Church within reach
Genesis 12:1-3; Psalm 67; Luke 22:14-21
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The closer I get to retirement,
the more I look into the rearview mirror,
and think on the how things have changed over the years,
in me, in the church, in the world.
I often tell people that even though, for 28 years,
I’ve had the same job,
worked out of the same office,
at the same street address,
I’ve never been bored,
because everything keeps changing.
I’m not the same pastor I was when I came to Park View,
this isn’t the same congregation,
we aren’t in the same neighborhood,
and none of us live in the same world.
And while all that is true, so much is the same.
I’ve been preaching regularly for over 41 years,
and I keep coming back to the same themes.
There’s a different context today, so I need to find
different words,
different stories,
different metaphors,
different nuance.
But the core narrative of scripture—
the big story of what God is doing in God’s world,
and with God’s people—
that is still the story that needs to be told.
Over and over.
It’s still the Good news we need to hear.
Because our world is still full of unspeakable brokenness.
And heart-stopping beauty.
God is still at work,
restoring what is broken,
and magnifying what is beautiful.
And it’s all for God’s grand purpose of recreating
the shalom God intends for the universe.
And God, in a most unlikely and inspired arrangement,
chose to partner with flawed human communities, like ours,
to join in that work as God’s full partners.
I know. You’ve heard me preach this song before.
But like any good musical refrain,
it needs to be repeated.
_____________________
So here comes a seven-week sermon series,
in which you’ll hear from four different preachers,
all reflecting on different aspects of how God is working
to carry out God’s saving purposes,
through very human, and consequently very flawed,
communities of people,
trying to practice the life Jesus demonstrated,
in everyday and ordinary places.
“Bringing the church back to the table”
is just another way of saying
rediscovering our roots as a church.
The church, writ large, is in a troubled state.
We can certainly point to local and particular examples,
in Virginia Mennonite Conference,
and Mennonite Church USA,
as we are going through a tumultuous season
of conflict and realignment and shrinkage.
But when I say the church is in a troubled state,
I’m also thinking globally.
There is a lot of beauty and goodness to celebrate, and we will.
But we have to be honest,
and name the ways the church takes its lead not from Jesus,
but from the powers and ways of the world.
We have church leaders in Russia who praise President Putin,
and wholeheartedly support his brutal war against Ukraine.
We have vocal Christian leaders,
who steadfastly support Israel in its massive assault
against the men, women, and children of Gaza,
even when the UN World Court orders them to stop.
We have pastors and self-avowed evangelists
who openly side with insurrectionists in our country
who used violence to try to force their will on the US Congress.
We have bishops and archbishops
and top leaders in many denominational sex abuse scandals,
who chose to cover up to protect their reputations,
and protect the assets of their institution,
rather than side with those who suffer.
We have untold numbers of charismatic and dynamic leaders,
who wow the public,
and build up their own wealth and power,
all while they take advantage of vulnerable people around them.
I needn’t go on with more examples.
We know them all too well.
How did we get here?
And how do we get back to the table of Spirit-filled
fellowship and community and worship and witness,
the kind that transforms our lives and remakes the world,
and demonstrates the character of the kingdom of God?
_____________________
We can start by examining the church in the New Testament.
I don’t mean we just recreate the church we find there.
They had a particular context, which is not ours—
they were a newly founded movement,
living in reaction to recent trauma,
victims of the brutal Roman Empire,
facing opposition on every side.
So they pulled together, up close and personal.
They gathered at homes and at tables,
and fostered relationships that were organic and fluid.
Life was intense.
So church was intense.
They shared everything, and met together daily at their tables,
because they had to in order to survive.
They gave up personal convenience
for the sake of supporting each other
in the struggle to stay faithful to Jesus’ radical Gospel call.
But in time, things happened.
300 hundred years after Jesus,
this dynamic and persecuted network of house churches
moved out of the shadows.
It found itself at the center of respectable society—
in fact, at the center of power and wealth and influence,
when Constantine the Great converted
and established Christianity
as the religion of the Roman Empire.
The church lost connection to its radical origins,
and it became a hierarchical institution
whose job was not to change the world,
but support the status quo.
Fast-forward a dozen centuries,
and the Protestant Reformation, Anabaptism,
and other renewal movements tried to challenge
the church’s addiction to wealth and power,
but often, it just redirected its addiction to some other power center.
And today, we still live with this legacy.
_____________________
So should we despair?
No! In our present day struggle, there is a potentially positive outcome.
With the church is losing its place at the center of society,
with many churches fragmenting
and finding it hard to hold the institution together,
and to keep funding a top-heavy organization,
this might be a very good time
to bring the church back to the table.
