.  There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus, our Lord.”  In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.

  We talked about how the church is meant to represent the kingdom of God on earth.  We said that the kingdom is here, but not fully here.  Thus, could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church?  Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ?  While we live in a throw-away society these days, perhaps there are some things we should not throw away.  After all, the providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.

  We talked about living a worthy life.  A worthy life – a life that is truly growing up in Christ – is a life formed in community.  Christian maturity develops as we form friendships with the friends of God…not just the friends we prefer.  You see, God chooses to act and intervene in the world through us.  We see God acting in the world today when we witness the heartfelt convictions of those who serve him.

  We encountered what we called Paul’s roadmap through the cosmos.  He tells us who we are and where we are going as Christians.  We are blessed by God, chosen in Christ, destined for adoption, bestowed grace, lavished forgiveness, made to know the will of God through Christ, and gathered up to God in the end.  We are precious children of God – created in the image of God – and destined for eternal life.  Do not let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

  We noted how Paul refers to us as saints.  Paul deliberately chooses a word that identifies us not by what we do for God, but rather, by what God does for us.  He is retraining our imaginations to understand ourselves not in terms of how we feel about ourselves – and certainly not in terms of how others might feel about us – but rather, he is retraining our imaginations to understand how God feels about us.  In God’s eyes, we are saints.  In God’s eyes…we are holy.

  We discovered that God bestows grace to sinners like us.  Yet the grace of God is a lot like water to a swimmer.  It seems as though there is no possible way it could support us.  So like the swimmer, we have to lean forward, lift up our legs, and let ourselves go.  To coin a phrase, we need to learn to let go…and let God.

  We learned that the church is the gift of Christ to the world.  Yet there is more to the church than meets the eye.  The church is not just bricks and mortar.  The church is not just a collection of faithful people.  The church is the body of Christ in the world.  And it is through the church – and only through the church – that Christ bestows his peace upon us.

  We observed what Jesus Christ came to earth to accomplish.  He established the church and gave it a commission.  That commission is to make God’s wisdom known to the world.  What is God’s wisdom?  We see God’s wisdom when we possess inscape.  Inscape is the capacity to see the God in everything.  Inscape is the ability to put on the eyes of God and see the world as God sees the world.

  We noted how we describe Jesus Christ as being fully human and fully divine.  As the church is referred to as the body of Christ in the world, it follows that the church must also be both human and divine.  Thus, while we come to the church to encounter the word of God, we also come to the church to build kingdom relationships.

  We heard Paul beg us to lead a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called.  We do so by way of paraclesis – which has to do with the Holy Spirit.  In other words, we strive to get the words of Jesus Christ inside of us so that they become us.  We condition ourselves to look at the world through the eyes of love.

  And finally, we learned that because we are Christian, there should be something different about the way we live our lives.  As Cardinal Suhard put it some one hundred years ago, “It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”  In other words, we are called to put off the ways of the world…and put on the way of God.

  In the passage I read this morning, Paul indicates what happens when we do not put off the ways of the world and put on the way of God.  Addressing the Pagan culture of Ephesus, Paul writes, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient.”  Hmmm…the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient.  Let’s talk a little bit about the wrath of God and disobedience.

  The Greek words translated “wrath of God” are orge tou Theou.  The wrath of God refers not to some child-like vengeance God plans to take out on his people.  It refers more to the fact that God despises sin.  Thus, the term “wrath of God” seems to imply that God simply gives people over to the folly of their choices.  In other words…sin has its consequences.  Why, it’s almost as if God is saying, “You want to live a life of sin?  Fine.  Have it your way.”

  Let’s go back to the story with which I introduced this sermon.  A woman took part in an act of adultery.  She lost her husband, she lost her boyfriend, and she lost her happy home.  “How could God let this happen to me?” she cried.  The question was, “Are there consequences to our actions, or should God perpetually get us off the hook when we claim to profess the Christian faith?”  I think you know the answer now.  Sin…has its consequences.

  Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best in his book, The Screwtape Letters.  He wrote, “There are two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’”  Which kind of person are you?

  Paul said that the wrath of God comes to those who are disobedient.  We’ve seen that the wrath of God is essentially God saying to us, “Thy will be done.”  Yet it comes upon those who are disobedient.  What does it mean to be disobedient?  The Greek word translated “disobedient” is a-pei-theia.  Can anyone think of a similar word in English?  How about the word, “apathy?”  The word “apathy” means a lack of interest or concern.  So perhaps we could say that the wrath of God comes to those who blatantly disregard the will of God, AND to those who could simply care less. 

  Paul gives us the secret to avoiding such calamity.  In verse 15 he writes, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise.”  In verses 18 through 20 he adds, “Be filled with the Spirit as you sing psalms and hymns among yourselves…giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Any clue as to how that might be done? 

  Perhaps the secret Paul has in mind…is worship.  For it is only in worship that we tend to put ourselves in a position to listen for God.  It is only in worship that we tend to put ourselves in a position for the wind of the Holy Spirit to blow upon us.  As Jesus himself said in the gospel according to John, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you know not whence it comes or whither it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

  Nobody knows where the wind comes from – and nobody knows where it’s going – but everybody knows when it’s there.  It’s alive.  Stand in it, sail in it, and you’re alive too.  With the wind at your back, it’s full steam ahead.  You’re confident; you can do anything…until the wind dies.  And you can’t do anything about it.  What then?

  Some years ago, the sails of our churches seemed to be filled with the wind of the Holy Spirit.  The pews in mainline denomination churches were full to overflowing.  Programs were robust and volunteerism was contagious.  But then the demographics shifted…and the culture began to change.  Some began to wonder, “Is the church a thing of the past?”

  So, we got busy and tried to fix things.  We formed committees; we dreamed up programs, we crunched numbers.  Somehow we felt it was completely on our shoulders to make things right.    But there was always that fear in the back of our minds: “What if we can’t fix it?  It’s hard to recreate the wind.”

  Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, speaks of a similar fear successful artists have when they sit down with a blank piece of canvas to create their next masterpiece.  The burden to repeat past success can be terrifying.  Gilbert proposes that artists feel this pressure because somehow – over the course of the last 400 years – they’ve gotten the idea that genius comes from them, instead of beyond them.  The Renaissance and the birth of rational thought put human beings at the center of the universe.

  But in classical times, the Greeks and the Romans felt that genius came to them from someplace else…from some divine, unknowable place.  While artists still had to roll up their sleeves and do the work, it was believed that their outside genius was behind their success or failure.  All that changed with the Renaissance.  For the first time in history, a person was referred to as being a genius, not having a genius.  With this intellectual shift, Elizabeth Gilbert feels that we humans have missed the mark in understanding the relationship between our own creative acts and the divine. 

  Perhaps she’s on to something here.  We try to restore the church to her former glory by working hard to muster up our past genius – recycling approaches that worked once – but that no longer do.  Personally, we try to make ourselves perfect by the sheer determination of our will and the strength of our own intestinal fortitude.  We forget about the realm of the Holy Spirit, and we end up exhausted and disheartened. 

  What if catching a new vision of what the church could be was placed in the hands of the Holy Spirit?  What if catching a new vision of what WE could be was placed in the hands of the Holy Spirit?  What if we could just show up at worship with open hands and open hearts and say, “We’re ready, God, whenever you are.  We promise to do our part, but we also need you to do your part.  Let the wind of your Holy Spirit blow where it will.  At long, long last…we’re ready to sail.”  Amen.