But I Say unto You Richmond s First Baptist Church, September 10, 2017 One Sunday You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, You shall not murder ; and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment (Matt. 5:21-22a). Welcome to One Sunday! How good it is to see the church gathered as one body, in one place, for one, wonderful worship service! Some of you are back from your summer travels. Some are here for the first time ever. But some of you have been here all along and if you have then you know that I have been preaching a series called, Pictures from the Family Album and talking about what we have in common with our spiritual ancestors: with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, just to name a few. Today we make the move from that series to a new series called, But I Say unto You, and it begins where we left off last week, with Moses on a mountain in front of a burning bush. God speaks to him from the bush, and says, I want you to go to Pharaoh. I want you to tell him to let my people go. When Moses objects God says, I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain. And eventually that s what happened: after ten terrible plagues (Harvey, Irma, Jose ) and a muddy walk across the bottom of the Red Sea God s people ended up at the base of that same mountain, and Moses went up to worship God. On that mountain God gave him the Ten Commandments, and Moses taught them to the people: Thou shalt not murder, thou 1
shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, you know what they are. Those are good rules, and the people appreciated them so much that Moses went back up the mountain to get some more. He spent forty days up there, and when he came down he had enough commandments to fill a book. Several books, actually. The first five books of the Bible are sometimes called The Law of Moses, and through the centuries experts in the law called scribes have combed through those books looking for commandments that others might have missed. I picture them sitting in some big library, each of them looking at a page of the law with a magnifying glass, and every once in a while someone shouting out, Got one! as if he had just won a game of Bingo. I don t think that s actually how they did it, but by the time of Jesus the scribes had identified 613 commandments in the Law of Moses and the Pharisees tried to keep every one. That s not a bad think in and of itself, but what happened is what often happens when you have that many rules: you get so busy keeping them you forget why they were given in the first place. I haven t seen them for years, but Baptist churches used to have an offering envelope with a six-point record-keeping system on the back where you got points for being present (20%), being on time (10%), bringing your Bible (10%), studying your lesson (30%), and staying for preaching (20%). There was a place to tally up your score before you turned in your offering, so the tellers in the back room could write down your total grade. It was genius. As I ve done some research I ve learned that the six point system was the brainchild of Gaines S. Dobbins, who, in 1923, published a book called The Efficient Church. Dobbins wanted to apply the business model to the church, and he 2
emphasized the importance of careful record-keeping. Churches began to record data about attendance, participation, contributions, decisions, and other matters. The net result was an improvement in all these categories. Keeping records primed the pump, as it were, and got many church programs flowing in a steady stream. i I don t recall using those offering envelopes myself, when I was in Sunday school, but I ve been thinking about how attractive they would be to an eight-year-old girl, for instance, who would hardly be able to resist the temptation to achieve a perfect score. Can t you just see her on a Sunday morning, racing around the house to make sure she has her Bible, and her Sunday school quarterly, and her offering envelope? Can t you see her on the way to church, studying her lesson in the back seat and telling her mother to drive faster because being on time is worth ten points? Can t you hear her mother calling back over her shoulder, asking if she plans to stay for preaching? Of course I am, that little girl would say. It s worth twenty points! And that wasn t all! There was a place on some of those offering envelopes to write down how many visits you had made in the past week, how many letters you had mailed, and how many calls you had made to prospects. The net result, as you ve heard, was an improvement in all these categories. The six point record keeping system had children coming to church, and bringing their Bibles, and giving their offerings, and studying their lessons, and staying for preaching, and dragging their parents, and friends, and next-door neighbors along with them. As I said, it was genius, and back in the forties and fifties and sixties all the churches were using it. They handed out those offering envelopes like gospel tracts, they totaled up all those percentages and recorded the results, and, once a year, they gave out pins for 3
perfect attendance in Sunday school. And don t you know that little girl was standing at the front of the line. But it s possible, just possible, that she kept so busy doing all those things she forgot why she was doing them in the first place. And that could be a problem. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, You have heard that it was said by men of old, Thou shalt not murder, but I say unto you, Don t even be angry with your brother. And the crowd must have gasped, not because they couldn t imagine not getting angry, but because Jesus had corrected Moses and these were Jews. The Law of Moses was their Bible. It would be like me saying to you, I know the Bible says give ten percent of your income back to God through the church but I say unto you give twenty! You might say, Wait a minute! Who do you think you are? Which is just what that crowd might have said to Jesus. But Matthew has anticipated the question. In chapter one of his Gospel he tells his readers that Jesus of Nazareth was none other than Emmanuel: God-with-us. And when God tells us to do something we have to do it, even if it goes against our tradition. But don t think I have come to abolish the law and the prophets, Jesus said. I haven t come to abolish them, but to fulfill them: to fill them full. Jesus knew that even the best traditions can become empty and meaningless over time, and when they do they need to be renewed or replaced. Do you know what those offering envelopes were for? They were to motivate children to come to church, to invite their friends, to study their lessons, to bring their Bibles, to stay for preaching, and to give an offering because someone at the Baptist Sunday School Board believed that if they did those things they would keep coming to 4
