Some questions are all but impossible to answer. They
may seem really simple, like, “When does church
start?” That seems like an easy enough question,
doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s complicated. For us, it
depends if it is summer or winter, or Christmas or New
Year’s or the Annual Congregational Meeting.
It also depends on what you really mean by “church
starting.” That question has always been a dilemma for
us. It’s no secret—we have so much amazing music
here and so many great musicians that we struggle to
find ways to fit all of our music into the service. We
end up playing some music before the worship service
actually starts, sort of a worship “warm-up” like they
do at Yankee Stadium. But that really messes with
people. Every week I see people arrive so proud of
themselves for getting to church five minutes early, but
when they walk in, the music is already going. They
check their watches, trying to figure out what went
wrong, wondering how church could have already
started. We keep trying to figure out what to do about
that. Isn’t all of the music part of our worship? If so,
when should we tell people church really begins?
In the reformed tradition it is even more complicated
because of the way we break down the elements of
worship into four major themes or categories. There is
the “Gathering Around the Word,” the “Proclaiming of
the Word,” the “Responding to the Word” and the
“Sealing of the Word.” The problem is no one has ever
been in total agreement on which elements fit into
which category, especially the “Responding to the
Word” one. What elements are, or should be, our
proper response to the Word proclaimed. Is it singing a
hymn or reciting a creed? Is the best response to take
communion, or say our prayers of intercession or open
up our wallets and give our money to God? A hundred
years ago, and in a lot of Presbyterian churches today,
it was normal practice to put the sermon at the very end
of the service—to do everything else first and preach at
the end. A quick hymn, the benediction, and you’re out
the door, back on the street. It’s an interesting way to
order worship, but it certainly does leave a question
hanging in the air: “If you wait to preach until the end,
what’s left? What constitutes your response to the
Word?”
Here is the fascinating part. Those who order their
worship this way would say that leaving the church is
our response to the Word; that going out to serve the
world, to live out this Word and to make this Gospel
real and relevant to people out in the world is the most
important response. It has a way of making all our
other responses, creeds and prayers, even giving
money, pale in comparison.
Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way, “In a world
that can be hard and scary sometimes, it is tempting to
think of the church as a hideout, the place where those
of us who know the secret password can gather to
celebrate our good fortune. As we repeat our favorite
stories and eat the food that has been prepared for us, it
is tempting to think of ourselves as consumers of God’s
love, chosen people who have been given more good
gifts than we can open at one sitting: healing,
forgiveness, restoration, resurrection. Then one day the
Holy Spirit comes knocking at the door, disturbing our
members-only meeting and reminding us that it is time
to share. We are not meant to be consumers after all
but providers of God’s love, authorized agents sent out
to speak and act in Christ’s name.”
It is the same tension that Jesus faces head on here in
our passage this morning at the very beginning of His
ministry. According to the Gospel of Luke, after the
temptation in the wilderness, Jesus begins his public
ministry by standing up in the Synagogue in Nazareth
where He had grown up. We know that going to church
had to be important to Jesus. It says right here that it
was “his custom” to be there on the Sabbath. We also
know that He would have only been invited to read and
teach if He had been a well known and respected
member of that community. Yet, when He is handed
the scroll of Isaiah and asked to choose a passage, there
was no other. He turned straight to the passage that
would serve as his mission statement, the litmus test of
his ministry and the ministry of all those who would
ever claim to follow him, “The Spirit of the Lord is on
me, because he has anointed me to go out, not to
remain in here but to be sent, to preach good news to
the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,
recovery of sight for the blind (and He wasn’t just
talking about the physically imprisoned or blind
either), to release the oppressed and proclaim the
inauguration of the age and the era, the year of the
Lord’s favor.” Church was important to Jesus but it
wasn’t His purpose. His purpose was “out there.”
Is it possible that we have been missing the whole
point? What if our real worship does not even begin
until we step out that door? What if the real reason we
are called to be together here is primarily for what we
can do together out there. Is it possible that what we do
in here on Sunday mornings is more like a dress
rehearsal or practice for our real worship? Not that it
isn’t important for us to love, enjoy and take care of
each other, but we do it for an even higher reason—that
we might be healed and strengthened and loved so we
can then go heal and strengthen and love out there in
our real sanctuary.
