This made me really feel like I am living out the life of Christ and I hope was a huge reminder for everyone that although we have our differences we are working for the same God. Right now, too many churches and church people are fighting over differences. Right now too many people are living the Christ out of the Christian message as they spread evil. Too many churches are doing more harm then good in the name of God and this has to stop.
And so I am publishing my sermon on here. I usually don't put up my written sermon for it is meant to be heard not read. I do hope you get something out of it. I am sorry in advance for any gross spelling errors as this is usually "glanced at" and not meant to be taken seriously in written form.
My hope from this sermon is that we will all rethink - those who go to church and those who don't about our attitudes as Christians and really begin to live the life a Christ - a life that practices forgiveness when we are confronted with the need. A life that practices God's love and living into grace. A life far from the evil and hate that tear down the foundations of our churches. I don't think that the institutional church is no longer relevant but I do think that for it to continue to be relevant it needs to own up on it's failures. God is not the CHURCH and thus the church is full of failure and sins. We must repent and be transformed not only as individuals but as churches in order to restore our communities.
Although many of us believe that the “hey-day” for our
Churches was during the 50’s but the reality is that since WWII the churches
have been in trouble. You see, as
Phyllis Tickle puts it that is when the church became the “other
pleasure.” This is when society changed,
women started to feel the freedom of choosing their vocation and of earning
their own money. Men came back from war
– and we weren’t acknowledging Post-traumatic stress syndrome. Society changed. Churches grew because women, mothers, home
makers needed something outside the home after the men returned from war. Churches grew because they were the center of
our social groups – Churches didn’t grow because faith grew, churches didn’t
grow because they did anything – it was society that pushed the growth in
churches. And our churches relished in
our hey-days.
I want to emphasis that although the church played an
important role in peoples lives then, the churches did nothing but own
this. We as Churches lived into our new
found numbers and relished in the children that filled our churches. But our strengthen in numbers and finances as
a church universal and individual churches then led to this alarming assumption
that that would be the churches forever.
So today – we fast forward to the fact that we are still in decline. That these baby-boomer children are missing
from our pews and that their children in most cases are unchurched. We as the church universal no longer holds a
prominent spot in today’s family life.
And the language of church has become a foreign language. And this has left our Churches stuck with
large buildings, large bills and few people filling our pews. This has left our churches in a frantic place
trying to survive and burning out our leadership. And we are all running around like chickens
with our heads cut off confused, dazzed and fighting with each other.
I believe there is still hope. I believe that we can reclaim the Christian
faith. But before we can grow, before we
can truly change this direction of growth we need to CHANGE BE TRANSFORMED. We need to rethink how we live into our
Christian faith and let Christ transform our lives. For it is through this transformation that
Christians will grow not only individuality in spirit but as a whole in the
church.
You see, society has continued to change. And the most important change is this shift
to secularization and this fear of speaking about religion in public. But unlike the media and the over hyped “war
on religion” title that is often given to this shift – I believe that it is of
our own fault and our own making. We
failed ourselves and until we acknowledge this and stop blaming everyone else
we aren’t going to be able to move on.
You see, people have left the churches for many reasons – but
there reasons for not returning have startling similarities. And the IMPORTANT PART is that in most cases
it is because of the distortion of the Christian image.
In Paul’s teachings today we hear of a question concerning
the right actions of the diet. You see
it was customary for people to sacrifice or bless an animal in the name of a
god, a pagan God, and then share that feast with those around them. This meal would be a meal to honor this
god. Although those with the Christian
knowledge did not believe in this God and would in no ways we participating in
the feast in honor of this God but instead in order to eat a decent meal. Paul says that as a Christian you should
still refrain from participating because to those who do not know better you
are worshiping another God – or committing idolatry. Especially in the eyes of a weaker Christian
who doesn’t have the same Spiritual knowledge!
Hmm this is pretty intense…
As role models, even if you understand something or have
greater knowledge, as an ambassador for Christ to the world we must first think
about those who don’t! Since the
language of Christianity is no longer a language that is understood to all then
we especially have to be careful now! As
ambassadors of Christ, we have let this Christian image become distorted and as
Paul warned in his letter through this mis-understandings those who are weaker
in knowledge have succumbed to believing in wicked things over the true message
from Christ.
Let us think about the image of Christ that we have let the
world see in the last half century.
·
We
condemned divorcees that left abusers.
We made these women feel shame for getting themselves and their children
out of that kind of destructive environment.
And we wonder where their children are?
·
We
failed to keep up when women began to work – during the 70’s and early 80’s we
did nothing to help the lock-key children – and we wonder why surveys say this age group is most like NOT to
believe in intuitions?
·
We
let the phrase “we don’t talk about religion and politics” become the normal –
for WE as religious people said this very phrase and taught our children. And we now claim that the secular world as
declared war on us?
