Losing Church
This Sunday, Reign of Christ Sunday, I had the privilege of leading worship with the people of St. Andrew’s United Church in Enderby and Zion United Church in Armstrong.
So we have before us this story of Jesus before Pilate, and this enigmatic discussion about whether or not Jesus is a king, and if he is, what kind of king he is, and where his kingdom is located. The two men are almost talking past each other because they have very different ideas of what kingship looks like.
Pilate is thinking of a king in terms of the Roman Emperor, Caesar, or in terms of a local king like Herod. He’s thinking of a flesh-and-blood leader, wielding political power.
Jesus is thinking about the kingdom of God: not a this-worldly kingdom with a ruler, and an army, but a vision of the world as God intends it to be, and as it will be when we all turn our hearts toward God. A world ruled by the power of love.
We tell this story on Reign of Christ Sunday because of this theme of two worlds—the world that we see around us, the world that we live in, the world of flesh and blood rulers—the world that we think is real, and the real real world, the world as God sees it.
When we tell this story in church, it’s also a reminder to us that there are two churches—the literal church that we see around us and can touch, St. Andrew’s Enderby or Zion United—that we think of as our church. But then there is the church as God sees it: what we sometimes call the mystical church.
The church that transcends time and space, the entire body of believers, living and departed, what we call the Communion of Saints.
Now bear with me—I’m not the most mystical of people, so this is a bit of a stretch for me, too. But this is what we are being asked to consider today, on Reign of Christ Sunday: the distinction between the world and the church as they are, as we usually see them; and the world and the church as God sees them, and as God intends them to be.
I want to share with you a couple of stories today that reflect on this theme. The first story is a very personal one; it’s the story of my journey over the past few years.
Ten years ago, I went back to school, to study for a Doctor of Ministry degree. I had been a minister for seven years, had served in two pastoral charges, and had just turned fifty. It had always been a goal of mine, to go back to school and do further study.
I assumed at the time that this degree would help me in my vocation as a minister, that it would make me a more competent leader, and make me more useful to the church. It was my intention to apply what I learned to my role as a minister in the church.
But that’s not the way it turned out. Not long after I completed my degree, I stepped away from congregational ministry and essentially took early retirement. Now, there were a number of reasons for that that we don’t need to talk about in this context, but the main one was this: to the best of my ability, I discerned that this was what God was calling me to do.
And I always think that’s really the only reason to do things in life: because God is calling you to do them. It’s the reason I’m here today; when Louise invited me to lead worship with you, I prayed and had the sense that yes, this is something God is calling me to do. You may want to have a word with God about that later! Or with Louise!
So God called me into ministry a number of years ago, and then a few years ago, God called me to step away from congregational leadership. It may seem odd that God would do this; it certainly has seemed confusing to me at times.
At those times, the words of Psalm 42 really speak to me:
“These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng, and led them in procession
to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.”
So: a sense of loss and dislocation, and ultimately hope.
Now, while on the surface it may seem contradictory, to be called into ministry and then be called out of it—in fact, in my life going back many decades, back to my childhood, there has been a consistent thread of God calling me into some kind of relationship with Him, with the church, and with the world.
I had a picture of what that was going to look like, a career plan mapped out in front of me. But whenever we make plans like that, we discover that God has a sense of humour. Or if not a sense of humour, then maybe a sense of adventure. Following God means taking lots of unexpected twists and turns.
For me, what I’ve discovered is that my relationship with God has grown stronger and deeper and richer over the past few years, even as I have gravitated away from being a professional church leader. Paradoxically, my relationship with the Church has also grown stronger and richer and deeper: and here I’m talking about the mystical church, the wider community of believers, and not the bricks-and-mortar church.
My faith life has deepened, fed and nourished by praying the services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer every day.
In the past few years I’ve attended Sunday services fairly infrequently, but I participate in worship fifteen times a week!