What if the most important worship of which we will
be a part all year won’t be taking place in here but will
occur in New York State, Mississippi, Pennsylvania,
Africa, the Dominican Republic, all over the South
Eastern United States, at the Habitat site, or the Soup
Kitchen, SCEEP or our Clothing Bank? Could it be
that our mission teams will learn more about what it
means to worship, what it means to “be the church” in
one week out there than we will learn the other 51
weeks of the year combined in here? What if our real
prayer of preparation will be taking place at 4:30 a.m.
on Wednesday morning as our Dominican Republic
participants ride that van together on the way to
Newark airport? What if our real calls to worship have
been taking place on muggy mornings in Bay St. Louis
as our teams are given their projects for the day; or our
real confession occurs as our kids open up their lives to
one another in barely audible whispers after the lights
go out in their dormitories? What if the true opening of
the Word refers to the heart melting ways that our
American Team Members and Dominican Team
members find to communicate despite their language
barriers; and our most important sermons are not the
ones we preach but the ones we hear as we listen to the
stories of those whose homes we are repairing, whose
churches at which we are ringing or whose orphanages
we are visiting? What if the greatest offering we will
give this year won’t be out of our wallets but will take
place on a hot tar roof, on a ladder, with an E# and G in
our hands, mixing cement, playing with a group of
little children or swinging a hammer at a piece of sheet
rock? What if the place we really learn to pray isn’t in
a Lenten series but as we are driving one of our
teammates to the hospital with a nail in his/her hand, or
waiting on the side of the road with an unleaded van
full of diesel fuel. What if our real benediction isn’t
meant to be proclaimed from a pulpit but lived out in
our lives as we just go and be with people?
Let me close by telling you that I was on the Liquid
Church website the other day, the church that just
moved into the Hyatt. I was checking out the
competition, and I saw something that they recently did
that brought me to tears. A group from the church
traveled down to Asbury Park to hand out cold bottles
of water at the Gay Pride Parade. They didn’t bring
their Bibles or tracts or bull horns, just a table and tent,
10,000 bottles of water and two signs. One hung below
the table and said “Liquid Church,” the other hung
above it and said simply, “Free Water. Refreshing, no
strings attached—just like God’s love.” They didn’t
preach; they didn’t try to change people; they just gave
out water. At one point a lesbian woman approached
the pastor… well, let me tell the story in his words:
“Our booth was right next to a lesbian couple who
were selling stained glass. Bobbie and Laurie were
probably in their 40s and had been together for over 25
years—two of the gentlest and kindest people you’d
ever meet. We talked with them constantly throughout
the day, passing along water to them, learning about
their craft. They were enthusiastic about our mission
to share the love of Jesus in a practical way. An
amazing moment came in the late afternoon when
Bobbie pulled me aside and whispered, ‘Tim,
somebody just told me you were Baptist. Is that
true?’ She whispered Baptist as if it were a dirty word
(which it too often is!). I said, ‘Actually, Bobbie, yes,
our church is Baptist.’ A forlorn look creased her
forehead, and she asked nervously, ‘Just tell me one
thing: Are you here to tell us that if we don’t change
we’re going to hell?’ ‘No, not at all,’ I replied. ‘In fact,
we’re here because God is changing us. As Christians,
many of us have been pretty judgmental and
condemning and even hostile at times to the gay
community, and Jesus is changing our hearts. We’ve
got a long way to go in making amends, and so, we just
thought we’d serve today to try and humbly reconcile.’
My words were cut-off as I was wrapped up in the
arms of this middle-aged lesbian as she cried, ‘Thank
you, thank you, thank you,’ with tears in her eyes.
‘Finally,’ she said, ‘a group of religious people who are
treating us like real Christians are supposed to.’ I doubt
any of us would be foolish enough to deem ourselves
“real Christians (whatever that means).” All the same,
it was one of the most encouraging words we've ever
received from folks.”
Maybe it’s not such a difficult question. When does
church start? If everything goes smoothly, church will
be starting in about 13 minutes.
AMEN
