January 24, 2010 - "We Need the Church"

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

A Sunday school teacher asked the children just before she dismissed them to go to church, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" Annie replied, "Because people are sleeping."

A little girl became restless as the preacher's sermon dragged on and on. Finally, she leaned over to her mother and whispered, "Mommy, if we give him the money now, will he let us go?"

Church humor …

But while we might joke about it, we also read the newspapers …
Pedophile priests and the bishops who covered their tracks.
Scam artists filching the faithful, fleecing the flock.
“Jesus Camp” and the “Creation Museum” in Kentucky.
Jonestown, 1978, and barrels of red Kool-Aid.

A friend said to me recently, “The church can hurt people.”

A man raised in the Pentecostal tradition remembers hiding under the pew, so afraid was he of God.

Every time communion was served, a young boy took the juice, but didn’t swallow it, fearing the damnation of his soul, and when church was over, he’d run outside and spit it out.

As for me, I know just about everything wrong with the church.
I’ll hear complaints about Christians and say, “Do you think I don’t know that?”
I’ve been a pastor for 40 years …
I’ve seen the church at its worst, and there have been times when I could’ve walked away from the church and never looked back … let’s be clear: there’s nothing meaner than mean bunch of Christians … I’ve seen churches rip their pastors to shreds, and I’ve seen pastors fail miserably to preach the gospel.
I’ve seen churches that were nothing more than country clubs with pulpits that weren’t worth the name.
I’ve seen churches stuck in the past like a ship stuck in a mud-bank, so in love with themselves they couldn’t love anyone else.
I’ve seen churches who didn’t know Jesus and didn’t want to know him.
I’ve seen just about all of it.

But I also know everything that’s right …
I have seen the church work beautifully, wondrously, powerfully.
Mission and mercy.
Love and courage.
Forgiveness and vision.

I’ve seen the church make a stand for justice.
Sunday School teachers and choir directors doing amazing things for the glory of God.
Deacons going the extra mile.
Elders tackling the big questions.
Millions of faithful people all around the world, and God’s people right here, right now, Covenant on the Corner … singing and praying and loving God, keeping the stories alive … great stories that make great souls.

Do we need the church?
Of course we do.

It’s hardwired into our DNA
To seek divinity.
Create community.
Become spiritual leaders,
Write documents, sacred scriptures, creeds and sermons.
Sing and pray.
Do good and love one another.

It’s in our DNA …
To be religious …
Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims … all around the world – the same patterns of faith … hardwired into our DNA.

Even if we believe nothing about God … never pray and read only biographies, we still seek out one another … book clubs and jogging clubs, investment clubs and clean-the-beach clubs, Common Cause and the ACLU, the Democratic Party and the GOP.

If there weren’t a god, we’d invent one.
If there weren’t a church, we’d make one.

Do we need the church?
Of course we do - to fulfill an essential part of our humanity.

To be great souls on the face of the earth.
And to be a great soul, we need great stuff within us.
Great stories to fire our imagination.
The stories of our faith:
Creation and redemption,
Hope and peace,
Sin and forgiveness,
Time and eternity,
Heaven and hell,
Death and resurrection.

We need the patterns of our faith: Advent and Christmas, Epiphany and Pentecost, Lent and Easter.
We need the hymns of our faith:
“Joy to the World” and “Trust and Obey.”
We need the creeds and the prayers.

We need the waters of baptism and the bread and drink of the LORD's Table.
We need to anchor our week with worship!
Hats off to churches that offer worship on Wednesday night, or a Thursday morning … there’s more to this business than Sunday mornings, yet I say to you clearly and with conviction, if you can be here, be here.
If not here in the morning, go to the dogs.
And if you work on most Sunday, be here when you can.
Anchor your life with worship!
And you will find greatness slipping into your heart!

Can we do this God thing all alone?
Not very well.
Can we play soccer alone?
Not very well.

