Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
October 28, 2007

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

And so the people wrote hymns of praise not only to Yahweh their God but also to God’s house, the Temple in Jerusalem. We heard part of one of them this morning, Psalm 84, verses 1 through 7. It tells of the Psalmist’s love of the Lord’s “dwelling place,” of its beauty, of the joy it gave all who went there to sing God’s praises, how it was in harmony with nature and nature’s creatures and even the birds of the air found shelter under its protective covering. It is a vision of a structure built by human hands dedicated to the worship of God that brought joy and peace to all who entered it to worship, who came seeking the presence and the protection of God. Clearly the Psalmist here was expressing his own and his people’s love of the Temple, of the role it played in their lives and of the joy and peace they found within its walls.

We of course don’t have anything remotely like the Jerusalem Temple in our lives. The closest thing to it that we have is the church, but I don’t mean the church building. I mean the church in the broader sense of the institution of the church and of the even broader sense of the people who, when they gather together, truly are Christ’s church. And I have a confession to make this morning. I love the church every bit as much as the Psalmist of Psalm 84 loved the Jerusalem Temple so long ago. I really do.

And that may strike some of you as rather strange. After all, in our Congregationalist tradition we don’t usually make a very big deal out of the church. I’m often struck when I worship in churches from other traditions, especially the Episcopalian tradition but even the Methodist, Lutheran, or Presbyterian not to mention the Catholic traditions, by how much more emphasis they put on the church than. The church is a really big deal for them. They talk about it as the primary instrument through which God works in the world. They pray for it all the time. They lift up its unity as a primary value to which they will subordinate some things that some of us perhaps don’t think they should subordinate to it. But I really do love the church, and this morning I want to tell you a little bit about why I do, about what it is about the church that makes me love it so.

I mean, after all, there’s an awful lot about it that isn’t all that lovable. It is torn by doctrinal strife. Huge parts of it take stands on moral issues that I reject, as when so much of stands against the equal rights and dignity of gay and lesbian people and against the ordination of women, or when the Southern Baptist Convention declares President Bush’s war in Iraq to be a just war against all the evidence that so clearly shows that it is not. Christ’s church is divided, quarrelsome, fearful, judgmental, and often more committed to worldly prejudices than to the Gospel of the one it calls Lord and Savior. So why do I say I love it so?

Well, here’s why. The church is the one institution centered on God known in and through Jesus Christ, and because it is the church is where everything that is wrong in the world can be right. It is the one place where we can truly put Christian values first and can strive to live them in a way uncorrupted by the ways of the world. The church is peace not war. The church is, and when I say is I’m speaking of what should and can be and not necessarily what actually is, Christ’s peace becoming real in a world addicted to violence, to aggression and killing in a futile and self-contradictory attempt to end aggression and killing. The church is acceptance not judgment, and again when I say is I mean should be and can be and not necessarily what actually is. The church is Christ’s grace becoming real in a world that values people not as children of God but only as objects, only for what they can do for us, or because they’re beautiful, or powerful, or rich. The church is people together not people apart. The church is children and the elderly and everyone in between, white people and people of color, straight people and gay people, and again when I say is I mean what should be and can be and not necessarily what actually is, sitting together, praying together, talking together, and learning together. The church is Christ’s inclusiveness breaking into a world that divides and excludes rather than unites and includes.

The church is a place of safety. In church it’s safe to shout and to sing, and it’s safe to be silent. It’s safe to be yourself, and it’s safe to grow and to become who you really are. The church is God’s safe arms of grace reaching us in a world that threatens us and tells us we’re not good enough, that tells us we can’t realize our dreams and that we’re fools for trying, that we’ll only fail and that we always have to play it safe. The church is both prayer and action. The church is heaven and earth met together. It is a refuge from the world and a haven for our souls. It is a place of renewal and regained strength. The church is consoling mother and challenging father. It is a place that calls us to be our best selves, helps us become them, then sends us back into the world as agents of transformation, as the yeast in the dough, the leaven for the Kingdom of God.

The church is birth and growth, life and death all held sacred, all blessed, all cherished, all shared with each other and with God. The church is God and humans sharing the journey. Today we baptized Nova Landry. Why do we baptize infants? They can’t understand what we’re doing. We say it’s because baptism is the sacrament by which they become part of Christ’s church and that they can confirm their baptism later in life when they can understand and make their own choice, and that’s all true. But there’s more to it than that. Baptizing infants is part of a much bigger thing that the church does. Here we sacralize all stages of life. We bless new life, ask God’s blessing upon the family, and ask that we and the larger church may be instruments of that blessing; but we bless other stages of life too. We bless lives joined together in marriage or holy union. We bless lives that have ended, in funerals and memorial services. Why do even people who don’t have much else to do with church come to us for these occasions? Partly because it’s social custom to be sure. But it’s also because birth, marriage, and death are depth experiences in life, or if you prefer peak experiences, either metaphor works. They are experiences that touch and are filled with meaning. Meaning always and necessarily points to God, and church is about God. At some level people know that, and so at some level the church connects everyone with meaning in their lives in a way that secular institutions simply cannot.

And so I love the church. With all its faults, with all the ways it sins and falls short of the glory of God, with all the ways it drives me nuts, I love the church. I love the larger church, and I especially love this church because you come closer than any other actual church I have ever known to truly living out those ideals I just tried to express. As most of you know about ten years ago I gave up a different professional life, one that in theory at least was more prestigious and had a lot more earning potential than this professional ministry gig to pursue this one. I thought at the time it was because I love theology, and I still do love theology. My love of theology probably drives some of you nuts, and I know my love of history drives some of you nuts. But love of theology, I now know, wasn’t why I did it.. I didn’t know it at the time, but I did it for love of the church. This all too fallible, all too human institution was calling me, although at first I did not know it. It was calling me because here I can find what I cannot find in the world, all those things I just talked about. I remember that back in law school starry-eyed idealists just entering as first year students would make naïve statements about wanting to become lawyers because they wanted to work for justice in the world. Cynical old law professors would tell them: This isn’t a justice school. It’s a law school. If you want justice, go to seminary. It never occurred to me at the time that I ever would. As they say: If you want to make God laugh, make plans.

And so for love of the church I threw over a whole life and took up another. This morning I ask you: Do you love the church? Think about it. Pray about it. And if you do then consider: What will you do for love of the church? Amen.