NOTE: Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday - the Second Sunday in the Celebration of the Season of Creation - please join us.
Introduction
In
any given collection of people on a Sunday morning – in any given part of the
world and any given type of Christian denomination – there are always a variety
of opinions and understandings concerning what it means to BE the church. Some people take their cue from popular
culture and define the church as a building – a physical plant at a specific
address – designed to house public worship and Sunday School.
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Others believe
the church is an institution – a collection of religious officials, clergy and
traditions – that functions as an organization in society. You hear people speak of the Roman Catholic
Church, the Congregational Church, the Methodist or Evangelical Church,
right? And mostly they are talking about
an institution – a bureaucracy – a social organization.
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Sometimes people
speak of the church more generically like when they ask: do you really still go to church? Or who do you work for: the church?
For them, church is a place or function that you use just like any other
employer, profession or social service agency.
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There are members
who believe that the church is essentially a burial society, or a place of
family tradition; some consider the church to be a spiritual social club or
even a benign but outdated house of rituals that are nice but fundamentally
unnecessary for modern living. Some
treat the church as a place to pass on healthy moral values to their children
when and if they have the time to attend.
And there are people who are certain that the church is a place that
will help them become healthy, wealthy and wise if they just learn to follow
the right rules.
There
are probably other notions of what it means to BE the church floating around among us today but I suggest that NONE of them would call the church a community of people called out of society and into community in order to live as Christ’s body in the
world. And that, beloved is what the New Testament word ekklesia
– church - means.
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It is a compound
word signifying the assembly – or the community – that has been called out of
the whole for a unique mission. St. Paul
put it like this in Ephesians: the
church is the body of believers who have been
called out from the world by God to live as his people under the authority of
Jesus Christ.
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Sometimes Paul
uses short hand for this mission saying that the church is to be the Body of Christ
– the people called together by God to give shape and form to the truth of the
Lord – so that the words of our faith become flesh in our everyday experiences.
All
of which means that the church is really NOT a building or an institution or a
profession or a burial society or social club for so-called spiritual
people: the church is a group of people living out Christ’s mission in their generation. It is a gathering of individuals who come together in community to help one
another become spiritually mature – to grow up and live like adults in the Lord
rather than selfish children – who then go out into the world to share God’s
love in ways that make that love visible.
One wise soul put it like this: "The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God’s
people—strengthened by preaching and sacrament—go out of the church door into
the world to be the church – and make love flesh. We don’t go
to church; rather we are the
church.”
Insights
Now
I tell you all of this on the second Sunday of the season of Creation for
two
reasons. First, our readings ask us to
explore what God reveals to us through the storm – what can we learn and
experience of the Lord through the thunder, rain, wind and power of nature –
and each of the appointed readings invite us to consider what it means to serve
and worship a God with this
kind of awesome power. These are mind-blowing lessons from Scripture and each
one challenges us to learn to serve the Lord of the storm. The second reason I have reminded you about
the meaning of the church is because in just a short time, we will welcome some
new friends into membership in our community of faith.
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And I want to be
clear with everyone – old timers, new friends and guests alike – that our new
members are not joining a building – or a tradition – or an institution or a
burial society or a spiritual social club.
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They are joining
a community called by God to live in the world with a mission – and our mission
has a specificity that is grounded in place and time – and there is NOTHING abstract, ambiguous or
institutional about it. Our commitment
to mission has been summarized like this: In community with God and each other, we
gather to worship, to reflect on our Christian faith, to do justice and to
share compassion.
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And if you are
paying attention, you will note four key components to this mission: we gather as community to worship, to reflect
and deepen our faith as followers of Jesus Christ, to do justice in
the world and to share compassion in our lives. Worship, reflection, justice and
compassion: these are the ways THIS community lives as the body of
Christ in Pittsfield. This is how we
mature in faith and return to the world bringing a measure of healing and hope
to the brokenness.
So
let’s reflect for a moment on what our focus text, Psalm 29, tells us about
this mission. This psalm is one of the
oldest in the Hebrew tradition. Scholars
believe it is a Jewish reworking of an ancient Babylonian hymn of praise
because it contains some rare Canaanite words about the source of thunder, wind
and rain. Now there have been people
farming this region of the world since the 8th century BCE – that’s
ten thousand years ago – and we know that Israel conquered the region in about
1400 BCE. So these words have some long
legs and go back to some of the earliest understandings and myths about God and
God’s power. And there are three broad
insights that I want to lift up for you about this psalm because it helps
illumine our mission.
First, this was a song used in worship. The word psalm
means songs of the lyre played to the glory of God in worship and this
song celebrates God as a storm. Many
modern people would think such language is either irrelevant or superstitious
but let me ask you to go deeper: what does a storm imply or mean to you?
