Last week you heard the message, Bloom Where You Are Planted, which was the same theme at the Annual London Conference. It was a lively experience full of poetry and music and inspirational speakers. One phrase particularly caught my attention. It was when our former moderator, Very Rev. Gary Paterson, said we should be heretics of hope. It s easier to follow in the path of the old ways, the common sentiment of we ve never done it that way before. But if we re going to move forward through the desert, we need to make sure we haven t overloaded our camels and that we re not afraid to kick up a little dust along the way. The Israelites who followed Moses into the desert needed to find a new way of being. (Deut.5:6-21.) The commandment to rest on the Sabbath was a radical idea. The old way of slavery didn t work for them anymore. I m sure some of them said, But we ve never done it that way before. Slaves didn t get to rest when they wanted, only when their masters chose which wasn t often or enough. It would have been a radical notion to extend this time of rest to the foreigner or newcomer. This would include refugees, like the ones we welcomed in Kent Presbytery from Syria. Rabbi Arthur Waskow says it this way, Honorable work and restful renewal are both aspects of responsibility. I must admit that I feel a bit guilty when I m asked about what I do for rest. Like a lot of ministers I just shrug it off and say there will be time later for that, but the time is now. I ve learned to take mini-vacations by concentrating on my breathing and body language. Try it sometime. Rest doesn t mean doing nothing. It s not the same as idleness. The early apostles often travelled to churches that were not doing anything but waiting for Jesus. When people have nothing better to do they begin to quarrel among themselves and arrange a hierarchy. This was the situation Paul addressed in his second letter to the Corinthians. (2 Cor.4:5-12.) Apparently they didn t listen to the first letter. 1
He told them that it s not about privilege or status, but about service to God and others. In fact, he used the word slave. What a shock that must have been to those who would have said But we ve never done it that way before. This is a message for the modern church as well. As we look around our community we need to ask, who aren t we serving? Jesus fed the hungry and healed people. (Mark 2:23-28.) Who are the hungry and hurting in our community? It s not just about physical hunger and pain. There are a lot of people who are looking for hope. People aren t looking just for friendly people. They are seeking real friendships. At its best, this is what the church offers. I read the following statement on a website, Congregations are soul communities in which young and old are soul-mates bound together as an extended family of God, who love, support and sustain one another. The poet Rumi wrote, Gamble everything for love if you are a true human being. At our best, we are a web of relationships, (Barbara Brown Taylor.) Churches today complain that there aren t enough people in church. In a book about church renewal, the author says that we can t expect a dump truck full of Christians to be dropped off at our door. Small churches worry that they are not big churches, but they have their own role and value in the life of the wider church. They are not large churches in miniature. The real question is not, why aren t there more people in the church? but why aren t we attracting more people to church? We need to ask ourselves these hard questions. Again I will quote Gary Paterson, change only comes about when there is felt pain. We confront that pain when we become ambassadors of hope. Churches, like people, can become depressed and suffer from low self-esteem. There 2
is an atmosphere of negativity, a sense of failure, and a resistance to change, because we ve never done it that way before. The answer is to become what Gary called heretics of hope. Look for Jesus in the unexpected, in the clay jars of our lives. This week I came back to my office and found five books lined up on my desk with a post-it note on each that said pick up this book. As I lifted each book in turn, there were letters under each of them, also made in post-it notes that spelled Jesus. Talk about finding Jesus where you least expect him! I might have got mad about the waste of the post-it notes, but instead I saw the love of the young person who left me this message. When Jesus plucked the grains of wheat on the Sabbath and healed the man with the withered hand, he shocked people, particularly the Pharisees. (Mark 2:23-28.) They must have been hanging around, trying to catch Jesus with legal trickery. Why were they at the grain fields anyway? Who planted the man with the withered hand at the synagogue? Jesus opposed the nay-sayers and did what had never been done before. He was a heretic of hope. He challenged the hardened hearts of the Pharisees with the hardened hand of the man before them. He gave that man dignity by calling him into their midst. He was frustrated by their lack of compassion. The Pharisees chose a different path. They went to Herod Antipas, the puppet of the Roman Empire. They did not choose God s amazing grace shown in the healing. What do we value? What is the most important thing we do? One of the books I m currently reading asks the question: When you have to cancel church because of bad weather, was your biggest worry whether you could make up the offering that would be missed? If that s the case, then the offering becomes more important than the lost opportunity to worship God or to be in Christian community. We have made an idol of the offering plate. 3
When God said you shall have no other gods beside me, that meant everything that could claim our allegiance. Hope is harder to bear than despair. But it gets easier once you make the commitment to change. One of the speakers, Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, told the story about her granddaughter who decided to help her clean the bathtub. She climbed right in it and started to clean it from the inside. Sometimes we just have to get right into the tub. During this weekend we used many images of different kinds of plants that bloom where they re planted. I loved the suggestion that crocuses deserve a special kind of respect, because sometimes they ll push their way through to announce that spring is really here, like the lilies in the anthem we heard today. We take for granted the roses of summer because, well, they re just supposed to be there. I ve really begun to appreciate how nature shows us such variety. We have a garden here that changes constantly. One day it s tulips, then peonies. The trees seem to take turns budding and blooming. One of the young people at my table said she was glad to be there because if she was home on the farm, she would be gathering stones in the field. I asked her where they came from and she just shrugged. I don t know but they re always there every year. This church was planted over a hundred years ago. It has been nourished by generations of members. What are the stones we need to remove to allow new growth? Are there cherished traditions that are no longer meaningful, or rules that are spoken or unspoken that don t make any sense anymore? This doesn t mean that we should make changes just for change s sake. We need to be true to who we are, instead of imitating something we think we should be. We also need to care for the people who are already here. A caring church is a thriving church. 4
Every organization has something that it does best. Small churches can usually name one or two whether it s the music program or baking pies. By focussing on what works instead of what doesn t, churches have freed up the energy that was consumed by the attitude of we ve never done it that way before. The buzz words of church growth, in either faith or numbers are: keep it real, make it relevant, and don t be afraid to be innovative. Bloom where you re planted and above all, be heretics of hope. Let us live into the possibilities before us. Amen. 5