I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together.

The word "empowerment" is ringing in my ears as I prepare to leave this congregation.  This sermon is born out of a desire to instill a great sense of empowerment for the people that so faithfully serve the church and its mission to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world".  This sermon is also a repsonse of sorts to my many, many peers (mostly Christian) who spend more time critiquing the institution of the church and Christianity than loving it.  The church is far from perfect, and that's what makes it holy -- the church is meant to truly be a place that welcomes saints and sinners alike.  And, after this year, I have seen a broken and near-death church come to life again.  I think thats what Jesus is all about, anyways. 

FUMC

6.10.12

Psalm 130

This week I would like to do something a little different, I'm not going to preach off of the lectionary, although I have certainly been inspired by the psalm that the lectionary assigned to this day. This sermon is more based out of a need to articulate something, voice something that is not being said in the church and certainly not outside the church.

I am a part of Generation Y, the generation that is coming of age in a time when the church is set in steady, and all too rapid decline. This probably is not new news to you. However, what terrifies me is that the next generation is the generation that could see more church closings than any other, the coming generation could be coming of age as the church is in its final stages of existence as we know it. Now, I have no desire to be a gloom and doom preacher this morning. Yet – I am not sure that we have named as boldly as needed that the church is changing. And if not changing, then dead. Not just this church, but churches all over the country are having conversations just like we've been having, revitalization, mission redevelopment, collaboration, visioning processes...we've been doing it all, and we haven't been doing it alone.

But the thing I would like to voice today is not what we've been doing here in this church, but why we've been doing it at all. Have you ever, honestly, wondered that? Have you ever stopped to think about why you put in all this time and emotion, all the money and energy? Well, all of our answers would be different of course, so I claim these only as my own.

So, I have a list for you – a top 5 of sorts. Before I dive into my list, I think I need to tell you what my list is up against. The voices out there in the world that get under my skin and make me want to voice to you today, why I do church at all. About a year ago I stumbled across an article written by a UCC minister from Illinois and she quickly and humorously summarizes so much of why I am in the church – its so I'm not lost in the sunset! I'll let her explain...Pastor Lillian writes the following,

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition.

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.


Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community?  Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.

Pastor Lillian gives the voices in the world a persona – man on plane. And she summarizes so much of what is happening outside the church – individualized, self-motivated spirituality. I can see the allure, I can see why staying in bed on a Sunday morning is appealing (trust me!), I can see why encounter God only in the ways that are convenient and cozy is a path that many choose to take. I can see the church has become so quiet, so muted by the growing spirituality movement that we have lost our voice in this conversation. We, maybe like Pastor Lillian, nod politely on the plane and listen to the voices that say why every other option, other than church, is better.

I, not so politely, disagree. Christ gave us the church, Christ built the legacy of faith on this church and we must, must find our voice again. So, I give to you – in David Letterman fashion – my top five of “Why Church”.

WHY CHURCH?

5. Real community. In church communities we gather with people we like and people we do not like all the same. We gather in God's love and stand before the mission God gave us and work together. Kind of like siblings, kind of like co-workers, but really something totally other. In church we have these holy moments where we take off the masks we wear and get real. In church, every week, we name the brokenness of the world and of ourselves and we ask for forgiveness – we ask if of God and of one another. It does not get more real than that.

And when we cannot gather with one another...when the arguments, histories, personalities all get to be too much...we gather anyways, pulled in by God's grace alone (don't fool yourselves, we don't get ourselves here) and our presence says “Ok, I'm in this for something or someone other than myself...so here I am”. And the community welcomes and changes and hopefully, inspires us to grow closer to God and close to one another. I do church because I have experienced real community in churches. For the first time when I showed up at a church as a teenager and was asked to play piano, I learned about community when that church family loved me deeply all through my college years. I learned again about church when the office ladies at a church I worked at taught me how to be a mother to my fussy, sick infant. I learned again about community here, seeing you all, letting your long histories intertwine, witnessing the struggle to be and stay a church community amidst great diversity and struggle. I do church because church does community better than anywhere else I know.

4. Based on forgiveness. I do church because church is based on forgiveness and that is so unlike the world. The world says prove yourself first, show me you are worthy. The world says no second chances, you mess it up and you're out. The world functions on an if-than clause...if you good/decent/talented/rich/normal/health....then, you are in the in crowd.

Church has it exactly backward. The church follows God's lead and says forgiveness first, welcome first. God loved us first and that is what makes us worthy. So, we love each other first and know that the holiness of what happens in love and forgiveness is what makes us worthy. We follow God's teaching on justice and mercy – and this often means getting taken for granted and giving it all away. I do church because church is based on forgiveness and that is so, refreshingly unlike the world.

My favorite image of forgiveness did not exactly happen in a church, but it happened because of a church. One year during my college choir tour, we found ourselves at a church in Helena, Montana. Before each concert the church gave us a room or two to put all of our belongings while we sang. The night in Helena some very opportunistic pick pockets made a haul rifling through 60 backpacks and jackets, taking as much per Diem money and other cash that they could find. While we were upstairs singing, we were being robbed. Once we realized it, the college drama began and many of my peers were crying and lashing out on this injustice. I looked over and saw my friend, Ben, sitting near his backpack which had been completely emptied. He looked calm, serene even and after a few minutes he finally said, “I hope they really needed it.” Ben is a man of great faith, raised and shaped by the church community and the love of God – Ben saw a bigger picture, Ben felt the hope that maybe what seemed like gross injustice, was a chance to be a blessing and was given a generous heart that night. I will never forget his humble forgiveness and the effect it had to calm an entire room of scared college kids.

3. Based on formation. I do church because church is based on formation. That's right. I desire, deeply desire to be shaped by something or someone other than myself. Again, it is so unlike the world. Even though I often act like it, I do not wish to be my own god, I do not wish to be my own mentor or guide. I pray that God will shape me into a more faithful person. I pray that God will love me enough to not be finished with me and that in my shaping and forming that something beautiful and holy will emerge. I know this formation does not happen only while I sit on the beach enjoying sunsets, but this formation comes from being a disciple of Jesus and being a disciple alongside a community.

Growing up I loved my family (I still do!) and I thought being a Damico was a good as it got – having a teacher Dad and two brothers who could sing like angles and run like the wind I was a proud daughter and sister. I was formed by being raised in that house. Then I met and was formed by my college girlfriends and learned about friendship deeper than I had every experienced. Then I become a mother and formation doesn't even seem to do the experience justice. Transformation, dying and being born again – motherhood has done all of that and then some. Now I'm a pastor and again I learn a whole different like of leadership born out of serving and formation.

Yet, it all pales to the formation I have experienced in being a child of God. This formation has strengthened me to be all those other things, had busted me out of my self-serving box into relationships and a life that is about giving away and not hording up. This is only, only by the grace and will of God to be with me and that is why I do church – because it is all about formation.

2. Its not all about me. I do church because it is not all about me. Most everything else in life will point us toward ourselves, the rest of our time and money and energy so often go to ourselves, but church is the one place that challenges me to be about something else. I do church because it is not about me at all, and I find sweet liberation in that.

1. Jesus. The number one reason why I do church is Jesus. Because I have fallen in a love with a Savior who knows me and because I have fallen in love with a community that knows this Savior. I do church because Jesus loves me, this I know. And, Jesus loves you, too.

I pray that each and every one of you, and you as a church body, will be able to articulate why you do church at all. I pray you will love the church so much that change will flow from you naturally, I pray that when Christ casts a vision of mission and discipleship before that you will not hesitate, you will not grumble, but you will faithfully answer, “Here I am Lord, send me.”

Amen.