Church #3 - Whose Church Is It Anyway? 1/19/20 Epiphany 2A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Church #3   Whose Church Is It, Anyway?

1/19/20 Epiphany 2A

            I think I’ve mentioned the young man Billy, who came to this country with one suitcase and his identification papers from Congo, and who lived with me and my children while he completed High School. Growing up in France and the Congo, he was totally disoriented when he stepped off the plane in Richmond, VA with just a phone number to a contact person. All he knew of the US was from Hollywood movies - he thought we were all wealthy and immoral, and his father had warned him about us!  He had High School level English, no money; our culture was not familiar, nor our school system, nor our food. Billy’s gifts were a huge smile, a buoyant personality, and easy friendships - he acclimated quickly.  I could tell lots of fun and poignant stories about the impact he had on our lives. 

            What I want us to imagine is what it’s like to step into a different world, as Billy did, where so much is unknown as yet.  See, I’ve been fishing for a way to explain what Jesus might have meant when he said that when we repent and are baptised, we start our journey in the Kingdom of Heaven, aka the kingdom of God - that is, we take on a new country, a new way of looking at the world, new ideas about people, about life decisions, about God, about our own worth, about what it means to be created in God’s own image, about being called to follow Christ, about being joined into Christ’s church, which is also called Christ’s body now on Earth.  Yet we’re still on the same planet as before! And all the same things are around us!  It’s us, inside, who are reborn, who are new.  The apostle Paul, in his letters to those first gatherings of people around the Mediterreanian Sea, tries to describe it by saying we used to, “live according to the world,” but now, “live according to the Spirit.” Other times he uses words like putting off the “old man” and putting on the “new man.”  (I overlook the sexism of Paul’s language.) Another place he says that Jesus Christ is like a “Second Adam,” a second creation of humanity, and that we are taken into this new life when we follow Christ. It’s difficult to explain, and I don’t think we Christ-followers have much of a comprehension about this.  We have tended to think following Christ is about taking on some good and nice behaviors and attitudes, attending worship, supporting missions and such. 

The New Testament, however, teaches that we have become new people deep in our soul, our spirit; it uses the language of being born again, which has been taken over by some groups as a one time come-to-Jesus event of conversion.  What it means is that we have started a journey into the new resurrection life of Jesus, and we are learning to live in Christ, in a new creation, a new comprehension, a new reality - -  while still actually on earth.

God gathers us in communities, churches, so that we can be supported, encouraged, educated, formed, and nurtured into this new way of living - we can thank God and worship, we can grow and learn to be fully this new human; and we can communicate God’s love and restorative message like God’s very ambassadors.  We can show the radical welcome to the table of God, the abundant and generous forgiveness and provision of God, we can offer the healing of God to those who long for it; the spirit of God can move us and lead us as witnesses to God’s grace and glory, fill us - heal and change us from the inside out.  Early believers fed each other and shared everything, the Scripture says.  They gathered despite economic or other distinctions - of course as they went along, they ran into difficulties with the huge changes - that’s why Paul kept writing letters and encouraging them in their journey and new lives.  It was really different from the way they’d accepted as how the world is, and difficult to take in all at once.

Is this how we think of church???  Not usually…. 

In asking us all to be more aware of our use of the word “church,” I’ve found myself starting to say things like, “Let’s meet at the church,” and I’ve had to stop myself and say “at the church building.”  We’ve grown used to thinking of our facility as what church is, and forgotten that “Church” actually means the gathered people of God.  We would be church no matter where we met - outside, in a house, in a convention center, a rented store front - because WE are the church. I’m learning to change my language along with you all, because I think our understanding of ourselves as the church is a foundational piece of the new thing that God’s Spirit is doing in our era.  As many congregations in the country are shrinking and being unable to continue in their buildings, they are remembering that wherever they meet, THEY are the church.  A good building is a good asset for ministry, for worship, for a meeting place, for opening to the community, for visibility in the community - and still it is not “the church” - WE are.

I’m recommending a book study group for Lent, coming up in about a month now - it’s called Sailboat Church, and its written by a former Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, Joan Gray.  She sets up a helpful dichotomy with the rowboat versus sailboat imagery that I think is a helpful and needed look at the way we Christ-followers are ‘church.’

In a nutshell (because we’ll explore it more in the study), the rowboat church can be characterized as something WE are responsible for, with our hard work and dedication - - to grow, we just need to work harder, have fancier programs, have good brand identity, and get a spiffy new pastor with young children and a great personality.  Then people will come.  Rowboat churches can find themselves using measures of success like numbers of bodies in pews, numbers at programs, and a healthy budget.  The rowboat mentality thinks if we do everything right, it will work, and sometimes looks at new members as “giving units.” (I don’t like that word or concept.)  Rowboat churches look at church as a religious organization, and get tied up in the structure and job descriptions. As the operations of the church become more like a business and a civic organization, the spirit and life of the rowboat church dry up. It struggles to “fill positions,” andlongs for a return of the times when classes were full and younger people would work harder. 

            The Sailboat church, on the other hand, knows that the church is GOD’S, and that the power comes from God’s Spirit, like wind filling the sails.  Sailboat churches know that they don’t make the wind - the wind of the Spirit comes from God to move and blow where it will. It’s the Spirit that will move the church, lead and guide the church.  Sailboat churches know that their personal relationships with God need to be alive and vital; their own spiritual lives need to be nourished and fed.  They need to know how to pray, how to listen for the Spirit for their own lives and their corporate life as church.  Cultivation of each person’s journey as a follower of Christ is key.  And yes, there are positions and leaders and such structure as will raise the sails and set them to catch the winds.  There’s a certain knowledge about boats and water, and how the wind works.  Members need to be good sailors.  Yet the vision and the power and the guidance is from the Spirit, working towards God’s goals. 

            Gray’s book will be a help to us to look together at our own journey with God, and how to seek the Spirit’s guidance as a body together.  This is important work for each of us to do as we look to our future here as Jamesville Community Church. 

            I believe that God has called each of us here to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  I believe that God has called us to step into this new life in the Kingdom of Heaven, and desires a deeper relationship of love and trust with each of us.  I believe that there is no better or higher work we can do than seeking to know God, learning to walk with Jesus, and hearing the voice of the Spirit.  There is no higher calling than to live into this new realm of God that Jesus announced, which is the way humans are designed to live, and the new life of Jesus’ resurrection that is shared with us.  Even while we walk and work in this country, this state, this world - we are citizens of heaven, and called into the body of Christ called the Church. 

I cannot say this strongly enough -- it matters how we understand ourselves to be the church. It matters how we respond to God and seek God personally. It matters that we listen for the direction of the Holy Spirit as we seek to be Christ-followers in this day and time.  It matters that we hoist our sails and let the Spirit be the wind that fills our sails and empowers us into  mission in this world. 

            I hope and trust we are praying for the church constantly in our challenging times - our local church and other local churches, and the universal church.  God is still working, still seeking people, still building this church.  We need to align ourselves with where God is going.  AMEN.