| September 30, 2007
You are welcome to reflect on this message September 30, 2007
I couldn’t wait to get to church this morning, ‘cause I get to tell ya’ll why our churches are full of empty pews. You’ve heard the old saying, “We like to have our cake and eat it too.” Everybody plans on going to heaven, but the vast majority don’t want to go through the church to get there. It’s the age-old religious conflict between the claims of the institution and the soul of the church; the structures of faith vs. the substance of the faith. The debate was ripe in Jesus’ day too. He spoke about it in his common-sense story about "new wine in old wineskins."
But getting back to the cake...there’s this one: “We love Jesus but hate the church.” Nobody can see Jesus, which makes it easy to take him or leave him; mostly leave him! But churches are everywhere, which makes it hard to take ‘em. Take a nationwide poll, and you’ll find lots of fervent believers ... in something. “Yeah I’m religious, or to use the in-word nowadays, ‘spiritual.’ But I don’t go to church.” It’s the tenor of our time.
But if you put your faith where your mouth is, and get active in a local congregation, where are all these folks who believe in God? There’s a huge volume of faith out there on Sunday mornings, sound asleep in bed! So all this heartfelt individual belief in a nation that has no doubts about it's faith, but also has very little collective practice to back it up.
We've lost a generation of church goers. And its getting worse. Over 90% of the Boomers, were raised by parents who believed in going to church, but less than 50% of their offspring do. That’s a lot of religiosity. But very little of it gets expressed through the local church. Yeah we like our cake and to eat it too. But watch when somebody dies. "Yeah, he was a man of faith, primarily in the sense that the church he did not attend...was Catholic, or Baptist, or Congregational or whatever."
Empty pews bother the faithful. It’s the #1 question we get from visitors. So it seems to me that a big reason why people are so quick to claim religious faith but not so ready to occupy a regular pew is that life today isn't like it was in the '50's. Then the church served as the social crossroads of the neighborhood. In a pre-TV land of quaint villages and small towns, the church bells invited folks not only to a worship center but a community center; where friends gathered, stories were swapped, recipes traded, rumors started, romances begun, fried chicken graveyards, newcomers welcomed. For goodness sakes, folks wanted to come to church back then because it was the place to be, which is natural when we get something out of it.
Today they go to Providence Place, sports bars, and various and sundry other forms of entertainment that have replaced the church as the gathering place. Other saints go marching out from the church because they got offended. And Oh you can step on a church land mine in an instant! To others church is out-of-touch. And a lot of folks don't go to church because of the natural problems that arise from organized religion. The issue isn't as much distraction, or boredom, or hurt feelings; it's repulsion. So para-church groups are cashing in on TV.
People are as repelled by the institutional church as they are the institutional government. Institutional anything is a turnoff these days. And with all the dishonesty, fakery, and political correctness, it’s understandable. On any given Sunday morning, ask the guy teeing off on the green, the woman pruning her shrubs, NFL channel surfers, and the myriads sleeping in till noon, "Do you believe in God?" "Sure we do." "Well why aren't you in church?" "I haven't been since I was a kid. You don't have to go to church to worship God," they say. But others are more blunt: "I'm not into organized religion." I guess they prefer disorganized.
Underlying that comment is the church, with it's institutional trappings, stewardship drives, potluck suppers, roof repairs, educational programs and bureaucratic entanglements ... has lost its appeal. It’s become a brittle wineskin, no longer fit to hold the wine of the gospel. Vibrant faith needs no institutional husk, so the thinking goes; it can flutter freely through the air, unencumbered, and lighting as easily on the 18th hole as at the altar table.
For those like me who’ve worked within the church, we know how it can be the enemy of faith. Faith should be about growing spiritually and grace, but the church is saturated with law and guilt. Faith dances, the church points fingers. Faith is freedom, church is rules. Faith is flexible, the church is rigid. Faith invites, the church indicts. Faith sees you as a person and wants you fulfilled, the church sees you as a "giving unit" and wants you to fill out a pledge card.
In Alice Walker’s book, “The Color Purple,” she frames a question through the character Shug, whose Daddy is a pastor, and confides in Celie, "Tell the truth now. Have you ever found God in church? I never did. All I’ve found was a bunch of people hoping for him to show up. Any God I found in church, I brought in with me." Not surprising for a preacher’s kid.
Our text today is ammunition for those with negative convictions about religious institutions. A man with a deformed hand was healed by Jesus. Anybody can see it for what it is, a dramatic moment of grace. But as soon as it happened, the institution tries to shut it down. The problem was not that a man got well, but because Jesus did the right thing at the wrong time.
The stuffy folks saw it as a violation of the fourth commandment; breaching the institution's by-laws. The result was a troublesome conflict between Jesus and organized religion. Jesus saw a need, and did something about it. But instead of unifying, them, it caused an adverse reaction. The religious leadership pounced, because in their mind the healing was way out of bounds.
