University Park United Methodist Church Dr. Vern K. Rempel June 14, 2015

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1 University Park United Methodist Church Dr. Vern K. Rempel June 14, 2015 Sermon: What is the church for? Bible reading: Romans 13:8 14 NRSV Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet ; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Paul Kottke and me Good morning. It is good to be here with you. Since I'm preaching from a letter of the ancient church planter Paul, I might say, to paraphrase Paul, "it is good to be with you. I know your reputation; I have heard of the love and good work that grows among you." I do know your reputation, and this place is familiar to me, because I have been here many times, and I know your pastor Paul very well. He and I have worked together in interfaith connections for almost the entire 19 years that I have worked in Denver. He has brought many people including me into this building over and over to build relationships of trust among the faiths. In this building, we have prayed for peace in the wake of We have heard interfaith reflections of reconciliation during the war in Iraq. Your pastor Paul has demonstrated wholehearted Christianity and at the same time a commitment and desire to learn from and care about and practice deep listening with other faiths. He has that good leadership combination of persistence and empathy. He creates places where the room gets loud and energized with conversation and then he says "I hate to interrupt..." And then goes ahead anyway. Persistence and empathy. And a couple of times he has worn a red sport coat. Have you seen this jacket? It is an unequaled mark of ecclesial authority! Put on 1 P age

2 the red jacket and lead for peace among the faiths. And now I know you are in a time of grief and memory and change as your pastor Paul moves on. And this is good, of course, that you are grieving. It means there has been love. And that's what I want to share about this morning: that what we do together in a place like this is not church, it is love. It is the amazing and healing love of Christ. We do not so much come together to do church, we meet for the sake of a deep amazement of love. Romans 13 Bible readers tend to think of Romans 13 as the passage about why we should pay our taxes; Why we should respect authority... Paul evidently had some reason to worry. Things were getting disorderly, even rowdy in the new churches. And it's his own fault, so to speak. He released all these mighty energies with statements like Galatians 3:27, 28: "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Or Colossians 3:8 17: "You... have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!" (Read this quickly, as a rapid chorus of love) And he continues: "As God s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God." Wow! On and on about it. The goodness! The love! Paul was effusive in his expressions of love. And so people were feeling their Christian oats! This love in Christ is so amazing that even the hated and feared barbarians and Scythians are getting the good news. Even the uncircumcised outsiders. Even the circumcised elder brother types. Even the women who didn t enter into that old belonging ritual. And Scythians who were just dangerous. And slaves who were so poor so bereft of dignity. So Paul might say in Romans 13, let's remember not to just go crazy. But wow the energies of love that he released! I have a friend who was talking about going to church with his grandson. They were getting ready, and talking about what they were going to do. In the middle of their preparations, the child had a question: "But grandpa, what is church for?" What is what church for? It is a good question, a good question to engage deeply. Because in running church, in doing church, in our programs, and board meetings, and documents and understandings that is the bellringing question we do well to ask: What is church for? In this day, we speak about the survival of the church, about budgets and attendance 2 P age

3 numbers and social and political impact. We wonder and fret about the public image of the church, and about own contentiousness around whatever is the issue of the day. And so it is good to rest for a moment, and to ask "What is church for?" To ask with child like curiosity and openness: "But grandpa, what is church for?" Church is, of course, for love the holy love of Christ. But how often does church become church for church? How often do we worry about institutional survival instead of wholehearted commitment to mission? How often do we worry about protecting what we have instead of giving ourselves in open sharing of abundant love? How often do we ask questions of fear, instead of questions of love? We get very Romans 13 with each other about taxes and authority, about money and structure. But it is in that same Romans 13 passage that Paul writes: Owe no one anything except love one another lay aside the works of darkness make no provision for the flesh In our organizations and institutions we often spend all day owing all kinds of things besides love? We fret over institutional survival. Money becomes scarce. The loaves and fishes of God's abundance disappear from among us. Instead of love, we fearfully lecture each other about loss of membership, about affordability, about who can participate. That, I think, is what Paul would call the works of darkness. That is fearfully attempting to make provision for the flesh, instead of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, instead of letting love fulfill the law. I'm of course not advocating fiscal irresponsibility. But how often does moneytalk or institution survival talk get in the way of living with risk and great joy into our good projects and missions? How often does it all get in the way of loving each other? You know how in computer screens you can have a small window open maybe at the bottom of the screen for something you're trying to keep track of while you do your work on the big screen? The small screen is keeping track, but the big screen is the love, the project, the reason we have gotten up in the morning. Let the small screen be institutional structure; but always let the big screen be love. (I heard this small screen/big screen analogy in a sermon by Ted Haggard, now pastor of the new Saint James Church in Colorado Springs) Brian McLaren put it well a couple of weeks ago at the Festival of Homiletics. He asked: "What if we actually believed that we had good news necessary to save the world rather than a proprietary product for which we need to protect our profit share?" I would pray that we in the church would not be obsessed with keeping track but would rather be extravagantly astonished by God's love... Owe no one anything except love one another. Three examples Three examples of this. Three examples of the challenge to keep the mission, the love out in front. The first is very brief and simple? It is from the book Systemantics, which remarks of the Boy Scouts of America. It notes that the BSA Boy Scouts of America, was formed to promote camping. But now it may instead promote scouting. Now, the Boy Scouts of America is an amazing movement, and has brought much joy and 3 P age

