"Whereas Christ turned water into wine,
the church has succeded in doing
something much more difficult;
it has turned wine into water."
--Soren Kierkegaard
The writing is on the wall. Mainline denominationalism is on the decline and culturally the Christian witness appears to be a minority report in the pregnant market of spirituality that comprises the USAmerican consciousness. The quote above is a sad commentary on the way the church so often fights the work of the Lord that is supposed to be at its center. Here we are a century and a half later with the fruit of our false pursuits and priorities paying out the dividends of attrition and rampant disillusionment.
As this happens, congregations everywhere are being beset by changes that assail their doors. In the inner city of Atlanta an ethnically Swedish congregation watches as the skin color of its neighborhood darkens. In the end it finds itself afraid. You see, it can't distinguish between the Lutfisk and potato sausage of its ethnic heritage and the Lord that claimed them in baptismal waters. The congregation votes to relocate and quickly moves out to a lighter skinned suburban reality. This church is afraid.
In rural Nebraska there are two churches dying through slow demographic attrition. They are the same denominational heritage and as chance would have it, just three miles apart. Their denominational polity has suggested that they join congregations to pool resources and vision for a more vibrant future. But they refuse. You see, they might change each other. They are afraid.
In a suburban community in Florida there is a congregation whose membership is comprised primarily of retirees. The congregation's growth plateaued over a decade ago and then entered a gradual decline. It's members can't understand why this is the case because they reside in a booming and increasingly young area where young couples with children abound. So they hire consultants to come and assess their situation. The consultants interview several young families that had visited but had not returned. They discover that in every case each family had felt unwelcome and in particular, children who had participated in worship had been glared at when the noise they had made seemed "inappropriate." The findings are shared with the congregation. The consultants are amazed when what they encounter in response to these findings is indignancy and apathy. The findings? The church's doors a mertaphorically closed.
Out in the middle country, a mission start congregation blooms in the long shadows of the Rockies, a resounding denominational success of growth both in terms of discipleship and physical numbers. But its floundering local denominational authority sees its vitality not as an asset for leading and resourcing other churches in the region, but as a threat. You see, the thriving congregation's vision stands out as a painful contrast to the vacuum of vision that rests in the denominational offices just miles away, and they are afraid.
In the midst of all of this, my own shelves are filled with books and periodicals that talk about the opportunity of the American church to become a first century church once again.
But we are already there. It's not an opportunity. It's our reality. As I prepared for a sermon several weeks ago on John 20 I was struck by the image of the "first" church.
"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews..."
This is just so painfully familiar. Their doors were locked and closed for no other reason than fear, just like ours. This is the first century church, its raw material congregated...a huddled mass of confusion, indignancy, frustration, and simple fear. This is the humus...the raw dirt and humble beginnings of a movement that now spans our globe and thrives in many of its corners even as it seems to wilt in ours.
It's a bleak picture; a real picture; a human picture.
AND it's also the only sort of picture God needs to do his best work. It's when the chips are down, at the foot of crosses, in closed up and dark alkali tombs, and locked and barred rooms where God does God's best work.
"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews...Jesus came and stood among them...[and] said to them, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"
Here's the reason for our hope; Jesus. You see, he's still breathing. And in the fearful ocean of a first century church like ours, all we need is the breath of this risen man to fill the sails of a new church. Not a church regentrified and vainly attempting survival because it's an organism afraid to die; but a Jesus- breathed church engaging the kingdom mission of forgiving and reconciling in a self-proclaimed forsaken and unreconciled world.
the church has succeded in doing
something much more difficult;
it has turned wine into water."
--Soren Kierkegaard
The writing is on the wall. Mainline denominationalism is on the decline and culturally the Christian witness appears to be a minority report in the pregnant market of spirituality that comprises the USAmerican consciousness. The quote above is a sad commentary on the way the church so often fights the work of the Lord that is supposed to be at its center. Here we are a century and a half later with the fruit of our false pursuits and priorities paying out the dividends of attrition and rampant disillusionment.
As this happens, congregations everywhere are being beset by changes that assail their doors. In the inner city of Atlanta an ethnically Swedish congregation watches as the skin color of its neighborhood darkens. In the end it finds itself afraid. You see, it can't distinguish between the Lutfisk and potato sausage of its ethnic heritage and the Lord that claimed them in baptismal waters. The congregation votes to relocate and quickly moves out to a lighter skinned suburban reality. This church is afraid.
