How (not) to fight culture wars

on a Christian approach to conflict and social change
Romans 12:1-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 18-25

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As you know, there is a tiny, but conspicuous
word that shows up—in parentheses—in all these sermon titles.
“Not.”
The parentheses help us read the title with, or without, the word.
Both are right.
In other words, there is a good way to be church in public,
and a not-so-good way to be the church in public,
if we are being faithful to the call of Jesus Christ,
whose body we are.

So for instance, last Sunday’s “how (not) to vote,”
means there is a way of voting that followers of Jesus
ought not to engage in—
allowing partisan politics and party agenda
to determine our vote.
And there is a way to vote . . . though not necessarily an easy way.
That is, to have our votes be shaped by
our primary allegiance to Jesus Christ and his kingdom,
and the active discernment of the community of the kingdom.

Today again, the parentheses are crucial.
When you look at today’s title,
you may want me to just erase the parentheses,
and preach a sermon about not fighting culture wars.
Surely, if we’re good Mennonites,
we should be taught how not to fight.
That is our tradition.
To be non-resistant . . . non-aggressive—
or is it passive-aggressive? I keep forgetting.

Well, like it or not,
for two reasons I will preach to this Mennonite congregation
a sermon on how to fight.
First of all, because I do think there’s something at stake
that is worth fighting for.
There is such a thing as a public good, a public moral ground.
It is worth the struggle to find it.
It is worth the struggle to take a stand on it,
and defend it.

And secondly, there is such a thing as a good fight,
a good, and non-violent, conflict.
But we need to be taught how to fight well,
how to fight in Christ-like ways.
We’re not very good at it.
We’re afraid of doing it.
We’ve done it poorly so often,
we think we better not try anymore.

But in truth, we’ve not stopped fighting at all.
We just fight in one particular way—
We fight by dividing.
Choose up sides, and then walk away from each other.
It’s a sad history, repeated over and over.
We don’t have to look beyond our county line,
to find hundreds of painful stories
of church fights that were resolved by separation.

We are a peace church,
known for our peacebuilding.
We do good training and mediation
around the country and around the world.
But our witness is marred
by our inability to deal with our own conflict
in healthy, and Christ-like, ways.

So is there anything we Mennonites
have a right to teach a society polarized by culture wars?
We certainly have lots to learn.
But yes, I do think we have some things to offer.
It’s not like the world does any better than we do.
In fact, maybe our main problem
is that we’ve accommodated to the pattern of our culture,
rather than look for a Jesus way,
or the way of the New Testament church.
_____________________

Our culture fights over what is right and good in the world
in what we call the “culture wars.”
Our culture fights these wars the way countries fight wars.
We form a group.
We solidify our group identity by
drawing sharp lines around our group,
and demonizing the other group.
Then we draw a line in the sand, and dig in.

Some think that is a noble way to fight.
It shows clarity, courage, resolve.
Resolve is a good thing.
Christians need a huge dose of resolve,
and determination,
to follow Jesus in the kind of world we live in today.

Determination isn’t the problem.
The problem is when a group within our culture,
or within the church,
bands together with persons like ourselves,
and forms a group in which everyone
agrees with each other,
looks like each other,
acts like each other,
and is determined to keep it that way.

Whenever we define ourselves over against the other,
we can, with accuracy, predict the outcome.
There will be divisive rhetoric.
We will exaggerate the position of the other.
We will take their statements out of context.
We will overlook our own inconsistencies.
We will magnify their weakness.
We will not talk with the other, only about them.
We will do what we need to gain a tactical advantage,
even if it means bending the truth, or hiding it.
And if anyone wins,
it’s the one with the strongest voice,
or the most resources to broadcast their voice.
And by winner,
I mean the side that came out on top.
The loser will feel silenced and alienated.
Their loss will be transformed into anger and resentment.
And they will get to work preparing for the next battle.

That, brothers and sisters, is how not to fight.
But Christians seem to do it the best . . . or worst.
Our culture has trained us well.
We need to be un-trained.
We need to be transformed.
In the words of Romans 12, which we read this morning,
We need to “not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds,
so that [we] may discern what is the will of God.”
There is a way to fight that is faithful to the way of Jesus.
In our struggle for the right there is an attitude, in fact, a position,
we must take as followers of Jesus.
It’s a position in a body.

Paul urges members of the body to realize that
“in one body we have many members,
and not all the members have the same function”
to believe and act like we are “one body in Christ,
and individually . . . members one of another”
to accept that “we have gifts that differ”
and to “let [our] love be genuine;
to hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.”
That’s how to fight like a body.
Start by believing we belong to each other.
We are not in different groups, but the same group.
And that group has one head, Christ,
to whom all of us bow in submission.

Easier said than done.
It certainly wasn’t easy for the early church.
In Corinth, for instance, they fought with each other all the time,
but they weren’t good fights.
They divided into parties.
Remember the reading, 1 Corinthians 1?
Paul appealed to them, begged in the name of Jesus,
not to form divisions among themselves,
but act like one body, with one head and one purpose.
Paul said he heard reports that Corinthian Christians
were saying things like,
“I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,”
or “I belong to Peter,” or “I belong to Christ.”
“Since when,” he asks in v. 13, “has Christ been divided?”
Each party in the church thought they had a corner on wisdom.
So Paul asked, v. 20,
“Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
_____________________

I’m not optimistic we can talk or debate the world
into not fighting the way it does.
But can we, as a church,
at least put on a small demonstration of a better way?

