The Church As The Means Not The End - February 28, 2010

Readings: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1 and Luke 13:31-35

Abstract: The sermon focuses on three questions: Do you and I know the way we are grounded in our relationship with God? Do we understand the difference between belief in God and coming to church? Do we appreciate the tension between practice and belief? These three questions are crucial to be freeing enough to hear and respond to God’s unique call to St. Stephen’s Church, even being led to a different place.


The subtitle of my sermon could be taken from the words of the Decalogue that we just recited together, “You shall not make for yourself any idol”. Extending that which we should not make into idol, let us include the church. All too quickly we can make the church into a false idol for our worship.

The psalmist says today, “The one thing I seek is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” In the OT reading Abram asked God about how to possess the land, his home in relationship with God. The NT turns our attention from the cares of our life in towns, cities and the buildings where we dwell to our “citizenship in heaven”.

In the Gospel we see resistance to God’s efforts to gather the disciples into a new place. Jesus says in his frustration with the disciples, you have been left with your house. So as to say, you refused to be gathered and so I leave you to your worldly concerns, as Jesus turns his focus on realizing God’s mission. The disciples were invested in Jesus in that one place. In the Gospel the disciples stayed in the familiar place they knew versus following Jesus’ invitation. Makes you wonder if the disciples really understood Jesus’ message of mission.

When the psalmist says, “the one thing I seek is to dwell in the house of the Lord”, it does not mean to dwell as we do in this building. House of the Lord is God’s being. The house of the Lord is for the people of the new covenant in NT times, the mystical Body of Christ. Most Anglican theologians have taught since the Reformation that the mystical Body of Christ is not the same as the church. This is very different than what Roman Catholics believe. Roman Catholics believe that there is a literal meaning of the church as the Body of Christ.

Membership in the mystical Body of Christ is different than our membership in St. Stephen’s Church.

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that you are very members of the mystical Body of Christ?

I don’t mean a belief in a higher power or a creative force in the universe. I mean do you believe in God? Do you believe that you are specially knitted into the mystical Body of Christ? I don’t even mean do you believe in the words of the Nicene or Apostolic Creeds. Do you have an affective, that is, personal relationship with God that binds you to God alone? At first glance that might seem like a very silly question to you. Well of course I believe in God, I am here in church.

This is fundamentally a very important question as the parish sorts out its individual and corporate commitments to St. Stephen’s as a parish and to God. These are related but distinct commitments.

If like the disciples we hesitate in following Jesus then we cling on to places sometimes making them idols of false worship. These idols become distractions from the true God. The English reformers criticized the Roman Catholic Church for making the church their God.

The disciples in the Gospel today resisted Jesus’ invitation to follow Jesus to Jerusalem. The disciples do not even understand what Jesus is talking about. Are there ways that we relate to this church building that impede seeking only to abide in God’s house in the mystical Body of Christ?

To get at this question we really do need to ask the question do we believe in God. Do we have an affective relationship with God?

The scripture text that has had the most influence on shaping my life is John 21 where Jesus says three times to Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter says, of course I love you. I can imagine Jesus saying Peter do you believe in me, for to love Jesus is to believe in God. Later in that text Peter wants to cling on to Jesus and stay with him to keep things just the way they were. But Jesus says no, I must leave you. Peter keeps on clinging and Jesus finally says, when you were young you went about as you pleased, but when you are older, you may be led to a place you may rather not go.

In the Gospel this morning the disciples are unprepared to be led to a new place. They clung on to what they knew, missing Jesus’ invitation. Jesus is inviting the disciples to align their lives with his in a mission that will draw them away from their land and homes. Mission is different than clinging to Jesus.

Do we cling to God in the house of the Lord or do we cling to the holy houses we construct?

As a spiritual director I have met several people who though their entire lives were ones of apparent commitment to the church, at some point the veil was pulled back and they were faced with the raw question – do I believe in God. It is a scary question as I have watched people who love the church realize that it was the church not God that was the focus of their love. Often this is a disorienting discovery leading people to fundamental questions about the way they have ordered their lives around the church but not around God.

Several years ago I met Julie. Julie had not grown up in a Christian household where the bible was read or her parents went to church. Yet Julie fell in love with God in the stories of the new and old testaments. Julie told me of her powerful relationship with God. Julie loved God in a home that was not friendly to God and indeed the name of God was strange. Julie had a secret relationship with God that she kept to herself and to her journal. As a young college student Julie was drawn to connect her relationship with God to a church community. Julie joined a church. It was in the church that she joined that she was told that God hates homosexuals. Julie had known she was a lesbian for many years and at news of this she broke down in tears having lost, she thought in that instant, her first and only true lover, God.

What is an affective relationship with God? Julie had an affective relationship with God that preceded her relationship with a church. Julie had fallen in love with God without the church. Then the church told Julie exactly the opposite. It took Julie almost twelve years to recover from that church’s condemnation of her. Julie has recovered and is an ordained Metropolitan Community Church Pastor. Today Julie knows the differences between loving Jesus, believing in God and coming to church. Julie knows about the tension between belief and practice. Julie knows the grounding of her belief is in God alone. Had Julie not been centered in God then when that church condemned her, she might have lost all her desire for God.

Do we cling to God or to the church?

Julie grounded her faith in God so she was free of clinging to a church that had betrayed her love of God.

So what role then does the church play or parishes like St. Stephen’s? Simply, St. Stephen’s, Trinity, St. Paul’s, St. Catherine’s and Faith Lutheran in Reno to name just a few as well as churches elsewhere around this nation and the world are a means to being fed by Word and sacrament to participate in God’s mission.

I like simple mantras for my prayer. You might try this mantra in your prayer:

St. Stephen’s church is one means to God. Our citizenship is with God alone.

Churches are nothing more and nothing less than a means to God. Our only end is our “citizenship with God” participating in God’s mission. All that supports this divinely mandated end in God and in mission is of God. All that impedes our love of God and participation in God’s mission is not of God and we should make an effort to remove these distractions. If you find yourself clinging to a church without freedom of movement, it might be worth your while to ask if you love God or the church. If you love God more than the church you will be much freer to go where God leads you. If you love the church more than God, you may lack the freedom to be led.

Our total focus must always be on our “citizenship in God” rather than in to that which we cling. Jesus said to Peter, do you love me? Hear these words as do you believe in God and then Jesus saying, feed my sheep. And at St. Stephen’s all might say, we love you Jesus and we have faithfully fed your sheep through our Bread Ministries, the Food Bank and Family Promise naming but a few. Then Jesus may say to you, are you willing to follow me wherever I lead you? Of course the parish says! Then Jesus will say, will you follow me even if it is to a place you may initially rather not wish to go?

This morning in the Gospel the disciples clung to what they knew, staying close to their familiar surroundings. But the disciples refused the divine invitation being offered by Jesus. After all they are very happy being exactly where they are – next to their favorite restaurants, movie theatres and right next to the camel crossing.

St. Stephen’s Church is one means to God. Our citizenship is with God alone.

St. Stephen’s might discover anew its life right here or be invited to participate in God’s mission in another place. None of us know for sure. Until we do, let us wait with open hands and open hearts to be led only by the Spirit of God.

As Saint Augustine once said, we will always be restless, until we rest in you, oh God. Augustine did not say, “we will be restless”, until we find that one perfect church.

Learning from Jesus’ words we know that when we have an affective relationship with God, then we will no longer cling to anything less than God.

Let us persevere in our discernment processes so that we will stay focused on our true home in God alone and in God’s mission with heartfelt love.

God bless you!