Sermons
A Message by the Rev. Harvey G. Throop
Palisades Presbyterian Church
San Diego, California
October 25 , 2009
Who Needs A Church?
(Matthew 16:13-18)
“... and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not prevail against it.”
(Matthew 16:18)
On most Sunday mornings during the year, I‘m down here at the church between 7 and 7:30 am and I don't leave until most everyone else has gone home. One result is that I see nothing of what's going on in the rest of the world during that time.
But I know the rest of the world is busy. I know, for example, that the golf courses are filled up. Many of you, I'm certain, have heard the story about the minister who woke up one Sunday morning, looked outside, saw what a magnificently beautiful day it was, decided he was going to play golf instead of go to church and called his Parish Associate to fill in for him. He put on his golf clothes, grabbed his clubs, got into his car and drove to a nearby golf course.
Up in heaven, St. Peter, seeing this sight, turns to God and says, “What are you going to do about him?” God replies, “Just watch.”
So, the minister begins his round of golf. When he gets to the 5th tee, he comes to a 185-yard par 3 hole. He takes out his 6-iron, hits his ball and proceeds to make a hole-in-one.
Back in heaven, St. Peter turns to God and says, “Hey! I thought you were going to do something. He just made a hole-in-one!” God turns to St. Peter and says, “So -- who's he going to tell?”
Yes, golf courses, beaches, the various tourist venues (Sea World, the Zoo, etc), casinos and city parks all find crowds of people enjoying themselves. I know from our vantage point above Interstate 8 that the highways are always busy. On football Sundays during the fall, folks are tailgating at the stadium. Also, countless numbers drive to any number of restaurants for a leisurely Sunday brunch. There seems no end to the Sunday possibilities.
I'm certain that among the crowds of people in these various venues, that church and worship were not considered as a part of how to spend their Sunday mornings. Now granted, some of these folks, perhaps, went to worship on the evening before -- Saturday evening. But I can imagine many of these folks responding, “Who Needs A Church?” , if they were asked that question.
“Who Needs A Church?” That's a much bigger question than just a Sunday morning one. It's a question that impacts who we are as Christ's followers.
This morning, I want us to think together about who we are as a church … why we're a part of a church … why we take time to involve ourselves in it.
We're all aware of the fact that among some folks, the church is seen as irrelevant and out-of-date. Some people regard the church as little more than a coming together of hypocrites, a pious enclave for like-minded and mostly narrow-minded people. Others see the church as a memorial to a far-removed culture where it held a more important place in the overall scheme of things.
Still, other folks see the church as just another large institution, a stifling bureaucracy that is caught in an incredible web of committees, reports and numbers -- and not making very good sense of any of them.
Certainly, no one is in a better position than we pastors to see the sometimes agonizing confusion that the institutional part of the church can create. Whenever someone says to me, “I don't like the institutional church,” I like to respond, “I don't like it much, either!”
I'd be willing to guess that almost every pastor, at one time or another, (and some with greater frequency than others!) gets the almost uncontrollable urge to tear up all our files, committee reports and organizational policy and just toss them! In its institutional sense, the church can become one big headache.
So why do we stick around? Well, the answer for many is as complex as it is simple. We stick around because we believe that God in Christ has called us together into community to be his people -- his followers.
In community! That's the key! There are some people who don't see the need for “community.” “I believe in Christ,” they'll say, “but not in the Church.” Someone else will chime in, “I don't think you can organize something that's spiritual.” Yet another person will say, “I can worship God much better alone than I can by being put into a church pew, singing old hymns and listening to some boring sermon.” Another will add, “I can do my own praying. Religion is between me and God.”
One of the cultural changes we've seen in this present decade is the emergence of a radical individualism. It is also one of the reasons the world needs the church. People are increasingly choosing to go it alone.
A number of years ago, Robert Putnam described this cultural phenomenon in his book “Bowling Alone,” where he writes about how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and about how many of our social structures – PTA, church, and various community groups and entities – have declined in membership. (Simon & Schuster, [New York, 2000]).
Well, many former church members seek God alone and practice their religion alone. The evidence is compelling. One hundred years ago, if you were born a Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran or Baptist, chances are you remained a Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran or Baptist, and had a lot of children who became Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran or Baptist. That doesn't happen any longer. Denomination loyalty is gone. We're now in what is called “the post-denominational age.” More and more, I hear, “I'm a very spiritual person, but I don't need a church.”
Sociologists and psychologists know that there is a down side to individualism; that human beings don't thrive on their own, that there is something terribly important, something critical about community, and that basic human needs are met in community.