There is strength in numbers.
Pure, plain and simple.
The chemistry of the company.
It’s always better when someone else is there!

We’re like corn.
No, I didn’t say corny, though we corny sometimes.
But like a stalk of corn …
If you’ve ever uprooted a stalk of corn, it’s a shallow root system, not very deep, and not much larger than a plate… plant one stalk of corn, and it’ll blow over in the first wind.
But plant 500 acres of corn, and let the winds come.
Each stalk shelters and supports the other.

I’ve watched people go through enormous hardships, and when the storms subside, they all say the same thing: “I don’t know how I could have done it without the church, without God, and without my friends.”
It’s a package deal.
Like a software bundle.
Church, God, and friends.

We need the church.
And we need to be sure the church is the best it can be.

The best in faith, hope and love.
The best in kindness and mercy.
The best in forgiveness and peace.

The church doesn’t need to be big.
The church doesn’t need the latest in media tools.

Give me 10 people who love God passionately, and we have a church, a real church on our hands.
Give me 10 people who study the Bible and want to make this a better world, and we have a church, a real church on our hands.
Give me Covenant on the Corner – to sing the songs of faith, and lift up the name of Jesus … and we have a church, a real church on our hands, because God is here, Christ is present, the Spirit abounds.

Do we need the church?

Of course we do.
And so does the world.

What we do here this morning isn’t just for us.
It’s for the world, too.
The world needs us to be the church.
The best we can be.

To fill our lives with greatness … the greatness of God’s love.
So that we have an inner light.
A light that can shine.
Jesus said it well:
Let your light shine before others,
That they may see your good works
And give glory to your Father in heaven.

We do this for the world.
For the children.
And we have to be great in soul.
Great in peace and great in service.

Do we need the church?

Of course we do!
And let’s make the best it can be.

Are you with me on this?
I know that you are!

Amen and Amen!

Wise Men: Where Can We Find Him - January 4, 2008

Matthew 2:1-12

Questions!

Good questions … good faith!

The wise men ask a very good question.

Where can we find him?

I’d like to spend some time with you this morning on that very question … where can we find Jesus?

Let’s get right to it:

We begin with the Bible.
We read it every Sunday, we preach from it, and preach about it …

We read and study it during the week … enough books have been written about the Bible to fill ten thousand shelves, and then some.
Seminaries train preachers to proclaim it … whole publishing houses are devoted to it …

A strange book full of odd people and mind-teasing ideas … a book that has been loved and attacked … torn apart a thousand different ways … an object of study for scholars and pastors … an object of disdain for the cynical … a book of comfort for millions.

Where can we find Jesus?

The Bible is a good place to begin …
The primary source …
The gospel stories …
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John …

Each with their own story, their own unique take on things; their own point of view …
Think of the gospels as long sermons written for specific congregations at a specific point in time …

No one sermon says it all, and no one gospel says it all.

As time evolved in the first 100 years of the church’s life, there were many writings …

The Gospel of Thomas …
The Gospel of Peter …
The Gospel of Judas …
And a host of smaller documents …

But as the churches worshipped and studied, four gospels emerged and claimed priority … folks read them, heard them, preached and taught them … these four gospels worked well … in spite of differences, there’s an essential coherence – after awhile, the four gospels were added to the Bible … along with Paul’s letters and other writings, including a very strange book we call Revelation.

It didn’t take long for this to happen … the four gospels and most of the New Testament as we have it today was settled by the mid-part of the second century … tried and tested by the early church in the worst of times … the earliest Christians found these materials to be reliable and worthy of our reading … above all else, these documents give us Jesus.

I’m glad that four gospels emerged … one wouldn’t have been enough; ten or twelve would have been too much.

Like good cooking – not just one spice; nor too many – in good cooking, spices work together to make the food the best it can be … these four gospels, like fine spices, work together, to give us a tantalizing portrait of Jesus … never quite settled, always just beyond our reach … as it should be.

