April 2, 2006 A Strange Heaven?

Rev. Tom Lenhart
Sermon July 23, 2006
“Church -- More than A Building”
2 Samuel 7: 1-14a and Ephesians 2:13- 22

What is the church? This is a question that has been asked for nearly 2000 years and one that we should ask occasionally as we take stock of who we are and what we are about. I have looked quickly at your wonderfully varied and insightful answers to that question. Some of the answers that have come to your mind and mine are as follows: There are what I would call the architectural answers –it’s the wonderful building where we come every Sunday with the tall steeple, the worshipful sanctuary and the wonderful organ. Some answers are quasi theological -- we believe in Christ but have no creeds and no one mandatory statement of faith. Some answers are sociological ones -- church is where we meet for fellowship and community -- at the Barn Sale, potluck suppers and, yes, at board meetings and I am spelling that “b-o-a-r-d.” Some answers are spiritual ones -- it is where we go to be spiritually recharged and enriched after a tough week or in the face of illness and grief. None of these is wrong – indeed, each vividly captures an aspect of what church is for us. But I submit there is another way of answering that question. I addressed this in part in my recent Carillon article and want to explore it further today.

Today’s scripture reading from Ephesians comes to us from a very different time. The church to which Paul or likely a follower of Paul was writing had -- as had most of the early communities of Jesus followers -- grappled with a crucial question that threatened to divide and destroy it. How were the Jewish followers of Jesus and the Gentile followers going to form a church open to both. Embedded in that challenge was a series of critical questions for the early church concerning, among other things, the role and the significance of the Hebrew Bible and the place and significance of the Mosaic Law, including the requirement of circumcision, for acceptance in the church. It is the great gift of Paul and his followers that these questions did not break the early church on the rocks of discord and division. Without Paul the church as we know it would not have survived and thrived. That is not to say that there are no difficulties raised by Paul and some of his views, but those difficulties are for a different day and a different sermon. The passage from Ephesians today is a magnificent paean or song of thanksgiving to the oneness of the church in diversity through Christ. Christ’s life, death and resurrection served in Paul’s view to open a universal path to God – that is brought the church of God to all people of faith, including Gentiles, who did not follow Jewish law, as well as to Jews who did. Of course, Paul’s world is not ours-- our issues of division and walls of separation are different (but no less difficult to surmount). Nonetheless, this passage says a great deal about what it means to be a Christian church today; indeed, what it means for us here at 210 Orchard Ridge Road to be a church.

5. There are no dividing walls or hostility between individuals and groups in the true church. (2: 14, 16)

What a challenging description! Before we get too discouraged, it is important to remember that it is not who we are but who we strive to become that is critical. The phrase “God is still speaking” reminds us that God’s work is not done and that God continues to work in our world. So too for the church, it is a continuing process. The important thing is that we are engaged in that process.

The gifted British writer Dorothy Sayers, best known for her Lord Peter Whimsey detective novels, also wrote about religious matters. At one point she compiled a list of the church’s seven deadly sins. Now it will shock you that bad preaching and overly long worship services are not on her list. But in all seriousness this is her list: respectability, childishness, mental timidity, dullness, sentimentality, censoriousness (being overly judgmental), and depression of spirits.[1] Each of these would make a wonderful sermon topic but I don’t intend to talk about all of them. They are important I think not to use as whips to lash ourselves with for our inadequacies –but rather to highlight by comparison what we in this church do well but could do even better to approach Ephesians’ standard

For my purposes today I think a number of these weaknesses from Dorothy Sayers can be collected together in the concept of comfortable complacency. It is the great tendency to like things the way they are. The adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” comes to mind. In a world in which we are bombarded with change and seemingly mindless activity, the natural reaction generally and in the church is to cling to the status quo and to believe that what we have is pretty darn good. And you know it is.