You can get away with a one-on-one, personal relationship with God, just God and me and no messy institution to complicate things, as long as things are going well. But when trouble comes and sadness, none of us is strong enough to go it alone. We need the church, those fellow believers, help us to keep the faith in tough times.
Those of us privileged to live and work inside this amazing, exasperating, wonderful institution, know, because we have witnessed it, the saving, redeeming power of the community, the church. Not every minute, but enough times over the years to know that one of God's most precious gifts to us is the church.
I simply don't have words, and maybe nobody does, to tell about the church at the edges and at the critical and joyful and tragic times of human life -- at births and baptisms, at weddings and confirmations. I can't find words to describe what a church is when one of the community is sick and alone and members from the church, some of whom know the ill person and love her and some of whom do not know her but know that she is part of the community and in trouble, come into her home and do the dishes and wash bed clothes and put groceries on the shelf. I don't have words to describe how the church is with them in the hospital, gathers around her family as she dies, accompanies them to the memorial service and on through the process of grief and healing.
Yet, generations of scholars understand that Christian faith does not exist apart from community and that a part of what is happening in the pages of the Bible, from beginning to end, is the creation, by God, of a people -- a community. Hebrew scripture, which we share with our Jewish neighbors, is the story of God creating, calling, nurturing and loving a people. Jesus called his disciples into a deeper fellowship, a deeper friendship, with himself and with one another. He told them that loving God and loving one another and loving the neighbor in need is the one moral imperative. And on Pentecost, the Spirit of God animated and energized a group of frightened individuals and made them into a new community, the church.
Christianity, to be effective, must have organization. However we may loathe the organization, the blunt fact is that for any movement to make an impact on our world, some organization must exist! Christianity must move beyond the individual to the communal. I like what someone once said, “Christianity that does not begin with the individual does not begin, but Christianity that ends with the individual -- ends!” We are called into community!
Wasn't that the way it was even at the beginning? When Jesus called his disciples, he called them one by one. Yet, immediately, he welded them into a group -- loosely organized, though they were. Of that small, pathetic-looking, seemingly weak group, he said once, “and the power of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Community! That's what the church is! Not perfect -- not perfect by any means! The church -- like any human organization -- has all the shortcomings and weaknesses of the people who comprise it. But it also has the Spirit of God and the gifts of all the people who are part of it! The church is a community of faith where people care about each other, love each other, laugh and cry with each other, and celebrate with each other.
What a remarkable organization the church is! And what contributions it makes to the lives of its people -- individually as well as corporately: the love and the caring that are given; the support of people in need; hope to people in despair; comfort to the people who are hurting; courage in struggles for justice in our society and world. Maybe some of the people who go around muttering, “Who Needs the Church” have never taken the time to look at the enormity of the Church's contributions to the lives of people and the world! Maybe the problem is that we see only what we're looking for!
There's truth to that, you know! Take a walk outdoors with a 3 or 4-year old sometime and then discover how blind and deaf you've become ... deaf to all the sounds of birds ... blind to all the living creatures that inhabit your world, from butterflies to snails or pill bugs and all the rest.
Is that the problem some people have with the church? They're not seeing the effect it has in people's lives because they're not looking for it.
God has never depended on newspaper headlines as the measure of his effectiveness through the Church or in the world.
Who Needs a Church? More people than, perhaps, realize it. When one is a part of the church, one learns about oneself. Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The Church helps us to maximize ourselves ... to achieve wholeness ... to learn what it means to take Christ seriously.
The Church also teaches us about other people. In the church, we learn that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). The Church reminds us that we have to get in there and try to love everybody ! In the Church, we come to know other Christians who will do practically anything to help other people. We need the church to remind us that we must live for others!
Finally, we need the church to keep being reminded about God! We need to be reminded regularly about God's Word and will. God uses all of us to do that for each other. In the community of the church, we grow through our interaction with each other. We learn what it means to trust God and to practice the faith in him we like to talk about, we learn to risk for other people, and we learn to be honest about ourselves.
“Who Needs A Church?” I do. You do. The world does. Most amazing of all, God does.
The church cannot exist without the commitment of people. The church depends upon the commitment of its members to support its ministry financially. It depends upon the commitment of its members to serve on its committees. It depends upon their commitment to teach its young people in Sunday school. And it depends upon their commitment to volunteer time and energy serving its various mission projects.
If there is no commitment, there can be no church.
May the life we share in this church be one that feeds us, equips us and uses us until we all attain to the unity of faith to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 4:13).