When MCC or other international development workers
go into some remote community that has bad farming practices,
that harm the soil,
and don’t provide enough food for the people . . .
they don’t go in there with a clip-board full of charts and graphs
and scientific experiments that prove a point
that the old ways are wrong,
and a new way is right.
No, they plant a demonstration plot.
They go about their work,
quietly showing what can be done
with the land and materials and seeds people already have.
Then they explain why plants grow taller, look greener,
and produce more,
when they dig this way, plant that way,
and irrigate another way.

The church is called to be a demonstration plot for the world,
when it comes to dealing with cultural conflict.
The world is committed to the old way.
It doesn’t matter what the issue is.
Abortion, gay marriage, terrorism,
war in Iraq, capital punishment.
They form advocacy groups
around being anti-this or pro-that.
Swap the labels.
The tactics are the same.
It’s a contest to see who can shout the loudest,
who can insult the other side most effectively.
Signs proclaim, “God hates your group. God loves our group.”

I doubt the church can find a winning argument
to put a stop to this nonsense.
If we did try to make a point with words,
they would fall on deaf ears.
Because these tactics are not just the ways of the world.
The church is expert in the art of divisive conflict.

For the issues I just named,
there are just as many advocacy groups in the church,
positioning themselves as pro- and anti- this or that,
drawing lines in the sand,
overlooking their own weaknesses,
overstating the faults of the other,
maneuvering to advance their position.
It ought not to be this way in the body of Christ!
If we are acting like a church, like the living body of Christ,
single-issue advocacy groups have no place in the church.
I can understand to some extent, why they form,
especially when church bodies become
so large and complex and institutionalized,
that they borrow political methods to do church business.
If people start feeling that their voice is not being heard,
or is being stifled by unseen powers that be,
desperation sometimes moves them to organize,
form a group, and press a point.

But it ought not to be that way.
When we look at the way that Jesus engaged his adversaries,
often sitting at the same dinner table with them . . .
When we see how the early church worked through divisive issues,
by convening a time to meet and hear each other’s stories,
and read scripture together,
and listen to the Holy Spirit . . .
When we observe the outspoken and brash apostle Paul,
vigorously and emotionally appealing to the church
to stop dividing along party lines
and act like the one body they are . . .
Then we need to wonder,
isn’t there a better way to fight as followers of Jesus?

You could never accuse Jesus and the apostles and the early church
of not being fighters.
They strived, they struggled, they contested against
those ideas and people and groups
that they believed had gotten off God’s path.
It’s right to fight for what’s right.

But shouldn’t the church be able to demonstrate a better way?
Shouldn’t the church be able to emulate the way of Jesus
as we work through those things we don’t fully understand,
or have serious disagreements about?
Shouldn’t we be able to show how to struggle with each other
with love, and grace, and compassion,
as well as with clarity, and honesty, and accountability?
We all learn, and we all grow,
as we engage the other,
especially the other who is different.

Gordon Cosby,
founding pastor of Church of the Savior in D.C.,
who in his 90s is still teaching and preaching,
once said that there are two givens, two must-haves,
for him in being part of a congregation.
First, that Jesus Christ and submitting to Christ’s rule
would be at the center of community life and witness . . . and
That he would be part of a small family group
of extreme ‘opposites,’
different in race and ethnicity, economics, education,
personality and temperament.
In all ways, different.

Cosby believed his greatest opportunity for being formed
as a disciple of Jesus Christ,
was belonging to a small community
that kept their loyalty to Jesus Christ at the center,
and treasured their differences.

Christians who do not treasure difference, or are afraid of difference
form affinity groups,
interest groups,
single-issue advocacy groups.
And the body of Christ is weakened,
because we lose the capacity to directly, lovingly, and vigorously
engage each other at the points where we differ.
A point of difference, is a potential growing point.
_____________________

So I leave us with this challenge.
Let’s deepen our bonds with each other in the church,
so we have the capacity to lovingly fight with each other.
You know this from experience, I’m sure.
The closer your bond with another person—
parent, child, spouse, close friend—
the more secure you are in that relationship,
the greater your capacity to have meaningful conflict
and stay in healthy relationship.

Here at Park View, people are truly different from each other
in significant ways.
The day we stop struggling with those differences,
the day we stop experiencing some degree of conflict over them,
is the day we stop truly loving each other.
If you don’t love someone, or are not loyal to them,
or have no commitment to stay connected,
there’s no point in getting invested enough to have a good fight.

Conflict without love and commitment
is what the culture wars are about.
It’s lobbing grenades at each other from a distance.
It’s shouting and name-calling.
It’s forming single-issue groups to battle for position
over other groups.

The church can do better than that.
We must do better than that,
if we intend to act like a church.
So we must strengthen our bonds as a church family.

That applies at the macro level—
that is, with the whole congregation.
But it applies most importantly at the micro level—
that is, with small formational communities.

I urge us . . . again . . . and I will keep urging us . . .
to find a way to be in a small formational community.
A community whose main purpose is to form each other
for life as a disciple of Jesus in this world.
A community that helps us form communal and missional
Christian practices.
A community that opens the scripture together,
and reads it not only for inspiration,
but for the purpose of discovering the will of God
for our lives . . . and for all of creation.
A community that, as in Gordon Cosby’s ideal,
is diverse enough to challenge each member,
so we don’t suffer from tunnel vision.
A community that loves each other so much,
that we are willing to engage in the struggle.

When we do, we will not only be better people for it,
we will be a better church,
and we will have grown a lush, green, and fruitful
demonstration plot for the world.

By God’s grace, may it be so.

