You Gotta Give ‘Em Hope, pt. 3
June 20, 2010
Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 10:38-42
The late Richard Halverson, who served as chaplain to the United States Senate, is said to have observed that, in its infancy, the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then it moved to Greece where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. Finally, it moved to America where it became an enterprise.
The question, it seems to me, is “what’s next?” What is next for the church, and, in particular, for us? How do we, as a community, a congregation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) express what’s next?
In the past two weeks we’ve talked about our personal hopes and our hopes for the broader church. This morning I want to think together about our hopes for this church. I almost said, “our church,” but, of course, it is not ours. This is the church of Jesus Christ at Clarendon. The church, like the world, belongs to God.
But this is our time in this church, and we are responsible for shaping the hopes of this community in this season.
I’ve been part of a number of churches over the years, and each has had its own vision, its own hopes, and each has shaped the way I think about church.
Almost fifteen years or so ago we were members of a church in Lexington, Kentucky, back when I was in seminary. It was a big church – almost a thousand members – and its numbers did provide critical mass for some remarkable ministry. But its size had little impact on my hopes for the church. Bigness has its place, but it brings along its own baggage and issues, which are not now nor will they ever be our issues.
A church the size of Maxwell Street, for example, is not nearly so likely to have a clear, sharp and shared sense of its core identity and purpose. I do not think it is an accident that almost all of the churches in the More Light network are far smaller than Maxwell Street. It is easier to be of one mind on difficult, yet decisive concerns, when you are talking about 60 or 70 souls as opposed to 950-1,000.
But while Maxwell Street may have been all over the map on some crucial concerns, it was clearly and deeply committed to active ministries of feeding, of welcoming refugees, of working with migrant workers, of helping the homeless, of hosting the families of prisoners in the federal penitentiary that sits on the edge of town. The church put its money and its members’ bodies where its mouth was. The community practiced what it preached.
When I think about my hope for Clarendon, I recall a small moment from our time at Maxwell Street. A woman with a young child came to town to visit her father, who was a prisoner at the federal pen. She discovered upon arriving that there’s no place to stay near the prison, and the cab fare back and forth from the hotel was taxing her slim resources. On top of that, her young child got sick and needed to see a doctor. To make matters even worse, she did not speak much English. Remarkably enough, she found herself in a cab driven by someone who did speak her native tongue, and when she broke down in tears in his cab he asked what was wrong. She shared her story, and he said simply, “I can’t help you, but I can take you someplace where they will.” He brought her to Maxwell Street because he knew – the hungry? Homeless? Prisoners? The sick? Helping them was the core of Maxwell Street’s identity. Helping them is what Maxwell Street did very well.
That is my hope for us: that we would be so well known in the community that people would be sent here for what we can do very well.
We know who we are. The core of our identity is that we are a community that practices hospitality and offers welcome to everyone. We proclaim the love and justice of the gospel, with particular attention to those who have been systematically marginalized by church and society. We take seriously Paul’s pronouncement that in Christ there is no east or west, Jew or Gentile, male or female. We take it so seriously that we know that in Christ there is also no first world or third world, no American or Taliban, no gay or straight, for we are all children of the same loving God in whose image we were all created good.
That is what we believe. That is who we are. The question now, for me, is simple: how shall we be it such that even the cab drivers and the coffee-shop owners and the neighbors know that this truly is a house of prayer for all people, a center of compassionate service for all people, a place of action for peace and justice for all people, a third millennial church for all people?
When session met last week, Travis led us in our opening devotion, and he took us through this story of Mary and Martha. As we talked together about the passage we reflected that, as a congregation, we have done a great deal of good and necessary “Martha” work over the past four or five years. We have almost completely restored this wonderful old building. We’ve painted almost all of the interior, and recovered almost all of our floors. We’ve upgraded lighting, and added air conditioning to most of the space. We created dedicated adult education space and a room for music. We have upgraded considerable meeting space for our own use and use by community groups and mission partners. We’ve restored the house that we own next door. We’ve remade Wilson Hall downstairs into a place where we want to gather. And just last week, session acted on one of the few remaining big-ticket items on our capital improvements list and so by the time winter roles around again we will be snug and secure in a building with new windows.
Of course, when you have a building whose “young” section is 50 years old, there will always be a list of “Martha” projects to tackle. But we have taken care of most of what we set out to do five years ago.
Now the question is, “how shall we do the “Mary” work?”
To be sure we have been engaged in the “Mary” side of the equation all along. We have embodied an open table as we’ve helped to feed thousands of Arlington families through our work at AFAC. Following Jesus’ example of empowering all of the faithful according to their gifts for ministry, we have been leaders in the movement to remove the barriers to ordination faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Presbyterians. We have lived into our baptismal promises in nurturing our children. Hearing Jesus’ proclamation that the peacemakers are blessed, we have worked for peace.
But even though we have done all of this and more, it is probably true that, as a congregation, we have spent more time, energy and money on preserving and restoring this sacred space than on other ministry and mission. The Martha work has been crucial and timely, but we are entering a new season with new hopes.
Is it a realistic hope to become a community widely known for its spiritually grounded work in the world, for its hospitality to everyone, for its work on behalf of the marginalized? What would that look like? How shall we be who we are? What gifts do you bring to the effort? How shall we use all of the gifts that we bring?
I do not know the answers to those questions, but I do know this: if we answer these questions well – with the best of who we are – then we will be again a community of men and women centering our lives of following Jesus.
Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 10:38-42
The late Richard Halverson, who served as chaplain to the United States Senate, is said to have observed that, in its infancy, the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then it moved to Greece where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. Finally, it moved to America where it became an enterprise.
The question, it seems to me, is “what’s next?” What is next for the church, and, in particular, for us? How do we, as a community, a congregation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) express what’s next?
In the past two weeks we’ve talked about our personal hopes and our hopes for the broader church. This morning I want to think together about our hopes for this church. I almost said, “our church,” but, of course, it is not ours. This is the church of Jesus Christ at Clarendon. The church, like the world, belongs to God.
But this is our time in this church, and we are responsible for shaping the hopes of this community in this season.
I’ve been part of a number of churches over the years, and each has had its own vision, its own hopes, and each has shaped the way I think about church.
Almost fifteen years or so ago we were members of a church in Lexington, Kentucky, back when I was in seminary. It was a big church – almost a thousand members – and its numbers did provide critical mass for some remarkable ministry. But its size had little impact on my hopes for the church. Bigness has its place, but it brings along its own baggage and issues, which are not now nor will they ever be our issues.
A church the size of Maxwell Street, for example, is not nearly so likely to have a clear, sharp and shared sense of its core identity and purpose. I do not think it is an accident that almost all of the churches in the More Light network are far smaller than Maxwell Street. It is easier to be of one mind on difficult, yet decisive concerns, when you are talking about 60 or 70 souls as opposed to 950-1,000.
But while Maxwell Street may have been all over the map on some crucial concerns, it was clearly and deeply committed to active ministries of feeding, of welcoming refugees, of working with migrant workers, of helping the homeless, of hosting the families of prisoners in the federal penitentiary that sits on the edge of town. The church put its money and its members’ bodies where its mouth was. The community practiced what it preached.
When I think about my hope for Clarendon, I recall a small moment from our time at Maxwell Street. A woman with a young child came to town to visit her father, who was a prisoner at the federal pen. She discovered upon arriving that there’s no place to stay near the prison, and the cab fare back and forth from the hotel was taxing her slim resources. On top of that, her young child got sick and needed to see a doctor. To make matters even worse, she did not speak much English. Remarkably enough, she found herself in a cab driven by someone who did speak her native tongue, and when she broke down in tears in his cab he asked what was wrong. She shared her story, and he said simply, “I can’t help you, but I can take you someplace where they will.” He brought her to Maxwell Street because he knew – the hungry? Homeless? Prisoners? The sick? Helping them was the core of Maxwell Street’s identity. Helping them is what Maxwell Street did very well.
That is my hope for us: that we would be so well known in the community that people would be sent here for what we can do very well.
We know who we are. The core of our identity is that we are a community that practices hospitality and offers welcome to everyone. We proclaim the love and justice of the gospel, with particular attention to those who have been systematically marginalized by church and society. We take seriously Paul’s pronouncement that in Christ there is no east or west, Jew or Gentile, male or female. We take it so seriously that we know that in Christ there is also no first world or third world, no American or Taliban, no gay or straight, for we are all children of the same loving God in whose image we were all created good.
That is what we believe. That is who we are. The question now, for me, is simple: how shall we be it such that even the cab drivers and the coffee-shop owners and the neighbors know that this truly is a house of prayer for all people, a center of compassionate service for all people, a place of action for peace and justice for all people, a third millennial church for all people?
When session met last week, Travis led us in our opening devotion, and he took us through this story of Mary and Martha. As we talked together about the passage we reflected that, as a congregation, we have done a great deal of good and necessary “Martha” work over the past four or five years. We have almost completely restored this wonderful old building. We’ve painted almost all of the interior, and recovered almost all of our floors. We’ve upgraded lighting, and added air conditioning to most of the space. We created dedicated adult education space and a room for music. We have upgraded considerable meeting space for our own use and use by community groups and mission partners. We’ve restored the house that we own next door. We’ve remade Wilson Hall downstairs into a place where we want to gather. And just last week, session acted on one of the few remaining big-ticket items on our capital improvements list and so by the time winter roles around again we will be snug and secure in a building with new windows.
Of course, when you have a building whose “young” section is 50 years old, there will always be a list of “Martha” projects to tackle. But we have taken care of most of what we set out to do five years ago.
Now the question is, “how shall we do the “Mary” work?”
To be sure we have been engaged in the “Mary” side of the equation all along. We have embodied an open table as we’ve helped to feed thousands of Arlington families through our work at AFAC. Following Jesus’ example of empowering all of the faithful according to their gifts for ministry, we have been leaders in the movement to remove the barriers to ordination faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Presbyterians. We have lived into our baptismal promises in nurturing our children. Hearing Jesus’ proclamation that the peacemakers are blessed, we have worked for peace.
But even though we have done all of this and more, it is probably true that, as a congregation, we have spent more time, energy and money on preserving and restoring this sacred space than on other ministry and mission. The Martha work has been crucial and timely, but we are entering a new season with new hopes.
Is it a realistic hope to become a community widely known for its spiritually grounded work in the world, for its hospitality to everyone, for its work on behalf of the marginalized? What would that look like? How shall we be who we are? What gifts do you bring to the effort? How shall we use all of the gifts that we bring?
I do not know the answers to those questions, but I do know this: if we answer these questions well – with the best of who we are – then we will be again a community of men and women centering our lives of following Jesus.
posted by David Ensign at
11:19 AM
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