2024-10-07
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
October 6, 2024 Hamilton Coe Throckmorton
Psalm 8; Church The Federated Church, UCC
When I was a child, my family and I worshiped at All Souls Congregational Church in Bangor, Maine. Years later, as an adult, my seminary graduation took place in that same church. When I walked into the building, having been away for years, what I noticed was how familiar the aroma of the place was. It was the scent that most reminded me of my time there as a child. And it brought back happy memories—memories of Sunday School and youth group and Christmas pageants.
Years later, after I had been away from church for a number of years, I found the need to return as an adult, this time to a church on Copley Square in Boston. As many of you know, I was somewhat lost in my young adulthood. One Sunday morning, moved, I suppose, by my aimlessness and desperation, I knew I needed to go to church. The only church I had any knowledge of was the one at which my parents had been married some thirty years earlier, Old South Church. And what I can still vividly remember is how life-giving were the people and the preaching and the music and the architecture and the striking mission of that church. It would not be an overstatement to say it saved my life.
In these last weeks of my ministry here at Federated, I have been reflecting on some core facets of our life together as Christians. In past weeks, we have looked more closely at what preaching is and who God is. Today I want to explore some of what it means to be church.
In the early days of Christianity, followers of Jesus called themselves “ekklesia.” We translate that Greek word as “church.” But it actually means “called.” We are the called. We are the ones who have been beckoned by God to be the embodiment of Christ in the world. Called.
That means we are more than just a voluntary association. There are lots of great volunteer organizations doing fabulous work. What the church adds to that is this: we are brought together by the Holy One to live out the fullness of God in our little corner of the world. Called.
These early followers of Jesus had another name for themselves. They called themselves people of “the Way.” To be a disciple of Jesus is to be on that Way. It’s to be people who practice a certain Way of being. It’s to be people steeped in an odd and radical Way of living. We’re people who are on the Way.
What God sees in us, and what God has endowed us with, is to be, in the words of today’s psalm, “a little lower than God” (8:5). And we do that, as we have mentioned before, by strengthening the four dimensions that make for a strong church. These are the four pillars on which we’re built: worship, faith formation, community, and mission. Vital churches devote themselves to these four cornerstones. We seek God’s blessing and vocation in worship. We deepen our journey of faith with sustained prayer and reflection. We build up and support this community of people. And we reach beyond ourselves to be agents of healing and hope in the wider world. Worship, faith formation, community, and mission.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that every single one of us does every single one of those tasks well. It does mean that, as a church, we make sure that all four of these facets are at the heart of what we do.
We are all part of a church, and of this church in particular, for different reasons. For me, worship has always been a uniquely powerful way for me to encounter God. As I mentioned earlier, I was deeply fed by worship at Old South Church in Boston. Jim Crawford, the preacher there, articulated questions that I didn’t even know I had. And he had a thoughtful and evocative way of suggesting answers that made sense of the world and helped me to see the presence of God in it all. Not only that but the music was fabulous. Worship there grounded me and reminded me what mattered and gave me hope and ushered me along the Way.
I have also grown immensely by engaging in sustained study and prayer that have opened whole new worlds to me. You might think a preacher who has been in this field for as long as I have would seldom discover much new. That is not at all the case for me. Each week, I have the opportunity to immerse myself in scripture and theology. And almost every week, I end up seeing things in a new way. Quoting a contemporary theologian, Mary one day recently reminded me that God is “infinite love and possibility.” Wow! Just this week, a striking image in today’s psalm reframes my life. Imagine it: you and I are just “a little lower than God”! For me, who’s always trying to get things right and wondering whether I’m letting God or you down, what a welcome revelation it is to be reminded that I’m just a little lower than God. As I am. And the same is true for you! How great is that!
Other people come close to God by study and reading and prayer and meditation and body movement. That may happen in solitary pursuit or in some sort of group activity. We can all grow, though, by attention, by attuning ourselves to what’s holy, by aligning ourselves to grace.
A third crucial dimension of church, in addition to worship and faith formation, is community. Rabbi Harold Kushner says something to the effect that he goes to synagogue to be close to God, while his friend Rosenberg goes to synagogue to be close to Kushner. Both are crucial. We grow in the Way by being part of a community who matter to each other, who care about each other. Community.
