“Tis the Gift to Be Simple” Sermon preached by Rev. Carol Rawlings-Chambers, Joy Metropolitan Community Church, August 2, 2009
Good morning! Let us pray together for the anointing of the Holy Spirit on my words and our hearts.
God, creator of the world and all that is in it, fill us with a sense of wonder at your love and care for us, Your children. Grant that we may be open to Your Spirit; fill us with a passion for truth and justice. We ask and claim it in Your many names and in the name of Jesus. Amen
In 1848, in the Shaker community of Alfred, Maine, Elder Joseph Brackett penned the following words to "Simple Gifts".
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
Along with our gospel lesson today, the message is short and simple. In the Gospel, one of the most unadorned, yet most promise-full teachings is given: Jesus explained to them and to us: “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry; no one who believes in me will be thirsty.” It doesn’t get any more unpretentious than that. Jesus, in His direct, way “cuts to the chase” for us, helps us set our priorities for our lives and the life of His church, including this church. That’s it, my friends—that’s all there is to it and hundreds of years later, we’re still looking for more, still trying to make the simplest teaching ever taught, theologically paradoxical, organizationally complex, and institutionally confounding. It reminds me of the very old story, you may have heard it, when the father and son are riding along in a car. The 5-Year-old child says, “Daddy, I get the part about our new baby being in mommy’s tummy, but I don’t understand how it got there.” Dad hmm’s and haws, tries various nonsensical explanations, until finally the boy says, “It’s ok, Daddy, you don’t have to make it up if you don’t know!” And it would sometimes seem that we are so uncomfortable with sharing the simple truth of it all, that we appear to be “making it up”.
The Shaker hymn links simplicity and freedom as special and unique gifts. This stripping away all the unnecessary trappings, both physical and spiritual, allows us to bask in the joy of what really matters. Our understanding of the true gift of simplicity and freedom leads us to the place where we ought to be…”the valley of love and delight”. I find myself wandering into the valley of love and delight and looking to see if “church” is found there--Church large or church small, and more importantly, this church? For many of us and for many good reasons, “church” carries a very complex negativity in our scarred emotional psyches. From those institutions of shaming and rejection, we turned away. But because of this church or some other welcoming community, we, nevertheless found this “valley of love and delight” when our focus stays on the simple, blessed message of Jesus. However, if we fail to grasp the simplicity of the message, we not only fail to carry the message beyond these walls, we lose sight of it ourselves. This makes for a very ineffective community of faith.
My friends, this is such a time as requires simplicity—the truth found in this simple and clear statement of Jesus needs no doctrinal development, no theological extrapolation—it just is. And my dear friends, we are failing in many ways to take this simple truth to our community and to our world. How do I know this? It’s not hard , really, if we take a good, clear look at where we are—when we acknowledge that we continue to experience the status quo and decline in terms of attendance, membership, and giving in spite of our best efforts at new ministries, programs, and attempts at outreach. It is time for us to ask ourselves, in the light of God’s Word, “what are we missing?” I believe that what we are missing is two-fold: we are missing the radical simplicity of the message, and we are missing the urgency of the message.
In a world where hatred and discrimination against us and other disenfranchised people runs rampant, we miss what Jesus is saying to us—that He is the source and power of everything that we need to stand in the face of injustice—to create a sanctuary for all the hated, the “less than”, the different. He is the “bread of life”—all our hunger and thirst for self-acceptance and love by others is satisfied in Him. There are many of us, here in this room, who know the blessed truth of all that Jesus has to offer. If you came here today, looking for peace, for comfort, for energy, for joy, for all the things we hunger and thirst for, you have come to right place. I encourage you to open your heart, stay awhile, speak with one of us after the service. Listen to the words of Jesus.
Those of us who are blessed by having our hunger and thirst satisfied by Jesus have work to do. And that takes us squarely back to our passage in Ephesians—to leading a life “worthy of [our] calling”. “There is one hope, one faith, one baptism—one call—and that call is to participate in the body of Christ Jesus. Through Christ, the “whole body grows”—To glimpse what that would that look like at Joy, listen to what many of you created when you participated in the development of the vision statement of this congregation. It read,
| “The vision of Joy MCC is to share and embody the love of Jesus Christ, without barriers, as we journey together with God.” What then, do we need to do? First, to share and embody the love of Jesus Christ, we must allow ourselves to experience it for ourselves. Are you among those still hungering and thirsting for more even after you have come to Jesus? Many of us are. I invite you to make the journey again, look for the places in your heart that you have closed off, that you keep private—somehow believing that those parts are immune to the movement of the Holy Spirit in every nook and cranny of your soul. And in this journey, I invite you to be simple—to seek simple truths-- in the teachings of Jesus. A foundational process is this and probably not, as some faith traditions would insist, a one-time event. I know for myself, that there is a constant seeking for more truth, but that subsequent seeking takes place in the midst of an essential ‘fullness’—a primitive, if you will, knowledge that everything that I need is satisfied by Him who is the Bread of Life. Secondly, when I speak of the urgency of the message, I am not speaking of the same urgency of the early church or even of contemporary preachers who preach that Jesus is coming back soon. We know that Paul and many early followers of Jesus believed that He was returning to the earth momentarily. I believe that it is not for me to know or to predict when, or even if, Jesus is physically coming back to this earth. This has absolutely no effect on the urgency of the message. What matters most is this: few of us came to this place without experiencing the doubt, fear, and shame that the rest of the world bequeathed to us. But we know the truth—Jesus said, I am the bread