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From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit
Providence, Rhode Island - February 1, 2009
"When God Doesn't Show Up For Church"*(Hebrews 10:1‑10)
Dr. Dan Ivins, Preaching
Sometimes people have religious experiences of profound impact. After reflecting upon them, the next thing we do is bottle it up and preserve it safely forever. Then we need a place‑‑some shrine to hold it in. So it was with Moses with his tent, Solomon's temple, Simon Peter's 3 booths up on Transfiguration mountain, Joseph Smith ended up in Utah with some golden tablets he found under a rock in Ohio. And even this historical Meeting House, has its long‑standing place. *(Credit Carlyle Marney for this idea).

Safely housing our religious treasure, enshrining it in religious institutions, that's the age‑old pattern of doing church. All ministry is local. So much so that it's become impossible to separate the church from its structures. Even today in the Middle East, the struggle of "places" continues, as Jews and Palestinians continue to war over the place. But for a mighty long time, we've been thinking God needs a place. And three of the world's great religions, has its own sacred sites for God in that place.

When the nomadic days drew to a close, they wanted to settle down, so a house for the Lord arose at Shiloh. Moses' tabernacle that once served the Hebrew religion well during a time of transition was no longer suitable. God needed a special spot all his own, more permanent, and would be a distinct improvement over the outdated tent. Nothing but the best for ol' YHWH. It even had candlelight for God to see by, where in the tent, God was the light.

Then a shocking discovery was made: some days God didn't come to church! It's amazing how sloppy God's worship habits got to be in those Old Testament days! There were times when God didn't bother to get out of bed. Or show up in his sandalwood box, or the incense around the altar in the holy of holies. What do you do with a God who misbehaves? And what's the point of having a place set aside for him if he may or may not show up in it?

Now they'd arrived They had real estate on their hands; a Promised Land to guard, property to look after and a house for God...but NO GOD to inhabit it! Turns out that God wanted no part of it. Ichabod, they called it, which means, "the glory of the Lord has departed Israel." This wasn't the first time it happened. That was in the Garden, when Adam and Eve did their thing. Then in the time of Noah, when it rained for 40 days and nights, and God planted a rainbow of hope in the sky. Then at Gaza when Delilah gave Samson a haircut.
But at Shiloh, the people started taking God for granted. So God quit going to church! And the people of God had everything but God. That's what happens when religion intrudes upon faith. So God just said "Count me out!" What's it going to take to get us to learn God's place is every place and there is no "holy land?" Only God is holy. All else is up for grabs. Jesus came to help us get it right and we still haven't got it. He came not to rule but to serve. He taught of a bottom‑up God, not a top‑down God, so he sent Jesus to put an end to religion! It keeps getting in the way of relationships.

What else could our text from Hebrews mean? "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Jesus went to a lot of trouble, so said the Apostle Paul that "He emptied himself," so there'd be no need anymore for the "bull and goat blood." I'm not how to "empty yourself" we're so full of ourselves, but this much we know: Jesus radically horizontalized God and opposed all forms of control, he appeared to be subversive, undermining the religious and political authorities. It's not surprising then, that Jesus was executed for his blasphemous "leveling of God." He brought God down from "above" to the marketplace and even the gutters.

So what does this mean for us, still in the religion business, gathered around a table with the symbol of Somebody's blood? Blood from a cross, blood in a cup, to hear the Bible say "it's impossible for blood to take away sins?" It feels like somebody's pulling the rug out from under us. What is it about religion that Jesus needed to abolish it?

We live in a society with plenty of religion. Houses of faith are all around. Many of them are mostly empty, so that consolidation makes sense. But trying to get folks to vacate their building, is like pulling teeth! Paul bumped into that in Athens. "I perceive that you of all people are very religious. You worship all the gods, and even have one `to an unknown god,' in case y'all left one out!"

We're still at it. Religious structures everywhere. Like a religious supermarket where new expressions are arriving to stock the shelves. Why? I guess because there's money in it. But it's easy to spot false prophets by their profits. And people are always looking for "something for nothing." Religion offers that. Especially on TV, where you don't have to bother to get up and come to church like God at Shiloh.

There's a story in Mark's Gospel, where Jesus went into a synagogue and "taught with authority." The religious folk were astounded. Then Mark adds an interesting detail. In the synagogue was a man possessed with evil spirits, who voiced the thoughts of the religious establishment: "Jesus of Nazareth, what do you have to do with us?" "We know you're bringing something new‑‑don't be messing with our religion!" According to the author of the Book of Hebrews, that's the kind of church that God quit showing up for. Not all religion is bad. Just the bad kind. Grady Nutt used to say "The only thing worse than bad religion, is a lot of it!" If it's the kind of religion that resists anything new, or creative; that says people not‑like‑us aren't as good‑as‑us or who don't believe‑like‑us are wrong. God doesn't think much of it.

If it's the kind of religion that has said sexuality is evil, and so are working moms and the divorced are living in sin. The religion that repels is based on what people don't do. God‑barren religion dwells on a place; and has a place for everybody, and loves nothing more than putting them in their place. Some people's place is the ghetto or the closet. A woman's place is in the house, (and not the House of Representatives!) The place for women is "in the kitchen, baking cookies." It's a man's place to "put meat on the table." And all who don't fit these religious prescriptions, well they can go to hell! That's the best religion can do. Some call it "the old time religion," but I don't know that it's all that old. It seems to me, all it does is cramp the human spirit. To Jesus, that's where "evil spirits" hang out!

