"Even Cars Can't Stay in the Garage!"

The January 3 issue of USA Today had an article titled “God, Religion, Atheism ‘So What?’ That’s what many say”.The article takes note of a trend in society away from all types of searches for meaning and truth and purpose. It is not just that people are turning from being “religious” to “spiritual”, or from “spiritual” to “atheist” – it is that more and more people just don’t care about any of it.

“God? Purpose? You don’t need an opinion on those things to function,” the article quotes one engineer as saying. Another, discounting the possibility of a spiritual component to our existence,  says, “we might as well be cars. That, to me, makes more sense than believing what you can’t see.”

I’m not so sure it was much different in the time of Jesus, either. I mean, if everyone was on the same page, why was Jesus going around saying to people “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”? No, Jesus, fresh from his baptism, has what he believes is good news for people who had yet to hear it, and he wants to share that with them.

There is an old model of what we call “church” – a model that is still very much in existence in our world – which says that what we need to be about as church is to get people in the doors and into the pews – it is about membership. And there is something to this, because, after all, Jesus’ great commandment is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them as I have commanded you.”  And so baptism is the rite by which you join the church.

The danger, of course, is that we leave it at that. With the idea that church is about what happens in here, that the purpose of the church is to support its members.

But look at Jesus and what happens after his baptism. Far from retreating to some sort of spiritual haven where he can be surrounded by like-minded and adoring folk, he goes off into the hustle and bustle of the world, in and among all the people who are spiritually adrift, apathetic, and just uninterested, who are all tied up in the minutia of doing things like they had always done them without remembering why.

And Jesus comes to them, and with his words, and with his teaching, and with his healing, he tells them and shows them that there is more to their world than appears on the surface, that the people are not just “cars”, but instead are beloved children of their Creator; that another kingdom, a kingdom greater than that of Rome or the petty governor ruling their corner of the world, has come near, breaking the power of injustice and tyranny; that there is something which you can’t see – to quote the USA Today article – something called “love”, which is stronger even than death.

Jesus says to them “repent”, which means, literally, “to turn around.” Turn yourself around, he say, turn your face to the warm rays of the rising Son and believe the good news and change your life, so that you might have abundant and eternal life starting today.

This is our mission, this is our task. We, who are in the church, we, who have like Jesus been baptized, we need to repent, to literally turn around, and march back out those doors that so warmly let us in. Our mission is not in here, it is out there, to be the church in the world. Even cars are supposed to be out on the road, not stuck in the garage!

St. Francis told his Friars, as he sent them out into the towns and villages among the poorest of the poor, “Preach the gospel always – if necessary, use words.” That is our mission, as well. We preach the good news as much by what we do as by what we say – as we practice love of neighbor not just by exhibiting a kind attitude to those we see on the street, but by reaching out to the world in acts of generosity and caring and seeking justice for those who are oppressed.

We do that as individuals: as one volunteers down at A Baby Center in Hyannis, an organization which helps lower income parents of newborns and infants with cribs, diapers, strollers, and clothes; as otherstake a few hours each week to be a Big Brother and a Big Sister to kids who lack an adult presence in their life. We each can do that in the individual things we do to share the love of God with others by caring for them.

But we also are called to do this as a church, as together we serve the world in a variety of ways: working together on a Habitat build, or serving a meal at the NOAH Shelter, or going on a mission trip to New Orleans, and so on.

Friends, let us remember our baptism, and how we are called into the church to be sent out into the world, blessed so that we, in our turn, can be a blessing.

“’We’re Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto’" - sermon

Text: Matthew 13:44-53

            For the disciples of Jesus, for the Pharisees and the scribes, for everyone exposed to his message, it was a Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz moment. 

            Most of you – maybe all of you – remember the movie. Dorothy is a teenager living on a family farm in Kansas, enduring what she considered a lonely and unadventurous existence, when a tornado sweeps Dorothy, her house, and her little dog Toto from her black-and-white world to the magical, Technicolor Land of Oz.  Looking around at this new world she has found herself in, she says, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.”  She is right, of course, and while there is much around that recalls her old world – there are trees and fields and cities and blue skies and singing birds and even people, there is also much that is new – a talking Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, witches and wizards, and much more. Part of her challenge is accepting that the old world is not her present reality, and then learning to live into this new existence.

            This was Jesus’ message to all who would hear it: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus calls it in Matthew, the kingdom of God, as Jesus calls it in the other Gospels, is not some futuristic dream which might eventually be realized at the end of history or after we are dead and buried – no, the kingdom of heaven is near, it is at hand, it is breaking in among us. The God who promises to make all things new is doing that even now. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

            So naturally people have questions about this new kingdom, and one of the first ones is, “Well if the new kingdom is at hand, we can just throw out all of the old, right?” So maybe we don’t need all our traditions and our history, maybe we can forget all about the law and the prophets.  But Jesus says to them (Matthew 5:17) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” And what Jesus does is take the law, those rules by which the people had tried to make a just and peaceable community, and extend and internalize them. So we read in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus saying things like, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment….”  

            And so today we read, as Jesus winds up his parables about the kingdom of heaven, that “every scribe (by this he means every one who learns) who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”  The challenge for the followers of Jesus is to receive the treasure of his new teachings, to embrace the excitement and joy and wonder of the good news that the Technicolor kingdom of heaven is at hand, while at the same time cherishing and using the valuable from their tradition.

            Friends, this is just as true for us, today, right here at this pivotal moment in our history as a local church, right here in this pivotal time for the wider church as well.

