September 9, 2001
Isaiah 42:5-9 ( RSV) ( KJV) ( NIV)
2nd Maccabees 2:19-32 ( Apocrypha)
"The Foolishness of a Long Prologue and a Short Story"
It is wonderful to see you all this Rally day; great to see the children and hear their noise, nothing isworse than silence in a Church because there are no children; and its wonderful to have the choir back. It just feels rightbecause they add so much by their ministry of music and word.
Let’s see; last Sunday it was a Brat fest. This Wednesday it’s a fish boil- it reminds me of three kidsat show and tell in elementary school. The first says, I’m Jacob, I’m Jewish and I go to Temple Beth Shalom; here is a star ofDavid. The second kid says, I’m John, I’m Catholic and I go to St Bernard’s Church; here is a crucifix. The third one says,I am Tom and I go to First Congregational Church,; here’s a casserole.
Even a casual reading of the scriptures or history reveals there are re-occurring stories of new beginnings.One age ends in disgrace, usually because God is not honored, and another rises, filled with hope. A sinful nation is destroyed bya flood only to begin afresh through the enlarged family of Noah.
Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed but Isaac is born to two ancients named Abraham and Sarah and Isaac has twosons, Esau and Jacob and Jacob has 12 sons; his name is changed to Israel and each son becomes the head of a tribe and we soonhave the twelve tribes of Israel.
Today I read from the Apocrypha, It’s a dark time in the history of Israel. Antiochus Epiphanes isthe conquering invader and he is ruthless. Not only does he conquer, but also he mocks the faith of the Israelites andenters the Holy of Holies of the temple, a place forbidden to all but the High Priest and sacrifices a pig - an unclean animal inJewish thought, on the holy altar.
Maccabees is a readers digest condensed version of the five books of Jason. The Maccabees led a long gorillawar against the conquerors. This rebellion was intense and it finally resulted in ridding Israel of Antiochus Epiphanes and hisson Eupater.
This victory meant a restoration of temple worship and the ability for Jews to live their lives in accordancewith their laws. In that sense it is a great text for this day of new beginnings in our Church: don’t waste too much time on theprologue at the expense of the story itself.
Over the past years, I have read a great deal about Church growth and the changes needed to bring it about. Iknow more than I need to know about signage, marketing, off street parking, praise music, adjustable seating and contemporaryteaching material. It seems to me, that as valuable as some of this material might be, it is the beginning of a dangerous trend.The real problem, I believe, is that for some decades now, we have been trying to mask the fact that the Church has done a poorjob of telling people the stories of the Bible. We have successfully created a couple of generations of Biblically ignorantpeople.
I can tell you, having traveled all over this country visiting, meeting with and preaching in our Churchesfrom coast to coast, people don’t know the Bible. We have watered down the material and requirements of Christianity, trying tomake it acceptable to everyone, to the point where we are a society that does not know the stories and until we know the storieswe have no foundation upon which to build a faith.
We have trivialized great music and the richness of literature that is part of the texts- word pictures thatinspire because inspired writers wrote them. Substance is not substituted with beat or rhythm.
I am pleased to see that churches, such as ours, have pew Bibles so people can follow along, but it isdistressing to see that people don’t know where the books of the Bible are, let alone the stories. We say, you can follow alongthe reading from Ezekial; and then have to add- you’ll find it on page 479.
This Rally Day, I want to say that our task, as a Church, is to relate people to the living God through therevelation of Jesus Christ. I am disturbed by the fact that there are many Churches who are trying to be social institutions orentertainment centers or project developers. All of those projects are fine, but there are a ton of social agencies involved ineach of them. The Church is the only institution that is called to proclaim the goodness of God’s love and the acceptance andexample of Jesus Christ who can change peoples lives and attitudes.
I don’t know this Church very well yet, but I know others who don’t know what Pentecost is, are not awareof the importance of Advent can’t talk about salvation and are baffled by resurrection. There are folks who have been part ofChurches for years who don’t know the parables of Jesus, can’t tell you much about his life and haven’t the faintest idea ofwhy he died. My dear people, That is our job!