In rural Nebraska there are two churches dying through slow demographic attrition. They are the same denominational heritage and as chance would have it, just three miles apart. Their denominational polity has suggested that they join congregations to pool resources and vision for a more vibrant future. But they refuse. You see, they might change each other. They are afraid.
In a suburban community in Florida there is a congregation whose membership is comprised primarily of retirees. The congregation's growth plateaued over a decade ago and then entered a gradual decline. It's members can't understand why this is the case because they reside in a booming and increasingly young area where young couples with children abound. So they hire consultants to come and assess their situation. The consultants interview several young families that had visited but had not returned. They discover that in every case each family had felt unwelcome and in particular, children who had participated in worship had been glared at when the noise they had made seemed "inappropriate." The findings are shared with the congregation. The consultants are amazed when what they encounter in response to these findings is indignancy and apathy. The findings? The church's doors a mertaphorically closed.
Out in the middle country, a mission start congregation blooms in the long shadows of the Rockies, a resounding denominational success of growth both in terms of discipleship and physical numbers. But its floundering local denominational authority sees its vitality not as an asset for leading and resourcing other churches in the region, but as a threat. You see, the thriving congregation's vision stands out as a painful contrast to the vacuum of vision that rests in the denominational offices just miles away, and they are afraid.
In the midst of all of this, my own shelves are filled with books and periodicals that talk about the opportunity of the American church to become a first century church once again.
But we are already there. It's not an opportunity. It's our reality. As I prepared for a sermon several weeks ago on John 20 I was struck by the image of the "first" church.
"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews..."
This is just so painfully familiar. Their doors were locked and closed for no other reason than fear, just like ours. This is the first century church, its raw material congregated...a huddled mass of confusion, indignancy, frustration, and simple fear. This is the humus...the raw dirt and humble beginnings of a movement that now spans our globe and thrives in many of its corners even as it seems to wilt in ours.
It's a bleak picture; a real picture; a human picture.
AND it's also the only sort of picture God needs to do his best work. It's when the chips are down, at the foot of crosses, in closed up and dark alkali tombs, and locked and barred rooms where God does God's best work.
"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews...Jesus came and stood among them...[and] said to them, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"
Here's the reason for our hope; Jesus. You see, he's still breathing. And in the fearful ocean of a first century church like ours, all we need is the breath of this risen man to fill the sails of a new church. Not a church regentrified and vainly attempting survival because it's an organism afraid to die; but a Jesus- breathed church engaging the kingdom mission of forgiving and reconciling in a self-proclaimed forsaken and unreconciled world.
3 comments:
In Luke's account, the risen Jesus shows up as the disciples are hearing the story from the two men who just returned from Emmaus. He asks them, "Why are you afraid?" Well, duh, they're afraid that everything they had bet their life on the past three years was a scam and now they'll die for that mistake. In short, they're afraid of Jesus' death.
On this side of seeing empty tomb, we're not afraid of Jesus' death. We're afraid of Jesus' resurrection. Because if it is true that Jesus lives, then that changes everything. He is Lord, not Caesar, not the American dream, not oursevles. We don't get to call the shots; he does. And that's frightening. Because we know what will happen if we listen to him. He'll get us all crucified. Sure, we say, we believe his resurrection will follow. But in the back of our minds we're thinking...is it really worth it?
There are many life questions we all must answer at some point in our existence:
Why is the sky blue?
Why does suffering happen?
Are you going to eat your tots?
But, I believe that the biggest question is about Jesus. We must all make an acocunt of his resurrection. Out of all the tombs in the world, one is empty. One man has escaped death, forever. What do we do with that?
I believe it means we place our hope in him, because nothing else in our world can provide a picture. In Jesus we see the God who goes to work for us.
The gods of TV, celebrity, sports, family, work, and approval must all be served. One must turn on the TV, one must chase after fame, one must train hard to excel, one must sacrifice all to be loved. But this is not so in the God revealed by Jesus. Here we see a God who works for us, for our futures, for our betterment, for our lives! This is reason to hope. Our God reigns, Our God serves, and our God changes us to be servants.
That's something to bet your life on.
Thank you Paul and Kevan for the "resurrection" fill in. I think you've nailed it Kevan; nothing scares us more than an empty tomb. If Jesus is Lord, then he will get us all crucified! Well put. As Paul points out, our freedom only comes in light of his reign. In this I hear Jesus, "I would that you be hot or cold. But the lukewarm I will spit out of my mouth!" I think the choice is either we get busy living, or we get busy dying. In either case, Jesus is Lord. Praise be to him!
Post a Comment