Rolf Jacobson, an
Old Testament professor at Luther Seminary, used to say—maybe he still says
this, I don’t know—that the church says two things about money: The first is
“money is evil” and the second is “give us your money.” I thought, on a Sunday
when we are reviewing budgets and talking about shortfalls and generally
concerned about having enough, that today was a good day to say something else
about money.
The scripture for
today actually is helpful with this, because it’s Jesus preaching the Sermon on
the Mount, preaching those beatitudes, and the beatitudes are useful for
everything we do as the life of the church. They frame the characteristic with
which we should approach any challenge as a church. So, I’ll get there in a
moment.
But first, I want
to return to that Rolf Jacobson quote. I think, subtly, we do say these things:
Money is evil, and give us your money. And I think, in many ways, this is
hugely detrimental to the ministry of the church. Money is not evil. Instead,
it is a tool we use or misuse and a barometer for our priorities. Also, importantly,
money means something different to every one of us. Some people could have
millions in the bank account and still feel like they are stressed for cash,
and others could have nothing and be swimming in debt and still feel like they
are wealthy.
Meanwhile, the
church—if we’re talking about money, because let’s face it, we mostly don’t—seemingly
has one move: We ask for more. Give more. That’s clearly the desired outcome,
but we need a much wider approach. We need to do more than ask for more; we
need to do a much better job of lifting up what we are doing. Whenever there is
a kitchen that needs updating, or stained glass, or something tangible, money
comes in. It’s worth asking why? Because it’s tangible. Because you don’t need
to tell the story; it’s staring at you. You can experience the kitchen or the
stained glass; it adds something to your experience of church. But here’s the
thing: So does every ministry we support. Our problem is a lack of
story-telling about the ministries that do even more than a new kitchen and
even more than stained glass or a wall.
Financial problems
are as often problems of story-sharing as they are problems of not having
enough. There is no question that this community has enough. The question is:
When you feel strained, what tightens? And, as a church, we need to do a better
job of sharing the impact that we have, and if we’re not doing that, then no letter-writing
campaign or kick in the pants is going to change the tides.
So, what are we
doing? Let’s get back to Jesus on the mountain for a moment. We are promoting
meekness and humility and kindness. It’s worth remembering that most places don’t
do these things. Most communities we are a part of don’t go out of their way to
make you more humble and meek and kind. But we do. We have Sunday school and
Confirmation and Bible Studies to teach it. We have a food pantry that reminds
us of the needs of our community and connects us with some of the most
vulnerable who we otherwise would not have eyes to see. We have quilting, and
holiday helpers, and soup suppers, and youth service trips, and Men’s Lenten
breakfast, and coffee hour, and serving groups, and all of that. Each in their
own way lifts up the virtues we find in the beatitudes. We have worship where
we have music, and liturgy, and ritual, and practice that centers us on God’s
role in our lives. We have a lot going on.
Too much
sometimes. That’s the problem these days, isn’t it? We’re all so busy—so pulled
a thousand directions. The church is not the center of society anymore, by
which I mean that not everything that happens in the community revolves around
the church like it did in the 1950s and before. We can moan about that, and tut
tut about the way it once was, but it is what it is. In fact, as a person born
long after the church had moved away from the center of society, let me suggest
something through my millennial eyes. People like me have grown up in churches,
like this one, that are no longer the center of society, and we have discovered
a richness to choosing to be part of something that we don’t have to do. I
firmly believe Jesus was preaching the beatitudes for times like today, much
more than times like the 1950s when church was an obligation and an
expectation. Periods like those are the exception. In most of history, faith
has not been mainstream, and in every period in history, humility and meekness do
not get you ahead in life, because to follow Jesus is always an act in being
counter-cultural. So, rather than bemoaning the fact that the church is no
longer at the center of society, I want to suggest this might be one of our
biggest strengths in 2019. Nobody comes to church anymore because they have to;
they do for two overriding reasons. 1) They feel compelled because of faith
that’s stronger than the temptation to do other things. And 2) There’s
something here that means something to them, and that is a profound strength.
