Sermon for May 20th 2007

Anne Weems writes:

What are you really doing here?
Do you believe in Christ Jesus?
How much?
Enough to risk?
How much of a risk?
Risk your reputation?
Risk your welath?
Risk yourself?
Do you?
Do you believe in Christ?
Or is Christianity a convenience?
Something to fill in on the census forms?
Something one just goes along with?
Something undemanding?
Something nice?
Something easy?
Something comfortable?
Do you believe?
Do you know what you believe?
Will you share it with me ?
Will you tell me?
Will you show me what you believe?

Gandhi once said of evangelism – “Don’t talk about it. The rose doesn’t have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth and people are drawn to it. Don’t talk about it. Live it and people will come to see the source of your power.”

St Francis of Assissi expressed a similar concept when he said - “Go and preach the Gospel … if necessary, use words.”

At Bible Study on Friday a good question was asked as we considered and reflected on this week’s readings. One of the participants asked simply – “what is a Christian?”
This week with the passing of Jerry Falwell, a formidable leader in the Church universal, it is a question worth asking. In light our reading from the book of Acts where we encounter a series of dramatic happenings unfolding, it is a question well worth reflecting on …

In the reading from Acts we have Paul and Silas casting out a demon from a woman who ran a dog and pony show in the town market where her masters drew a tidy income. Suddenly the woman was unable to do the sorcery she had been doing previously, and her employers were robbed of their source of income. They were furious – so they had Paul and Silas arrested, tried, flogged and cast into jail for their crimes. Then while in prison an earthquake opened the cells and instead of the prisoners fleeing they stayed and prayed …

The Jailer rushed to the scene, saw the opened jail and was ready to do himself in – better do it yourself than have your superiors show up and do it to you later … As he drew his sword, Paul cried out and told him the prisoners were all still there …

What follows is an interesting twist of the tale so too speak … The jailer takes Paul and Silas to his home and there the entire household of this man is converted to Christianity …

We don’t like speaking of conversion in the church any more. We leave that to our more evangelical sisters and brothers to do. Frequently, we don’t even acknowledge conversion as an aspect of our faith.

But we ARE and we remain evangelists by the very fact that we are people of faith. We are evangelists by HOW we chose, or not, to live out our faith. Our faith calls us to share it with others in an ongoing and active way. Our intent may not be to convert others, but we are to live our faith.
Preach the Gospel – if necessary, use words …
This is a simple teaching with profound implications …

Paul and Silas in their travels preached the Gospel … and at times they used words … They had the goal of converting the world as they found it. Today in the modern world conversion implies something that many of us are increasingly uncomfortable with. There is no need to convert or save our pagan brethren – instead we, if we have the courage, can learn from their religion just as they may learn from ours.

But even in this, we need to name and own the past – our heritage as Christians has been less than stellar … Residential schools, the Inquisition, ill treatment of women and minorities, the triumphalism of Christendom – the list of “oops” is fairly long … A close friend of mine once quipped, “I’m not longer calling myself a Christian, because Christians have done too many bad things. Instead I will now call myself a follower of Christ.”

Perhaps that’s the key – rather than asking “what’s a Christian?” it is time to define ourselves in a new way by asking – “what does it mean to be a follower of Christ?”

The first step is by being proud of our involvement, membership and commitment of faith.

How many of us are proud to say – “I attend Minnedosa United Church?”

How many of us even share that fact with others?

How many of us even tell people that we go to Church at all?

As we move closer to our building project beginning, now is the time to break free of the impressions and opinions people have of US based on the past. Now is the time, like Paul and Silas to set out on a new and exciting course …

The values of respect, kindness, compassion, care and love are those values that when we wrestle with the texts of Scripture come to the fore. They are values that we hear over and over as important to be shared, but too often in the church we have a tendency not to live those values out.

I’m tempted today to share some of the unbelievable statements that Mr Falwell uttered as an example of this. His statements that dripped with hate about Gays and Lesbians, Arabs, Jews, non-Christians of every stripe and those he dubbed atheists and liberals, are simply repulsive. Yet week after week he spewed such venom from his pulpit and from every opportunity he had in the media, and each time he justified it by his CHRISTIAN faith. His statements were "okay" because he was clothed in a Christian faith ... yet there wass no kindness, no care, no love ...

We could look to Falwell, and say – “oh that’s him, he lives far away and he’s a right wing whacko …” but then we have that old – “when one finger is pointed at someone else, there are three pointing back at me …” thing kicking in. And we realize that we may not be as extreme as Mr Falwell, but we are guilty of our own short comings ...

We may not spew statements as outrageous and hateful as Mr Falwell, but there are times when we could have done better …

There are moments of time when we could have stood up for our faith, or taken a stand, or not followed along … We’ve all been there …

So, how shall we live out the notion of being a follower of Christ?

There in lies the challenge. We need to shift from who we are and have been, to who we need to be to live out those values … Our readings speak of love … our readings speak of offering a healing presence … our readings speak of prayer … our readings speak of SHOWING our faith through conversation and action … our readings speak of patience … kindness … care …

It’s really NOT a hard thing to do. It begins with simple actions … Preach the Gospel – if necessary, use words …

Preaching the Gospel begins with how we treat each other – what we say, what we do … Preaching the Gospel begins with what we do with our beliefs and our faith … Preaching the Gospel begins with the simple actions …

The question that we need to face is whether we’re willing to cast aside the chains that have enslaved us, and to find a bold new way of living our faith. It hearkens back to the idea – “all welcome” – how will we live that concept out?

It challenges us to envision the world in a radical new way … it challenges us to envision the world transformed and renewed by the resurrection ...

We are people of the resurrection. The resurrection implies something new and different – the resurrection is about things no longer being the same way – the old has past away …

As a community of faith we are physically moving to the realization of something new and different. Where we gather within the next year will be radically different from where we gathered prior to February 12th 2006 … our challenge – our calling – our duty – is to change who we have been, into who we will be as we step into the new building …

And this begins with a simple lesson … “how do we greet the stranger?” Over the last seven years as I have stood here in the pulpit before you I have noted that time and time again new faces have joined us, but often we are too shy to welcome them in … there are too many outsiders in our midst … they come, and often sit alone by themselves and leave the same way … we fail to greet them … we fail to live out our welcome … we fail to bring in the stranger and make them friends … we wait for them to make the first move …

Now I’m not talking about overwhelming them with offers of board vacancies and envelopes and the like … but I am talking about how we greet the new face in our midst. Do we introduce ourselves? Do we take the time to smile and say – “hi, you’re a new face to me, are you visiting?” Do we have the courage to do things in a new way so the strangers have an opportunity to become friends?

Would you be surprised to learn that there are people here who have been among us for 30 years and still feel like outsiders?

Would you be surprised to learn that I, having been here for 7 years still feel very much like an outsider?

It begins with the small things … seven years ago I simply arrived … there was never a formal welcome beyond noting in Worship that I was here … if, as a community of faith we can’t or won’t welcome our leaders, the stranger in the back row never had a chance to move beyond being a stranger and an outsider … Today, before we enter our new building is a very good day to begin doing things differently …

The chains that enslave must be thrown aside … we must start doing things in new ways as followers of Christ, and it can start wth a simple statement – “hi, how are you ??” to the person next to us … be they a new face, or someone whom we sat beside for 30 years but never really gotten to know ...

I know we have the capability to do it ... the only question is - do we have the willingness ??

I hope we do ... we are children of God, people the resurrection - we are called to transform the world from what it is to what God wants it to be ... and it begins with you and I ...

May it be so – thanks be to God …