—Phil Kniss, September 28, 2008


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How (not) to vote

On living Christianly in a political world
John 18:33-38; Matthew 22:15-22

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I’m going to sit down to give my sermon this morning.
It’s purely a symbolic gesture.
I am not abandoning or diminishing the pulpit.

I sit, because I’m preaching on politics.
I watched both the Democratic and Republican conventions.
They all spoke behind very impressive pulpits,
backed by Greek columns, and flags, and generals,
and video screens 3-stories tall.
They sounded like preachers.
Same religious fervor.
Preaching theological themes,
like hope, and faith, and unity.
Without a lot of editing,
some of those speeches could have passed for sermons.
So, I want to distance myself this morning
from what we heard in Denver and St. Paul.

Another symbolic reason for sitting,
is to emphasize that sermon is dialogue.
I don’t take for granted
the privilege I have to climb a podium most Sundays
and speak my mind to the public for twenty minutes.
But the sermon is more than proclamation.
It’s the start of conversation.
Yes, I’m a pastor and preacher.
But my first commitment is to be faithful
as a member of this mutually discerning community.
I’m glad some Sunday School classes
are continuing the conversation.
I hope conversation continues elsewhere.
These are important matters.

Okay, but preaching politics
in a church of diverse and strongly-held political viewpoints?
Am I being courageous? Or stupid?
Or both? (which is a dangerous combination)

It will soon become clear,
that despite my provocative sermon title,
our congregation’s tax exempt status will not be at risk this morning.
Next Sunday, the 28th, is “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” . . .
according to a certain Christian group that wants all pastors
to preach for or against specific candidates,
in a mass revolt against the IRS rules.
Ehhh . . . we’re going to be busy next Sunday . . .
preaching the gospel.

Yes, politics is divisive, in this country, and in the church.
To lighten the mood we joke about it.
And then keep quiet.
Agree to disagree.
Well, this sermon is my little protest against
this thing of keeping quiet to keep the peace.
It ought not be that way in the body of Christ.

So I’m breaking the silence this morning,
not with the right answers,
but (hopefully) with the right questions.
Questions that as we ask them and explore them,
might lead to a better place.
_____________________

Let’s first ask ourselves about who we believe we are,
as a church.

Are we the body of Christ?
I think we’d all say yes to that.
We embody the presence of Jesus Christ in the world.
We continue his ministry.
So we represent the character and values of Jesus,
as a body.
I think you’re with me on that.

So, what were the character and values of Jesus,
that we need to continue?

Jesus had no shyness about politics.
He acted as a full member of Jewish society.
His people were once a sovereign nation,
but now were ruled by an empire.
Jesus rubbed shoulders with the power structures—
religious powers and state powers,
the politics of the temple and the politics of Caesar.

He was quite willing to confront either one, but not on their terms.
The religious politicians were stuck
on a certain kind of legalistic righteousness.
Jesus confronted their power,
but not by taking over their positions in the temple,
and enforcing a new righteousness.
He confronted their power by touching lepers,
eating with tax collectors,
hanging with sinful women,
and otherwise living a different kind of righteousness.
He practiced the politics of radical love.

Jesus confronted the power of the Empire,
but not by taking up arms and staging a coup,
like some other Jewish rebels.
He confronted them by refusing to acknowledge
that their power was absolute.
Caesar expected to be worshiped as Lord and Savior.
Literally. He used those words.

In Matthew 22, the gospel reading today,
Jesus was asked about paying taxes to Caesar.
He called for a coin,
and pointed out Caesar’s head, and said,
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,
and give to God what is God’s.”
That was not an endorsement of Caesar’s authority!
That was almost a revolutionary act.
He denied Caesar’s absolute and divine authority.
Caesar tried to erase any distinction
between himself and God.
Jesus drew a sharp line.
“These coins have Caesar’s picture on them.
We’ll give him that much,
and give God the rest.”
Jesus confronted the powers,
but not on their terms.

He ended up dying for it.
His death on the cross was carried out by an unholy alliance
between the politicians of the temple and of the empire.
Both seats of power were threatened
by the politics of Jesus.
And Jesus never raised a sword,
never tried to take over anyone’s position,
never demonized the opposition.
He just lived a life of radical love,
and laid down his own life as a sacrifice,
rather than betray the character of God’s kingdom.

His death on a cross—
standard execution for an insurrectionist—
did not destroy the Empire’s power,
nor the temple authority.
Those powers went on their merry way.

But God still won the conflict, we Christians confess.
The resurrection of Jesus shamed the powers.
It exposed their powerlessness.
It demonstrated that God’s power
has a radically different character,
than the power at work in the structures of this world.

As Jesus said in our reading today,
“My kingdom is not from this world.
If my kingdom were from this world,
my followers would be fighting
to keep me from being handed over.”

So I’m left to wonder.
What does this mean for the body of Christ today,
as we represent Christ in the public square?
How do we represent
the power of self-sacrifice for the good of the whole,
the power of responding to violence with love,
the power of lifting up the weak,
of blessing the poor, of welcoming the alien.
That is who we are. That is how we live.
Until we get involved in politics.

There is a stark and drastic and irreconcilable difference
between the character of the kingdom of God as revealed in Jesus,
and the character of partisan politics.

Those who seek political power and position
are not just permitted, they are expected to attack,
not only the ideas,
but the character, integrity and dignity of their opponent.

Is this the kind of activity
we who claim to represent the Spirit of Christ in the world,
should feel comfortable participating in,
or even standing on the sidelines cheering?
Can we be involved in partisan politics,
and still maintain our integrity
as citizens of God’s kingdom?
And if so, are there limits? Where do we draw the line?
_____________________

This presidential race is, in fact, rather exciting. It has drama.
All the candidates have interesting personalities, charisma,
compelling personal narratives.
In terms of gender and race, this one will be historic.
It’s hard not to get emotionally invested
no matter which side you favor.

