Thinking Outside the Box ...

Today's sermon is lacking the bulletin that was used this morning in worship. The bulletin will follow in a couple of days. For now though, here is the sermon:

September 10th 2006 – Thinking outside the box …

There’s a story about a woman who had never had a pet before in her life, she had had no cats, or dogs or any kind of living pet as she grew up. Then one day she found a scraggly stray dog on her front step. The dog had no collar, it was skinny and hungry, and in desperate, desperate need of a home where it would loved and cared for.

The woman’s heart was touched. She took the dog in and cleaned it … the dog for his part delighted in the love and affection. But then the woman realized the dog needed to be fed. She had her supper and she took the scraps from her table and fed them to the famished dog. He wolfed back the food with great delight.

Over time she discovered that the favourite meal of the dog was bread soaked in gravy. After a meal of roast beef, she would take the bread and soak it in gravy and with great relish the dog would like the bowl clean.

The dog lived with the woman for many months and grew fat and happy and was seemingly healthy … then one afternoon the dog simply fell over dead at her feet … She was distraught … she called her vet and asked him to come and look at the dog.

There wasn’t much he could do, but he came and looked at the dog … he poked and prodded, then he asked what she fed him … The woman descried with tears in her eyes the obvious delight the dog took from eating his gravy soaked bread day after day, week after week … the Vet slowly shook his head …

“Madam,” he said softly, “your dog has simply starved to death. Despite his fat and his contentment, a dog needs real meat. You fed him bread and gravy and it wasn’t enough – the dog died of starvation …”

This story is told within Church circles because too often in the Church congregations, and congregation members are slowly starving spiritually … they are not being fed the meat – the spiritual meat they need to remain fit and healthy. Instead they are being fed what some have dubbed theological milk-sops.

Stuff that tastes good … smells good … gives you a warm fuzzy feeling … but it is NOT stuff that fills the nutritional requirements that our spirits have.

And theologically, there is far too much milk sop being tossed around … too often our theology is safe and comfortable and peacable … frequently, we don’t want the boat rocked … we don’t want to feel uncomfortable, we want the feeling of being full and content and satisfied … we don’t want to know that we are slowly starving ourselves to death …

Yet, if we look around, even in the United Church of Canada, we will see the first stirrings of the realization that we are spiritually starving … The milk sop theology that has been comfortable and peaceable is no longer enough …

In the coming days you will hear much within the United Church about a thing called Emerging Spirit. Now, I do not dismiss the goal of Emerging Spirit which is to reach out to the 25 to 45 year old generation and get them re-involved in the church … It’s a good goal … BUT:

As one of those in THAT generation, I look around me and feel kind of lonely in the Church – there aren’t many of my peers to be found. The reasons are diverse and complex – but it is obvious from study after study after study that the 25 to 45 year olds simply aren’t coming to Church, and we are a denomination in decline.

So, we’ve launched Emerging Spirit in an attempt to draw back some of those who we’ve lost …

How will this happen? How will we draw back those who find what we are about increasingly irrelevant, or who are so busy with family commitments and just surviving, that Church is not important ??

I personally, don’t think posters and multi-media campaigns will cut it … I don’t think special studies and reams and reams of pamphlets will do it … yet, that’s what the United Church often does …

This time we need to take a different approach. We can’t keep spooning out a diet of milk sop and expect people to survive …

So, we begin to think outside the box … we MUST stand in a moment like Jesus did in our Gospel reading and think in bold new ways – he came only to the Jews of his day, and yet in both of encounters Jesus was challenged to think beyond the status quo … and so, as we begin to revision what it is that is important as a congregation … we begin to rethink what it means to be a church … we begin by building something new … NOT just something new PHYSICALLY … but something new spiritually … we need, and will think beyond the status quo.