In my last church, a woman who joined the church said she started coming there because it occurred to her that, when she died, her funeral was likely to be sparsely attended. She wanted to be part of a community to remind her that she belonged to something bigger than herself. Which is why Coffee Hour matters. And lingering conversations in the narthex or lower lobby. Or a phone call when the results of a biopsy come in. Or a shared meal at a home or a local restaurant. I’ve mentioned before that our daughter-in-law, Cynthia’s, parents have been going out to lunch at Wendy’s in Bexley with their church friends every Sunday after worship for more than thirty years. Community.
Worship, faith formation, community. And also mission. The word “mission” means “sent.” We are people who are called by God and also sent to be on the Way with Jesus. We’re not, as a clergy colleague once quipped, to be rocked to sleep in the bassinette of the church. Church at its best awakens us and sends us with God on a journey of healing what’s broken, of mending what’s disintegrated, of restoring what’s fractured. That’s the Way on which we’re sent. That’s our mission.
Images of these four facets of church flood over me. I vividly remember sitting in my seminary chapel, and the great preacher, Gardner Taylor, preaching about Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. And I, this wandering child, not knowing which end was up, was reminded of God’s fierce love for me, as well as for everyone else. And I wept. Worship had that sort of transformative effect on me. It was the Way.
I remember sitting in a spiritual autobiography class I was teaching, in which people reflected on God’s presence in their lives. And a woman recounted the birth of her baby at 26 weeks gestation and the fear and the agony of those days and her conviction that God had been walking with their family on that challenging path. This was faith formation. And it was the Way.
I remember, just a few months after I had begun my ministry, a teenage boy in that first church of mine had veered off the trail as he was skiing and crashed into a tree. He had a serious brain injury and had been life-flighted to the hospital. When word got out about his accident, a woman at the church said we needed to get together to pray. That evening, in this small Vermont church, at least fifty desperate, seeking people quietly filed into our community hall. And this wide-eyed, fledgling pastor was awed by the love and devotion and trust that were in that room. And together we prayed. And it was community. And it was the Way.
Worship, faith formation, community: they shape us. They form us. So does the mission on which we’re sent. A church member delivers flowers to a neighbor who has just had surgery. Another takes a meal to someone who has just lost their spouse. Another knits a shawl to remind a healing friend that they are surrounded by the love of this fabulous church community. These are dear gestures of affection and care. And they’re mission. And they are the Way.
And sometimes the mission on which we’re sent has something of an upending edge to it. Maybe an immigrant family needs a place to stay. Maybe some vilified Muslims need to know that they are welcome in this community. Maybe gay or transgender neighbors need advocates in the schools and halls of government. Maybe people of color need allies. Maybe vitriol needs to be confronted. Maybe lies need to be challenged.
James Talarico is a U.S. representative from Texas, a man who also attends seminary and is steeped in faith. He says, “I was taught from a very early age that Christianity was just another word for breaking rules.” At its best, the church breaks the rules for the sake of including those who may be left out. It breaks the rules by lifting up those who may be trodden upon. It breaks the rules by walking with those who may be relegated to the margins. It breaks the rules by defying Christian nationalism, by insisting on truth when lying becomes the order of the day, by witnessing for a broad and inclusive community when tribal instincts want constantly to pit us against each other.
The meal we’re about to receive may seem like a benign and vanilla and ho-hum ritual. And from one angle, it is. It’s a simple meal, after all. It’s intended to nourish us and fill us with a sense of God’s undying affection and nurture. This meal is a nourishing gift.
It is also, though, a witness to a better way. At this table, all are welcome. It’s not just my friends and family who are welcome here. It’s not just people who look like me. It’s not just the people who agree with me. This table welcomes people we can’t stand, people with whom we drastically disagree. This is an open table. All are welcome. And it’s our mission. And it’s the Way of Jesus.
Last Sunday, a Federated student home on a break from college approached me after worship. She looked me intently in the eye and said, “I just want to let you know that, as a queer kid growing up in Chagrin Falls, it meant the world to me to see a rainbow flag flying outside my church.” And she started to cry. And I thought: that’s why we bear witness to that sort of inclusive love. Because it makes a home for everyone. And that can make all the difference. That’s our mission. And it’s the Way on which we’re called.
In just a week or two, Federated will begin its generosity campaign for the 2025 program year. It’s a campaign that invites church members to commit to that luminously transformative Way of Jesus. And it will ask you: are you All In? Let’s be All In in our faith. Let’s remember what a special church this is for us who are called by God. And let’s be on the Way with Jesus. Can I get an Amen!