of life—the fullness of life-- I will feed you and my people will feed you, you will not hunger or thirst again—not for acceptance, or love, or belonging. The amazing thing to me (and I place myself squarely in the same place as all of us) is that we can know this fullness and peace and keep it to ourselves. The actions of Jesus’ early followers clearly demonstrate that His message was not meant for us to keep to ourselves. And yet we do. One conservative estimate is that there are over 175,000 LGBT persons living in the Orlando Metropolitan area. Yet, if this Sunday is like the last several, there will be fewer than 225 people worshipping with us. If we are to be true to our vision statement and true to the call of God, we must ask ourselves what else we must do and become. I do not come here today professing to know many of the answers—I come here today to challenge us to re-engage honestly and fervently in conversations regarding the essence of Jesus’ message and Joy’s vision—both simple and profound beyond measure. We must, if we are to grow as the body of Christ, sincerely look at the full message of what we are called to do. All of the various gifts—given by God’s grace—are for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. Integral and unmistakable, is this call to “build” the body of Christ. The gifts given at the same time to the early church and to this church--apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers—push us, as church, within and without at the same time. This very church is gifted beyond measure—should we not also be accountable to the larger church and larger community for what we do with those gifts? Much energy goes into conversations about church growth. And almost everyone has a different answer. Kinda reminds me of old minister story—Seems a traveling evangelist came into town. The preacher, upon arriving in a small town to be guest speaker at a local church, wanted to mail a letter to his family back home. He stopped a young boy on a bike and asked him where the post office was. The boy gave him directions, and the preacher thanked him. "If you come to church this evening," the preacher said, "I'll tell you how to get to heaven." "I don't think I'll be there," the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office." Sometimes it seems like we Christians “don’t even know our way to the post office” when it comes to building up the body of Christ. And we certainly don’t often agree. In spite of all the differences, most all church consultants agree that we must have a way for every person—oldtimer or newcomer—who walks through this door to become involved—a special place of belonging to increase opportunities for significant engagement in our mission. Whether those opportunities are ministry teams, Bible study and prayer groups or develop from a new incarnation of an old idea, we must explore ways to increase those opportunities for people to become meaningfully involved. This will mean that we will need to re-enter into multiple conversations around what that might look like at Joy today. We may borrow from the past as well as make bold strides into the future. What avenues, as yet unexplored, exist to bring this “body of Christ”—from trusting member or wary newcomer—to inclusive and embracing circles of welcome. Dave Browning, in Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less, talks about his own church and states: “Worship is the way we stay centered; small groups is the way we stay connected and outreach is the way we stay concerned.” And what of the role of outreach, locally and globally? Some consultants suggest that, for some, denominational affiliation is not as important as it once was. That may be true for mainline, basically conservative, congregations. Let me tell you why I do not believe that it is true for us. As for traditional denominations, many of us have “been there and done that”. But, then the Metropolitan Community Church opened the door for every one of us, whether that door opened 40 years ago or just this morning, MCC opened the way to the opportunity to gather, serve, fellowship and worship as we truly are, in the fullness of who we are as sexual beings, as disenfranchised people, as hurting, seeking people. If we lessen our celebration of and support for the work of MCC in our lives and around the globe, we limit our ability to grow the Body of Christ. The Metropolitan Community Church is our hands and feet to spread the gospel of acceptance and salvation into the larger world. And by our activities in the larger world, we gain credibility to move into our somewhat smaller world right outside these doors. If you have not visited the MCC webpage in a while, I encourage you to go there. Listen to Rev. Candy Holmes, MCC clergywoman, testify on Capitol Hill regarding Same Gender Domestic Partner Benefits for Government Employees. Let yourselves experience the welling up of emotions and pride, and let it remind you of why we are MCC. Those of us who work in paid or volunteer positions with the larger denomination and in this MCC church seek ways to get the word out about what you are doing through MCC. One of the greatest teachers of simplicity in our own time, Mother Teresa, gave us this brief lesson on working together. She said, “You can do what I cannot do, I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things.” The message is simple, the call is loud, and the need is great. And, “together we can do great things!” We live in a time of turmoil, adversity, and challenge—it is time! Church developer, Dave Browning, whom I quoted earlier, challenges the church to engage in what he calls “what if” thinking. And, I want to challenge us to do these great things together, to move beyond “if only” thinking to “what if” celebrations of what God is willing to do in our midst. If only we had more people, more space, more money, more leaders turns into what if we allowed God to work all the miracles that are waiting for Joy MCC, here and now? What if we open ourselves to new ideas, or old ideas whose time has come again? What if we unleash the creativity of a new generation of GLBT people in our midst and see what they have to teach us? What if we invite the stranger into our midst and ask them to speak to us of God? What if we re-embrace the mission work of the Metropolitan Community Church worldwide and enter into partnership with GLBT folks all over the world trying to make a difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters? What if we all become a part of those great things we can do together here at Joy and beyond. I want you to know I am prepared to do the work, lay the foundation, and share the news. I hope you are, too. Let us move boldly and proudly into the light of mission and welcome. Jesus is pointing the way, and He waits for us to follow. Amen and Amen! |
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