But the key things defining the church for the writer of Ephesians are never fully accomplished. Are there no strangers and aliens who should be welcomed into our community; are there no barriers – no walls that separate us here? Are we all really part of one household? Or in the wider world are whites not still too often separated from blacks, the affluent from poor? Are there no homeless among the snug residences of this area? Has the proclamation of peace been heard and followed in every corner of the world? The answer is sadly no to each of these. A sense of comfort leads as at times simply to be consumers of faith.

It is often said among serious and not so serious runners that the hardest part about running is the first step -- the one out of bed on that dreary morning when the last thing you want to do is to get out of a warm bed. For the church some times the hardest thing is that first step out of our comfort zone to embrace new initiatives and ideas. In our hearts we know and embrace the imperative of the divine message but boy it’s hard -- its cold out -- it might even be raining --and it’s so snug and comfortable inside.

Ephesians reminds us what is perhaps obvious. The church -- the community of the faithful -- is the dwelling place of God and Christ is our cornerstone and our glue. This first and foremost means that this not a place about us but about God. It also remains us that church is about being a part of a community of faith. It is not church when we sit home and read or hear a sermon or watch a televangelist. It may be spiritually renewing but it is not the church. Ours is a faith of relationships. The Trinitarian God is a God of relationship – that is the essence of the notion of the three in one. And we too are in relationship with God and through the great commandment in a relationship of love with our neighbors. So it is that the church is not a group of solitary individuals but a community bound in relationship to God and to each other.

So what does that first step look like for a church? Let me share with you several things that I think our Ephesians passage suggests. Last year I was talking with some one about the Outdoor Church -- the ecumenical ministry to the homeless in Cambridge with which I have been involved. He said something that has stuck with me. He said, “You know it’s really important for me to be involved in the Outdoor Church -- to be a part of it. It is only a few steps from me to the homeless.” And this resonated with me. But for some good fortune in my life -- a person who saw something in me when I didn’t see it in myself and was there when I teetered in darkness, I too could be there on the street.

William Sloane Coffin, the great preacher, captured this in a sermon in which he described the train ride from New Haven, Connecticut to Grand Central Station in New York City. It’s a ride --perhaps some of you have taken --that takes the passenger from the affluence of Fairfield County with its greenery and big houses to and through some of the worst sections of New York City. Out one’s window in Harlem and East Harlem are seemingly endless blocks of cold-water tenements, trash-strewn streets, and boarded-up buildings. What you see are lives of genuine despair. As Coffin noted it’s hard to look and hard not to. Then just after leaving the 125^th Street Station the train enters a tunnel to take it downtown under Park Avenue and what one now sees reflected in the window is one’s own face. It s quite a sobering reminder of the meager distance between our lives and the lives of those less fortunate and yet of the chasm of privilege and material comfort that separates us

But the short distance my colleague mentioned between the homeless and us is true in a different sense. The distance is, of course, measured equally in the length of an arm -- the distance it takes to hand a homeless person a sandwich, a pair of gloves or the bread of communion. The distance is no more than the distance necessary to exchange a “hello” or a “how are you doing.” Human dignity is precious and yet so easily supported. Certainly that is one of the first steps for a church -- to support human dignity and one we are taking here through our support for and participation in the Partnership for Emergency Housing.

Some times we think in the church that these steps of outreach must be grand or that we have to know exactly how they are going to play out before we undertake them. The present minister at the church I attended in my youth tells a story about his mentor.[2] This man named Reg was a minister of a small parish church. One Sunday after preaching a sermon about mission he concluded that he didn’t know what he was talking about, so he quit -- he literally resigned his pulpit one Sunday afternoon and got into mission work.

