September 9

Where Connections Are Made and Lives Are Transformed

September 9, 2007 Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

I have a story to start with today. In the year of 1912 Robert Scott led an expedition to the South Pole. It was a tragic expedition, an expedition that failed in the end. But as they were going along they got lost in lots of different ways. One particular time there was kind of a snowy haze that descended upon them, so they couldn’t tell the difference between the ground and the horizon; and they really couldn’t tell where they were going. So what they found was they were actually crossing their own tracks and going in circles. In the end they began throwing snow balls toward the south so they could have something they could go towards. Now wouldn’t you like to have snow balls in your life from time to time? Seems sometimes we go in circles. We lose our way in life. You know the same is true with churches. We would like to know where we are going. We have the bible. It tells us that we are to go out and make disciples, we are to do this and we are to do that. But churches, like people, get caught in ruts, sometimes. Like people, we forget where we are. We don’t know what our purpose is. Someone asked some people on the street, kind of a Jay Leno thing, what their purpose was; and here are some of the responses. One person said, “To have fun.” Another person said, “To be a good citizen, raise a family; good family morals; good family values.” Another person said, “To be happy.” Another person said, “To have a good time, go a little crazy sometimes.” Another person said, “To bring as much into this world, as much as you possibly can, and get as much enjoyment out of it.” That’s a good one. “To me the purpose of life” another one said “is to have as much as fun as possible, in short a time as possible, so that you can take care of business. Definitely number one is having fun.” I guess we are having a theme here, “having fun.” This was taken in southern California, so that may have something to do with it. Another person said, “I think the meaning of life is serving God and serving family.” Another person said, “To be happy and enjoy my family and praise the Lord.” Another person said, “Trial and error. I think as I get older hopefully you get more mature and have experience.” I’m not sure I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older. Another person said, “My purpose, I think my purpose is…..I don’t know.” I think a lot of people are like this. I think a lot of people don’t know what their purpose is and where they are going. So it is good for us as individuals to take stock. It is good for us as a church and that’s really what I want to do over the next several weeks is talk about ourselves and talk about our church and where we are going. What are our goals? What is our purpose? What is our direction? What are we up to?

You know I think we can be like Robert Scott; or as the cartoon Peanuts puts it, Lucy is telling Charlie Brown that she has decided to begin a new hobby. Charlie Brown commends her decision saying how important it is to accomplish something meaningful in your life. In response, Lucy says something like this, “Accomplish something? I thought we were supposed to keep busy.” We need to make sure that we aren’t keeping busy. This morning I’ve chosen some scripture for you from Ephesians. I want to read it together but before we do, I want you to notice something about the scripture. I am using the version called The Message from Eugene Peterson; but notice how much Paul talks about how we are to be together, that we are unity, that we are one, and that God has given us gifts – gifts of authority, pastors and teachers and prophets, but also gifts to us to do ministry, to do mission. Listen to what he says. Let’s read it together. (Ephesians 4:1-16)

In light of this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

But that doesn't mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.

He handed out gifts … of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything.

Let’s pray together.

Lord God, thank you for who you are and thank you for this church, and thank you for all of us within it. Thank you Lord. Be with us now as we hear your word, as we hear what you want us to do. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