We cannot put Jesus into a box … though many have tried.
He cannot be held by one single idea, or one single book … though some have written so.

The gospel picture of Jesus is fluid, moving …
Like a great painting … stand 10 feet away, and you can see the whole picture – the people, the buildings, ships sailing on the seas, storm clouds and lightening … but move closer, to get a more detail, and what happens?
The picture disappears into a swirl of color and brush strokes …

Up close, we can see the work of the artist … but step back, and we can see the picture.

Up close, we can see the handiwork of Luke and Matthew … but step back, we will see Jesus.

We find Jesus in the Bible … a good place to begin, and no matter where or how we do it, sooner or later, we have to deal with the Bible.

Folks can say, “Aw, that Bible makes no sense to me,” and they’re right about some of it … it’s a strange book.

Others can say, “It gives me comfort,” and they’re right, too.

We find Jesus in the Bible … it’s the Bible that leads us to Bethlehem … the stable, the town, the shepherds and the angels …

But that’s only the beginning …
Jesus is more than a memory …
More than just a famous person …
Jesus is Spirit … Jesus is love … the love of God up close and personal … here and now!
Jesus is risen from the dead … ascended into heaven … and there, by the Father’s side, Jesus continues to reconcile the world and bring peace to creation.

It’s an on-going work, the work of Jesus.
There is yet no reconciliation in any final sense.
Peace remains elusive …
So the work goes on …

By the power of the Holy Spirit …
A gentle power … a subtle influence … a steady pressure …
In and through the church …

And that’s the next part of our journey … The church …
Tall steeples in crowded cities …
A storefront in a tough part of town …
A thatched roof in Haiti …
Someone’s living room …
A mega-complex in Orange County …
Organ music and rock ‘n roll hymns …
Clergy decked out in all the robes …
Or wearing slacks and a sport shirt …
The church …
Presbyterian and Reformed …
Roman Catholic and Orthodox …
Holy Rollers and Episcopalians …
Southern Baptists and Unitarian Universalists …

The quietness of a Quaker meeting …
The shouting of a Pentecostal prayer gathering …
The staid singing of ancient hymns …
The clap-your-hands energy of praise songs …

The church in all of its splendor and confusion …
The church wherein the name of Jesus is lifted up and singled out …
Jesus the teacher …
Jesus the prophet …
Jesus the example …
Jesus the Savior … who died for our sins …
And gives us the Father …
Opens wide the doors of heaven …
Teaches us compassion and mercy …
Reveals the dark contours of our soul …
Loves us and leads us …
Stills the storm and heals the soul …
Talks to the lonely woman at the well …
Calls Zacchaeus down from the tree …
Heals the blind man …
Welcomes the children …
Sends the angry mob away after writing in the dust …

We sing about Jesus …
We surrender our lives to him …
We pray to him, through him and with him …

We wonder what he meant …
We study his words …
We like most of them … we’re confused by some of them, and not too sure about a few of them …

We’re the church, or at least one part of it … we’re part of the story, but we’re not the whole story …

A man died and went to heaven … St. Peter met him at the gate, welcomed him, and then took him on a tour, along the golden streets … to a very large home … into the hallway and along the corridors … On various doors, signs … Methodists in this room … Catholics across the hallway … Quakers upstairs … Presbyterians over there … As they were walking through the mansion, Peter suddenly put his finger to his lips and hushed the man … and started to tip toe past one of the rooms … Peter turned and said, “Quiet now – we’re walking by the Baptists; they think they’re the only ones here.”

We’re the church, or at least just one part of it … but our part is real … and it’s reliable!

Here is where we can find Jesus … because Jesus promised to be with us … wherever two or three are gathered in his name … the church in Corinth … the church in Philippi … a church in the Cameroon, or Covenant on the Corner … Jesus is with us … never to leave us or forsake us … at our side, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The church is a place where we find Jesus.