That means reading the Psalms and Scripture passages twice a day, and praying twice a day, for the world, and for the people I know, and people I meet, for my own concerns and the concerns of my family, and I pray regularly for the church, and its leaders and members, and for God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
So that’s been the surprise for me: that my faith life, my life with God, and my relationship with the church, have all grown deeper as I have found myself outside of a formal relationship to the church.
Now this is not a recommendation for you all to give up on church, and participating in the life of the church. But it is to say that sometimes the form of our participation in church changes radically, in ways that we didn’t anticipate—but that doesn’t mean that our life of faith, our life with God, or our relationship with the church is over.
We can still hope in God, because God promises to meet us on the other side of whatever disruption we face.
The second story I want to tell you is about my favourite piece of kitchen ware. It’s a red, cast iron, enamelled Dutch oven. I call it my stew pot. I purchased it more than twenty-five years ago, for what seemed like an enormous amount of money at the time.
That stew pot has travelled with us from our then-home in Vancouver, to my settlement charge in the East Kootenays, and then back here to Vernon a dozen years ago.
Every stew I have made in more than twenty-five years has been made in that pot. That pot has also made a number of pot roasts, countless chicken pot pie fillings, soups, and an occasional chili. If that pot could talk!
If that pot could talk, it would tell so many stories of family gatherings, and visits from company, and efforts at food therapy—bringing a meal to someone who was under the weather, or too overwhelmed to prepare a dinner.
That pot could tell stories of fellowship, and outreach, and community, and significant moments.
That pot has been the container that has been responsible for so much goodness over the years. And it’s really important to me and I would hate to lose it.
But here’s one thing I know: if I did, heaven forbid, lose that pot, I wouldn’t stop making stew. I definitely would have to adjust, and that would be hard, and frustrating. I’d have to rethink a lot of things.
But I wouldn’t stop making stew because I still have the recipe. I still know how to do it, and I still want to do it; I still have a passion for it. Most importantly, I wouldn’t stop making stew because there are still people who need to be fed.
My stew pot has been the container in which I have made many stews. But that container doesn’t contain all of my ability to make stew, or to feed people. I can find a way to do that without that specific container.
Just like the church, the bricks-and-mortar church was once the container for my faith life, my life with God.
But I learned that that container doesn’t contain all of my life with God; that I have found a richer, deeper, fuller life with God outside of that particular container.
This place has been your stew pot: a container for your life with God—for fellowship, and community; the place where you have marked significant moments, from baptisms to funerals; the place where you have been inspired to love your neighbour, and reach out to those in need.
This place has been a container for all that; but it doesn’t fully contain all that. And again, this isn’t an invitation to you to give up on church—but it is an invitation to recognize that outside of the particular fortunes of our bricks and mortar church buildings, God continues to be about the business of making all things new, and God continues to call us to be part of that.
We all continue to be part of the mystical church, the church as God sees it, the fellowship of believers, here and departed, across time and space, the communion of saints. That is our real and eternal church home.
When this precious container closes, there will be adjustments, and sometimes that will feel hard and frustrating. You will have to rethink a lot of things.
But one thing I can promise you is this: that whatever you are called to go through, God will be with you through it, and God will still be with you on the other side of it. And God will continue calling you into fellowship, into a community of faith and prayer, and into loving service to your neighbour.
Of course, I don’t walk in your shoes. I’m not facing the particular losses that you are facing, whether it is the loss of your church, or some other hard circumstance.
I’ve shared some of my testimony in the hopes of offering some words of comfort as a fellow traveller who has faced losses and unexpected upheavals, and who has come out the other side with a stronger faith, and a deeper trust in God’s abiding presence, in the world and in the church.
I’d like to close with this blessing for you:
Wherever you are called to go,
whatever you are called to face,
you are not alone.
God goes with you:
the God who brings life out of death,
who makes a way out of no way,
who is able to do more than we can ever imagine.
God goes with you:
our Creator, our Saviour, and our Comforter,
now and always.
Amen.