So how do we as a church decide what our direction is? This past August I had the privilege of going with my staff and a couple of elders to a leadership conference in Chicago put on by the Willow Creek Community Church. You may have heard of Willow Creek. It is a really large church in Chicago. We didn’t go there so we would become like Willow Creek but you go to a conference like that to be inspired and have a vision. One of the things that really struck me was a speaker who talked about how we have grown to teach ourselves and our children in terms of deficiencies. He said what we usually do is decide what a child is or what we are good at, for example, a child that’s good at English and Social Studies, but we notice that child is not very good at math, we concentrate on the math. Make sure that they can do math. He said, of course we want to help children do what they can’t do, but we really ought to concentrate more on what they are good at. More on what their gifts are. I would have liked that in school. I wasn’t very good at math either, but that’s another story. But we do that in ourselves as well. In churches, we concentrate on our deficiencies rather we should look at what our strengths are. Now, what are the strengths of this church? When I first got here I did a specialized survey of the church. Part of the survey is to choose thirty-five people who are exceptionally involved in the church and ask them to take the survey. So I did that and the results were very interesting. The areas of the survey were: What were our worship services like? What was our mission like? All kinds of things. Do you know what the highest score you got was? You scored highest on the term ‘loving relationships’. This church scored highest on its value of each other. As I have been here over the last three-and-a-half years I’ve noticed that that is really true. When someone has a problem or there is a death in the family, you are right there. You really help each other. You know each other very well. I have joked a lot of times that I better not insult one person because I would have insulted everybody, particularly because you are all related….but now that I have a daughter that is related to you as well….. But all of which is to say that you really have a strong quotient of loving relationships. You know, at the same time we live in a society which is fragmenting us, and so even the relationships that we have here are fraying a little bit at the edges; but it’s still a great strength that you have. Now that’s not to say that we won’t try to focus on things that are deficiencies; but one of the things that dawned on me is that as we go forward, as we spend some time together deciding what our direction is – and we are going to do that as a session and as a church – we should begin in that strength. So for the next couple years we are going to have a theme of “Better Together.” That our mission, that what we do, that our worship, that our fellowship, our study will be “better together.” We are going to talk about that over the next six weeks after this week, during these series of sermons. Again this doesn’t mean there aren’t negatives. Even in our strength there is a negative. I read a cute story about a couple who were traveling out west. They stopped at a sign that said ‘Echo Point.’ They stopped and the wife said to the husband, “Why don’t you try it?” He said, “Oh, I don’t want to try it. That’s nothing.” She said, “Go ahead and try it.” So he tried it and he yelled out, “Baloney.” And he waited a minute and nothing happened. His wife said, “Well try it again.” So he yelled out at the top of his voice, “I’m the best looking man in the world.” And the voice came back and said, “Baloney.” We could say that we are the best church in the world in regard to loving relationships but it would be baloney. But we have that strength; we really do have that strength. So as we go forward, we are going to think about how we do things “better together.” We have chosen a theme for the next couple years to describe our church, Where Connections Are Made and Lives Are Transformed. Where Connections Are Made and Lives Are Transformed. As we go and think about what kind of connections we want to make, we are going to focus on several but I want to mention just three today. First we are going to talk about connections with God, and that our connection with God is a personal relationship nourished in community. C. S. Lewis was asked what the difference is between Christianity and everybody else, all other religions. He said, “That was easy, it’s grace.” But I would add something. The difference between Christianity and everybody else is that God is personal. Christianity says, yes, God is transcended, God is omnipotent, God is bigger than we can imagine, and we don’t understand about God at all; but God has revealed Himself because He is personal. He has made Himself known because He is personal. When we talk about a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, we talk about a personal relationship to God through him, each as individuals.

I know the story was told about a man who remembered his grandfather and how he as a little boy went to his grandfather and told him how he had learned all about Abraham Lincoln. He told him all the facts and the figures. The grandfather just smiled and said, “Well, son, I can see you know a lot more about Abraham Lincoln than I do but I want to tell you something. I knew Abraham Lincoln.” You see, there is a huge difference between knowing about something or about someone, and knowing someone. I think we need to be a church that emphasizes this personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is two ways, really. It is with ourselves because we need to ask ourselves, “What is our relationship with God like?” all the time. If you go through life sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse; but for folks on the outside who are fragmented, who are looking for ways to fill the hole in every human heart, it can only be filled by God. To talk about this relationship with God through Christ means something. It is a beginning point and we should be a church that is known for that. But we do start with ourselves. As we go through this time, I want you to ask a question of yourself, even right now. A question like, on a scale of one to ten what is your relationship with God, right now? I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand, but be honest with yourself. Just think about it. Is God real to you? If God is real to you, what kind of a relationship do you have with him, right now? Is it not so good? Is it really good? Is it somewhere in between? What are you willing to do to make it better? I think sometimes all of us get so wrapped up in just living life we are satisfied with the way things are. I think churches do that too. We get so satisfied with the ways things are going – things are going pretty well, we got a good church – but there is kind of a malaise that settles on our life and we need to ask that question, “What is the quality of our relationship with God right now? And what are we willing to do to make it better? Are we willing to read the bible? Are we willing to show up at worship, more? Or are we willing to take BSF, Bible Study Fellowship, anything? Are we willing to join a prayer group? Are we willing to join a small group?” You see the funny thing about the bible is it says, “Yes, your relationship with God is personal and individual but you don’t grow in that relationship unless you are connected with other people.” You can only go so far by yourself. We need others to grow. A lot of people don’t realize that. “Oh, I can worship God by myself.” Yeah, sure you can but you are never going to grow, or you are not going to grow very much, by yourself.