But I still wonder,
how is it, that Christians get so thrilled about it,
get filled with religious fervor, and I mean religious fervor,
in support of their candidate?

If our first loyalty is to a kingdom where we
love our enemies,
do good to those who hate us,
lift up those who stumble,
and strengthen the weak . . .
Why do we get beside ourselves with joy
when our candidate really sticks it to the other one.
And get downright gleeful when the opposition stumbles,
when our adversary looks weak,
when our candidate piles on insults and verbal abuse.

But even putting aside the adversarial stuff,
there is a deeper question that haunts me.

If God’s mission is to save and redeem and heal the broken world,
and God chose a people—a new covenant community—
to be his agents of salvation in the world,
shouldn’t that be where our hope is?

How have we come to put so much hope,
so much expectation,
so much faith,
in which party is running the U.S. government?

Sure, it’s all very interesting.
It merits our paying attention to it.
It might even merit our participation with a vote.
But why do we Christians, of all people,
put so much stock in it?
Why are we so invested?

I wonder if it’s only possible to put so much hope
in the outcome of a political campaign,
if we have made a radical split
between public and private faith,
between the sacred and the secular.
I wonder if we get so excited about politics,
because we don’t really believe that our Christian calling
extends beyond our private, personal,
and internal relationship with Jesus.
If, however, we refuse to privatize our faith in Jesus,
if we believe that Jesus is Lord over all of life,
public and private,
then we cannot walk into the realm of politics
without taking with us our
first loyalty to the kingdom of God.
We can’t cut our lives into two parts, can we?
The part where we act like we represent the body of Christ,
and the part where we don’t?
_____________________

Some of you might think it’s naive of me,
but for some reason,
I’m inclined to trust the people of God
more than I trust a political party
to be able to help bring about the will of God in the world today.

I have a robust ecclesiology.
Or in plain English,
I am a strong believer that the church is necessary,
and is central to God’s saving plan for the world.
And by “church,” I mean
the community of Jesus followers, the body of Christ.

Now, do I think the church has a good track record
on its engagement with the world?
No, I think it’s abysmal. Read some church history.

Do I think the church today finally has its act together,
and has the moral right to set the direction
for our nation and the world?
No, the church is still a human organism,
and a system permeated by sin,
composed of and led by a bunch of sinners.
We can’t afford to be anything but
humble and deeply repentant toward the world.

Do I think the church has a corner on wisdom, expertise, and gifts
necessary to turn the course of this world around
and in the right direction?
No, as a church, we are a bunch of ordinary people,
with ideas and skills that are both ordinary,
and often contradictory.
The church looks an awful lot like the world.

But do I think that in God’s strange and indecipherable wisdom,
God chose us anyway
as the agent by which God intends to reveal his saving grace
to the world?
Do I think that the Holy Spirit has been given to the church,
for such a time as this,
to empower us,
to give us wisdom, and courage,
to authentically demonstrate God’s kingdom on earth?
Yes, I do think that.
I have to think that, if I take scripture seriously.

The kingdom of God is our home.
It’s where we belong.
It’s our identity.
And kingdom power is the power of sacrificial love,
of non-violence,
of respect for the “least of these” in the world.

So, I really wonder how we can manage to be good Kingdom citizens,
while actively engaging in national partisan political battles.

We do believe, don’t we,
that character assassination is not Christlike behavior?
We do believe, don’t we,
that using deceit, psychological manipulation, and half-truths
to gain positions of power
is not the way of the kingdom of God?
We do believe, don’t we,
that God has a higher goal for our national agenda,
than to force our will on other nations with bombs and guns?

So isn’t it rather odd Christians get so enmeshed
in a system that does exactly all those things?

Let me propose that we make just one solid, baseline commitment
going into November.
How we work it out will be up to us,
and I’m sure we won’t all choose exactly the same path.

But do you think we can all make this one commitment?

That our loyalty to the kingdom of God,
will always come first,
before our loyalty to any political party’s agenda,
or any political party’s candidate.

Kingdom ethics, and the way of Jesus,
need to shape our private and our public life,
more than partisan politics.
That ought to be a no-brainer for Christians.

So what does this mean for us sitting here at PVMC?
I’ll suggest a couple things.
In your ongoing conversations, please add some more.

Maybe, as starters, we need to not only respect and tolerate,
but honor and love each other,
as fellow disciples of Jesus.
We must stubbornly refuse to let political differences
determine who we are in fellowship with.

And maybe, instead of attending party meetings and rallies,
and soaking up partisan propaganda
that fills our mailboxes and airwaves and voicemail,
we might call together some of our brothers and sisters in Christ,
ones with whom we are in covenant,
and ones with whom we disagree on politics,
and have an evening of prayer and conversation,
asking each other how, as followers of Jesus,
we should participate in the political process this fall.
Sounds almost radical.
But isn’t it common Christian sense,
to actually use values of the kingdom of God,
and the wisdom of the discerning community,
to assess the positions and character of the candidates?

And maybe it means,
that rather than go into the voting booth believing
this is our one best chance to change the world,
we vote . . . if we vote . . . with a healthy dose of skepticism,
and throw our lot in with the people of God,
and commit ourselves to be more faithful to our calling
as local and global agents
of the saving work of God in the world.

