October 13, 2013 Sermon

“Church: Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral”                          Ephesians 2: 11-22

            So where does the church fit?  Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?  What category does it fit in our lives?  I go to church because it does…what?

            Three weeks ago, I stood before the Disaster Case Managers of the Middlesex County Long Term Recovery Group and laid out for them a grant funded Mental Health services package in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  I referred to what I do as a “Spiritual Health Professional”.

            I was trying to connect on some level with the ‘mental health professionals’ and the ‘social services professionals’ who were gathered in the room.

            That got me to thinking.  A “Spiritual Health Professional” makes the church seem like a therapy site.  You go to church to get right with God, to feel good about yourself, to take care of some deeply ingrained voice in your head says “Go”, you go to make your spirit right.

            In other words, being a “Spiritual health professional” makes church, the place I work from, the agency for providing spiritual health.   And while spiritual health is an important component of ministry, it is not what defines ministry by any means.

            The idea of “I go to church” puts the church in the same category as “I go to the store”, or, “I go to school”, or, “I go to work”, or, “I go to the movies.”  Each of these is a choice, tying a personal need or desire to the place where you can get it done or taken care of, whether it be a survival need, a professional need, an entertainment need, whatever.  That place fulfills this need.

            Contrast that to the fact that we don’t say, “I am going to my family.”  Well, unless we’re taking about “the family” in the Godfather movies or on the Sopranos or something.  We don’t talk about going to our friends either.   

Instead, “we ARE family”, “we ARE friends”, that is the descriptive.  And I would suggest that “we ARE church” is much closer to the truth.

You know, you can flip this.  The attitude that church is somehow supposed to satisfy my needs can be the exact reason why some HATE the church.  One of the chief complaints I hear leveled against the church is that “They just want money.”  In that statement, the complainer presupposes that the church is not beholden to his or her own needs, but instead bows to the needs and desires of someone else, in this case, for the money.  A similar complaint is that they don’t go to church because the church is “just going to try and control them.”  Again, this presumes that there is a human motivation behind what the problems in the church.

How do we answer that?

Consider our Scripture this morning.  In the church in Ephesus, there are two distinct groups that are vying for domination of the church.  Paul is trying to bring them together.  These groups are the Yangs and the Coms, the Jews and the Gentiles, the distinction being made is between those who are circumcised and those who are not circumcised.  But what is really at stake behind the argument?  I mean besides being circumcised in the first place.

What is in play here is the understanding of the law of Moses.  Circumcision is commanded under the law of Moses as something that must be done to be accepted by God.  Jesus, as a circumcised Jew, is taken by the Jews of this church as the proof for their argument.  Jesus, as “one of their own”, shows that they are obedient unto the law of Moses, therefore, by definition, superior to THOSE PEOPLE who don’t circumcise. If the Gentiles want on board, they better get on board with the law of Moses.

On the other hand, there are the Gentiles.  They are not circumcised, not subject to the law of Moses, not of the people of Jesus-the Jews-but that is their very strength.  Because Jesus freed them from the restrictions of the law of Moses.  Jesus freed them from a lifestyle dependent on living by all the rules.  They live instead under the promise of grace and love as preached, taught, and lived by Jesus.  Jesus is one of their own because of the gospel of freedom that he shared.  And if Jews want to get on board, they better get on board with the liberation of Jesus.

What does this passage have to do with the concern that the church is a vendor of religious services?  How does it address what the church should be instead of being something that provides what I am going to pick and choose?

What it does give us, I believe, is true insight into the real nature of Christ and the Church.

Consider the following verses.  Verse 13: In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  Or verse 16, He might reconcile us, both circumcised and uncircumcised, to God in one body through the cross.  And verses 20-21, Christ Jesus himself, being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure (of the church is) being joined together, grows into a Holy Temple of the Lord.”

And the takeaway verse is 22.  In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

What the circumcision party and the uncircumcision party have in common with people today is that each is seeking to impose what we believe on what the church should be.  Even when there are people who don’t like the church, their reasons again are what they assume the church is doing badly. 

And when we do that, we have missed entirely the reason for our church, our faith, and everything.  What we’ve done is get church backwards.  Because church is not about what God can do for us, or what we think God can do for us, or what we believe the church is not doing in God’s service. 

Rather, the church is the conduit of God’s desire for us to be reunited with him from a life of sin and death.  Sin separated us from the love of God and what God wants for us is to be brought back into communion with the one who created us. 

See the message repeated in Ephesians, by Christ’s blood we are brought near to God once more, by the cross we are reconciled, Christ is the cornerstone of the Holy Temple that we, together, are being built into-not by our hands, but by God.