That is why we have a Sunday school and people who teach in it. That is why we have people like Chris Ryghand Paul Stein spending time with our young people. That’s why we have early morning study groups, couples study groups andwomen’s groups We need to know the stories because only when we know the stories can we relate them to the events of today. Onlywhen we know the stories can we develop our own thoughts as we try to fit in this knowledge with the Christian faith. If we don’tknow the stories; if we don’t see any relevance between the stories of Jesus and the circumstances of life that we are facing,then some will not be staying with the Church. That is the task we are starting again, this rally day.
Our first priority is to be a Church of the living God. For me, God is that spirit upon whom the worlddepends for its orderly operation. We digress from that foundation at our own peril. We are the creatures. God is the creator. Itis God who saves us from aimless ventures. It is God who reveals to us how we are loved, forgiven and accepted so that we canlearn better how to love, forgive and accept those who fail to fully grasp those qualities at this time.
How do we learn about this God? We learn by studying, preaching, teaching and following Jesus Christ. Thewriter of Hebrews put it succinctly; “In former times God spoke to our forefathers in many and various ways through theprophets. In this final age, God has spoken to us in His son-.” (Heb. 1:1&2a)
We are a Christian Church and that means we must teach Jesus Christ in whom we see what God is like. Throughthe teachings of Jesus, the actions and words of Jesus, people have been inspired for almost 2000 years now and thus are able tosay God is like that!
Still, I am concerned because for some, Church is not part of their life style that is taken seriously.Church is where you go when there are not other things available. (This is information to you folks because, you are here.)Nonetheless, if we are going to be successful in telling the stories then, people have to be present and most importantly,children need to be reliably present. In a depersonalized society, such as ours, the greatest thing a child can hear, over andover again is simply, Jesus loves me! For some, that will be the only time all week that they hear that someone loves them; theyare important. For children of loving homes that is another great reinforcement.
Another reason for attendance is that for parents, simply the discipline of putting on your coat and comingto Church, when there are lots of other things to do is a huge statement to your children or your grand children. It says, this isa priority in our lives. For older members, it is also a mute testimony to neighbors and friends of an important priority in yourlife.
We are in the post-Christian era. No longer can we assume that children or adults come with a religiousmemory. It’s o.k. by societies standards, not to be part of a religious fellowship. The values, ethics and morals that are partand parcel of the Christian faith are not taught in the institutions of society in our day. That makes the Church all the moreimportant as an assist to families in the task of rearing children wisely and well. That makes the task of the Church moredifficult than ever because this is where it has to happen or, it may not happen in their lives at all.
From nursery to the Congregational home, our job is to tell the stories. Tell them in classes, tell them instudy sessions, tell them in sermons, tell them, in music because until we all know the stories of the Bible we have no foundationupon which to build a faith, no basis for forming a religious ethic and no basis for determining the morality of issues.
We have been given this job of telling people that God loves them. Informing young and old that they are aforgiven and an accepted group. In creative, meaningful and valid ways we need totalk about this God we worship through Jesus Christ.
Why? Because our God took people in captivity, led them through a hopeless situation, heard their griping andtolerated their disobedience and set them on the road to the Promised Land.
Our God took a man like Joseph, sold into slavery and made him the leader of a nation and the author of anagricultural program of both usage and storage.
Our God took a gouging tax collector named Zacceus and made him into a believing, serving citizen who paidback, with interest those he had defrauded.
Our God took a persecuting zealot named Saul and made him into a missionary, a Church planter hero and awriter named Paul.
Our God can take a father who is swamped in business and on the occupational treadmill to the point where heis destroying himself and his family and make him a caring father and a good employee by re-evaluating his priorities.
Our God can take a Mother who is worried about her social standing or totally frustrated by the demands ofmotherhood to a seemingly unappreciative family and make here into a woman who loves and cares and shares.
Our God can take a lonely single person and open up new avenues of sharing and service that bring meaning andpurpose to an otherwise bland life.
Our God can take restless energetic people and endow them with dreams bigger than themselves in which theycan devote their energy and their effort and find meaning and satisfaction.
Our God can take teenagers who face more temptations than we ever dreamed of and make them conquerors andpowerful examples of youth at its enthusiastic best.
Our God is doing this now and has done it for centuries and WE must tell those stories.
It’s rally day. It’s a time of new beginnings. It’s time to stop expanding the prologue. It’stime to bury the excuses. It’s time to tell the stories.