I certainly don’t condemn those of you
who do attend party rallies,
or sport bumper stickers and plant yard signs
and are otherwise gung-ho for your party of choice.
I simply want us all to ask ourselves honestly,
what it means to be gung-ho
about our citizenship in the kingdom of God . . .
what it means to do as Jesus taught us,
to seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

We were all taught, as children, the pledge of allegiance.
That probably has its place in civil society.
But we who follow Jesus seek first the kingdom of God.
Our allegiance to Jesus Christ supercedes all others.

In your bulletin is a copy of a Christian Pledge of Allegiance.
It’s business-card size, perfect for wallets.
So take it with you.
I challenge us to be literally,
card-carrying citizens of the Kingdom of God.

If you can read this pledge in good conscience,
I invite us to do so now, in unison:

I pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ,
and to God’s kingdom for which he died—
one Spirit-led people the world over,
indivisible, with love and justice for all.

--September 21, 2008

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How (not) to evangelize

On authentic incarnational evangelism
2 Corinthians 2:14-17; 1 Peter 3:15-16

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Some Mennonites have an allergic reaction
when they hear the word evangelism or evangelical.
I guess it conjures up scary images
of revival preachers with loud suits and big hair,
of pushy door-to-door peddlers of the Gospel,
of dogmatic and divisive Christian celebrities
who pretend to speak for all Christians,
telling us what God hates about the world.

I understand and appreciate some of our allergy
to things evangelical.
We want to distance ourselves
from distasteful and offensive evangelism.
But I have heard some Mennonites make
the rather astounding claim
that Mennonites are not evangelical,
even with a small “e.”

So to those among us who are allergic to evangelism,
I want to offer some antihistamine this morning.
My goal for the sermon is not very modest, actually.
I would like all of us to walk out these doors today
not only relieved of this allergy,
but enthusiastically committed to be evangelists
for Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.
Now, before any of us break out in hives,
let me explain what I mean by evangelism.

I said last Sunday
that God is on a mission to save and redeem this world,
and that God has called a people, a community—us—
to join that mission.
The church is to proclaim God’s salvation,
and to demonstrate the saved life.
All peoples of the world are invited into a new saved life.
Saved from a self-serving, destructive, violent,
and fragmented existence that passes for life.
Saved from sin that cut us off from our Creator who loves us.
And saved back to God’s loving embrace.
A salvation offered freely . . . without coercion.

So the church is the bearer of good news
for all who have cut themselves off
from the whole life God created them to live.
We don’t have to live a half-life or non-life.
We can live fully and joyfully and freely as
the whole human beings God lovingly created us to be.
God doesn’t promise a life of constant cheer.
No, just a whole life, the complete life God created us for,
made possible through the saving work of Jesus Christ.

That’s the good message we have for the world,
a message to be shared in word, in deed, in demonstration.
That’s evangelism, literally.
The word comes straight from the Greek, eu-angelion,
translated, “good message”
So, an evangel is a “good message.”
Evangelism is the practice of sharing a good message.
Evangelists are those who share a good message.
An evangelical is one who thinks it’s a good idea
to share a good message, if we have one.

So the question is not whether Christians ought to be evangelical, or not.
The question is whether Christians even believe
they have a good message to share.

It’s hard for me to imagine that any Christian
would downplay being evangelical.
It’s basic Christian theology.
All Christians believe and affirm these three things:
(1) God is on a mission to save and redeem the world.
(2) God’s saving mission was revealed most fully in Jesus.
And (3) we, the church, are called to carry on
the ministry and message of Jesus.
How could anyone believe that,
and say they don’t think Christians should be evangelical?

I think maybe Christians who dismiss evangelism
are just dismissing a particular narrow definition of evangelism.
Maybe they’re just dismissing big-hair-loud-suit evangelism.
At least, I hope that’s the case.
I hope not too many of us actually have trouble believing
we have a good message to share.

But if we believe
that we’ve been entrusted with the good message
that God loves the world and wants to save it,
the real question is not whether, but how we share the good message.
Isn’t that the crux of the matter?
How to evangelize. How not to evangelize.
The message is good,
but it can be shared in a way that is effective,
or ineffective.
It can be shared in a way is authentic—true to the original,
or not authentic—not true to the original.
_____________________

I grew up in the church during the 60s and 70s
and heard a lot about evangelism.
I was personally schooled in the art
of presenting the Four Spiritual Laws to total strangers,
and knowing how to lead someone in the “sinners’ prayer.”

We had lots of evangelistic programs in those days.
We invested ourselves in crusade evangelism,
Christian film evangelism,
Evangelism Explosion,
door-to-door evangelism,
street evangelism,
beach evangelism,
and any number of tried-and-proven methods
of confronting individual strangers
with the good message of the Gospel.

Once, in my youthful enthusiasm, barely out of high school,
I picked up a hitchhiker, an older man,
and discovered he was in a great deal of
personal, emotional, and spiritual distress.
Before he got out of my Ford Maverick,
I had led him in praying the Sinner’s Prayer.
When we got to the other side of town,
I dropped him off and went on to my destination.
I never saw him again, of course.
I have no idea if he ever found a faith community,
or ever began a genuine walk with Jesus,
but I do know this.
I chalked up a conversion.
I would never have to hang my head
and tell my Christian friends
that, no, I had never led a person to Christ.