And we at Park View are actually in a very good place right now,
to think creatively in these terms.
There are multiple things happening at once,
as some groups lead us in taking a fresh look
at who we are as a community of faith,
how we belong to each other;
while others lead us in discerning what kind of leadership we need
to keep moving forward as a healthy congregation,
in times of pastoral transition.
Perhaps it would be wise of us,
as we work at this together,
to bring back the table as a central metaphor
for how we relate to each other—
in worship, witness, formation, discernment,
and other core practices of the church.
How might we nurture these practices in all of life—
not only in our large official gatherings,
but in everyday relationships that are deeply connected,
that are authentic, organic,
and as close as people sitting around a table.
Let me be clear.
I’m not saying there needs to be a literal table
that we gather around every time.
Although sometimes physical tables,
and the food and drink on them,
facilitate a deeper way of relating.
What I’m saying is this.
The table is a metaphor for keeping church within reach.
When the church started going off the rails,
was when the essential elements of church got out of reach.
When Emperor Constantine, by royal edict,
declared every Roman citizen a Christian,
the important activities of church suddenly became centered,
not at a table in someone’s house,
but in the offices of bishop, archbishop, pope, and Emperor.
People stopped being church at their tables,
and they started going to church at cathedrals and basilicas.
Everything in those buildings—
from towering ceilings and spires,
to pulpits that soared high above the people,
to railings and gates that kept the laity from the clergy,
to liturgies in language people couldn’t understand,
shaped people to think the essence of church was out of reach.
Please understand.
This is not a criticism of classical Christian art and architecture, per se.
Much of that was intended to draw people’s minds heavenward.
And it does that.
At cathedrals, and other beautiful worship spaces,
I find a lot to inspire me, and put me in touch with God.
But stately and soaring church structures are not enough in themselves.
If there isn’t a place for followers of Jesus to gather
in the intimacy and vulnerability and mutual love for one another,
that can happen as we share our lives with each other,
in a community guided by the Spirit,
where church is, literally within reach, within arm’s length,
then we have missed the essence of being a disciple of Jesus.
_____________________
So where do we go from here, as Park View Mennonite,
so that we are drawn to the transcendent, to the divine,
and . . .we are drawn to each other, in all our beauty and brokenness?
I do not have a 10-point plan, if that’s what you were hoping for.
I only hope to point a direction,
and to elevate this metaphor of church at the table,
the church within reach of each other.
Park View is known by many things.
People appreciate the physical beauty and grace of our building—
its wide-open windows,
its simple and elegant design,
its high steeple.
People appreciate the beautiful and resonant sounds of music—
both the singing and the playing of instruments.
People appreciate the well-orchestrated services and liturgies.
Can we be equally described, and appreciated,
for a life that resembles what we see in Acts 2—
for being people who “devote themselves daily
to teaching and fellowship,
to breaking of bread and prayers.”
for causing neighbors to look on in wonder,
at the signs of God’s work among us,
for caring for others in need,
even to the point of selling goods and possessions if need be.
who “day by day” spend time together, and in the public square,
“praising God and having the goodwill of all,”
who are growing, not because of a well-run program,
but because people are being drawn to the saving grace of God?
A healthy church is a church within reach.
It’s a church where each one is invested,
because it’s our own everyday life that we share with others.
When we are invested, we’re not merely passive participants.
We contribute to the good of the whole,
out of whatever gifts God has given us.
We show up.
Not just for worship or events.
We show up for each other,
out of mutual love and mutual respect.
We ourselves matter, and every other person matters—
whether they delight us or annoy us,
whether they belong to this body, or not,
whether they think like us, or not.
If Park View is to remain a healthy church,
we need to continually bring church back to the table.
Jesus modeled a small-scale communal and missional life
with his own disciples.
And he expected them to replicate it,
when they went out on their own.
How are we replicating the ministry of Jesus?
_____________________
As we reflect on those questions, let us make our confession together.
You’ll find words in your bulletin and on the screens.
one We confess we often rely on familiar traditions of church;
rituals and structures which suit us and soothe us,
and shield us from the need for change or challenge.
all Holy One, we seek you, as you seek us.
one We commit ourselves to a wider openness
to the persons within our reach,
both inside and beyond our walls.
all Holy One, we reach for you, as you reach for us.
one May we not be content with only what we already know and love.
Deepen our longing for what is still unrevealed.
[silence]
one The God who makes all things new hears our prayer,
and says to us, as to Abraham and Sarah of old,
“Come on a journey to the place I will show you”
—Phil Kniss, May 26, 2024
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