4 purpose into many young lives. But that is the question, isn't it, as organizations grow? Are we promoting camping or scouting? Are we doing our mission, or are we doing our organization? The question is, how do we keep our good missions from becoming organizations that then tend to obsess about internal order, control, survival? Is this not even the case with the church a movement by Jesus Christ to create communities of transforming love. But how often are we doing church instead of the transforming love of Jesus Christ? A Mennonite story! The second story is of the Mennonite created Maple City Medical Center. The purpose of the center was to provide medical care to all in a neighborhood with many low and middle income folks. Their idea was that medical care is best provided by creating community, not just by have a medical professional meeting people in an exam room. In this vein, they successfully created a bilingual pregnancy circle where women came together with a medical professional, yes, but the focus was more on the women's interaction and resource sharing than on an instructional moment from the medical professional. Success! But then they realized a strange thing. They realized that their board meetings were being conducted in a traditional Anglo model of creating an agenda and working through it. This orderliness and agenda focus was simply sterile for the non white board members and soon the board drifted from multi racial participation to becoming Anglos only. So, they looked at what was working. They looked at the pregnancy circle, which was warm and vibrant and inclusive. The circle was living the mission of the center whereas the board was not. And so they changed the board meetings into a time of shared food and conversation. And it worked! The board meetings were so transformed that one board member remarked: "This is the most civilized part of my life. At work I m in the jungle. Here we listen." How many board members can say that about their boards? How many boards pattern themselves after their mission rather than after some other more abstract form for how boards should be run? Well, that's really something. that's really something, isn't it? A wonder, a sweetness in the very middle of good work. Pregnant woman no longer isolated, caring for each other, finding each other in their hearts? And mirabile dictu, a program board as a place of joyful and encouraging gathering based on the circle of pregnant women! Make no provision for the flesh owe no one anything except love. Or as the founder of the center, James Nelson Gingerich puts it: "Do we believe in Jesus power to free us institutionally from our bondage to the fear of death? Do we focus on institutional survival, or can we trust our organizations future to God s provision and protection and instead focus on seeking God s reign and its justice?" (Joanna Shenk, Widening the Circle p119) A Methodist origin tale And finally, a third story from your own great tradition, the Methodist origin tale: My "heart strangely warmed" at Aldersgate. Here is John Wesley, Anglican divine, Oxford fellow, returning from a disappointing mission 4 P age

5 to Savannah in the United States. He meets with Moravians, and his heart is deeply moved. Strangely warmed. Now, many people feel a lot of things. But Wesley translates this into formation of accountability formation circles, circles of conversation and investment. And soon, there are actions on behalf of the poor, workers, prison reform, abolition of slavery, that inner experience translated into outer structural change. And of my goodness, the beauty and power of the Methodist hymn singing tradition. Something we Mennonites very much appreciate. Thomas Merton, Elizabeth O'Connor, Parker Palmer and others have noted that when something deep and genuine happens in our hearts it then naturally flows into outer expression. We don't have to force ourselves or get busy, or squeeze something into an already full schedule. Rather, we flow in loving action out of the fullness of our hearts. That is what seems to have happened to John Wesley. Out of the fullness of his heart he now moves into the world. Wikipedia says that Wesley "held that in this life, Christians could achieve a state where the love of God 'reigned supreme in their hearts', giving them outward holiness." Well, that's really something that's really something, isn't it? A wonder, a sweetness in the very middle of good work. A disappointed Anglican divine finding his heart transported as if the sun rose and warmed and open, a heart which was waiting for the heat of something greater to arrive. Lay aside the works of darkness, of scarcity and nothing changing, of merely keeping calm and carrying on, as the British say. A warmed heart, in the middle of Oxford College in England and therefore, so much changed for so many. We so much need community What is church for? We all need genuine loving community so badly that if we weren't distracted with lesser things, with small screen things, we would seek it with all our might wholeheartedly, without reservation, as lovers seek each other in the night, as ships long at sea struggle mightily for the shore, as those who have once heard a beautiful song find it ringing in their hearts as they listen for it again and again. What is church for? Here in Colorado, in our high altitude semiarid environment, we often realize late in the day that we haven't been drinking enough water. I call this the five o'clock realization. We suddenly realize our thirst, our need for water after hours of distraction from this most basic of needs. It is not good for our health! As it is with water in Colorado, so it is with community. We reach the five o'clock times of our lives times of community thirst. Times of loss of spouse or friends, eras of physical or mental illness, sudden change or loss of job, times of discouragement, transition from thick classroom community of school to the relatively scattered world of work. Or that other kind of loneliness when we have a joy to share and no one with whom to share it: The gorgeous sunset, the cat video! What's better than watching a funny cat video? Showing someone else a funny cat video. There's your Internet version of community! We reach five o'clock in our lives and we may realize I haven't been having enough community. Where are my 5 year friends my ten year, my 25 year friends? I have a couple 5 P age

6 of friends from attending Mennonite camps in 8th grade who are still blessing my life. Only my 35 year marriage compares to the strength and resilience of those relationships. From a fullness of the heart, from great wholeheartedness, will flow our great shared projects that matter and make the world a better place. Again, to paraphrase Paul, I have heard of your reputation, of that love that grows so richly among you. All we can do the best thing we can do is bear witness to it live into it day after day. That is what church is for, that is why we gather. Thanks be to God. 6 P age