Now, was I compassionate and sincere in what I did?
Absolutely, I was.
Could the Holy Spirit have used that brief encounter
to bless that man’s life in some unknown way?
Yes, without a doubt.
Am I suggesting we should never share the Gospel message
with a stranger?
No, I’m certainly not.
But is there a better way of being a faithful witness
to the costly and life-transforming and community-shaping
gospel of Jesus Christ?
I sure hope so.
_____________________

David Fitch is a friend and professor of mine.
He teaches at Northern Seminary in Lombard,
and is one of my readers for the thesis I wrote this summer.
He’s also a local pastor in Chicago,
and author of a recent book called, “The Great Giveaway,”
which I highly recommend.
He has a provocative and compelling chapter on evangelism.

The method of evangelism I engaged in as a young adult
he would say is “evidentiary apologetics.”
That’s just a fancy way of saying I was using
rational and scientific arguments
to try and prove the objective truth of the gospel,
to an individual, and hopefully rational, human being.

Throughout the 20th-century, Fitch says,
in the age of Enlightenment, rationalism, and modernism,
evangelical Christians were committed to presenting the Gospel
as a rational, objectively truthful, proposition.
We believed that if we could present this objective truth
to rational human beings who were willing to seek truth,
that they would be convinced by the evidence alone,
and would make a good individual and rational decision
to accept our proposition as truth, and thus be “converted.”

That might have worked in past generations,
Fitch says, but he says it won’t fly in a post-modern culture.
It does not mean that approach is always wrong,
or that the proposition isn’t true,
or that there’s never a time for rational defense.
But, he claims, the current generation is not being impacted
by the traditional way evangelicals present truth and defend faith.

Post-moderns experience and engage truth in a different way.
They want to see how truth is lived,
not just talked about as intellectual information.
The truth of the Gospel
is a truth to be worked out in the lives of real people
living in real community,
not an intellectual argument to debate and to win.
It’s a living reality, open for people to “come and see.”

So the church becomes the center of evangelism.
It’s not just one stranger meeting another stranger,
and making a convincing case.
It’s the church community embodying the Good Message in its life.
Incarnational evangelism.
Witness rooted in Christian communal life.

Listen to how David Fitch says it,
and this is a “Big-E” evangelical pastor talking
(Christian & Missionary Alliance):
“Evangelicals often preach that what the culture needs
is absolute truth,
but what the culture needs is a church that believes the truth
so absolutely it actually lives it out.”

Now, Fitch doesn’t buy, and I don’t buy
that long-standing Christian debate
about witnessing with words vs. witnessing with our lives.
That’s a false dichotomy. It’s nonsense.
Some suggest our witness is only in our action,
and quote St. Francis of Assisi,
“Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”
Francis is right, of course.
Our lives—individually and in community—
are a constant public witness to the gospel.
But words will always be needed.

Because if we have the courage and strength and wisdom
to embody the deep truth of the Gospel in our lives,
then we will be thrust into conversations about this life we live.

That’s what the apostle said in 1 Peter 3, which we read this morning:
“Always be ready to make your defense
to anyone who demands from you an accounting
for the hope that is in you;
yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

Trust me, in this broken and sinful and cynical world,
grasping for some small shred of hope . . .
a people who live in joyful hope will stick out.
Communities that embody hope will attract attention.
They will elicit conversation.
They will be asked.
They will be challenged.
They will, as scripture suggested,
be demanded for an account of the hope that is in them.
And they will need to explain.

And as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2,
another one of this morning’s texts,
As Christ leads us together in procession through the world
a fragrance will be spread.
“We are the aroma of Christ . . .
among those who are being saved
and among those who are perishing.”
When we carry that fragrance, Paul says,
“We are not peddlers of God’s word like so many;
but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity,
as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.”

A fragrant community of Christ need not engage in salesmanship.
The good message is not something to hype, or to market.
It is embodied, and it speaks . . . with sincerity,
as people who stand in the presence of God.
_____________________

Let me share my dream for Park View Mennonite Church,
as a church.
It’s not an impossible dream.
I know that, because it is now beginning to be lived out, in part.

My dream is that every member of this larger PVMC community,
will be deeply involved in the life of smaller communities of faith
within the larger whole.
I dream of this church as a community of communities.
And in each small community we will actively
and mutually shape each other
for a missional life as a disciple of Jesus in this world.

My dream is that each one of these missional communities
will so vibrate with life and joy and hope,
and will be so open to the world around them,
so hospitable, so compassionate,
so filled with love for each other and for their neighbor,
that anyone in their vicinity cannot help but notice.

Our neighbors will be blown away by the beauty
of such a missional and communal and hopeful life.
The aroma of the living Christ will be
so compelling and so attractive,
that the seeking public will engage us,
and we will be ready
with an explanation for the hope that is within us.

These missional, incarnational, evangelical communities
will take all kinds of shapes.
One size does not fit all.
A missional community living in downtown Harrisonburg
will look different than one located in north Park View,
which will look different than one in Village Square,
or Troutbeck Lane, or at Hidden Meadow,
which will look different than one
that is scattered geographically.

I dream of a congregation filled with these evangelical communities
living out the good message in their own particular context.
I dream of communities that re-institute
the time-honored practice of hospitality,
actually inviting strangers into our homes for dinner.
David Fitch suggests in his book,
that if our lives are to be a message,
it’s in our homes that the message comes into full view.
At home is where we
laugh, talk, listen, and ask questions of each other.
It’s where we live, converse, raise children,
and deal with conflict.
When we invite a relative stranger into that space,
we take the risk of inviting them into our lives.
And better yet, do it with others in our missional community.
Then the neighbor has a chance to see the blessing
of Christian fellowship.
Not talking about a scheme, or a set-up
to spring the Gospel message on someone unsuspectingly.
Just talking about a willingness to be open to the stranger,
and to be real in their presence,
and let the Holy Spirit do the work.