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What does it tell
us about God and the very order of creation that powerful and sometimes
destructive storms have been built into the fabric and cycle of life?
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Any thoughts…?
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Apparently the
ancient people used to believe that the thunder was one of the voices of the
Lord and God’s voice caused the waves to crash, the trees to tremble, the earth
to move, the floods to rise and fall and so much more.
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So what does that
say to you about the power of the Lord our God?
There’s nothing domesticated or impotent about this God, right? There is just a mysterious and nearly
incomprehensible power at work that even controls the forces of nature.
So first
this song of worship speaks of God’s mysterious power. Second,
nobody believes or acts like the power of God displayed in this storm is the
result of human sin. People of all
ages love to say that this hurricane or that tornado is somehow
related to the wrath of God. But this most ancient and even mythic song of
worship tells a very different story.
For what do
the people in this psalm do when the storm is over? They celebrate God and the Lord’s
awesome authority over the wind, sky, water and land. One scholar put it like this: Nature is upset and suffers, but no one cries for justice or
mercy. Later, those on a festival day, who earlier feared for their lives,
worship Yahweh with but one appropriate response: Glory to God! (Look at how
the postlude of the psalm) sets the entire universe at rest. God sits enthroned
above the waters and above the firmament. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
He who displayed his power and glory, which so moved heaven and earth, now
shares his strength with Israel and blesses them with shalom. (Working
Preacher, Wendell Frenchis)
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What
does that tell you about the Lord? I think that it
points to a wisdom that is beyond human understanding; it tells me that if I
fully trust God as Lord then there are some things I will never comprehend –
they are both too mysterious and awesome for me to understand – but if they are
of the Lord then I have to nourish trust rather than fear.
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Do you
know that passage of scripture from Isaiah 55 that says: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are
your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts. (It continues) For as the rain and the
snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the
earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and
bread to the eater, so shall my
word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it
shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent
it.
This is a song
about trusting God when we are not in control.
In many ways it
is the ancient rendering of the Serenity Prayer maybe
4000 years before Reinhold Niebuhr wrote: God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and
wisdom to know the difference.
And the third insight this psalm offers is one that
encourages the whole community in heaven and earth to live in a way that
worships the Lord: God
rules over the flood, the fires and all of the chaos that we experience from
time to time. So this song says: “ascribe glory you heavenly
beings and bow down on your knees all people of the earth…
… for you live in the presence of the King of Kings and
Lord of Lords and you NEED God’s strength for blessings and peace in your
lives. This is a song of celebration,
you see, not a psalm of lament because it honors the storm king as one who
exercises divine wisdom over creation and holds power over even the chaos.
Remember how the biblical story begins: In the beginning when God created the heavens
and the earth, the earth was a formless
void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the
face of the waters. Then God
said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good;
and God separated the light from the darkness… there was order from the chaos
at the start of the first day. The ancient
people celebrated the storm because it came and went and was completely under
the authority of the Lord.
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Modern
people usually are not awed by storms these days – at least those of us who
live in the industrialized Western nations – we are neither humbled nor
terrified. If we pay any attention at
all, we most often speak of storms as a nuisance. We live in a way where our
buildings keep us safe and protected, we hire out specialized professionals to
keep the electricity flowing and the water potable, so beyond inconvenience, we
don’t often pay much attention to the Lord of the storms.
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Unlike
many places of the world, we don’t face the tragedies of floods and tsunamis –
drought or hurricanes with gale force winds – and that is a blessing we ought
not take for granted. But it does
disconnect us from a sense of God’s incomprehensible power – and that is a
problem because comfort breeds complacency – and there is no room for the
complacent within a community of faith.
We are people with a mission – God called us from out of the
chaos and into a way of living that gives shape and form to grace – so we must
remain connected to the awesome power of the Lord. We cannot take it for granted or treat it as
incidental to living. For it is God who
has called us – Christ who has loved us – the Holy Spirit who is guiding us and
this truth compels me to become very personal with you about why this matters
to us as a community of faith.
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I believe with every fiber in my heart, soul, mind and flesh
that we have been called to be a shelter in the storm of life. A safe place that not only gives respite from
the suffering that surrounds us but also shows people a way to prepare for the
inevitable pain of living and how best to deal with it.
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You see, if storms are a part of God’s creation – and clearly
they are – then they must have meaning – the physical storms of nature as well
as the emotional, spiritual and political storms of life as we know it. And one of the clues I take from each of the
readings today – and the Scriptures as a whole – has to do with preparing
shelter for the inevitable storms of life.
