Sunday
10/01/17 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Being the Church”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
New Testament
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-13
Gospel Lesson:
Matthew 21:23-32
Welcome again my friends, my sisters and brothers, on this
World Communion Sunday. This Sunday that millions and millions of Christians
all over the world symbolically share Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. We
will not all kneel at the same altar rail, but this World Communion Sunday is a
day that we declare our unity as Christians, and our unity in the Lordship of
Jesus Christ. We declare this with millions and millions of Christians around
world, as we celebrate the gift of Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper.
This Sunday therefore, is very much about church unity.
This Sunday is about how we as the church are supposed to live and function.
In some parts of the world, the Christian Church is growing
like wild fire. In fact, the United Methodist Church is growing so rapidly in
Africa, that in recent years, entire new Annual Conferences were created, and
new Bishops elected, to ensure the leadership of the fast growing church.
In other parts of the world, which includes us in the
United States, the Christian Church in general, is in steep decline. This
means, many of our churches are shrinking, and some are even closing.
In fact, in the early October edition of “The Bridge,” which
is a publication that attempts to connect our local church to the entire Upper
New York UMC Conference, it was announced that that Earlville UMC, after 202 years,
will be closing. The reason this article is in “The Bridge,” is because the
church is donating money for missional purposes, as part of its closure.
Melissa and I have friends that are members of this church,
and this is a church according to the article, began in 1815.
As you have probably seen, the title of my sermon for this
morning is called “Being the Church.” The few things that I have just told then,
are primers or ideas around what I will be talking about this morning.
As I said, in some parts of the world they literally cannot
build church buildings fast enough, to capacitate all the people in them. Yet
in the United States, Western Europe, and in other places, we sometimes have
large and beautiful churches that have very few people in them. The United
States is one of richest countries in the world, we have the biggest and the
most powerful military, we have some of the most beautiful churches, and yet so
many of them are shrinking.
The question I have for us to think about this morning, is
why is this happening? Why in the United States, in Western Europe, and in other
places, are many churches shrinking, while in other places they are growing
rapidly? I don’t about you, but when a church like the Earlville UMC closes
after 202 years, it catches my attention.
Some would answer this question, by saying that we need to change
how we worship. We need to have screens, televisions, a rock band, a fog
machine, track lighting, and etc. Some would argue that traditional worship is
better. Some think that the church needs to be transformed into a “mega-plex”
with a coffee shop, a book store, a gymnasium, a life size Noah’s Ark, a
burning bush, and etc.
It is also important to note that in this area of New York,
about 25% of people polled have no faith beliefs at all. Meaning they believe in
nothing around faith or religion.
We live in a culture therefore, that is not seeing a church
grow in most cases, but instead is seeing the opposite. How is it then, that in
some places the church is growing rapidly, but not many places in the United
States?
An answer to this, which is one of many I believe, is in “Being
the Church.” We probably have heard this statement before that the church just
needs to “Be the Church.” Well does that mean, “Be the Church”? I hear this a
lot, and I don’t really know what the person means when they say this. Or the
famed United Methodist Church campaign of “Re-think Church.” Well what does it
mean to “Re-think Church?” Or the campaign of “Open Doors, Open Hearts, Open
Minds.” What does that mean exactly?
To me, the church is supposed to be a place that you go,
that is safe, loving, and where the people you encounter have a legitimate
concern for you, for your family, and for your well-being. A place that you hear
the gospel of Jesus Christ. For some people though, their faith is coming to a
church service on Sunday morning, and they then hire a pastor to do all the
rest of that “Jesus Stuff” that they don’t want do.
What I am trying to say, is that strength of Christian
Church, the growth of the Christian Church, to me, has never been rooted solely
just in our style of worship, not just in the type of coffee that we serve,
which is good by the way. To me, one of the strongest components of a
successful, growing, and flourishing church, historically speaking, is that we
are “Being the Church”.
Well how do we define the church? Is it an institution? Is
it a building? Is it God moving through us? Just what is the church?
Well I have been reading and re-reading
a lot of books to “Bone Up” as it were, for my ordination interviews next
March. In his book “Major United Methodist Beliefs,” by Mack B. Stokes, Mack
defines the church in this as an institution. This is what he says:
“The Church of Jesus Christ is an
institution of upmost importance. Why? Because it proclaims the eternal gospel
from generation to generation” (Stokes, 101).