            Maybe you have noticed. I know I have. Perhaps it’s because I was away for thirteen weeks on sabbatical, and changes that might have escaped your notice because you have been here stand out more for me, but the difference for me is shocking. Attendance at worship is way off. There are less of us in the pews.  There are fewer young families, fewer children. Fewer members of the senior choir, fewer bell ringers, fewer folk taking advantage of our adult education opportunities like Bible Study. There is less financial support for the church and its ministries, fewer pledging, fewer giving. I looked up the numbers, and average attendance, over the past two years, has dropped by at least one-third.

            You might be wondering what we are doing wrong. But it is not just us. I talk with my colleagues here on the Cape, and they are experiencing the same thing. I talk to folk off-Cape, same story. I pick up religious publications like The Christian Century magazine and read that church attendance is down across the board – even the denominations that did better in recent decades have joined in the decline.

             But wait, there’s more. Membership decline does not even begin to adequately describe our situation. The problems go much deeper, and they include the vast changes that have been going on in American culture the past fifty years. Let me name just a few.

            American Christendom simply no longer exists. The unquestioned assumption of the post-World War II years that part of being a good American was tied to belonging to and participating in a local, mainline Protestant church no longer holds. Many of the unquestioned and assumed supports underlying the church no longer exist. Businesses are now open on Sundays; sports, dance, drama, all once absent from the Sunday scene, now fill it, and our children and youth and their parents have long since given up making church a higher priority. Christmas carols are no longer sung in schools. Christianity is no longer the established religion; we are now truly an inter-faith society where the Christian faith is simply one choice among many. Many adults were not brought up in church. Far more families have two bread-winners these days, and as a result many Sundays find them looking for a day of rest, and that often means, a rest from getting the kids dressed, out the door, and over to church.

            In short, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

            But if we are not in Kansas, where exactly are we, and what ought we to do?  Are these insurmountable obstacles, or real opportunities? Is the pain we are experiencing death throes, or birth pangs? (If death throes, let us remember that at the heart of our faith is the knowledge that death precedes resurrection, that, as we sang in our opening hymn, “in the bulb there is a flower”.)

            And what about this pain thing? Is pain all bad? A fitness trainer that I know likes to repeat the saying “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” Pain can wake us up to reality, it can alert us to a problem, and it can motivate us to take action to address the underlying challenge. We humans are not big on change, and left to our own devices, won’t. We usually need a pinch of reality to get us off the dime. In other words, pain.

            So what to do? Perhaps we might take a clue from what Jesus had to say about the kingdom of heaven to those folk who found themselves in a similar situation, smack dab in the middle of a new reality and wondering how to make a start of things. He told them that “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”  So what might we bring out of the old, even as we grope for the new? Let me just touch on three ideas.

            First, a number of years ago we decided that we wanted to be a more obviously welcoming congregation, and so we held a hospitality summit, bringing together representatives of all the boards, committees, and fellowship groups in the church for a day of brainstorming. Out of this came a host of initiatives, like our nametag ministries, our Dinners for Eight events, the gift bags that we bring to the homes of first-time visitors, a paid nursery coordinator, and much more. Perhaps we might build on this welcoming initiative by taking it to the next level, moving it outward from something we do here to something we do out there, in our communities and in our neighborhoods and in our friendships, actively inviting others to try us out.  We Yankees are somewhat embarrassed about this, but it does not have to be that way – ask anyone who has lived in the South and they will tell you that one of the first questions they are asked is “What church do you go to, and if you haven’t found one yet, why not come with me on Sunday to our church?” Ask them to try us out because you’ve found something good here and you want them to have the chance to have that same good experience.

            Second, even as we focused inward on becoming more hospitable, we also focused outward, increasing our hands-on involvement in mission. You have joined Habitat for Humanity builds, taken mission trips to Chile and New Orleans, have supported refugee children in Sri Lanka, knitted neck warmers for the troops in Afghanistan, brought meals to the homeless at the NOAH Shelter. In so doing, you have not only done good, extending a helping hand to neighbors near and far – you have also grown spiritually, had transforming, even life-changing experiences. Can we find ways to deepen our involvement of partnering with God in the ongoing work of bringing ever closer the kingdom of heaven, of involving others, or sharing the joy?

            Third – and we always have to come back to this -- we have also gone deeper, intentionally seeking to bring Christ closer to the center of our lives. This has been evident in our worship together, and, for those who have attended, in our Bible Studies and other adult educational opportunities. Can we find ways to be even more intentional about going deeper? Perhaps it might be through subscribing to one of the devotional aids like “The Daily Word” or, for the technologically savvy, checking out my new blog. Perhaps it will be a new rededication to attendance at Sunday worship, at WITS, at the Men’s Breakfast Group. Perhaps it will mean putting together and attending off-site retreats.

            Above all, we need to remember why we do all this, why hospitality, why outreach, why going deeper – all this because these contribute to the purpose of the church, which is that of transforming lives for the better. We as a church, charged by Jesus with making disciples, seek to change people in such a way that the Christian story of grace and response, of God loving us first and then we responding in how we can live our lives, is the lens through which people experience reality.  And the good news is that this is not something that we do, although we can try to help make it happen – this, the gift of faith, is something God does.

            So let me end as I began, with Dorothy, in that wonderful new land of Oz. This, at core, is what we are about – striving to take people from that limited, black-and-white world so many just settle for, to a Technicolor world of grace and forgiveness, acceptance and empowerment. And as we do so, let’s not settle for clicking our heels together and wishing we were just back home again – instead, let’s fold our hands together, and pray to the One who promises to make all things new, “thy kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven.”

            Amen.