Paul has the best line in this passage.  He says that Jesus is our peace by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.”

Golly, what does that mean?

It means that any set of ordinances, any set of rules, any set of desires, any set that we humans create that will limit or pigeonhole or direct God into our own direction is abolished in Christ.  And all these things are abolished so that Jesus might be our peace.

What are some practical examples of these ordinances that God has abolished in Jesus.  They might go along with questions like “How am I supposed to dress?  How am I supposed to behave?  How are other people supposed to treat me?  What is supposed to happen in worship, or PW, or Youth Group, or Sunday School, or whatever?  Or, my favorite, Why are we changing this? (the real statement implied is But we’ve always done it this way.)

Verse 22.  In Jesus you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Perhaps I can paraphrase John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your God can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your God.”

The church is not animal, vegetable, or mineral.  It is not something we can put into human categories.  It is not the place where we can come and impose our ideals about what God is supposed to be and supposed to do.  It is not the place where we come to feel good about something we want to feel good about.

Rather, it is the place where the broken people of the world can come to repair their relationship with God.  God is building us into His dwelling place.  That building starts when we realize that we are lost and alone and cry out to Jesus for help.  That help was given to us in the Resurrection of Jesus.  Everything we have suffered went to the grave with Jesus and rose again to newness with Jesus.  

We say “we are going to church” when God’s reality is that “we are church”.  And the church is the dwelling place of God in our midst.  When we say “we are church”, we are saying “we are God’s”.  And when we are God’s, there is nothing that can separate us from Him.  Church is not about what we want from it.  It is about what God wants from it.  And what God wants is for all his children to be safe in his arms.

 

Amen

For this coming Youth Group year...

            We are taking a more realistic direction with our Youth Group.  We know life is hard for teens, but in the last year, the reality of those difficulties, the real stresses and dangers and betrayals of life have come to the surface.  And as a church, one of the uses of a youth group is as a place of safety for our young people to be honest and seek answers (and advice-if they ask) about what they deal with on a daily basis.

            Take one example, bullying.  I was bullied growing up.  I was the ‘new kid’ a few times in my life.  I also moved into situations where I did not know the ‘proper lingo’, the right titles for things.  Get to be around fourth or fifth or sixth grade boys and their interest in human sexuality, mix it with really bad information from our parents, and we make up our own slang.  If you don’t know the slang, you will be targeted.  And I was.  Mental intimidation, emotional manipulation, and physical assault were part of a well-rounded bullying experience.

            And it didn’t make me a tougher person.  I just learned how to take more than most.

            Our church response is two-pronged.

            We are using “Inside the Mind of a Teenage Killer” by Phil Chalmers as the basis for our response.  He has a chapter where he flips things around.  What are the ten things a parent can do to set his kid up as a killer?  He is doing it to intentionally shock the reading parent into looking at what the life situations look like for kids who end up violent.

            One of the statements he makes, which we confirmed with our youth group, is this:  “You know which kids in the lunch room might come in tomorrow carrying a gun and shooting up the place.”

            So here is how our neighborhood is responding.  We are going to take each of the ten steps in turn.  First, we pair it with a Scripture against which the truth of Mr. Chalmer’s statements is measured.  The reality of Mr. Chalmers’ arguments are not in doubt.  Pairing it with some of the more painful passages of Scripture lays out for our youth that their Bible does address the c**p that they are going through.

            Then comes the second Scripture, the one that we hope provides real answers, provides a real basis in Christian hope and faith for them to equip themselves with.

             Then we change it up for a few weeks.  One of these per month is more than enough.

            The second part of our response is to provide an alternate situation.  A place where the youth can connect with each other, have fun, push the edges, experiment with what it’s like to ‘grow up’, but in a safe, supervised, and-most importantly-a carrying environment.  A caring neighborhood.  We are creating that here.

            On Sunday, October 20, all the parents of our youth will be invited to join us, with the youth, to sit in on the next piece of the study from Phil Chalmers.  It will be an opportunity for you, as parents, to see what we are doing, to see how seriously we take this subject, and how we, at First Church, respond.

Peace.

“Church: Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral” Sermon for Oct. 13, 2013-Preview

Our Sermon Series this fall continues to challenge the statements of the Jeremiah Journey about the things that get in the way of doing church effectively.  We are putting those challenges side by side with Scripture to ‘test the spirits’ to see what is from God and what is affecting what we do.

Looking ahead to Sunday’s Sermon, the text is Ephesians 2:11-22.  A good site to pull up the text online is http://bible.oremus.org/.  The sermon series this fall is about those things that keep up from doing our church work effectively.  What attitudes from the surrounding culture creep into our congregations and get in the way of Jesus’ Way?