So do we want a new time religion? Nope. Jesus didn't come to establish that either. His mission was to put an end to religion, as the text in Hebrews indicates. Because the bottom line with religion is...you have to do something, like offering sacrifices of the "blood of bulls and goats," or stand on your head trying not to do something. Religion is about performance, where you pray, not what you pray: like a wall or a cathedral, in hopes that God will change his mind about us. So that God will like us.

This gave way to the substitutionary theology of the dark ages. But Jesus had no use for substitudes because he aimed to get people "off the bench," out of "The Book of Numbers" and into "The book of Acts!" God needs active participants, not substitutes; because the purpose of religion is not to buy God off. God doesn't need to be appeased or lobbied on our behalf, no matter how long we've being doing it. Jesus horizontalized the vertical understanding of heirarchy, by revealing a God of mercy and acceptance and 2nd chances. No wonder the religious establishment reacted so strongly against Jesus! He brought the end of a familiar way of life. Beware anytime that happens.

In that same vein, John Lennon wrote a poetic song he called "Imagine." "Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today." Its hard to imagine what it'd be like if the world didn't have all the systems and corrupt institutions in place! The things that divide us and keep us from being one, like nationalism, capitalism and all the other "isms" out there.
"Imagine no more country, nothing to kill or die for...and no religion too..." "Yeah he's a dreamer, but so was Dr. King. They had the same dream, about the world's only hope: that someday we could learn to live as one!" By the way that was also Jesus' dream. His final prayer before the passion: "That they may be one" (John 17). Considering the history of the world, we don't have a good track record. And it does take some imagination, doesn't it? But it took these dreamers 2000 years to catch up with Jesus, who was imagining doing away with religion and nationalism long before the Beatles or civil rights or terrorism.

So what are we doing here if Jesus came to get rid of religion? He never established a religion, but he did offer a way of life. That's why we're here: to celebrate our salvation not our religion; our liberation not our enslavement: a way of life where people can be bigger than the church. Instead of the church is bigger than the people. That means First Baptist should be characterized as an open, affirming congregation, not exclusive or judgmental. A place of forgiveness and compassion, not guilt or fear.

I think in order for this fellowship to survive, we must be more than a museum, but the kind of place where people will want to come. And come back. But not for the place, only so they can be better prepared to live in the world. Who wants to go to a place, bereft of God's Spirit, where dogma and stern doctrine dominates? This church must not be in the religion business, for even God says "no thanks, if that's all you've got, I'll just stay home." And if God can do it, I can understand why some people can too. But they just don't know us.

The communal meal we celebrate today is not of stones but of the Bread of Life and it is open to all. There are no fences around this table. It is open to princes and paupers; the religious and the irreligious; sinners or saints; for Americans or people from anywhere else in the world. It's open to all takers. The only exclusion is self exclusion. God's table is the place where the mortal mingles with the immortal, where it's no longer God above and us below, but "I/Thou." And it's all possible not because of a religion, (Baptist or any other kind), but because God simply offers us his own blood, the only kind that can take away our sins.

Pastoral Prayer (2‑1‑09): Lord God, in our relentless search for "religion‑less Christianity," teach us again the "cost of discipleship." (Bonhoeffer's phrase). You never said it would be easy to distinguish between the "blood of bulls and goats" and the blood of Christ. Only that it would be worth it. But our religion keeps getting in the way of our faith. The structural skins grow brittle and are no longer fit to contain the "new wine" of the Gospel.

We keep going back to "bull and goat blood," because we like things laid out for us. Lord, we've never seen anything like you! But we've encountered Someone in your likeness. He was the embodiment of faithfulness and we betrayed him. He offered us forgiveness and we passed judgment on him. He felt more at home with sinners than the righteous. We didn't know what to do with him. So we crucified him between two thieves. Three men died on Calvary: Two because they were too bad; and one because he was too good. We still don't seem to know what to do with either kind.

In this hour let us rediscover the transforming power of a faithful relationship with the "man in the middle," so that instead of drafting you into the service of our religion, we'll enlist our religious impulses in Thy service. Forgive us when we mistake our presence in this sanctuary as the fulfillment of our mission. And for ignoring that we must sometimes oppose the prescriptions of religion, for the sake of Thy truth.
May our worship allow us to rediscover the church as the Body of Christ and ourselves as its members, each caring for the others and all working for Thee.

And never let us forget the words of James the brother of Jesus, that real religion is "to look after orphans and widows and keep ourselves from being polluted by the world." In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, who keeps us from saying, "Lord, Lord," while at the same time being disobedient to your will. Amen.

Call to Communion:
"Religion" is mankind's concern with bridging the gap between transcendent God "above" and man "below." Christ has replaced the vertical God/man distinction with the horizontal I/thou relationship of the new covenant, sealed when he declared, "It is finished."

Mark 10:42 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever desires to be first shall be slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."...