There is – this is something we know – there is a HUGE spiritual hunger out in the world around us. In the shadow of 9/11 and the innumberable conflicts tearing at the very fabric of our human family – we live in dark and troubled times … yet, amid the chaos and the clutter there is always HOPE. And it is that hope that becomes valuable beyond measure in times like ours …
People are saying clearly simple answers and fanaticism are not the way to go – we want MORE … our young people want a radical redefinition of what CHURCH is … and that begins, not with me, not with the learned men and women of the hierarchies and bureaucracies – that process begins with you in this community - – you as a people – you as a church, embody a story of hope … it is a story that began in February 12th as we stood together in the bitter cold and watched our beloved building reduced to ashes and debris … That could have been the end of the story … we could have said – “Right, it’s all over …” and walked away … we could have become overwhelmed with our sorrow and grief and simply sat down and wept … but we didn’t – YOU didn’t … one little step at a time we moved forward … and it is from there that resurrection will come …

We wept and mourned … but then we set our faces to the future and said – The church is not the building – the Church is the people … and we WILL rebuild … we began and continue to dream … we began and continue to share our visions … we began and continue to see tomorrow as a place where anything is indeed possible …

We have our building committee and our fund raising committee and our Board all working towards tomorrow … but most importantly, all of you – every last member of this faith community have a story that is worth sharing … a story of hope that will speak to people more then ANYTHING that Emerging Spirit can offer.

Over a cup of coffee, when you share with someone YOUR story – the feelings and emotions and reflections that are part of the last seven months – the things you as a person have been through – when you share those things, you are being an evangelist. A true, from the heart evangelist. As you open your mouth and speak of the hurts and the celebrations, as you talk openly about what it is that we’ve been through – you’ve been through – you are telling your story and you are opening the door that invites the 25-45 year olds BACK …

They won’t see, nor hear a tired formulaic faith that says – “This is what you must believe … these are the things we value …” Instead they hear a story … a real story that has value and meaning …

So, how do we share our story? How do we tell others?

By just talking … sharing our thoughts and our insights – not with one another in the pews and at church functions, but in everything we do.

We need to move outside our comfort zone … we need to have the courage to move outside the box …

There is a story of a Church where a smelly, very disheveled man walked in the sanctuary during worship … He came in and sat down, no one recognized him … so later in the service it became time for communion to be served. The man joined everyone else at the front rail … The priest passed him by when he served the bread and the wine … The man still stood there – waiting … his hands extended … On the second pass, the priest again passed the man. This time the man spoke up – “What about me?” the man asked, “I need Jesus too!!” he cried …

Such things, hopefully would never happen in our midst … not so blatantly … But such things can happen subtly … It is the subtle things we need to guard against …

The Gospel lives only when we dare to share it … One of the wisest saying is a benediction that says – “Go and preach the Gospel … when necessary – USE WORDS!”

I had a conversation with someone recently, and they shared with me their disgust at people who claim to be good people yet have no compassion or kindness in their lives … self-righteous was the word used …

Self-righteousness denies the power of the Gospel … it denies the power of love.

Ultimately the Gospel is about love … love embodied … love lived … love shared … If Emerging Spirit is to succeed, it will only succeed if we have the courage to step outside the box and boldly share our stories … our experiences … what it is that makes us tick … Not with the goal of conversion, but with the intent of conversation …

The Church will survive, only if we as a whole people of God, are able to tell our stories – our personal stories … and live them out each moment of each day. It’s an awesome responsibility that requires only living the faith we profess with our mouths … No stepping by those who make us uncomfortable or uneasy … no ignoring the things that make us squirm … no more easy cruise in the boat without waves and motion …

It’s time to open ourselves to the spirit and let the story that lies within us break free and be shared … As a church, as a community of faith – we’ve had one of the ultimate boat rocking experiences … The most powerful story we can share is OURS – the journey that got us here is about hope embodied and lived out, and the lost generation what to know what there is about this God talk stuff that is relevant and real … and this place – this people – this Church is living THAT every day – we just need to tell others about it …

No more milk sop … the real meat is what you have to share … our job is to share it …
And it starts by telling your story … one wonderful word at a time … Your story is what the world yearns to hear … a story of hope – a story of faith – a story of an extra-ordinary average person who is worth listening to …

Jesus was challenged to see things differently – so are we …
What are we waiting for???