The storms are going to come – just like the snow in a few
months – whether we like it or not. And
as my liturgist friend for today once told me shortly after arriving in the
Berkshires from the desert Southwest: There
is no such thing as bad weather – just bad equipment – so get ready for the
snow by getting the best equipment you can.
She probably didn’t know how biblical her advice was but it was
truly a word of the Lord to me – and very helpful, too.
Conclusion
Now,
here’s where the rubber meets the road:
when I was a teen-ager, my life was mostly hell. I won’t
bore or tantalize you with the details, let’s just say that the combination of
alcoholism and the sins of the mothers and fathers that had been passed down to
the third and fourth generations in my home were ugly and painful. So I tried to stay away from my house as much
as was possible. I got at job working in
a gas station when I was 14. I played in
a rock and roll band when I was 15. And
I became very, very active in my church starting in the 8th
grade. In fact, I learned to break-in to
my church in those days so that I would have a place to go that wasn’t home.
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Sometimes
it was through a window in the Fellowship Hall, other times I would hide in a
restroom until the sexton had left; but mostly I got in through the side door
to the Youth Room. I figured out early
on how to jimmy the modest lock so that I could get into that place of safety
and warmth – my shelter from the storm – whenever I needed to read or rest or
just think and pray. Sometimes I even fell
asleep until it was safe to go home.
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My pastor,
Sam Fogal, eventually found me asleep in the Youth Room one night when I had
run away and so began a life-long relationship with him of trust and love and
protection. Through the physical safety
of that place – and the deep understanding Sam shared with me – the church
became for me a place of refuge. Like
the medieval monks would say: the church
become my mother – my place of nurture – my shelter in the storm.
In ways too deep for human words, I know that the church
saved my life: it gave me safety and
rest from the physical pain and helped point me towards my best self. You see, at church I was not just a boy
filled with shame and bitterness, I was part of the living Body of Christ. I had gifts and beauty and worth that gave
glory to God. I had mentors to guide me
and friends to help me sing and learn to play the guitar. I had opportunities to serve others in the
mission trips we used to take all over the country and I had a place to go that
was always safe.
In time I came to realize that everyone faces storms in their lives – and sometimes those
storms are so overwhelming and frightening that the pain wounds you – and
there’s nothing you can do to escape.
Sometimes those storms rip everything apart. And that’s
why God created the church – that’s why Christ came among us in the flesh – that’s
why the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for human words: to help us
prepare for the storms we can’t control and to create shelter from those storms
for those who are aching for relief.
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That’s why I went into ministry: the church became my shelter in the storm and
it saved my life. I didn’t go into this
calling to be the custodian of a building – or the director of a burial society
– or the activities coordinator of a social club for spirituality.
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I entered ministry – and stay in it – so that the church might
live as a shelter for someone else in their storm. One of the reasons our Open and Affirming
commitment to gay, lesbian and transgendered people is so important to me is
because I know it can save lives. It has
NOTHING to do with being PC and everything to do with being a shelter in the
storm.
Same is true with what we do in the river clean-ups, our
hunger and habitat work, our Sunday School and worship: we have been called out of the chaos to build a shelter in the storm. We have been called by the Lord of the storm
to share love in ways that will save lives. We have been united to become the
body of Christ in our generation – servants of grace, agents of compassion,
actors for justice – for THIS is how we give glory to God – by living as
shelter from the inevitable and often agonizing storms of life.
And that’s
why church matters so much to me:
contrary to the advice of Marlon Brando in the movie, “The Godfather,”
this ISN’T professional or
about business, this is PERSONAL. It is about life and death for the most
vulnerable and precious among and within us.
And here’s the thing, some people will never comprehend this: they really believe the church is about the
building, or the tradition, or a spiritual social club. But not me – it is ALL about being shelter
from the storm – and honoring the Lord of grace.
That’s why I often pick certain songs to sing to the Lord for
you in worship: you see, every time I
sing with my mates, it takes me right back to those days when I was a fat and
frightened young man searching for a sign of hope. My songs are really prayers of confession and
dedication – psalms of celebration to the Lord of the storm - not sounds of
lament or hipster posturing to facilitate church growth. They are a confession that our God reigns…
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And sometimes when I can’t feel or see the evidence I find
myself singing to the Lord because once upon a time there was was shelter from
the storm for me.
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So until the time comes when I can no longer do it, I’m going
to keep on singing and teaching and testifying that the church is about God’s
love and Christ’s shelter.
The buildings can come and go – the cedars can snap and the
rocks crumble – what must remain is a people living as shelter from the
storm. Here’s what that sounds and feels
like to me…
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