But there’s still more to the story …

Jesus is the Word of God, and by the power of the Word, God created the heavens and the earth …
John’s gospel says it well:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

We find Jesus in the world …
In the brilliant red and yellows of a rose garden …
In the buzz of a hummingbird’s wing …
In the crash of a wave and the cry of a gull …
The marvelous flight of a pelican …
The march of ants across our kitchen floor on their endless quest for food …
In the love of a dog …
And the smell of fresh baked bread …

We see Jesus in our friends and family …
The laughter of children …
A box Crayolas …
And a bag of fresh popcorn shared with a lover …

We find Jesus in the passion of political commitment and the quest for justice …
The sacrifice of an Albert Schweitzer who gives up multiple careers to build a hospital in Africa …
Mother Teresa in the streets of Calcutta …
Dag Hammerskjold leading the United Nations …
Martin Luther King, Jr, marching in Selma …

We see Jesus in a scientist deep into cancer research …
A teacher with a passion for inner-city children …
A surgeon removing a tumor …
An artist with a brush …
A singer with a song …
An athlete on a diving board …

We see Jesus in a man who gets up every morning to go to work …
A woman who pursues an acting career …
A child who dreams of big things …

A wife who cares for her ailing husband …
A family who cares for a special-needs child …

And on and on it goes …
We find Jesus all over the world …
In every prayer and every kindly deed …
In every moment of grace …
In every act of forgiveness …
In every deed of courage …

We find Jesus in the human struggle to love and be loved …
We find Jesus hidden in the human heart …
In poetry and music …
In pottery and dance …

We find Jesus all around us …

And in a very special way, Jesus himself reminds us – we find him in the face of the poor … in the tears of the sorrowing … in the least of the least …

Elie Weisel, a survivor of Buchenwald, tells the story of a gruesome hanging … forced to watch … as the hanged men writhed in their agony, and one in particular, a boy – not heavy enough to strangle himself … struggling at the end of a rope …
A man cries out, “Where’s God?”
And someone says, “There, on that gallows, that’s God.”

Where do we find Jesus?
In the light and in the dark …
In the sweet and in the bitter …
In the garden and on the gallows …

I am with you always, says Jesus.

So, where do we find Jesus?

Like the wise men, we find him in Bethlehem …
We find him in the gospel stories …
We find Jesus in the church …
We find Jesus in the world all around us …
We find Jesus in the hard places …

Jesus is everywhere …
All the time …
And forever faithful …

Struggling with us to make a good world …
Healing and helping …
Dying on a thousand crosses every day … on a thousand Calvaries around the world …
Moving stones away and defeating death …

Where do we find Jesus?
Everywhere …

And finally, in our heart …
The heart Jesus made …
The heart Jesus fills and floods with love …
The heart of faith …
The heart of kindness …
The heart that loves …

Your heart and mine.
That’s where we find Jesus!

Amen and Amen!

Missing - March 30, 2008

John 20:19-31

A state trooper is parked on the side of the highway, clocking cars with radar … when a slow-moving car approaches, 22 miles per hour.
The state trooper turns on his lights and pulls the car over.

As he approaches the vehicle, the officer notices there are five elderly ladies inside—two in the front seat and three in the back—wide-eyed and white as ghosts.

The driver, obviously confused, says, "Officer, I don't understand. I was going the exact speed limit. What seems to be the problem?"

The trooper, trying to contain a chuckle, explained to her that 22 was the route number—not the speed limit.

A bit embarrassed, the woman grins and thanks the officer for pointing out her error.

"Before you go," the officer says, "I have to ask: Is everyone in this car okay? These women seem awfully shaken."

"Oh," she answered, "they'll be all right. We just got off of Route 127."

Good morning and welcome to Covenant Presbyterian Church …

Let’s begin with a question: What does want God from us?

Today’s text gives us a hint!

Basic and simple:

Be in a place where we can see God!

“Is that all?” you ask.

That’s all … to be in a place where we can see God.