Mr. Stokes goes on to
summarize his arguments and says:
“The
church is the body of Christ. It is his instrument. It is his servant. It is
the bearer of the eternal treasure, the gospel. Because Christ is the
foundation of the church, “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”
(Stokes, 108, Mt. 16:18)
So why this heavy emphasis of the transmission and the
focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ? This is where we find salvation, hope, new
life, and the blue print of how live daily in the world.
Jesus tells us to love each other, care for each other, to
even serve each other. I wonder how many of churches are seeking to actively do
this every day?
I remember when I was attending for my last two years of
seminary, at the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. While there, there
were four pastors from the African Country of Sierra Leone. I was speaking to
one them one day at lunch, and he told me that he pastored a small church in
Sierra Leone of about 700 people. A small church! Yet there Sunday was one of
worship, togetherness, and sharing a meal. His entire village shut down every
Sunday he said, and the people worshipped together, loved each other, and broke
bread together. Throughout the week, they cared for each other, loved, and each
other, and in every way, were seeking to “Be the Church”. Their commitment to their
faith went far beyond just a Sunday morning worship service. Instead there
faith was lived out all the time, as they constantly sought to live our
teachings of Jesus Christ every day. When the founder of the Methodist Movement,
Rev. John Wesley was asked by his bishop, why he was doing ministry among the
people, and outside of his church or parish, he told his bishop, “the world is
my parish.”
Some of us think back to fond days of togetherness in the church.
We remember going over to help a widow, or doing this, or doing that. We were
building community, we were loving, caring, reaching out, and letting folks
know that there were welcomed here. We were truly united in “Being the Church.”
“Being the Church” to me then, means that everyone here, or yet to come here,
matters, they have worth, and God loves them. This means, are response to the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and how we live our faith, and how we are “the Church,”
I believe will have a strong and a direction correlation to whether the church
flourishes or fails.
This past Tuesday, we had a district clergy meeting with
our bishop, Bishop Mark Webb. Before serving communion to all of pastors,
Bishop Webb asked us where we have seen God’s grace in our lives. I raised my
hand and said that I was so proud to be part of a church that claims UMCOR, or
the United Methodist Committee on Relief as our own. I said to the bishop, we
sit here today, as hundreds and maybe thousands of our brothers and sisters are
working in the areas affected by hurricanes. Are UMCOR people are loving,
serving, and “Being the Church.”
Our ability to love like Jesus, to serve like Jesus, and to
reach out like Jesus, will be, in my opinion, one the biggest factors in what
the future of this church will look like. After all, if we are Christians, if
we believe in Jesus, if we believe that he died for us, if we believe that he
taught us a new way to live and love, are we willing to live that out daily? Or
is that what we pay the pastor for? We pay them to be the Christian.
The Apostle Paul speaks about being the church in his
letter to the church in Philippi or the Philippians from this morning. The Apostle
Paul says:
“If then there is any encouragement in Christ,
any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and
sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of
you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the
same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who,
though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something
to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in
human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:1-8, NRSV).
So what does Jesus say to us
again? He says:
“make my joy
complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and
of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility
regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own
interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:2-4, NRSV).
Our ability to love, to care for, and to be there for each
other, is us “Being the Church”. It is us living out the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the hope of the world.
This morning, in the gospel of Matthew reading, Jesus has
his authority challenged, and gives us a short parable talking about his
upcoming crucifixion. Jesus proclaims his Lordship, that he is the Messiah, the
savior, and that in him we have hope, peace, love, caring, and the incredible
ability to “Be the Church” that he has called us to be (Mt. 21:23-32, NRSV).
My challenge to myself and to all us this week is to “Be
the Church,” even more. Well how can we do that? Call someone, visit someone,
or send someone in this church a card, just because. Let them know you love
them, just because. Pray for and give to hurricane relief. Visit someone in a
nursing home or a hospital. Let someone know you love and appreciate them. Help
a neighbor, do a good work for someone else, and share the hope of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. For when we do this, we are “Being the Church,” and when we do
it well, the church flourishes. I know, because I have seen it.
I leave you with a quote that I love, that is attributed to
Saint Francis of Assisi. Here is the quote,
“Preach the Gospel at all
times. When necessary, use words” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-arpinricci/preach-the-gospel-at-all-times-st-francis_b_1627781.html).
My brothers and sisters, when we preach the
gospel, when we live it, we are then “Being the Church.” This is I believe one
of the biggest ways that Christian Church has grown and flourished over the
last 2,000 years. For “they will know we are Christians, by our love, by our
love.” When this happens the church flourishes and we transform the world. Amen.
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