The challenge from the Jeremiah Journey is as follows:

Hypothesis: A very common notion of "church" today considers church as primarily a place where certain things happen; or as a vendor of religious goods and services designed to meet the individual's self-defined needs. Where these notions are primary, a congregation loses a sense of its connectedness, interdependence, and community. 

Each of these notions leads to limited expectations and unsatisfactory participation patterns, restricting the church's vitality and witness. The future of our church depends on a more robust, focused, and shared understanding of the church as a body of people, called by God, and sent on God's mission.

-From “Discovering Our Missional Context”

            We may not intentionally think of church in this way, but there are underlying presuppositions to what we think and do.  Anybody remember “Intro to Philosophy” trying to get us to come to grips with what our Philosophy of the world is?

            Consider these contrasting phrases:  We say we “go to church”, like we “go to the store” or “go to the movies”, but we do not say we “go to the family”.  We ARE family.  Shouldn’t the church, by its very nature, belong to that category?  We ARE church., we are not ‘going to’ church. (but going to heaven?)  It becomes a personal entity, not an external category defined as “places I go for stuff”.

            These sermons are challenging because they are forcing us, as a church, to try and see the structure of our assumptions about church and where those assumptions come from.  The take away is this: 

1.      Truly seeing what parts of the sinful world and corrupt culture surrounding us are undermining how we make “church” happen.

2.      Deconstructing those worldly and corrupt influences from the life of our congregation.

3.      Restructuring with a Spirit-driven Purpose that becomes the grounding and hallmark of this “neighborhood in God’s Kingdom.

 

I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago for the Middlesex County Long Term Recovery Group on mental health services that we are going to fund.  I used the phrase “Spiritual Health Professional” to attempt to describe myself to the social service professionals that I was presenting to.  I was trying to find a way to connect what I do as your minister with their work.  And I think I played right into the challenge of our church being a ‘vendor’ of religious goods and services.

But more about that on Sunday.

Peace

October 6, 2013 Sermon "Don't Want to be Average, Want to be Different!!"

Acts 2: 1-23

It used to be that being different was a problem to be overcome.  Consider the history of the African American.  In 1776, all men were created equal, unless you were black, then you could be property.  Four score and seven years later a war was fought, a Civil War, north and south, slave states versus free states, and there came the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery.  Five score years later, a jump from the 1860’s to the 1960’s, came the Civil Rights movement, African Americans not slaves but certainly not equal, nor free.  I wonder what people will say when we hit the 200^th anniversary of Gettysburg when they reflect on race relations in our country. 

And the vision of the solution was made so eloquently by Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have A Dream” speech.  He said, “I have a dream that one day…little black bolys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.  I have a dream today!”

The solution, equality that rises above racial and cultural lines, equality that rises above the color of one’s skin, it finds a Christian foundation in the words of our Scripture this morning.  The Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples and they went forth to speak to the gathered Jews of the Roman Empire.  They were there from all over the empire that day and Peter gathered them all into one solution, an equality that was found in Jesus Christ.  See what Peter says, ““In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  ¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

This pattern has been repeated again and again, from the Civil Rights movement, through every immigrant wave through into our country.  At different times, Irish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Eastern European immigrants, all were oppressed to some degree or other by “whiter” Americans.  We’ve fought against oppression of people of Latino origin, of South Asian origin, of Chinese origin, you can almost pick your minority.  There was and continues to be a struggle for the equal rights of women.  The glass ceiling is still very much a part of the American culture.  Religious rights are another issue.  Jews, Muslims, people of other faiths.  Or people of our own faith!  How much suspicion existed when JFK was running as the first openly Catholic President?  We are fighting that battle now in the American culture over issues of sexuality. 

But the solution always comes back to that one phrase, “In the last days, God declares, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”  This is not to say that the church has had a uniquely wonderful place in the American culture wars.  The Presbyterian church split north and south before the Civil War, and took another twenty years after the Civil Rights movement to rejoin.  There were plenty of Presbyterians in the Ku Klux Klan.  We have fought these battles over difference as much as anyone else in our nation.

But God continues to use us to bring forth the equality of all as the Children of the Living God.     

But somewhere in the dawn of the Information Age, the effects of being “different” have changed.  No longer is “different” something of oppression to be overcome.  It is now something to be celebrated, and stressed, and pressed as far as it can go.

Now, “different” leads to being “special”, as though we are seeking personal significance and meaning in being different and, by extension, better, than everyone else. 