Seeing important things changes our life … when I first saw Donna, life changed for me … oh boy, did it … and when I saw my saw children born, life changed for me … the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower, I wept, and I’ll never forget … I remember seeing Rachel on the dock on the Greek island of Mykonos, waiting for us … I remember seeing Josh in my rearview mirror as we pulled away from the dormitory his first year …

To be in a place where we can see God!

The last place where Satan wants us to be.

The point is simple: We have an adversary!

Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

The snake in the grass promised Eve that she and Adam could go their own way, have their own knowledge, make their own decisions, chart their own course.
“And you won’t even need God for any of it … in fact, God is your adversary,” says the snake … “God denied you the fruit of this tree … God can’t be trusted … you’re on your own for this, and you’d better get to it.”

We have an adversary whose purpose is but one thing: separate us from God.

Turn us inward, like a pretzel twisted in upon itself …

The adversary has a simple strategy – keep us outta those places where we could see God … and the heart of Satan’s strategy, separate us from one another … isolate us and keep us alone!

Paul Tillich said: the chief evidence of Satan’s work – the “splintering effect” – the bond of friendship shattered … alone and isolated.

When the foot says to the hand, I have no need of you, and the ear says to the eye, I have no need of you (see 1 Corinthians 12:14-26) …

Several years ago, a book … entitled, Bowling Alone … the author, Robert Putnam, gathered an enormous amount of social data … to reveal what we all know to be true: we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors and our social structures. We are bowling alone!

Bowling alone, we miss the heart of life.

But has a strategy, too … to knit us together … bind us together … love one another as I have loved you.

If Satan’s desire is to splinter us … God’s desire is to build common cause …

God sends the Holy Spirit for this purpose (John 14) to bind our hearts to Christ and connect us to one another …

In the company of others, that’s where we see God!

Gathering places … appointed places … time and date … where we see God.

When I tell Donna that I’ll meet her on the northwest corner of Camden and Wilshire, I’ll be there, and she’ll be there, too.

We make appointments with one another; we keep them … if something delays or prevents us, we make every effort to contact the person, and failing that, we apologize afterward. Appointments are important!

God makes appointments with us … a promise to meet us in certain places.

“Here is where you will see me,” says God!

Yes, there are such places …

Appointed places …
Specific places …

When Israel enters the Promised Land after 40 years of wilderness wandering, Moses says to the people:

Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. But only at the place that the LORD will choose (Deuteronomy 12:13-14).

An appointed place … not a place of convenience … but a place designated …

The appointed place … where we see God - in the company of other believers … it’s that simple, and that basic …

Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there, says Jesus (Matthew 18:20).

It doesn’t take a crowd to create a holy place, but it takes at least two …

Where two or three are gathered …

And that’s the last thing our Adversary wants …

That’s the story of Thomas … Jesus came to the disciples, not one-by-one … He came to their gathering.

But Thomas was missing …

Where was he?

Did he have other things to do?
Family matters?
Business?
Personal issues?
Was he kayaking on the Jordan?
Did he go hiking in the hills of Jericho?

For whatever reason, Thomas was missing.

When told by the disciples, Thomas gets his back up … unless I see Him with my own eyes, unless I can touch the wounds, I’ll not believe.

Instead of saying, “Sorry guys, I should have been there.” He gets testy, defensive.

I wonder where Thomas was that first night?
What we know for sure is where he wasn’t.

Thomas was missing!

I have no doubt that God comes to us when we’re alone and isolated – Ben Wier held hostage in Lebanon; Martin Luther sequestered in Wartburg castle; the Apostle Paul in Roman chains … the unique isolation of a hermit monk in the jungles of New Guinea, Albert Schweitzer in his African hospital, or a Presbyterian pastor in Cuba.

They’re all alone, but they’re alone in Christ.