That means
everybody in the pews next to you, or in Bible study, or lining up at the food
pantry, or who interacts with the church in anyway, has a reason for being here
that has nothing to do with getting ahead in society. That means we all have a
story that connects us. And when we all have a story that centers on something
that is meaningful to us, that is where God meets us and changes us and brings
new life out of things that are dead.
I’m not going to
put you on the spot and ask, because perhaps you have a ready answer or perhaps
you’ve never thought of it before, but it’s worth considering: Why do you come
to church? Why—of all the things you could be doing—would you come to church?
Seriously, it’s a question that you should answer and then ask yourself: Wait,
is that really why, or is there something deeper?
People love to say
it’s about the community—and that’s very true!—but you can get community in a
million ways nowadays. You don’t even need people to be around you in the same
place to have community anymore. In 2019, there are vitalized, deeply
meaningful online communities. Closer to home, there are communities built
around sports, around the senior center, around the nursing home, around the
ice fishing houses, and the cabins, around the bars, and there are communities
that transplant themselves to Arizona and Cancun, and fifty years ago none of
these things existed. None of them. Nobody went to Arizona. Nobody went to the
cabin. They certainly didn’t meet people online. So, if the church is one of
the communities you choose to belong to, then it’s a worthy question to ask
why? Why church?
That is going to
be the question that fuels us into giving more of ourselves—time and energy and
money, all of it—because there is an answer to that question that is deeply
personal, which also connects you to everybody here. We all are looking for
meaning in our lives. We are all craving connection and those moments of
fulfillment and joy. We all want to serve people in need, sometimes because we
are those people. But, still, this is as true of the people who find community
elsewhere as it is about us here. The one thing we have going for us that makes
this community of faith unique in a world of other communities is that this
community doesn’t shy away from the hard things in life. It doesn’t hide from
the hard times. It doesn’t say, “Oh, life goes on.” Instead, we practice resurrection
daily, so that we need not fear death. Not just physical death, either, but the
death of expectations and the death of scarcity. We don’t fear death because
death is the only thing necessary for resurrection, and resurrection is the
true game-changer.
Society turns to
faith when things get rough. Church attendance grows when we go to war or face
tremendous natural disasters. But to be here in the normal activity of life is
a reminder that humility and meekness and peace-making don’t require tragedy.
They are freely yours on a daily basis. More than that, they are practice for a
life that offers no guarantees. This is what we offer: Practice for life. A
solid ground. We offer a place to be together and a community to hold you in
the face of adversity. We offer hope, and joy, while we don’t shy away from
sadness. We love you for who you are as a child of God, acknowledging our sin
together. We aren’t the center of society anymore, which means we have some
practical challenges. Will we keep the lights on? Do we have enough people
serving? Will anybody ever sign up to usher?
And, yet, the
great news is that God’s work in and through this community is not dependent on
us. The Spirit will mess with our expectations and blow us in directions we
would never have wanted to go. And it will hurt, because all things that are
meaningful hurt for a time. But the church is not dying. No, there are parts of
the church that are dead. But what of it? Some of those same parts were dead in
the 50s when things were seemingly great, but still the people were bemoaning
the lack of youth—who now make up the elderly of this congregation. No, some of
the parts of the church probably are dead, but God does one thing with dead
things: He resurrects them. In fact, there is only one prerequisite for
resurrection: You have to be dead first.
So, certain
expectations we have may die. Certain fears are triggered—certain worries about
not having enough. Good. Because the path of discipleship requires some
hurting. It requires some loss. It requires assessing where you are walking,
what you are doing, and why. It requires all these things, because the path
ends at the cross. But the cross opens up a far wider road toward something
different and better—the one thing we can proclaim that no community at the bar,
or the hockey rink, or on Twitch can ever hope to offer. Dead things rise
again because of Jesus Christ.
That’s the story
we need to share.
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