The Internet has given us a platform to celebrate our “special-ness” as never before.  We can post pictures and videos in real time of anything and everything that we are doing.  And once on Facebook or Youtube or Instagram, let me say unequivocally ALWAYS on Facebook, Youtube, or Instagram.

There are some people who take it to extremes, I am sure you have watched some of those reality shows where parents put their kids on the beauty pageant circuit, or the dance circuit, or some other such.  It’s like watching a train crash peering into the lives of these people.

Once it was ‘only’ the stars of film, TV, sports, or music that made it onto the screens of America. Now anybody can do it.  And so many of them who put themselves out there really, really shouldn’t. 

In the interest of full disclosure, there are photos of your pastor on his Facebook page.  Every one of them comes from somebody else willing to risk breaking their lens.  And, taken as a group, they tend to support the argument that some things should just not be posted on the internet.  The only redemption is when I am in a couples shot with my wife.

As a parent, what I have observed the most is other parents posting stuff about their kids.  Again, so much of the stuff that gets put out there really shouldn’t.  And it makes me wonder why.  Does the world need to see every dance the child was ever in?  Every song that they sung?  Every goofy or funny or nice moment caught on camera?  Are people so desperate for attention?  So desperate to be considered ‘better’ in the eyes of their peers, or in the eyes of total strangers?

Are people so desperate to be considered “special”, to find meaning in their lives by what they look like?  And how does the church begin to respond to that?  Now, the idea of God pouring out his Spirit on all flesh makes me like everybody else. 

At first glance, there are two highly contrasting ideas here.  Trying to find meaning in our lives by our own differences, our own specialness, our own uniqueness.  This runs counter to what God offers to us, finding meaning in being His child, living out all that He can put into our lives.  That leads to the further problem that ALL Christians are together in Jesus.  They are all equal in the eyes of the Lord.  How could any of them be extra special?

Unlike the differences we sought to resolve in the Civil Rights movement, where different meant somehow less than whoever was making the judgment call, now being different means being somehow more than those people you are different from.

And the response of the church has to change.  When being different causes you to be made less than you are, that is a justice issue.  Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate leveling of the playing field.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  All need the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, the Christian response to people trying to find meaning in their own differences, when it rises to the level of displacing the church, we need to call it what it is, idol worship.  Christ has been displaced.  And in the end that will only bring disappointment and betrayal.  Because we are sinful, we are fallible, we are fallen. 

But now we have a dilemma.  If someone is convinced their meaning is to be found in their own differences, how can we hope to appeal to them with the message of Jesus?  The answer is that we, by ourselves, cannot.  But we, in the power of the Holy Spirit, can. 

That is the power of our passage this morning.  The disciples are breaking into the world with the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection not because they have somehow found the courage to jump out there, but because the Spirit is driving them out.  It is not a question of how they might talk about Jesus, it is a question of how they might STOP talking about Jesus. 

The Spirit is the most difficult to understand of the Trinity.  God the all-powerful creator father, I can get that.  It is too big to wrap my mind around, but we can get the concept.  Jesus, the Son, God become human, living with us, dying for us, coming again for us, we have the gospel accounts.  He’s one of us, also God, but one of us.  But now, what about the Spirit? 

Well, let me tell you this.  When you are gathered in a room with a bunch of Christian young people, and someone in the room makes a leap of faith, and the love of Jesus becomes real, the Spirit of the Lord is evident on their face.  When people are singing in church and their souls phase with the music, the Spirit is oh so present.  When you are present with somebody in need and the right words, the right story, or maybe the right thing is that your tongue is arrested from speaking, there is the Spirit.

There is the quandary.  The bible is clear that in the Spirit, we are uniquely gifted, specially recognized, different and diverse children of the living God, living out true change and joy and wonder in the world that surrounds us.  And we don’t do that by what defines us in and of ourselves, but how we use those gifts and wonders to help other people.  That is the ultimate message of Calvary, that Jesus helps all to eternal life by his death and resurrection, for us.

But he culture around us wants us to believe that we have it in ourselves to be unique and special in the world.  The ‘need’ for church is diluted, pushed away.  Who has to go to that place to find happiness when I can find it in my own differences from the world around me?   

Do you see that interfering with what we hope to build here?  Can you see that getting in the way of our neighborhood in God’s kingdom?  Can we trust in the Spirit’s presence enough in our own lives to do what we can to overcome it and truly allow God’s kingdom, not our own, to reign in our lives?  I believe we can.

Amen.

The History of our Vision and Mission in the Last 13 Years:

For some history and context to the focus and direction of our church’s ministry, here is a review of the various statements of who we say that we are.

OUR current Purpose Statement is “to be a Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom”.  It is defined as follows:

Our purpose is defined by our three ships:

Worship: We gather to praise God, to share God’s Word as a community, to lift our hearts on high.