But there’s another kind of aloneness … self-imposed by the ego … did Thomas think he was too good to hang with the other disciples? Did he think his grief was so unique that no one would understand?
When the ego isolates us, we’re really alone!
God comes to us in our self-imposed isolation to drive it home.
When we’re isolated by the ego, God’s presence is felt as God’s absence … God creates a vacuum, an emptiness; God doesn’t allow anyone or anything to fill it.
God intensifies our loneliness …
God never abandons us; God is with us always, but when we’re self-absorbed in pride or pity, God intensifies our loneliness until we’re sick of it.

Like the Prodigal Son who goes to the far land … it all seems good at first … on his own, away from the old man … “Yippee, I can do what I want, when I please” … but it all turns to pig slop.

God magnifies the boy’s sorrow … until he’s sick of it.
And comes to his senses.
All I have to do is return home … rejoin the family … get back to the appointed place.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Les Payne, writes of his long journey back home: “After wandering decades as a nomad adrift from his own spiritual tribe,” he finally settles on a church in New York City, and finds what was missing from his life all those years: … a place of “collective support and sharing.”

He describes it as “coming in from the cold” and finding a “spiritual mooring” (AARP Magazine, March/April, 2008, p.79).

These days, folks say, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.”

Folks are opting out of “religion as usual” …
Folks aren’t interested in labels - Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholic; liberal, conservative, evangelical or Pentecostal … they want God.

Folks aren’t interested in keeping institutions alive … they want God.

Folks couldn’t care less about organized religion … they want God.

Church organization doesn’t excite them … God excites them.

Folks want God, and they want to serve God … soup kitchens and mission projects – they want to make the world a better place, and joining a church and filling a pew doesn’t measure up.

Thomas Merton said it well: “I have no time for anything but the essentials. The only essential is … is God Himself” (Silent Lamp: the Thomas Merton Story, by William H. Shannon, p.142)

The church needs to pay attention.

We’re here to love God and lift up the name of Jesus.

Make God the essential!

That’s the point of being the church: God and God alone.

A place where Thomas can touch Jesus and come to faith … My LORD and my God!

Thomas found Jesus, and Jesus found Thomas in the company of the frightened! They were all frightened and distressed, but they stood together, arm-in-arm.

That’s why they were together … that’s why we’re together.

Not because we’re so faithful, but because life is so frightening …
All week long, we’re hammered by the adversary; our reserves are drained … we do good things and bad things … we serve high causes, and we serve ourselves … we give, and we take; we’re charitable, and we’re stingy; we love, and we hate; we’re kind, and we’re crude … a little of this and a little of that … all rolled into one big lump called life.

We gather together to find the greater strength …

We gather together because in our gathering is where will likely see God … here on a Sunday morning, in a prayer meeting, a Bible study or breakfast with a Christian friend.

I heard a sad story last week … a pastor refused to call upon a dying child because Mom and Dad weren’t members of the church. They attended for years; faithful in all regards, but never signed on the dotted line. Only when begged by another staff member did the pastor call, and then only for five minutes.

That’s why the church has to be careful.
We forget the essential!

We have beautiful buildings, and sometimes our buildings overshadow the gospel.

We have membership rolls, and sometimes those rolls mean more to us than Christ!

We have robes and stained glass, and sometimes robes and stained glass are more important than grace and love.

We have organs and liturgy, and sometimes the forms overwhelm the faith …

We forget to be real … we forget to be humble … we forget who we are … the company of the frightened … not the high and mighty … just beggars telling each other where we can find good bread!

Jesus came to the company of the frightened!

They saw God!

Could it be a downtown cathedral with vaulted ceiling and grand organ? Folks dressed and coiffed expensively?
Could it be a storefront on Vermont – 18 people singing their heart out in Spanish? Raising their hands in Pentecostal fashion.
Could it be someone’s dining room table on a Monday night with corn beef and cabbage?
Could it be salad and soup with a friend at the Coffee Company?
Could it be two Christians reading the Bible together in the company lunchroom?

A week later, it says, they were together again … and this time, Thomas was there. Amen!