Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn
WA
by Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor
combined services-youth Sunday, 06/01/03
Text: John 17:6-11, 20-21
Sermon:
What’s Yours Is Mine
Click
to go to: homepage – or – sermon menu
– or – sermon
archive
Today is a good day to remember what “church” is, and
what “church” is not. Or, to be more
exact: this is a good day to remember when
church is.
We look at a building. If it has a cross, and a certain shape, and a sign outside, we
call it a “church,” but most of us know that the church building does not
define what church is.
I’m betting that many of you remember the old Sunday
Bible school song, “We Are the Church.”
Maybe you even remember the hand motions—I could only remember the first
few. Let’s try it together—
The church is not a building,
The church is not a steeple,
The church is not a resting place,
The church is a people.
I am the church,
You are the church,
We are the church together,
All who follow Jesus,
All around the world,
Yes, we’re the church together.
That’s one of the simple creedal songs that we
absolutely believe while we’re
singing it, but almost immediately forget it, once we’re done. The church isn’t the building. It’s not the steeple or any of its
furniture. The song says it’s the
“people,” but I’ll take it a step further.
Church is not a place, a thing or a people. —It might involve some or all these things,
but church, real church, is an action.
It is a happening. In other
words, we could have a place, we could have all the right things of worship,
and we could even fill it with people once a week, and have a list of 1200+
names of people that we call our “congregation members,” but that’s still not a
church. It’s not church until we, with
Jesus Christ at our center, are acting like it. Church is an activity.
Ultimately, church is God’s action—through us, in us
and around us. The church is defined
by the preaching, the teaching and the living out of the Gospel. And you need all three, especially the
last: “Church happens in the living out of the Gospel” …because if the church
isn’t happening through our lives out there in the world, then it’s probably
not happening in here either.
Find a pencil or a pen and a blank spot somewhere on
your church bulletin. I want you to
right this down, the definition of the Gospel:
“The Gospel is the Good News of our forgiveness and salvation through
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Now, with that definition of the Gospel in your hand,
listen to what the Augsburg Confession, one of the defining documents of
Lutheranism in the 16th Century, listen to how they defined church:
“It is also taught among us that the one holy Christian church will be and
remain forever. This [church] is the
assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and
the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. For it is sufficient for the true unity of
the Christian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure
understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with
the divine Word. It is not necessary
for the true unity of the Christian church that ceremonies, instituted by
[humans], should be observed uniformly in all places. It is as Paul says in Eph. 4:4,5, ‘There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one
Lord, one faith, one baptism’” (Article VII).
Church is, worship is, the Gospel. Remember the definition of the Gospel that
you wrote down. Whenever that specific
Gospel message is preached or taught …and lived, church happens. It can happen in our homes, around a
campfire, in a fellowship hall, in a field, or a warehouse.
We know that!
All of us know that this is true whenever we say it, or hear it. But do we really embrace it? It’s so easy to say it, but judging from the
way we talk about churches and buildings and different kinds of worship, I
don’t think many people actually live it or believe it.
Do we believe it?
It means embracing the possibility—no, not the possibility, but the certainty—that
church can and does happen outside of all my worship preferences. It means being aware that this has been
happening for two thousand years through all kinds of languages, voices,
instruments, traditions and innovations, with buildings and without
buildings.
How did Jesus worship? He worshipped in a temple, and in a field. He worshipped separated from women, and he
worshipped alongside of them. He
worshipped with Pharisaic Jews, and in a very similar way, he worshipped
alongside of known sinners. Whenever
and however his gospel was preached and taught and lived, Christ worshipped,
and that was church.
If we really want to feel the church flowing freely
through this place, and in our people at Messiah Lutheran Church—if we really
want to experience the presence, the message and the power of the Living
Spirit of God—then we really do need to embrace this idea with our hearts,
with our thoughts and through our actions.
We are the church. Together.
This was the prayer of Christ. In our gospel lesson today, Jesus was
praying to God. He said, “I am praying
now specifically for the people you have given me, because they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine; and I
have been glorified in them.” That’s
our job: to glorify Christ …not ourselves, not our preferences over
others. Wherever and whenever Christ is
preached, or taught, or lived, we are to support and encourage it.
Jesus
went on to say, “And now as I depart the world to come to you, Father, keep
them and care for them, all those you have given to me, so that they will be
one, just as you and I are one.” In
verse 20 of the same chapter, Jesus spoke even more directly about you and
me. He said, “I am also praying for all
who will ever believe in me…My prayer for all of them is that they will
be one, just as you and I are one…so that the world can come to believe that
it was you who sent me.” As William
Barclay once said, this is probably the most frustrated prayer of Christ: that
they be one …so that the world can know who sent him.
The church is often described as a great big family…and, how incredibly true that is. The church is just like a huge human family, complete with various levels of squabbling, side-taking, heart-aches, illnesses, crises, and deaths. And all the good stuff, too: the nurturing, teaching, births, passing on of traditions, and the creation of new ones.
We are a family, somehow held together by a miracle and the Holy Spirit, in spite of ourselves. But Christ challenges us to be a more forgiving and loving family than the rest of the world. In this family, what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine. My needs are yours, and your needs need to become mine. We need to be concerned about each other.
And we need to be actively and consciously aware of
the fact that God will be speaking and challenging us through all kinds of
ways. Listening to God would be a whole
lot more fun, intergenerational and dynamic, if we were all willing to hear God
through each other’s needs and voices, instead of just our own.
Pauline and I went to see the movie “Bruce Almighty”
last week and we were both laughing out loud while Bruce was driving in his
car, shouting at God to speak to him, say something. Meanwhile, he was driving by warning sign after warning sign to
“Slow down!” “Watch out up ahead!”
Finally, Bruce shouted out, “Just show me a sign,
God!” Just then, a big truck passed by
him loaded with road signs that practically screamed to him “Caution! Stop!
Hazard!” And Bruce ignored them
all. He drove on, right into a
pole. He ignored all the signs of God
just as he’d been doing all his life.
He refused to hear God, unless it is what he wanted to hear, and the way
he expected and wanted to hear it.
I guess that is why I get a bit bored and sometimes
frustrated by all the human distinctions and divisions that we impose upon our
churches. It’s so much more simple—and
important—than that!
We have a message to hand on. That’s the gospel. That’s the simple job of the church. That is the simple tradition that unites us across language and
cultural and generational gaps. No
matter how we say it or sing it, we are to tell the message.
“Tradition” literally means to hand-deliver, to
hand-deliver the message that’s been given to us. And we need to be ready and willing to do it in a way that speaks
to the times. That’s what
“contemporary” literally means: with the times. All worship, all church, happens when the tradition is
hand-delivered to meet the contemporary needs of the time. All church services must be and must do
both, because that’s when church really happens. Whenever the message meets the time and the needs of God’s
people, the church happens.
In the meantime, we need to trust and expect to hear
the message God all over the place.
Never close the book, never shut your ears when you know that God is
talking to you. Whether the song is
titled “A Mighty Fortress,” or “Our God Is an Awesome God,” God is talking, and
he is saying the same thing in each song.
Whether the windows are stained glass, inspiring our souls, or clear
glass looking out into the world, it is the same God who inspires us and sends
us out into it.
Look around; these are some of your brothers and
sisters in Christ. They need your ears,
and your patience …and you need theirs.
We all need to be ready to teach …and we all need to be ready to
learn. Your needs are mine, and mine
are yours.
We are the Church together. When we understand that, when we believe it and act on it, then
we have glorified Christ. Amen.
Click
to go to: homepage – or – sermon menu
– or – sermon
archive