For those of us who grew up in a
family Church as a child who’s church did you think you were attending? If as an adult that view changed, when did it
happen?
June 21 2015 Psalm 133 and 2 Corinthians 6: 1-13
In the reading from Corinthians this morning, Paul seems to have run into a brick
wall with the Corinthian Church here.
While the early Christian church didn’t struggle with issues like a
leaky roof, or a bell tower in need of repairs, the color of new rug, paint,
stain glass windows or the uncomfortable wooden pews of yesteryear; if we look back we would see that they
appeared to have been bickered over everything else. I find this letter this morning challenging
because it sound as those Paul wrote it to the modern day church. The church today seems lost, bickering over
who is acceptable in our pew, or in the pulpit.
We struggle over issues around financing, buildings, and physical assets,
often our volunteer hard work ends up just keeping the doors open. Many people would rather be in a church
building where they grew up than a neighbouring one. Unity and concern for one another no matter
where we worship, with the Gospel of Christ as the central focus, seems almost out
of reach for many church communities. If we do not deal with the challenges we now
face within our denomination today, many more church communities will simply cease
to exist.
On this special day of the year when
we celebrate the meaning of fatherhood, let us remember that we are not just celebrating
our human parent, but we are also celebrating our heavenly parent, the entity we
call God. For the believers, it was God
who created us and it is God who is our true parent both father and mother
creator of us all. Therefore we recognize
and come together as one united by Christ with our heavenly parent God as the
head of the family. Unless we begin to break
down the denominational barriers and come together as one, which is the will of God, we will remain splintered,
separated by buildings, ethnic groups, race, sexual orientation, and often
religion itself.
A Jesuit Priest by the name of
Gerald Hughes tells a modern day parable that goes something like this: A local middle class family in a suburban
community decided to ask a man named Jesus to come into their home for a
party. Upon arrival Jesus looks over the
food, the guests and the facilities of the home and decides after the party to
accept their invitation to stay for a while.
In fact Jesus moved right in! The
next day Jesus goes out into the community and in finding a homeless person, invites
him to come back to the house for a meal. Before long Jesus has an entourage of
prostitutes, orphans, street people and the poor following him back to the
house. The family and the neighbourhood are beginning to get annoyed and worried about their security, their food
supply, and besides the property values on the street are going down. What should they do? The family decides one evening when Jesus is
asleep to brick up the door to his bedroom.
Then they placed a small table in front of the bricked door with velvet
red cloth, place a bible and a bronze based cross in the middle. The family made a commitment that every
morning as they passed by, they would stop for a moment of prayer and
reflection.
I believe that most of the Christian
churches in the western world who have fallen into the trap of setting aside
Jesus for a time or have taken their emphasis off fulfilling the mandate of the
gospel, are looking at the possibility of extinction. If bricks and mortar, emptying pews, old
unusable buildings, icons, and struggling finances are taking up all our time
and all of our energies, who then has the time to do the work of Christ in the
community. Will we too will find ourselves among the living dead.
The Priest, Gerald Hughes was faced
with a church that didn't really want to work together to accomplish what Jesus
had placed before them. Is this not a
problem we are facing with many a pastoral charge today. Not only within the United Church but many of
the main line denominations face the same reality. My self-imposed question here might be this: Is this the scenario within my own church and
denomination today?
Do you know why vicious fights
break out among good church people, I believe it is because the stakes are too
low. Could it be that we are often focused on self-righteous works or maybe we are not risking
enough for Christ that really matters? Many of us are still too busy trying so
hard to maintain the status quo than addressing the real issues of the gospel; our fight
again injustice, inequality, poverty, corporate carelessness and greed within
the church and big business gets set aside. It is so easy for us to mistakenly EASE GOD
OUT so we can get on with the work we feel is important and want to accomplish. This
in itself has the makings for disaster.
Our scriptures tell us that nothing
is impossible with God at the helm but may I suggest to you that nothing of real value can be accomplished when
we go it alone. The one things
that can save us is the very thing we keep avoiding to recognize that the
Church doesn't belong to us. It was
built and made from the things God gave to us so then it belongs to God and it
was meant to serve God not us, nor were we to take it over as our own. We were only meant to be Stewards of the
physical parts, the assets and they are to be used for the glory of God.
So then my fellow Christian
brothers and sisters we are at a crossroads are we not? God is willing so we too must be willing to
discern where we are and where we are going.
This is our opportunity to begin again so we can do the work Christ is
calling us to do. Let us pray.
What exactly is Church!! take a listen
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