Let the Church be the Church 2/15/42
Scripture: Mark 11: 15-26
Text: Mark 11: 17: “Is it not written: My house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations?”
A soured skeptic said, when he heard a man speak courageous words about the future, “Isn’t that just like a Christian - talking about God in a day like this?” He meant it for a sneer. But it was a profound observation. Yes, that is just like a Christian. A Christian is just the one to talk about God; what else is there to talk about if one is trying to maintain his full courage?
It is the business of the Christian Church to talk about God, just as Jesus talked about Him.
A few short years ago there was a great conference of people from the churches of many nations who were striving to find a basis for greater unity in the face of the world’s evils. There were elaborate discussions of the place of the church in all sorts of modern complexities. What ought the church to do about the threat of war? About social justice and fairness? About commercial practices? About missions? In the midst of the discussions, someone made a simple, but profound, observation. “Let the church be the church.” After all, that is the simple truth. The church ought to be the church in the face of every demand of life.
People sometimes ask the question, “What is the place of the church in a time of national emergency?” And the question has a point. For the church is not detached, but is very much in the midst of the life of our time.
It is not the business of the church in our time to be a recruiting station or to be a political party. That is the business of the government, and our government can do the job much better. But it is the business of the church to maintain Christian morale and a sense of fairness. These are important in every sphere of life.
When Jesus came to the church in Jerusalem, he found a church that had forgotten its central mission and had become involved in commercial practices which were none of its business. True, certain kinds of sacrifice were prescribed for the worshipper of that time. Whether it ever did God any good to have a lamb, an ox, or a pair of doves killed and burnt on a temple altar, I do not know. But it was doubtless a good discipline for the worshipper to feel that he was giving something concrete and tangible of his own to God. At any rate, coming, often from a distance, it was often very difficult for the worshipper to bring a sacrifice offering from his own flock or herd. So merchants made a business of having the sacrifice on hand for sale to the devout traveler. And the business had crowded into the very outer court of the temple, so that the bellowing of cattle, the argument of oriental bargaining, and the chink of coins were heard throughout the place.
Jesus sternly cleared out the whole mess and then began reminding the people that their temple was, first of all, a house of prayer, a house dedicated to the worship of God. It would be dead if any of its activities stood between people and God. It could be alive and strong, even in utter simplicity, if its people worshipped with all sincerity.
Let the church of today be the church. Let it not be regarded as a club; nor as a society for some particular group or class of people. But let it be a fellowship of all kinds of people who desire with all their heart to do God’s will. Let its house be a house of prayer. We do not know the half -, the tenth - of what may be wrought by prayer. Only by the practice of prayer can one come to know its power for good in human life.
Let Christian people come to their church in these days for prayer and for quiet meditation in the presence of Him to whom the church is dedicated and to whom it belongs.
Let people come to their church for Christian fellowship and comradeship. There is great strength in the feeling that one belongs to others in a vital relationship. It makes a difference to belong to the church. I’ve heard people say it from their hearts after joining the church.
Many people hang back from joining a church through a sense of their own shortcomings. Sometimes they decline to join a church because of the shortcomings of those who are already church members. They seem to feel that the church should be a fellowship of the saints. And of course it is true that the fellowship of the church should be a fellowship of the saints.
But that does not mean an aggregation of perfect people. There aren’t any such! There is enough to the old doctrine of original sin to make it clear that everyone must do battle with the evil that besets his own heart. After all, do you know who a saint is? “A saint is a sinner who keeps on trying!” The church is a fellowship of sinners who are trying to be right. And that “trying” implies spiritual action.
The church is a fellowship of those who seek to live actively in the spirit of Christ. There is great power in the right direction of our action. It makes a tremendous difference whether or not one lives, as a believer in God, in the spirit of Christ.
