Sermon Preached at Bexley Seabury
Fifth Saturday of Easter
The context for this sermon is a class (Anglican Liturgy and Music: Theology and Practice) of nine students preparing for ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. The afternoon session of the class included a discussion of the catechumenate (an ancient way of providing adult formation prior to baptism). My own D.Min. thesis (in process) is looking at the ways in which we can prepare our congregations to be catechumenate-ready by teaching our members the stories of the Bible, by helping them make connections between their daily life and these stories, and by giving them opportunities to live out their baptismal promises more intentionally in their daily lives. Are you ready to engage in this work? Here is a fabulous resource from The Anglican Church of Canada, Becoming the Story We Tell and here is a place you can go to learn from current practitioners of this new way of Being Church: Journey to Baptismal Living Annual Gathering: Becoming the Story We Tell.
Jesus says, “Servants are not
greater than their master.”[1] And all of the disciples look at each other,
scratch their heads and then push one of the sons of Zebedee forward to say, “Hey
Jesus. This is (a) not news and (b) definitely not Good News. This is simply
the way things are and have always been.”
But just as the son of Zebedee stepped forward to speak, Jesus
continues: “If they persecuted me, they
will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.”[2] Son of Zebedee steps back. Head scratching among
the disciples continues and . . . end scene.
Fast forward about 20 centuries
give or take a few decades and we find ourselves sitting in a seminary chapel
in the midst of the Diocese of Chicago – home to 125 congregations spread
across 21 counties. No matter the size of your own diocese I think you will
agree that among the churches in your diocese are some magnificent structures –
perhaps Gothic like my own St. Mark’s Church in Evanston – perhaps more
contemporary. Many of these structures
include not only a place for worship and for offices but classroom space and large
halls for gatherings. And, I would
guess, that the majority of these structures sit mostly empty Monday through
Saturday.
And then there’s the staffing – a diocesan
bishop, priests at most of our congregations, paid administrative assistants,
church musicians, youth directors and the like.
I have no idea what this costs
overall, but I can say in my own church building which takes up between ¼ and ½
of a large city block, there are a total of 2.5 full time equivalents – myself and
3 half-time lay employees. These are
things we are all aware of – ministry takes money. But, at St. Mark’s 54% of our operating
income is spent on staffing, 33% of our money is spent on buildings and
grounds, 6% on office supplies, leaving us with a whopping 7% to go about the
business of forming the faithful and changing the communities in which we live,
work and study. This paints a pretty
bleak picture and, I confess, that St. Mark’s plumps up its program budget with
monies from our endowment. . . Oh, right, endowments!
And Jesus says to the disciples, “a
servant is not greater than his master” and today who will step forward to
challenge that? Who will step forward to say to Jesus, “well, actually we are
richer than you are, we have more stuff than you had . . . . and – oh, wait, we
are in decline.”
Doesn’t it just make you wonder if
we’ve got it all wrong? Some of our
colleagues talk about being a priest in the 21st century as engaging
in hospice work. Caring for the soul of
a dying institution. Offering comfort by continuing to do the same thing the
same way day after day, week after week, year after year. Managing pain by avoiding discussions of the
realities all of our churches are facing.
And offering our sympathies when one by one the church doors close for
the final time. Why is it you want to be a priest?!
But here’s the thing. This way of doing church is not the way it
has always been. In fact, prior to the 4th
century the church looked nothing like it does today. The established church that we know today is
one that Jesus and those early disciples would not even recognize as part of
the Jesus movement – well, perhaps with a couple of exceptions: our weekly
celebration of the Eucharist, our commitment to justice, our insistence on
treating all human beings with dignity and respect . . . . but, my friends, in
some of our churches (mine included), the parts of the church that are, in
fact, a part of the Jesus Movement are funded by less than 10% of our
money. And so, what message does that send to a broken and hurting
world? And is it any wonder that those
outside the church call us irrelevant or hypocritical?
Douglas John Hall in a fabulous
little book called The End of Christendomand the Future of Christianity writes,
I believe that commitment to the established
institutional model of the church – to Christendom in its various institutional
forms – is the single most important cause of inertia and the retardation of
intentional and creative response to this great transition” – the transition
out of Christendom, a transition that has been going on now for at least 2
centuries.[3]
Well that’s enough to make me want stop and wallow a bit
with self-pity (because the alternative to self-pity, of course, is recognizing
my complicity in this transition). What
was I thinking? How did I become a part of this mess?
But, my friends, there is no time
for wallowing. We must recognize our
complicity and we must change. We must change
or die – by the way, that’s another great book, Bishop Spong’s Why Christianity Must Change or Die.[4] We
must seek out another way or we will continue to watch our congregations shrink
and our churches close.
And there is another way. Of course
there is! Because God’s Good News is not
going out of business. And, sadly, the world’s
brokenness is not going out of business – at least not anytime soon. And where there is a place to hear the good
news and where there is good news to proclaim there is a need for the Church. But not
the church of institutional Christendom.
The Church which is the Body of Christ – the whole people of God, with all
of their gifts and talents.
In this diocese alone there are 36,000
baptized members in 125 congregations spread across 21 counties in northern and
west central Illinois.[5] And if every one of those baptized members
knew that in their baptism they were anointed for ministry, knew that they are priests in God’s one holy
Catholic and apostolic church and if every one of those baptized members were
given the training they need in order to recognize their story in the story of
God, to make connections between their daily life and the baptismal promises
they have made, and offered support and guidance in sharing that Good News with
others, God’s Good News might just get heard in all the corners of our
communities that need most to hear it.
And that church, my friends, may not have buildings, may not have paid
clergy or paid lay members, but that church, my friends might begin to resemble
a community of Jesus followers that Jesus and those early disciples might
actually recognize.
Imagine a community of Jesus
followers who are so familiar with the drama of Jesus that they recognize the
patterns in their own lives – they see the moments of incarnation, the times of
struggle, betrayal and doubt, they recognize in their own lives those moments
when Jesus has washed their feet, healed their wounds and feel moved to do the
same for a neighbor in need. Imagine a
people so moved by God working in their lives and in the lives of those around
them that they cannot help but share that news with others. Can
you imagine it? Then first we need to
build it. We need to build up that community of Jesus followers. And that, my friends, is not hospice work.
That is the work of walking alongside, relearning the stories of our faith,
becoming comfortable talking about the connection between our daily lives and
those stories, and learning once again to live baptismally. So, I pray that that is the work you are
called to – because there is more than plenty of that work to go around. Nobody is promising us anymore that we’ll be
paid to do it. No one is promising us
anymore that there will be a church building to support it. But then, Jesus did tell his disciples, the
servant is not greater than the master.
[1]
John 15:20a.
[2]
John 15:20b.
[3]
Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom
and the Future of Christianity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers,
1997), p. 4, 7.
[4]
John Shelby Spong, Why Christianity Must
Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile (New York: HarperOne,
1999).
[5] “Asset
Map of the Diocese of Chicago,” Episcopal
Asset Map, https://www.episcopalassetmap.org/dioceses/diocese-chicago, accessed May 4, 2018.
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