C. Jack Richards

March 6, 2005

Ephesians 5:8-14

John 9:1-41

 

 

                    I LOVE OUR CHURCH BECAUSE ...

 

 

I.          "As Jesus walked along he saw a man who had been born blind. His disciples asked him, ‘Teacher, whose sin was it that caused him to be born blind? His own or his parents? Jesus answered, ‘His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parents’ sins. He is blind so that God’s power might be seen at work in him.’” (Jn 9:1-3)

 

In a small town in the mid-west there was a four-some that got together every Saturday morning to play eighteen holes golf. The foursome was made up of the local Catholic priest and three United Church of Christ members.

 

This particular Saturday was a special day. The local Catholic priest could only play the first nine holes with his friends because his parish was celebrating their 150th Anniversary at the 5:30PM Mass, to which he extended an invitation to his golfing friends.

 

At the end of the first nine holes the priest departed, reminding his friends they were invited to the 5:30PM Mass.  The Mass started. His friends were nowhere to be seen.  Shortly after beginning the service, he saw his golfing friends enter the narthex door.  He said to his alter boy quietly, "Get three chairs for our United Church of Christ friends."  The altar boy did not quite understand the instructions of the priest. The priest said again, "Get three chairs for our United Church of Christ friends."

 

The altar boy still was not clear as to the instructions but acted on what he thought he heard.  He walked to the center of the chancel and said to the congregation: "Let us give three cheers for the United Church of Christ."

 

LET US BE IN PRAYER TOGETHER …  

 

 

II.  WHY DO YOU AND I BECOME INTIMIDATED BY OUR CONSERVATIVE BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO SEEM TO BE ABLE TO ARTICULATE THEIR FAITH SO CLEARLY?

 

WHY IS THEIR WITNESS SO "LOUD" AND OUR'S SO "SOFT" SPOKEN, if spoken at all?

 

Have you ever heard the humorous little story about a scientist who crossed a Jehovah Witness with a UCC church member: "He got a person who knew how to knock, but didn't know what to say.”

 

Isn't that true? If we are confronted with a faith question, most of us will say: "Why don't you talk with our pastor." We avoid faith questions. We are so uneasy with faith questions that we send the person to some else. We skirt such questions... we run away from them, even though the person asking us trusted us enough to ask us what we thought ... they saw something in our life style that they wanted to know about.

 

I was having dinner one night with a couple. The couple had invited Phyllis and I and one other person for dinner. The third guest was a young man who worked for Youth for Christ. We had a nice meal and conversation around dinner. We moved to the living room for coffee and continued conversation. It was in that setting that the young man turned the conversation to the sharing of faith. He said, "Let's tell our faith stories ... and he launched immediately into his without really checking with the rest of us to see if that was our desire as well." (I thought to myself, "Here we go again!," one of those people who are so into their "born again" experience that they are going to try and intimidate those around them.)

 

So when it came my time, I decided I would just tell him my faith story ... to lay it out there as a Congregationalist and United Church of Christ person of faith. I could see in his expression that he was surprised: "Wow! A United Church of Christ person with something to say!"

 

My point is my friends: WE ALL HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ... WE ALL HAVE A WITNESS TO MAKE ... AND THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR US TO MAKE THAT WITNESS. The world out there is no longer a "Christian world" as we used to think of it ... it is a world without God ... God is no longer a part of the equations involved in decision-making in the military, in international banking structures or corporate board rooms or on Wall Street. etc., BUT IT IS A WORLD THAT IS SEARCHING FOR SECURITY AND MEANING IN SOMETHING OTHER THAN ITSELF. IT IS A WORLD THAT IS WAITING FOR A WORD OF COMPASSION AND LOVE; A WORD FROM GOD; A WORD FROM THE CHURCH, OUR KIND OF CHURCH ... A WORD THAT IS CARING AND NON-JUDGMENTAL, NURTURING AND RENEWING, and SPIRITUALLY HOPEFUL.

 

In the world out there we need to be able to tell our mainline church's story. We need to be able to express the four great pillars of mainline belief:

 

1. We believe in a loving God who made all that exists and continues to work to bring about creation's fulfillment. We need to be able to say that we believe over the ages, humanity and the universe have been moving toward their divinely appointed goal, not always clear to us, but held  firm in the mind and mystery of God

 

2. We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, Child of Earth and Child of Heaven, the one who symbolizes the inner person of each of us, and that like him, we are both material and spiritual beings. We need to be able to say that through Jesus' life, teaching, death and resurrection, Jesus reveals to us God's suffering love for the world, a love that has existed from the beginning of time and will be present at the end of time.

 

3. As main-liners, we believe the Bible reveals God's will and speaks meaningfully to men and women today. We believe the Bible is inspired by God with an inspiration a kin to poetic inspiration rather than a dictation to a stenographer in a court of law. The Bible's stories must be honored and treasured, told and retold, so they can speak of God in our midst today. The Bible's great themes are compassion, mercy, forgiveness, sacrifice, moral behavior, justice, peace, trust, hope and love. And our task in living and witnessing today is to ask ourselves: How do these themes apply to the real life: the issues of war and peace? Euthanasia? Racism? Abortion? Homosexuality? Family? Pastor-Parish relations? etc?