·
We
have done so much in-fighting in my lifetime (last 30 years), we have spent so many resources
on politics of our denominations that we have failed spreading the message of
Christ. And we wonder why people think
we are hypnotics.
·
We
have jumped on any and all band-wagons to get people in our pew. And now
wonder how it could be that unchurched people don’t believe we are authentic.
·
But
most importantly Worship and education has failed to give people the words to
express our own faith. We, as mainliners
– as established denominations – have failed to give voice and authority over to
each person in order to truly spread the message of Christ. Which has left most of us silent to the
overwhelming voices of the extreme.
And we as role models, we have let this Christian image become
this way. The secular world did not
declare war on us! We went quietly and without a fight and NOW that we have
found ourselves in captivity and we realize as we look around at our churches that the news of church growth looks dim.
NOW in the 13th hour we still are failing to take blame. And to those who are weaker in Spirit to all
those who don’t know the language of the Church – it looks like we are eating
the meat blessed and offered to other Gods.
It looks like we have made an idol out of our church buildings and our
pastors. It looks like we don’t practice
what we preach. It looks like we are
uneducated – or simple and ignorant folks! And that's not true!
It looks like we are people who care more about a few pieces of paper
then the actual life of Christ. It looks
like we aren’t good for anything especially since we have limited resources to
even help those in need. And essentially
we aren’t doing much to change that. For
we are still proscribing to the same solutions – we are still doing business as
usual in hopes that the world would change.
I am sure we all know the John Mayor song “waiting…waiting
for the world to change…” it is essential about how many younger people feel
trapped by the older generations and feel that they have to wait for the world
to change. Our churches have been
feeling trapped by the secular world for some time and have continued to “wait”
but our time is up! We cannot wait any longer – the world isn’t going to change
unless we do something to change it.
So what is it that I propose we do? What are the answers? Well I wish I had all the answers but I do
have the most important one: Live as a Christian Model. Be transformed by the spirit of God in such
away that you live out the life of Christ.
You see, we as Christians aren’t spreading the message of LOVE,
forgiveness and Grace. We as Christians
continue to spread the negative messages when we keep silent on our faith. When we fail to offer peace.
I worked with this youth adviser for several years. He had a self declared anger problem. And would often feel anger towards people who
weren’t of like mind. He was very
justice minded. One summer on a mission
trip with our youth group we were over come by the attitudes of several youth
in another youth group. During an adult
discuss, it got pretty heated but many of the adults advisers to this youth
group felt the same as the kids. They
weren’t defending the kids – they agreed with them. Our youth groups motto for mission trips was
“live simply so others can simply live” and so you can imagine the anger that
my youth adviser had to the demands of some of this kids and adults. That night, in our individual youth meetings,
it was clear that we needed to forgive them and ask for forgiveness for we
would never see eye to eye but we could work together to see this mission
through. We each made a peace crane with
the words Forgive and Love on the wings.
The next morning at breakfast we placed them on the plates of the other
youth group and served them breakfast.
That simple gesture, turned the course of the mission week and we all
learned a lesson. The lesson for me was
that often in our strive to live out the Christina life we fail at the biggest
test of all! We quickly judge, we
quickly place our interpretations on others and we quickly move into conflict.
Jesus not only lived IN THE WORLD he was OF the world. Jesus approached each disciple differently
and Jesus treated each person honoring them as an individual. There is no cookie-cutter Christian
form. There is no black line drawn
across each decision we make. We live in
the world and we are of the world. The world is a messy place and the world is
a complicated place. But forgiveness
isn’t that complicated. Forgiveness and
love are powerful!
It is amazing that we have taken this step today to bring our
churches together in the love of Christ for the betterment of our
community. It is great that we can begin
to work together for the greater purpose of spreading God’s message. But we have a lot of work. For there are a lot of unchurched people out
there ready to see the true image of God through the ambassadors of Christ –
us. We have a lot of work to do to
restore our image to one not wrought with evil but love. We have a lot of work to mend the bridges
burnt by our own actions done in the name of Christ. We have a lot of work to do – but it can’t be
done until we acknowledge our own silent voices – acknowledge the hurt we have
done – ask God for forgiveness and begin spreading forgiveness and love. And so today, as you leave. Pick up a peace crane. Write your own words on the wings – be it
love, forgiveness or grace. Be it “I’m
sorry” or “Let’s try again” Be it for a family member or a former church
member. Be it for a co-worker or a
community neighbor. Let us begin to
model the true Christian message. Let us
live into our call as Christians and acknowledge the authority that we have
through our understanding of Christ message.
Let us build up the Church through the foundations that Jesus set for us
instead of using those foundations to tear down. Let us be transformed by the power of forgiveness and let that trans-formative love pour out of us to all those we meet. Amen.
