Peter 1_Bad News! Good News!_Feb 24, 2019

Bad News!  Good News!

I Peter 2: 1 – 10

 

One day last week, as I was going into the supermarket, I noticed a sign on the door:  “New Store Hours: We will now be open seven days a week, from 7 AM to 10 PM.”  The store would now be open Sunday morning, just like any other morning.  For shoppers, Sunday would be like any other day.  In a way I wasn’t surprised.  Stores have been open on Sundays for years now.  But the sign seemed to confirm something that had already happened.  There’s nothing special about Sunday morning.

 

Or maybe Sunday morning is special, but not for the reason it used to be special.  It’s special simply because many people don’t have to work.  For a lot of folks, Sunday morning is a time for recreation.  In my previous church in Westfield, my office had a view of the local bike trail.  On Sunday mornings in good weather, I would look out my window, and see lots of people on bicycles, riding on the trail.  Watching them ride along, I would feel some mixed emotions.

 

I felt happiness.  The bike trail was a great thing for Westfield.  I enjoyed riding my bike there.  Every week I walked there with a friend.  So I felt happy that those folks were going for a ride on the bike trail.

 

But I also felt sadness as I watched them, heading out for a ride on a beautiful Sunday morning.  Obviously, they weren’t riding to church.  For a minute, I thought about running out my door and inviting them in to worship, but I thought that might be a bit overwhelming for them, maybe even off-putting.  They were heading out for a ride.  For them, and for lots of other people, Sunday morning is a time for recreation.

 

Our society has changed in a big way.  Years ago, for many people, Sunday morning was special because it was a time for church.  That’s not true any more.  I may be stating the obvious here, but today people have a lot of options for Sunday morning.  For some, church is important.  For others, it’s not.

 

In our society it’s no longer assumed that Sunday morning is time for church, time set apart, sacred time.  There’s no judgment against those who spend Sunday morning pursuing hobbies or just relaxing.  So what about you and me, gathered here in church today?  What are we to make of this?

 

Is this bad news?  I think it is bad news, if we want to do church the way we’ve always done church.  We are no longer the only game in town.

 

What we are experiencing is sometimes called “the changing landscape of ministry.”  People aren’t going to church the way they used to.  It’s also true that the church is sometimes seen in a negative light these days.  Perceptions of Christians are sometimes negative.

 

Christians are perceived as judgmental.  Churches are perceived as imposing rigid dogmas, and putting people down if they don’t embrace those dogmas.  TV programs sometimes show ministers to be quick to condemn other people.  For example, if you’ve watched the TV series “The Simpsons,” you may remember the character Ned Flanders.  Ned is a pastor.  In one episode, he has some harsh things to say about the hero of the popular book and movie series Harry Potter.  Harry Potter is a boy who learns wizardry and uses magical powers.

 

In the episode, Ned is reading to his children about Harry Potter.  As the story draws to a close, he tells them, “Harry and his friends went straight to hell for practicing witchcraft.”  Now, speaking for myself, I don’t know any pastors like Ned Flanders.  The pastors I know, and their congregations, are not judgmental.  But for someone who has never been to church, for someone who has never known a pastor, Ned Flanders might be the only idea they have of what a pastor is and does.

 

Christians are perceived as judgmental.  We’re perceived as self-righteous and rigid.  You and I know that, a lot of the time, those perceptions are false.  We know we’re not like that, but perceptions are powerful.  Perceptions can shape reality.

 

We might say, that’s not fair.  We might say, those perceptions aren’t accurate. But the sad reality is that it doesn’t matter if it’s fair or accurate.  If that’s the perception, it will affect how people see us.  They may not see church in a positive light.

 

I’ve had a lot of conversations about about the challenges churches like ours are facing, especially the fact that people aren’t going to church the way they used to.  Sometimes in those conversations somebody will point out that some churches are growing.  That’s true.  On a Sunday morning, you don’t have to go far from here to find churches whose parking lots are full.  Some churches are growing.  There are a lot of reasons for the growth of churches like these.  Whole books have been written about why churches like these are thriving.  It would take a whole nother sermon to explore that question.  Today I will simply say that, in some important ways, what those churches are offering is not what we’re offering.

 

To take just one example of our difference, we are not a church where members are bound to follow certain rules and doctrines.  For us, the life of faith is not about following rules to make sure we get into heaven after we die.  For us, the life of faith is about following Jesus, here and now.  We do our best to live in the way he calls us to live.  We follow Jesus, doing our best, here and now, to live into the Kingdom he proclaims.  We don’t have to be absolutely sure about certain rules and doctrines.  We can question and wonder and doubt.  We can talk together.  We can listen to one another.  We may not always agree, but we seek to walk together in God’s ways.  We seek, here and now, to live into God’s Kingdom.