At some point during this new career the higher ups in his denomination, said Reg we want you to visit Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa. Now I am sure most of you know who he was. He started his adult life as one of the great biblical scholars/pastors and as one the finest organist in the world. In mid career he gave both up and went to medical school and eventually founded a missionary clinic in Africa. In 1952 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. To Reg’s superiors it sounded like Schweitzer was doing amazing things and they wanted to know more about his work. Reg agreed to go but said I can’t go empty handed and persuaded the church to give him a few thousand dollars for Schweitzer’s clinic. So Reg traveled to Schweitzer’s mission by plane, truck, bus and finally dugout canoe. After settling into a small hut, he was greeted by Dr. Schweitzer. After an exchange of pleasantries Schweitzer asked whether Reg had brought medicine as the clinic was almost out. “No” was the answer. Schweitzer continued, “Per chance are you a vet as our animals are all dying.” Again, the answer was “no.” Finally Schweitzer said, “my phonograph is broken it is our only entertainment can you fix it.” Again the answer was “no.” Reg, at this point -- feeling pretty low -- volunteered he had brought $5000. At which point Schweitzer abruptly got up and left. Well, Reg went to bed and tossed and turned all night thinking how stupid to bring money to the jungle and not useful items like medicine and food. He got up the next morning and repacked, concluding that this trip had been a disaster and he should leave post haste. There was, however, a knock at the door: it was one of Schweitzer’s assistants. She said that she had come to bring Dr. Schweitzer’s apology for his abrupt departure. For you see he left because he was overwhelmed with Reg’s gift. The clinic had run out of money –was within days of closing. The staff and patients had prayed for funds with no avail and then out of the blue Reg had come. So it is that small steps lead to unexpected places and serve in unexpected ways.

It would be wrong to think of our necessary steps being only those that take us out into the world. Church is, of course, about what we do here. As Ephesians reminds us, church is about elimination of barriers – that there are no strangers and no aliens in churches. The church’s spiritual doors, not just its physical doors, must be wide open. As Paul wrote in Colossians, “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” (Col. 3:11)[3] Yet, it’s not enough simply to have the doors wide open. We must be exuberantly welcoming. We must take purposeful steps forward with our hands out to welcome new people to our churches –people who may be different from us in many ways but who are -- like us -- children of God. Indeed, many of those visitors to our church will be new to church all together -- the so-called “unchurched”. They may be wary and frequently will be unfamiliar with what we do and why we do. But they will have a deep-seated hunger for meaning and faith. We must reach out and ask them all to walk with us on our collective faith journey. And in doing so we must remember –indeed celebrate – that we are not all in the same place on that journey. There are lots of little steps to take: wear nametags, say hello to the unfamiliar person and invite a friend to church. The worst that can happen is they find this isn’t the place for them.

But the steps we need to take to be the church described in Ephesians are not simply outside the walls of the church or to the new among us but also of course to those who have been faithful stalwarts. Who among us has not needed to have a hand reached out to them? Or have an encouraging word offered. Who among us has not sat in the pew listening to a sermon, praying or singing a hymn and has not been revived and restored or at least fortified to deal with the challenges of the world outside. Who among has not in fellowship moments or working on the Barn Sale felt the support and friendship of another that has helped get them through a difficult time. We do all these things well here and must never lose that commitment to continue -- reminded by our text from Samuel that to do all of this -- to take these steps -- we cannot be stationary and too comfortable but like the ark we must move among the people.

There is no way that I could in twenty sermons capture the essentials of church or touch on all the wonderful answers you have given. But let me turn back to the story about Reg for one final moment. When Reg got ready to leave Africa, Schweitzer confessed that he had never heard of Reg’s denomination – his church -- before Reg came to Schweitzer’s clinic. But Schweitzer confessed; “now I know its name -- it’s the church of loving-kindness.” After he came back from his visit with Schweitzer, Reg ended every sermon he preached with the following “thank you God for the privilege of serving in the church of loving-kindness.” And, of course, that is what the writer of Ephesians meant when he said that the church is the dwelling place of God and that Christ is our cornerstone and glue. So let us rejoice in the fact that this is a church of loving-kindness. Reminded that loving-kindness is never finished but demands of us our continuing steps forward among the people just like the Ark. Amen

[1] Halford Luccock, Preaching Values in the Epistles of Paul, vol. 1, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959) p. 144

[2] This story is set out in a sermon preached by the Rev. David Ruhe at Plymouth Church in Des Moines, Iowa on October 24, 2004.

[3] Luccock, p 145