Plunge

I am much too young to remember, of course, but some of you are, shall we say, chronologically-gifted, so you will remember when the Beatles released their Abbey Road album. On the cover of the album is a photograph of the band crossing the aforementioned road, and Paul McCartney alone is barefoot. This combined with a carefully planned hoax lead to rumors that McCartney was dead, replaced by a double. Of course, as we now know, he was not dead, still is not dead, has already outlived two of his bandmates and has accumulated a few extra wives along the way. He is not the first nor will he be the last celebrity to deal with premature rumors of his demise. In fact, the grandest premature death notice was issued in 1882, when Friedrich Nietzsche declared that God was dead. For the record, I believe that one was wrong too.

We hear on an almost weekly basis that the church is dead. Again, a bit premature. There are many regions of the world where Christianity is still a vital movement that provides meaning in the lives of individuals and cultures. But you could make a pretty convincing case that Christianity is dead in western Europe, and terminally ill in the United States. All forms of Christianity in the United States have been in decline, and only those with particular appeal to immigrants have been able to stave off the worst effects. The United Church of Christ part of what is referred to as the Mainline Protestant movement, and our particular form of Christianity has suffered the most. While we in Sayville might be surviving, an astonishing number of Mainline churches have closed their doors in each of the last two decades, and the current economic crisis isn’t helping. But why? If we are to believe, and we are indeed to believe, that the church is the body of Christ called into existence by Jesus and blessed by the Holy Spirit, why is it in such terrible straits?

Well, if we did an energy inventory in most failing congregations, we’d find that their passion goes into raising funds for the purpose of keeping the doors open so they can raise more funds. Their worship life is a combination of social hour, musical performance and empty ritual. The pastor, terrified that she or he might offend someone, tells the congregation the same thing, week after week. It’s all okay. You’re just swell. Keep doing what you’re doing. Jesus came so you can be a happy middle-class consumer. There may be, in the congregation and even in the pulpit, decent and deeply spiritual people, but something has gone wrong.

These failing churches have abandoned God’s mission for the church. And make no mistake, God has a mission for the church, and it isn’t feeding God’s ego. I believe many things about the divine mystery we name God, but I do not believe God is an infinite narcissist who called the world into being out of need for affirmation and a stroked ego. God has a mission for the church, and it isn’t even about God, it is about us. God calls us to be transformed and to transform others. The mission of the church is to improve lives through the love and the power of Christ. The mission of the church is to improve lives through the love and the power of Christ.

More specifically, we can break the great mission of the church as found in the teachings of the Hebrew prophets and of Jesus and his followers as the following: It is the mission of the church to deepen faith through transformative worship, and through teaching and supporting spiritual practices and the study of scripture. It is the mission of the church to share the love and peace we find in Christ with others by making new disciples. And it is the mission of the church to act as God’s agents in building God’s just and caring realm in this world, combating all manner of injustice and evil, caring for the vulnerable.

Congregations that stop looking inward and re-align themselves to God’s mission thrive. Its that simple. It is my hope that as your pastor I can work with you to help you become the thriving church God wants you to be, for God wants you to thrive. And there is no reason you cannot do so. There is enough talent, there are enough financial resources, Long Island has no shortage of wise Christians and covenant partners, everything is in place for this to be a church that serves God’s mission and thrives, that changes lives through the power of Christ.

And so, this week and for the next two, we will focus on particular aspects of God’s mission for the church. This week we will wrestle with what it means to deepen faith.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that I reject much of the theological framework of the Christian Right. The over-emphasis on a personal relationship with God, the notion that our amazing God is little more than a puppet master manipulating humans, these things I find repulsive, but there is one thing the religious conservatives get right. They expect every Christian to be working to become a better Christian. That pursuit on the part of the individual Christian, in covenant with a Christian community, is met by God with the power of the Holy Spirit in a process we call sanctification, which literally means making holy. The covenant community is the context, the Holy Spirit is the agent, and the result is a holier you. I won’t promise a happier you, but I am not really on board with the world’s definition of happiness anyways. But a holier you is a more contented you.

The religious right will tell you that to become sanctified, you have to work at it. This is what we mean when we say that it is the mission of the church to deepen faith. We begin by having transformative worship. To transform, to literally change shape… it is the purpose of healthy worshiping communities to change one another through worship, to change our hearts. To be fair, at times each of us needs a little spot of familiarity in a changing world, and so there are rituals and patterns that give us comfort, the flow of worship can remain the same, as it has done in some traditions for centuries. But the combination of God’s Word as read in scripture and encountered in the sermon, the prayers and acts of praise in spoken and musical form, the rites of the church when we receive new members, when we baptize, when we re-create the radically open table of salvation in Christ, when we acknowledge our vulnerability by bringing our offerings to God, especially when we give sacrificially, these all combine to crack open our hearts, made hard by a world filled with aimlessness and sin. And it doesn’t stop there. Worship isn’t just supposed to be transforming us. If our worship is only designed to meet our needs, we still are not fully attending to God’s mission. You first question should never ever ever be “did I like it?” Your first question should always be “is it God’s will?” And that should immediately be followed by the question “did this worship experience welcome and was it relevant to those who are visiting who so desperately need to know Jesus?” It’s not about us. We already have Jesus and one another.