Instead of waving the rule book, Jesus waived the rules ... in deference to a person, over the institution. Usually the score keepers win, as Good Friday attests. "But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus" (Luke 6:11). You don't make the institution look bad and get away with it very often.
Wasn't that the theme of "Dead Poet's Society?" Where a creative teacher taught young men in unorthodox but effective ways? It was a breath of fresh air in a stodgy old institution, but this new teacher had to go. And methodology trumps learning; just as religion trumps faith. Luke presents a textbook case of a repressive religious institution, Sabbath day observance. Intended as a blessing, a day of rest. “Man is not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man.” Yeah right! As long as Jesus healed on any other day of the week, no problem. But let him color outside the lines, and uh-oh, "they start to discuss how to get rid of Jesus." A dead Savior’s society!
A man is graciously cured of a physical ailment and all the legalists could do was check-in with the book! No celebration of the healing, because all that mattered was to make sure it was properly scheduled on the church calendar. No wonder the pews are empty! Who could blame the guy if he chose to spend the rest of his Sabbaths sleeping in late, muttering to himself: "Frankly, I don’t want anything to do with organized religion?"
Caring for somebody pitted Jesus against the institution. Loving Jesus, hating the church! Jesus saves, the system spanks. The problem is Jesus won't cooperate with any of our neat schemes to divide Christian experience against the church. Because church is a business as well as a church. Churches need structures to house the essence of the faith. They will grow brittle, and they must be renewed. That’s what he came to do. But his opponents wanted to fit him into a theological straight-jacket.
There’s irony in that it was the religious people who gave Jesus fits! They scheme to get rid of him, because he preached about a God who could not be tamed; who preferred to see a man healed, no matter the day; or another raised from a tomb who was supposed to stay dead.
Note that Jesus didn't say to the man, "Now that you're well you can finally get away from all this musty religious hocus-pocus at the temple." Nah, Jesus believed a community of faith matters. It was his habit to go to worship something bigger than himself. So the truth of the story is not Spirit versus the institution. The purpose of the skins are to serve as suitable containers to hold the wine. In this kind of world, it takes both. Sound structures enable us to "to create space for God." With so many other things competing for space in our lives, crowding God out. We’ve got school and bars where you can lose yourself; and football; and Foxwoods and job and family ... all this crowding into our space.
When Jesus was a 12 year old kid, he stayed behind at the temple, and got separated from his family. Lost in church! Church can still be a structure where people can get lost. But Jesus also got found in church, “creating some God-space.” And that’s what still oughta happen in worship. Even at our place. I believe if folks around here got to know us, they’d come.
Jesus said, “In my father’s house are many mansions/rooms...” God makes lots of space for us. And it’s hard to conceive how the day’s going to come when being in that room is all that matters. But we either don’t believe it or push it a long way off. Till then, Who cares about room? There was “no room in the inn” when Jesus came, and few who bother to make room for him now. There’s a southern saying that relates to accountability about addictions: “If you keep doin’ what you done, you’re gonna keep gittin’ whatcha got.” So it’s space for everything but God and oodles of empty pews.
I’ve seen this place crammed with people, standing in the aisles for a diploma. Full to the brim for an entertaining music recital. They’ll even come to use the bathroom at Waterfire! But to come for God? How inconvenient! The problem’s not Jesus; or the church. The problem is the people: creating space for God is something you’ve gotta want. There are no gimmicks to bring ‘em in. You can try everything in the book, from contemporary to church growth, but until they want it, it ain't gonna happen.
All we can do is make sure our church is a quality, attractive place, so that those few who do come, will want to come back. And until that happens, “all the kings horses and all the king’s men,” can’t fill these empty pews again. So I ask you, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?" (Luke 6:9). I think you know.
Prayer: (9-30-07)
When we get our way, we set things up so that good people have to break bad rules to heal somebody on a holy day. It can make deadly enemies. But among them will be none of the lucky ones Jesus made well. For such, observing the law is secondary to being made whole.
So we focus our prayers this morning on all who suffer from repressive systems, created by “the principalities and powers of this world,” to ensure their continued profits and methods. We praise Thee for all that helps us on our journeys – for those who walked this path before us and did it well; for the unlikely signs of Thy grace, reminding us that we are not alone. We remember all who are down on themselves, that this worship will affirm their worth; those who weep from bereavement; may our time together help them to keep at it.
Because we did not make ourselves; nor keep ourselves; and because we cannot forgive ourselves, our hearts reach out to Thee O God in gratitude for our creation, our preservation, and our redemption. May this worship inspire us to go beyond our customs, and bid the world to stretch out its hands, and allow you through us, to heal them and make them whole. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. Back |