The next area of connection is connecting with our mission as a church. What are we about as a church? Can we identify what our church stands for and does? We do a lot of things, and maybe we can. Maybe we have a decent idea of what that is, but we need to clarify it more. What is our mission? – to find it, to live it together. You know, we should do this every five or six years. But what is our mission now? What do we do? What is it about Faith Church? And what is your mission in life? What are you doing at this point? And the bottom piece is exceptionally important, to see greatness in service. Jesus over and over again tells his disciples, “He who would be great among you must be servant of all.” He who would be great among you must be servant of all. So what are we doing to be servants? I read a story about Albert Schweitzer. We’ve all probably heard that name, but Albert Schweitzer was a great theologian, he was a concert organist and he was a missionary to Africa. He spent the latter part of his life as a medical doctor. He was a man who trained himself to get about three hours sleep at night, because he said he had so much to do. Now one thing about Albert Schweitzer that if you read his theology it wasn’t terribly orthodox, he was a liberal, theologically speaking. There was another man who is very well known right now, he is a great story teller, and his name is Fred Craddick. Fred Craddick tells this story about himself that when he was twenty years old he heard that Albert Schweitzer was going to be speaking in Cleveland, Ohio. He had read one of Schweitzer’s books and he had marked it up. He found his Christology lacking; he found his doctrine of God lacking; he found all kinds of things. He marked it up and he had questions. So he went up to see Albert Schweitzer. Now Schweitzer was giving an organ concert. He played and he was going to talk to people afterwards. So there was Fred Craddick, sitting in the front row with his book open and his questions. Schweitzer said this, he thanked everybody and he said, “You have been very warm and hospitable to me. I thank you for it and I wish I could stay longer among you but I must go back to Africa. I must go back to Africa because my people are poor and diseased and hungry and dying and I have to go. We have a medical station at Lambaréné. If there is anyone here in this room that has the love of Jesus, would you be prompted by that love to go with me and help me? Craddick writes, “I looked down at my questions and they were absolutely stupid. I learned again what it means to be Christian and had hopes that I could be that someday.” This is not to say that orthodoxy is not important; it really is, but what is our mission in life? What is our mission as a church? You know it is very fashionable today to talk about Jesus, and say the Cross was only a small part of what he did, that what’s more important is the example of Jesus’ life. Well certainly the example of Jesus’ life is important, but the Cross is central and the Resurrection is paramount, because the Cross itself tells us how to live. It does give us an example. We are to die to ourselves and be servants. Part of being a servant in this world is not just preaching salvation and yes, we should do that but also helping the hurt in this world and giving of ourselves and sacrificing to see greatness in service. So I ask another question for you to think about over the next few weeks, what things are you doing in your life that can be clearly identified as service? And I am asking that question right now. You might say, “Well ten years ago I taught Sunday school for twenty-five years, or I did this, that or the other.” You know, I am not sure that God calls us to retire from His service. Now we all have limitations. Sometimes we can’t get out of the house. Sometimes we can’t do much in that way. But what things are you doing now that can be clearly identified as service for the kingdom of God? – if just one thing.

The next is connecting with each other, connecting with each other. Did you know that the purpose of your time on earth is not primarily about acquiring things or achieving success, or even experiencing happiness? These are secondary issues. Life is about love and developing relationships with God and with people. All of us may succeed in all kinds of areas but if we have failed to learn to love God and to learn to love others, we will have missed the reason God created us in the first place. Here’s the problem. Love is unnatural to us. That may seem strange to hear, but it really is, because we are basically self-centered. That’s why you and I need community. That’s why we need each other. A lot of people don’t like community, they don’t like churches. “Oh, they’re full of hypocrites.” “Those people are strange.” or “They ask for money too much.” or whatever the excuses are. Well, the truth is every church is fallen; every church is, because it’s full of what? It’s full of people; it’s full of us. I’m not trying to be offensive here; it’s just true. You know, the old joke is, if you find a perfect church, the minute you join it, it will no longer be perfect. It’s true. Any relationship is messy and when you get a lot of people together, it’s very messy. Now some churches on a scale of one to ten are better than others, but God has put us in together for a reason. It’s because together we learn how to love. You don’t learn how to love going fishing, or playing golf. You learn how to love by dealing with a messy person on Sunday, or in a small group, or in your family; because learning how to love is learning how to love someone who does not deserve it. That’s what real love is. We can think of people in our family who do not deserve our love, actually, maybe we are one of them. But we learn how to do that because God helps us and we help each other. We learn that by forgiving and being forgiven. We learn that by working with one another and all the myriad of personalities and theologies and all the things that go with that. We learn it together. That’s what I want to talk about over the next few weeks as we explore together, who we are, both as individuals and as a church. And the whole idea, all of it, is “better together.” One of the main purposes of life is that life is about love and developing relationships. It’s “better together.”

Let’s pray.

Lord God, help us. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for this church, a church that has been here for one hundred and twenty years and will be here for many more. We ask you Lord to give us a vision of who we are both as a church and as ourselves, how we fit in and what you will have us do both now and in the future. We pray these in the powerful and loving and precious name of our Savior, Jesus. Amen.