If transformative worship is the communal act of deepening faith, then spiritual practice is the personal act. Not every spiritual practice works in exactly the same form for every person, but a life without spiritual practice is a life without sanctification. It really is true, that old expression, you get out of it what you put into it. When you put an effort into personal spiritual practice, you receive countless blessings.

The minimal spiritual practices for a Christian life are praying, offering and sabbath keeping. Jesus prayed. Jesus gave specific instructions on how those who chose to follow him should pray. Healthy congregations have prayer groups, and healthy Christians have personal prayer practices. If you are not praying, and really want to feel the power of God in your life, let me know. I will either work with you myself or match you up with a praying Christian.

Healthy Christians commit to the spiritual practice of stewardship. For all we know about the corrupt system of the ancient Temple, and all we know about how Jesus rejected that bureaucracy, it is pretty clear that Jesus commanded the tithe, in fact, that Jesus expected even more radical giving, above and beyond the first 10% of income that is the tithe. Your offering not only resources the church to accomplish God’s mission, it also acts to sanctify you. You acknowledge your utter dependence on God, you stake your claim to a value system that is not made by humans, does not come from Madison Avenue, Goldman Sachs or your television screen. Your relationships are transformed, with money, with culture, with those you love, and most especially with the divine.

Healthy Christians keep sabbath. We are studying in Sunday School the many forms sabbath keeping might take in our modern culture. For all the modern conveniences that are supposed to make our lives easier, we are more scattered than ever, more overwhelmed. Sabbath keeping can be combined with the ancient and still valid spiritual practice of fasting, from food, yes, but from other things as well. Many Americans, many who aren’t even Christians, have begun to practice “meatless Mondays,” and in so doing calling attention to and taking action about the tremendous toll our over-consumption of meat is taking on our planet, not to mention on our own bodies. Others take media fasts or media sabbaths, where they simply designate some period of time when the computer and television will remain off, when the smart phone will play dumb. Adbusters, the folks that sparked Occupy Wall Street, have been trying for years to get us to refuse to fall for the Black Friday shopping trap. What would it look like if we declared consumer sabbaths? In fact, imagine if you will, what it would look like if we had a congregational practice of making no retail purchases one week a month. How would that discipline nurture your spiritual health? What questions would you be forced to ask about your relationship with money? With stuff? With cheap Chinese made goods?

There are many other spiritual practices, and as we explore other aspects of God’s mission for the church in the next two weeks, we will discover that doing God’s mission has a sanctifying effect, and so feeding the hungry can also be a spiritual practice, and telling others about Jesus can be a spiritual practice, and getting arrested in pursuit of justice can be a spiritual practice.

Finally, a healthy Christian studies God’s Word. Jesus studied and interpreted scripture. I have seen young people get to confirmation class not knowing that a gospel was in the New Testament! Mainline Protestants have become scripturally illiterate, and this must change. The Bible is the lens through which we encounter the world, it is the starting point for our encounter with our tradition. If you don’t own one, buy one. If you can’t afford one, tell me, I’ll buy you one or find someone who will. If you have questions, ask… it’s not an easy book to read. Come to Sunday School, join a bible study, but do something.

If you are part of a transformative worship community, if you are engaged in spiritual practices, praying, giving and keeping sabbath, if you are studying God’s word, you will be sanctified, made more holy, you will be more content. And amazingly enough, churches that do this first mission of the church well, do the other ones well too, for they have stopped navel-gazing, and started engaging the divine.

It is my belief that deepening faith is the essential first step in any church transformation process, is the first step in re-aligning ourselves with God’s mission, is critical to becoming once again a thriving church. Take a chance and you will be rewarded. If you are stuck, weighed down with spiritual lethargy, take the plunge. Deepening your faith is like diving into the cold and blue. You will come awake, you will rise from your spiritual grave. Invigorating and terrifying, and oh so worth it.

What I am asking is nothing small, I am asking you to dedicate all that you are to walking more closely with your creator, I am challenging you to become sanctified, I am asking you to be holy. Sounds impossible. The late British sculptor Henry Moore advised that “The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”

Moore is partly right. You cannot possibly do it, not alone. And you’ll never get there on this side of the grave. But it is a great and holy task, and God is there, ready for the encounter. May we be a church that others can say acts to deepen faith, of its members and of those who need Jesus in their lives. Amen.