I dream of communities that practice
grass-roots justice and peace-building.
We don’t need to outsource that to social service agencies.
We can practice love and mercy and justice as small communities,
bathing our actions in a life of prayer and spiritual discernment.
We have close neighbors in Harrisonbug
who suffer from injustice,
who are victims of violence,
who are exposed to the elements,
who are hungry,
who need the touch of a healing God
embodied in a loving community of Jesus’ disciples.
Will we be their neighbors?

I dream of small communities that gather to support each other
on our respective individual Christian journeys,
but know that it’s just as important
to be on a missional journey together.
Who will actively explore specific ways
to be the fragrance of life to those around us.
Like one small Christian community in Brisbane, Australia.
A group of households were living in an area of urban decay
and decided to quietly and informally refer to themselves
as the “Waiter’s Union.”
They wanted to be “waiters” in their community,
people who just “hang around and help out.”
They did not promote themselves, or set up an office,
or make a budget, or get matching t-shirts.
They just quietly developed networks of friendships,
of presence, of mutual support and respect.
This was nothing earth-shaking or even news-worthy.
But it would not have happened
without a conscious and deliberate choice to enter,
as a community, into the life of their neighborhood.
It was intentional, missional, incarnational, evangelism.

I dream of communities that make it a priority to meet together
to discern, mutually, where and how God is moving around them,
and how they might embody in their ordinary lives,
the good message of the Gospel.

I dream of a congregation made up entirely of
missional, evangelical, incarnational expressions of Christ’s body.
Communities committed to being the fragrance of life
to the world around us,
first of all, to our near neighbors,
then to our larger community,
and to the systems of power at work, locally and nationally,
and to the hurting world beyond the reach of our borders.

We are the people of God’s peace,
as a new creation,
spreading the fragrance of joy and happiness,
through God’s great salvation.
“Hope we bring in spirit meek, in our daily living.
Peace with everyone we seek, good for evil giving.”

(from "We are people of God's peace" Hymnal Worship Book #407)

--September 14, 2008

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How (not) to go to church

Series: "Before a watching world: How to be the church in public"
Sermon focus: On repositioning the church in society
Luke 10:1-12

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Irene and I have had great fun traveling in Europe.
We’ve been lucky enough to do it a couple times recently,
thanks to a daughter living there.
I like lots of things about travel in Europe.
But at the top of the list, are the cathedrals.

The architecture of European cathedrals is awe-inspiring.
The art takes my breath away.
The acoustics are sensational.
The sheer permanence of these ancient buildings is amazing.
It’s hard to describe the feeling of standing inside a church
that started to be built almost 800 years ago,
took 600 years before it was finished,
and was the tallest building in the world,
until the Washington Monument passed it.
That was our experience in the Cologne cathedral in Germany.

You don’t have to know one whit about Christianity or church history.
You just take one look at these buildings and you know,
whatever went on in there, was the most important thing in society.
You know without doubt, just by looking with your eyes,
that the church stood at the very center of civilization.
It’s rather mind-boggling for a 21st-century American.

This age when the church was the center of power and influence
is long gone.
It was called Christendom.
Christendom is dead in Europe; nearly dead in North America.
Which is a good thing, in my opinion,
but I’ll get to that in a minute.

There are still signs and symbols of Christendom,
everywhere we look . . . even here at our building.
Christendom assumes
that the church is the hub of both culture and community . . .
that everyone understands and speaks the language of Christianity. . .
that everyone knows what the cross stands for . . .
what baptism means . . .
what the Bible says about Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Paul.
In Christendom, the mindset of the church is,
if you build it, they will come.
In Christendom, when all is said and done,
the church is a place to go to.

Why else were churches always built in prominent locations?
In early American towns, the church always got the prime spot.
The top of the hill.
And with the help of a steeple, it’s visible for miles.
You know how it is, driving north on Park Road through EMU,
before the road takes a slight bend to the right,
you look straight down the road,
and directly in your line of vision is the Park View steeple.
I doubt that’s a coincidence.
That steeple says something intentional to this community.
It says, “Here is the church.”
“Here is where you come if you want Christian worship,
or Christian fellowship,
or want to hear a sermon,
or want some other Christian goods and services.”
“This is where it’s happening.”
That’s not a criticism of our church.
It’s just what churches have been long trained to do.
It’s the way we’ve been conditioned to think
in a culture of Christendom.
Church is a place.
And it’s a place you need to go to.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with churches establishing a location.
If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here.
There’s nothing wrong with advertizing our presence,
trying to be visible, trying to attract visitors.
If I thought that, I wouldn’t care about having
well-planned worship services,
or well-staffed nurseries,
or well-lit parking lots.
If I thought that,
no one would be hearing my voice on the radio right now.
No, we want to be seen and heard and visited, and rightfully so.

But, are we really satisfied holding on to a notion
that church is mainly a place to go to?
I wonder . . . when Jesus commissioned his disciples to go out
into all the world, and share the good news, and baptize,
and form communities of disciples,
who would join God’s new covenant community . . .
I wonder if he ever envisioned a church building
that would take 600 years to construct,
and stand 500 feet tall.
I wonder if he envisioned spending $95 million
to remodel a basketball stadium into a megachurch.

I’m not knocking church buildings.
Really. I’m not knocking the church as an institution.
Church buildings and church institutions
have made lots of wonderful things possible.
The best music and art this world has known,
would not exist, were it not for Christendom’s cathedrals.

