Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
February 8, 2009

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.

After worship today we will gather for our regular annual congregational meeting—preceded by a potluck of course. One thing you can say for churches is that, if nothing else, they keep alive the grand old tradition of the potluck. After the potluck we will convene to do the work of the church, to approve a budget for 2009, to elect boards and officers, and formally to kick off the capital campaign for the roof work that needs to be done. Every bit as much as is the case when we gather here in the sanctuary each Sunday morning we will gather as part of the Body of Christ. We will pray for the Holy Spirit to inform and inspire our deliberations and our decisions. Knowing that, I was struck by the way two of the lectionary readings for today speak to us as we gather to do the work of the church. One of them speaks to us in a rather negative way, the other in a more positive way. I want to look at both passages, and I want to start with the negative one.

In our reading from 1 Corinthians we encounter the Apostle Paul engaged in a bit of apostolic navel gazing. He’s commenting on his own work as an apostle. He says that an obligation has been laid on him to proclaim the gospel. He says “woe to me” if I don’t do it. Fair enough. An obligation has been laid on us to proclaim the gospel too, and woe to us if we don’t do it. There’s no problem with that part of what Paul says here. There is, however, a problem with how he says it. He says: “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” To the Jews, he says, he became a Jew. To the Greeks, whom he refers to here as “those outside the law,” he became a Greek. To the weak he became weak, all supposedly so that he could “win” or “save” at least some people from all of these groups.

Now, it certainly is appropriate and even necessary for those who proclaim the gospel to meet all people where they are, to understand who and how they are. That’s where ministry must begin. If that’s all that Paul meant, I don’t have a problem with what he says. There is, however, a possible interpretation of Paul’s words that is not, I think appropriate for us. Paul says “I have become all thing to all people,” and we ask: Does that mean that we are called to be all things to all people too? I suppose a true literalist reach that conclusion, but I don’t think so. I don’t think that any church can do that. True, a lot of them try. Some of them probably fool themselves into believing that they are all things to all people, or at least that they have something for everyone. You know the kind of churches I’m talking about, the huge, multi-staff churches with programs of every variety for people of all ages. Yet really even they aren’t for everyone. Those churches often they have a very conservative theology that certainly isn’t for me and that I know isn’t for many of you. And too, many of us love the intimacy and informality of a smaller church where it is at least possible for us to know everyone and where people more easily become part of a community. That’s not so easy in a huge church. So I don’t think any church or any person can truly be all things to all people.

Yet more importantly, whether any church can be all things to all people or not, we certainly cannot, nor should we try to be. In fact, I believe that we are prospering precisely because we don’t try to be all things to all people. Nor do we attempt to attract people simply by mirroring popular culture and offering people the shallow theology of easy answers, as so many of those program-rich mega-churches do. Rather, we have named and claimed a particular identity, not a universal one. The short-hand for that identity is that we are the liberal, or if you prefer, the progressive, church in town. The specifics of it include that we are Open and Affirming, that we take the Bible seriously but not literally, that we encourage questions, honor disagreement, and support individual spiritual journeys. Beyond that we are prospering precisely as a small, family-oriented church. That means that we don’t have all the programming of a large church. Instead, we have community, and I for one will take community over programs any day. So, with all due respect to Paul, I am convinced that we are not called to be all things to all people, nor do we aspire to be. We are called to be ourselves, and we aspire to be the best selves that we can be.

Now for the positive word from today’s readings. It comes from the part of Psalm 147 that we heard. The Psalmist wasn’t talking about churches, but I hear a message for us in his words nonetheless. He says God’s delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor is God’s pleasure in the speed of a runner. I hear in those words that you don’t need to be big, strong, or flashy to be pleasing to God, not as an individual and not as a church. It isn’t that God rejects the strength of the strong or the speed of the swift, but those things aren’t primarily what God is looking for from us.

The Psalmist tells us what it is that God is looking for from us, but he does it using a phrase that troubles many of us. He says “ The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.” “The fear of the Lord” is a very common phrase in Hebrew Scripture, and it puzzles many of us. I’ve been asked many times what it means. Does it really mean that God wants us to be afraid of God? Well, no. It doesn’t. The really nice thing about Psalm 147 is that it tells us what the fear of the Lord does. It says: “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” Now, this is Hebrew poetry, and the way Hebrew poetry works isn’t that it rhymes. Rather, it uses pairs of statements in which the second statement repeats, amplifies, or explains the first statement. Here the second phrase, “in those who hope in his steadfast love” explains the first statement, “the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.” Fear of the Lord then, so far from being afraid of God, is nothing other than hoping in God’s steadfast love.

OK, God takes pleasure in those who hope in God’s steadfast love; but what does that mean? Well, let me try to get at it this way. One meaning of faith is trust. Faith is trusting in God. The best definition I’ve ever heard of hope, by the Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall, is that hope is faith as trust in God applied to the future. When we approach our lines from the Psalm with this understanding, we see that God’s pleasure is in those who trust in God’s steadfast love for the future.

And that, my friends, is what I believe God is calling this church to today, to trust in God’s steadfast love for our future. At the annual meeting this afternoon you will hear some things about the challenges we face. They are real, but as the old hymn says “’tis grace hath brought us safe thus far.” The Holy Spirit is alive and active among us. God’s steadfast love has been with this little church for over a century, and God’s steadfast love is with us still. If we will continue to be true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we have discerned it, if we will renew our commitment to being a church that while not being all things to all people nonetheless welcomes all people who welcome all people, and if we will renew our commitment to give of our money, our time, and our talents so that together as Monroe Congregational United Church of Christ we have what we need to live and to thrive, and if above all else we will continue to hope in God’s steadfast love, no challenge will be too great, nor hurdle too high, no obstacle to hard for us and the Holy Spirit together to overcome.

So this afternoon, let’s have a party. Let’s celebrate who we are and what we have accomplished together in the past several years. You will hear of challenges, mostly financial challenges. They are real, and they are important. Don’t ignore them, but don’t fixate on them either. With trust in God and commitment to do what is required, we will meet them, and meet them easily. And in doing so we will strengthen our bonds of community and our determination to live out in this place God’s gospel of grace and love for all people. That is our identity. That is our calling. No church is for everyone, St. Paul to the contrary notwithstanding. But we have a mission here in Monroe and the Sky Valley. May our gathering this afternoon testify to our commitment to carry out that mission and to our trust in God, with Whose help nothing will be impossible for us. Amen.