church, and grow in their faith. And to the extent that it worked those envelopes were successful, just like everything else we do at church. I like to remind people that the word religion comes from a Latin root that means to tie back together again, because it s not only the umbilical cord that is severed at birth: it s our connection to God. Religion is meant to get us re-connected, and every religion on earth has that as its goal. In the Christian religion we ve decided that having church on Sunday morning, and saying prayers, and singing hymns, and hearing sermons, and going to Sunday school, is the best of all possible ways to get us tied back together again with God, and to the extent that it works it is successful. But there seem to be more and more people these days for whom it doesn t work. I almost always walk to church on Sunday morning. I don t live far away. But sometimes I will pass someone on the sidewalk who looks at me as if I were a visitor from another planet. The look on his face says, What are you doing wearing a suit on Sunday?! He has no idea that I m going to church. He may not even know what church is. And if I handed him one of those offering envelopes with the six point record keeping system on the back and told him that if he checked all the boxes he could get a perfect score he might laugh out loud. Why would I want to do that? he would say. What s the point of a perfect score? Well, the point, I would tell him, patiently, is to help you get re-connected to God, to help you have a life-giving and life-changing relationship with the one who made you. That s what the envelope is for, that s what church is for, that s what religion is for. And yet he still might walk away laughing. 5
These things are successful to the extent that they work, but if they don t work we have to come up with another way. In times like these we can t rely on our religious traditions to see us through. We can t pretend that what worked in the fifties will work for us now. Yes, we used to have two-week revivals. Yes, we used to do door-to-door evangelism. Yes, we used to conduct an every-member canvas. But we don t do those things anymore because they stopped working. In times like these we can t look back; we have to look forward. We have to lean in toward Jesus, and listen to every word he speaks. You have heard that it was said by Gaines S. Dobbins, he might say, that the six point record keeping system is the best way to motivate young people. But I say unto you that times have changed. The tide has turned. The cultural forces that used to push people in through the front door of the church are now dragging them out. You ll have to find another way. And I believe that here at First Baptist Church we are finding another way. I love that quote from Walter Brueggemann, that the central task of ministry is the formation of a community with an alternative, liberated imagination, that has the courage and freedom to act in a different vision and a different perception of reality. ii That s what religion is for, at least that s what the religion of Jesus was for. He was trying to bring in God s kingdom, and he did it by forming a community of disciples, setting their imaginations free through the parables he told, helping them to see the world in a different way, as if God s kingdom were just around the corner, and then helping them find the courage and the freedom they needed to bring it in. I believe there are people out there right now who would love to be part of such a community, and I believe that Richmond s First Baptist Church is such a community. 6
I don t know if you saw the video that was shown during the Sunday school hour but it was full of people with alternative, liberated imaginations who are also members of this church. They were talking about community gardens, and school partnerships, and marriage enrichment, and engaging our neighbors. And these people were not only talking: they were doing. They have found the courage and freedom to act in a different vision, and a different perception of reality. They seem to believe the Kingdom of Heaven might be waiting just around the next corner and they are doing everything they can to bring it in. They are people of vision. We call it 2020 Vision, because we want to have these things in place before the year 2020. But I believe there are people out there who would love to be part of such a visionary community, and the trick is how to get them on board. I can t make everybody out there come in off the street and watch that video, but I can do something. I can go out there. I want you to think for a moment about where Jesus did his ministry. He didn t build a church, and put in pews, and hold services on Sunday morning, and take up an offering. He went out there where the people are, and he met them on their own terms. If they were sick, he healed them. If they were hungry, he fed them. If they were hopeless, he shared the good news. And if they were lonely he assured them of God s love. If we could do that who knows what the results might be. Maybe that s why I started going to something I call Millennial Boot Camp. I was running in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts a few weeks ago and I saw all these young people coming away from there hot and tired and sweaty. I asked one of them what was going on and he said, It s the November Project. The what? 7
The November Project. It s a group workout. We do it every Wednesday morning at 6:00. Come! So I did. I showed up the next Wednesday morning a few minutes before six o clock. I was ready. I had already run a few blocks just to warm up. I got ready to stretch and asked someone who was standing nearby, Can old people do this? I don t know, she said. Can they? I took that as a challenge, and for the next fifty minutes I worked out as hard as I ever have in my life. I learned a new word, air squats, which involved squatting down and then jumping up off the ground about three or four hundred times. The next day I could barely walk. But I came back the next week. And there was that sarcastic millennial again. And she said, You came back! Yes, I said. And then she asked, What do you do? I m a pastor, I said. I m pastor of First Baptist Church, just up the street. Oh? she said. What kind of church is that? And I had to pause for a moment to marvel at the miracle of it: that I was having a meaningful conversation about church with someone who might otherwise never ask. I m sure I told her some good things. I probably told her about the community garden, and the partnership with local schools, and our involvement in the neighborhood. I may have even told her that we re trying to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Richmond, Virginia. But I wish I d had the presence of mind to say, First Baptist Church is not just a church: it s a community, a community with an alternative, liberated imagination that has the courage and freedom to act in a different vision, and different perception of reality. You know the kind of church that can change the world. Jim Somerville 2017 8
i Are Southern Baptists "Evangelicals"? by James Leo Garrett, E. Glenn Hinson, and James E. Tull (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983), p. 162. ii Walter Brueggemann, The Hopeful Imagination, p. 99. 9