Discipleship: We come together as followers of Jesus, learning as the disciples did to become people of faith and courage.

Apostleship: We seek to be as the apostles, to be sent out in the Holy Spirit to minister, participate in missions, and share the faith of Jesus.

BEING a Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom was a refinement of what came before.  The following Vision Statement was introduced to the church, then developed further with the “Three Ships” outlined above.  This statement was rolled out at Easter in 2004, as a Trinitarian-styled statement of discipleship and apostleship, what the church did for its members that led to what the members then did for the community.  The statement reads:   

“Through God’s ministry in our church, we see people of all ages and ethnicities Worshiping God, Coming to faith in Christ, and Being equipped for service by the Holy Spirit in order to Glorify God, Witness to others about Christ, and Serve the community.”

THAT statement from 2004 was a further refinement of the work of the Mission Study Committee that prepared a Vision and Mission statement for the church using the Presbytery’s contracted Percept Study, work that was finalized in the Fall of 2000.  It was under that statement that the Church Information Form under which I came to the church as the pastor was written:

Our Vision

  >      One Spiritually united church body that works through the Holy Spirit
  >      A church body that draws from the local community to enlarge our church family and that works together, knows and cares for each other and focuses on community needs while proclaiming the word of God.
  >      A church body that is well known and respected in the community as open, helpful and loving.

 Our Mission

  >      Growing spiritually both as a church body AND personally
  >      Improving communications within our  church AND between the church and the community
  >      Fully staffing the church with both paid AND volunteer positions
  >      Creating unity within both our church AND the community

 THE full document from 2000 is 21 pages long in its presentation and explanation of the Vision and Mission, plus another 10-12 pages of Percept addenda.  We’ve known who God wants us to be for over a decade.  We’ve focused it, tweaked it, moved with it.  Now it is time to live it.

Concentrating our efforts

A Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom, what must we do to achieve that vision?  What goals must we set?  What structure must we create?  What focus must we have to become the Neighborhood?  How radical are we willing to be?  What pieces are already in place?  What needs to be set up?  What needs to be taken down?  What needs to be revised?  So many questions. 

Even the mode of communications has become muddied.  There is a church blog, I have my own blog.  They are connected, maybe even overlap, but they are two streams of consciousness about the future, for me, and for the church.

Here is where we are: a church with a vision but without the roadmap, the plan, or the tools to achieve that vision.  This vision started in 2000, when a team of members of this church went through the demographics, went through the ministries, dreamed large and powerfully, and put something down on paper.  And then we honed it, narrowed it, focused it, made it something that can stick in our minds and integrate into our souls, as members of First Church, Perth Amboy.

Now the rubber meets the road.  Now we no longer live on savings but on the giving and production of the present generation.  We know what we want to be.  We know what we are.  Now come the big steps, the necessary steps, the creation of something powerful. 

It will be said at once that we can’t go completely online, that there are many who will not be able to access a blog or email.  These words will go into our printed materials as well. 

Let the word go forth that this church shall not lay down, shall not give up, but shall move forward to do Jesus’ work.

October Herald: Pastor's Article

Dear Neighbors,

I am preparing this morning for the final implementation of a process that has taken six months to bring to reality.

Six months ago, at a Long Term Recovery Group Meeting for Hurricane Sandy, our Board treasurer stood up to report on the result of a grant application to the Sandy Relief Fund.

He then issued a challenge.  Any member agency of the LTRG (churches included) were encouraged to write a grant as well.  I remember him saying “Anyone can write a grant to get money for something that you see that needs fixing.” 

I saw something that needed fixing.  I saw the souls of people who, once they got their needs of daily living, food, water, and shelter, under control, would have the time to break down under the stress.

I have lived it as a parent.  My child has something wrong, I will be strong to get them through.  When they are okay, then it will be time for me NOT to be okay.  How about people who have lost everything?

How do we pick up on people who are moving out of the enforced “being okay” survival mode to not being okay when they come out of survival mode.

We were funded.  For six months, writing those protocols and procedures, consulting with experts, collaborating with others, that has been a chunk of my ministry.

But it’s not my ministry.  It is our church’s ministry.  And the reason I say that is because what I saw as a need, what I saw as a response to that need came out of my first-hand experience with this congregation.

People in this church are not left to themselves when they hurt.  Their friends and neighbors show up with food, with support, with whatever they need.

I learned that caring from this congregation and I am grateful that it gave me the insight to reach out to the thousands of people in our County displaced by the Superstorm.

Thank you for your living witness to Jesus.

Rev. Peter Hofstra