 

4. We believe God works continuously today, calling together communities of believers like ourselves for support, growth and faithful action. God's revelation is complete in Jesus' life, death and resurrection, our knowledge of Jesus’ meaning for our lives is not. Our awareness, knowledge and wisdom however continue to grow over time. As someone has said wisely, I believe: "God isn't finished with us yet.” We are a church where God invites us in to put our minds and feet to work, continuing Jesus ministry of love, justice and peace and not just shift our minds into neutral and coast into God’s kingdom someday.

 

We have some great principles of faith in our mainline church tradition and they provide an alternative to other belief systems on the Christian spectrum, and a clear alternative to modern culture, its greed and materialistic pursuits.

 

 

                                                                III.

 

That is the broad picture of who we are as a mainline church, but let me say personally: I LOVE OUR CHURCH, the United Church of Christ BECAUSE of who we are in particular, and I would challenge you sometime to do a spiritual exercise in writing down why it is that you love your church ... and then share it with each other in a small faith group gathering. I would encourage you to enrich one another's lives with your own thoughts and faith.

 

I love our church because of it rich blending of four historical traditions: its Congregational, Christian, Evangelical and Reformed heritages. I love our church because of its heritage, not its single heritage, but its diversity because it is like a tapestry weaved into a hanging of color and beauty and faithfulness and openness.

 

I love our church because in it I find my sense of worth as a child of God ... and I find others who have found themselves affirmed in the same manner ... not because we are alike but because Jesus Christ has made us sisters and brothers through baptism despite our "unlikeness."

 

I love our church because through Jesus Christ it constantly challenges me to "give myself to others," ... to take up the cross at times and to stand with people who have been left out of what we call "social progress" in our society. It calls me to stand with those who have been left "beside the road," ... thus I am summoned to be a Good Samaritan and to cross over the boundary of those who would dismiss a person in need by simply saying, "That is his or her problem, let them be." I believe the Gospel calls me to be a different kind of person as Jesus pointed to in the Good Samaritan.

 

I love our church because the United Church of Christ offers me freedom in my expression of the Christian Faith ... it doesn't not box me in with strict demands ... it simply asks me to be responsible and faithful to God in the living of my life. My church makes me aware that some day there will be an accountable moment before God ... not in terms of my purity, but how I treated other people during my journey here upon earth ... for it has been said: "The way we treat others is the way we treat God." I want that "yardstick" to be the measurement of my life.

 

I love our church because it takes the Scriptures seriously and in their totality. It does not build a case for any one doctrine out of a single verse of the Bible but builds its faith upon a redemptive God who created and recreates the world, seeking to save each and every one of us from living a life of aimlessness and self-centeredness. We celebrate a faith that God's spirit is free and conforms to no one particular doctrine but that God’s Spirit is constantly reshaping the world and working God's purposes out in our midst.

 

I love our church because it is committed to love and justice for all people. We are an inclusive people and we cast no one aside. "God so loved the world, that he sent his only son" and now God sends us in the same world to love it and embrace it in the same manner as did Jesus... to love it and embrace it that it might be transformed into a "kin-dom" of human relationships far surpassing what we know to be true today ... where "In Christ we are strangers no more" as the Apostle Paul says ... a world where we can trust one another. I love our church because we hold before ourselves a vision of a new and potential human reality ... a reality seen through the eyes of God!

 

I love our church, the United Church of Christ, because it is true to its call to bring together spirituality, freedom, justice and peace by accepting all the differences among us with a grace and love that embraces all of humankind, a grace and love that has its beginning in God and its demonstration in Jesus, and its hoped for implementation in each of us.

 

 

IV.               When I read the Gospel story for today I was challenged by Jesus, the disciples and the man born blind.  Today’s gospel story took me to a story I read in the paper about a driver who hit a motorcyclist.

 

         I will not forget the words of the driver who pulled out of a parking lot right into the path of an oncoming motorcycle. The cycle crashed into the car, the rider somersaulting over the hood.

 

            The driver was quoted as saying to others who witnessed the accident: “But I looked! I really did! I looked to see if there were any other cars coming.”

 

            And that’s it. Because he looked for cars, he didn’t see a motorcycle.

 

            Because the disciples looked for sin in today’s story, they couldn’t see God’s grace in action. Jesus had said this was God’s opportunity to shine! … to work! … to display its brilliance!

 

            I love our kind of church because we look for more than just the obvious. Our God is a grace-filled God, who is boundless … and a God who we say is still speaking, still calling us to move beyond the boundaries of our fears … who keeps saying that love is limitless.

 

            I love our church because when we come to the Communion Table, as we do today, we do not turn anyone away … it is a welcoming Table … a Table of God’s grace and love for all people

 

 

V.    The bottom line for me is that, I love our church because it calls us to a noble way of life in the midst of this world. We live in a visual world today, the world of television, instant pictures. In the midst of such a world, I believe that you and I may be the only story of Jesus that some people will ever see.