 

In the early years of the church, the apostles went out, inviting men and women to follow Jesus, to live into the Kingdom.  They traveled to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire.  Peter was one of those apostles.  In our New Testament epistle for today, he’s talking to new followers of Jesus in the region of Asia Minor.

 

At the time, most people in Asia Minor worshiped the pagan gods of Rome.  There were temples and shrines to those gods all over the place.  As the new followers of Jesus walked to the place they would gather for worship, they walked by temples to pagan gods.  They could smell the smoke from sacrifices that were being offered those gods.  These new Jesus-followers often had neighbors, brothers and sisters, even husbands and wives, who still sacrificed to the gods and practiced pagan rituals.  Their families gave them a hard time about their decision to follow Jesus.

These people had made a big change in their lives.  They had accepted Jesus’ invitation to be part of the Kingdom of God.  Being a follower of Jesus was a whole new identity for them.  So Peter wants to help them understand this new identity.  He tells them, “Once you were not a people.  Now you are God’s people.” You are the living stones that God will use to build a spiritual house.   You have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.

 

The new Christians were living into the Kingdom of God.  They were living differently from the people around them.  In that respect, they’re not so different from you and me.   We don’t walk by pagan temples on our way to church, but, like those new Christians, we live in a world that does not always accept us.  We don’t smell the smoke from sacrifices to pagan gods, but Sunday mornings we might drive by shopping centers or athletic fields bustling with activity.  The customs of our world seem more and more different from the way we live.  Yet, like those early Jesus followers, we are called to be living stones, to build a spiritual household for God.  Like them, we have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.

 

There is good news for us: many in our world today are seeking faith.  Spiritual hunger is all around us.  There is good news: people are seeking community.  Many are lost and lonely.  Many are seeking a sense of belonging.  Many lives today are pulled in different directions by the demands of work and the needs of family.  Other lives are hollowed out by loneliness, feeling that no one cares.  Many feel out of touch, in spite of the all the texting and Skyping and instant messaging that’s going on.

 

Spiritual hunger is all around us.  Many are spiritually hungry.   Their spirits are not fed by the newest smartphone, or the sharpest high definition TV.  Many are seeking a sense of holiness in their lives.  They might not use the word holy, but they are longing for a sense of being blessed, beloved.  Many are seeking the loving presence that you and I call God.  They might not use the word God, but they are longing to know they are loved and accepted, just as they are.

 

Spiritual hunger is all around us and here’s the good news: we have great spiritual food.  Here’s more good news: our church is going through a process, called Growing in the Spirit, where we’ll be opening ourselves to where God is leading us now.  We’ve begun by talking together about the ways God has blessed us, and the ways we learned about faith.  Next month we’ll gather again to talk together about the way this church has especially blessed us.

 

Next, we’ll be looking outward, to the community around us.  We hope to learn, what are the spiritual hungers of people just outside our doors?  We hope to learn how might we shape our ministries, to reach out to this community with spiritual food.  What new ways can we discover to share the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ?  And, another question: (this may be the hardest part) What do we have to let go of, so we can share God’s love with the lost and the lonely in this new day and time?

 

We will be making some changes so that we can minister faithfully in this new day and time.  We may not be doing church the way we’ve always done church.  What will we be doing ten years from now?  One church I know has adopted a retirement home as a focus for their ministries.  They offer services of worship and study groups there.  Another church has a relationship with an elementary school.  They provide school supplies and snacks.  Some of them visit the classroom to read to the children.  What kinds of ministries will we be doing ten years from now?

 

This past Thursday I marked twenty years of ordained ministry.  Those twenty years have given me much to be thankful for.  I feel honored and blessed that so many people have shared their lives with me and trusted me to be their spiritual leader.  And I continue to believe that the Christian church, for all its faults, is the best hope of humanity.  There will be challenges ahead.  We will be called to new things and, like those women and men who listened to Peter, we will at times feel rejected by the world around us.  But here is good news.  God has entrusted us with the good news of Jesus Christ!  The good news that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

 

And here’s the best news of all: God will be with us.  The God who made us, the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ, will be with us.  We are not left to fend or ourselves.  We are not all on our own.  We are, as Peter says, God’s people, called by God out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.  By God’s grace, we will be living stones, building up the spiritual house we call church.

 

 

 

Rev. Elva Merry Pawle

February 24, 2019

Epiphany 7