Norman Peale tells of a wartime experience with a Dutch sea captain who visited his church one Sunday morning at the time when Hitler’s Nazis had first invaded Holland at the beginning of World War II. The captain had been master of the steamship Statendam, considered one of the most beautiful ships on the Atlantic run. At the time of the attack, he was on the high seas on another vessel bound for the United States. Word came that his ship had been bombed and burned at her dock in Rotterdam. When he arrived in this country, he tried repeatedly to communicate with his wife and child in Holland. But he was unable to reach them. His ship destroyed, his wife and child in danger - possibly injured, maybe dead - his city in ruins, and his country overrun by an enemy, the captain went to Dr. Peale’s church on that Sunday morning. He sat in the pew weighted with sorrow. But when the hymns were sung, he stood up and joined in the singing.
Later, the captain took lunch with the minister. And there they both had a great spiritual experience. Dr. Peale says that, after talking of his family, of his ship and of his experiences, that captain began to pray, nobly and courageously, like this:
“God help me not to hate.....give your guidance in thought, in speech and action to those who rule over the countries in war, and may your will be done and -- your kingdom come --- God watch over my wife and boy. Before my wife was mine she belonged to you, Lord; before my little boy came to me, he was yours, Father. They are in your hands. I trust you. May your will be done.”
Again the captain searched his soul, and prayed (as I wonder if any of us could pray): “I pray for Hitler. God guide Hitler. He has great power over people’s lives. You can change his heart, God.”
That strikes me as the prayer of a man who, with a weight of sorrow on his soul, sought to know actively the spirit of Christ. Without any blindness; rather with extraordinarily clear vision of what is terrible, a brave soul trusted God so completely that peace and power came to his spirit and he was able to face stern life free of the crippling effect of bitterness, inconsolable grief or hatred or revenge.
Through the church, look to God for encouragement, my friends. Let the church be to you the church - a house of prayer, a fellowship of Christian people. You will find more power here than anywhere else to meet the demands on your life right now. Turn to the church not just in times of spiritual desperation, but at all times. By the regularity of your prayer, and the constancy of your fellowship train yourself to receive Christian strength. Let the church be the church to you.
And at the same time, let the church be the church through you to others. Let others share the joy of your Christian comradeship, your assurance of God. If you are forgiven your sins, forgive others their wrongs to you. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may --- glorify your Father which is in heaven.” [Matthew 5: 16]. Share you encouragements.
There is an old legend which goes like this: For some reason, the devil was selling a lot of his tools at auction. Prominently, and attractively displayed by their owner, they were a bad-looking lot: malice, envy, sensuality, hatred and jealousy and others. One could not well imagine more deadly weapons. But on one side lay a rather innocent-looking wedge-shaped tool marked with the highest price. “What is that?” someone said to the devil. “Oh, he said, “that’s discouragement.” “But surely you have the price wrong.” “Oh no,” replied the devil, “that is my most useful tool. With that I can pry open a man’s conscience and get inside when I could not get near him with the others. After I’m in, I can use discouragement to bend him in any way I choose. This tool of discouragement is much worn, because I use it with almost everybody.” And the legend goes on to say that the price on this tool was so high that the devil still owns it.
Well, if that tool still belongs to the devil, we’d better be “gunning” for it. And if God can give to his people the kind of encouragement He gave to Jesus, to Paul and Peter and Stephen; to Bunyan and Wesley; to Livingstone and Lincoln; the kind of encouragement he gives us today, let us gladly extend it to others.
Let us pray for others. Let us study to know others. Let us perform faithfully and well the tasks in the church and community that affect others. The Lord blesses the carefully prepared Sunday School lesson. He uses for people’s comfort and inspiration the planned and practiced talents of the choir. His strength reaches out through the careful performances of officers and workers in every branch of church life. He blesses the Christian spirit, in which we deal with all sorts of people through every week. He makes fruitful our active concern for those of other nations and other cultures who are reached by our missionary support. Let the church be the church, through you, to others.
When there is darkness around you or around your loved ones, or around those whom you can touch, it is in that very darkness that your Christian light may shine with most telling effect.
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dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, February 15, 1942
Waioli Church, January 5, 1975