But I also think we need to think long and hard
about what happens when a church pays so much attention,
and so much money and time and other resources
to grow its own structures and programs and personnel,
and be driven by its own agenda,
and pursue it’s own success.
_____________________

The church works for God.
God wants to transform and recreate the world.
But to do that, God needs the church!
It sounds preposterous for me to say it.
“God needs the church.”
Isn’t God all-powerful?
Can’t God act without us?

Well . . . let’s back up a bit.
The world and everything in it, was created
whole and beautiful and good,
as God willed it.
And God willed it to stay that way,
in harmony with itself and with God
and with all other parts of creation.
God willed community.
God willed love and relationship.
God wanted us to trust God, to depend on God,
to worship and love him,
because God so loved us, his creation.
But there cannot be love without freedom.
So God sacrificed his control for the sake of his love.
God was willing to risk rejection
in order to take a chance on being in relationship.

But we abused that freedom.
We did not trust God sufficiently.
We chose to be masters of our own destiny.
We acted violently toward others.
And destroyed the very community God willed.
After the sixth day of creation, Genesis 1:31 says,
God saw the earth and all he created,
and said “It is very good.”
But the world is no longer what God saw at creation.
In fact, just a few chapters later God saw something quite different:
Genesis 6:12—“And God saw that the earth was corrupt.”

God still, even today, wills creation to be restored.
God wills community.
God wills love and harmony and trust and intimacy between
himself and all creation,
and between created things.

That is the mission of God. That is the sole passion of God.
I don’t know any other conclusion that scripture allows.
God wants this sin-filled and broken creation to be saved and redeemed.
God wants the good harmonious creation to be restored.
And to bring it about, God needs the church.
God needs a people,
because—and this is key—God is determined
to bring about his will without coercion,
without violence,
without destroying the freedom that makes love possible.
If God reached into this world and single-handedly made things right,
fixed all creation and all people by a flick of the wrist,
it would violate the freedom essential for love.
If God is love, then we must be free.

So in God’s strange and infinite wisdom,
God chose a particular people, at a particular time and place.
And God invited this people—
I’m talking about the children of Abraham—
to be a public witness to the nations.
They were to live in a community of love and trust and harmony
that demonstrated the beauty God willed for all peoples.
And thereby the nations would see, and be fascinated by,
and drawn non-violently into God’s will.
And they would still be free.
That’s why we have that biblical image of all the nations
streaming toward the mountain of the Lord, Mt. Zion,
where the people of God live.
It’s not that Israel or any other people God chose
would dominate and forcibly rule the nations.
No, the nations would be drawn
to what God was doing among these people.
The way it works is,
the people live and embody the will of God in community,
and the world watches, sees, is drawn to the ways of God.

So God needs a people.
God first called Abraham and Sarah, and their descendants,
to be that public witness to God’s will.
And because of Jesus, whom God sent to establish a new covenant,
we carry on that call—that awesome, and humbling,
and fearful and formidable call.
To be God’s people in the world.
To be a public witness to all the nations.
God needs the church.
_____________________

Now . . . I hope I didn’t lose you in the underbrush,
as we hacked our way through that theological woods.
But it is critical that we get it.
It’s not only the foundation for this whole worship series,
it’s essential for understanding what kind of church
God wants us to be.

Let me sum it up in a few simple words.
God is love. God created this world, and us, in love.
Because God loved us, he gave us freedom.
We abused the freedom.
Creation became wounded and broken and alienated by sin.
So God’s mission is to recreate and restore the world,
and still do so with love and freedom.
So God needs a people, a community.
God needs the church
to be a free and loving and non-violent
public witness to a watching world.
A witness to God’s character and will,
a witness to God’s salvation.
As imperfect as we are, God is depending on us
to be God’s agents of world reconciliation.
_____________________

If we stop to think about that long enough,
it turns the agenda of most churches upside-down.

This is a world full of pain and brokenness and loneliness and
sin and alienation and violence.
God loves this world and is on a mission to save it.
And God called the church into being for the sole purpose
of joining with God in that mission.
That is why we are called the body of Christ.
This body image we love so much is not just a picture
of how well we fit together and are connected as a group.
The body of Christ is not a body for the sake of the body.
The body of Christ is to be a literal body—here, in the flesh—
the presence of God in the world.
Jesus gave us the same work he was given.
Jesus incarnated—en-fleshed—embodied,
the real presence of God to 1st-century Palestine.
Our ministry is still one of incarnation.
This body of Christ, the church, is to be the embodiment
of God’s saving and healing presence,
out and among the broken world.

Congregations are trained to think of their physical location,
their buildings, their staff, their ministry programs,
as the center of all the action.
Some of them even call their buildings “ministry centers.”
Wow! That’s pretty bold.

We think this is where it’s at.
So, we think we are being missional,
if we get really good at getting people to come here,
into our place, on our terms, at our appointed times.
We adopt a market mentality as a congregation.
Success is measured in how many human bodies
we get to walk through our doors,
and how many dollars get put into our budget.
It becomes a competition, like it or not, with other churches.
We start thinking that outreach means good advertizing.

But when a church doubles in Sunday morning attendance in one year,
that’s no evidence that it’s being missional.
Not in the least.
It’s a sign that it’s doing a very good job of attracting people
into its program and physical plant.

God’s mission, remember, is to restore the broken,
to save the alienated,
to reconcile the estranged,
and redeem those held captive by sin.
Evidence that a church is being missional
is that it’s deeply connected to the people around it
that God desires to save.
A missional church is concerned first and foremost,
about incarnating, embodying,
the love of God in the lives of its neighbors.

Sure, a church that is engaged in the mission of God will also, likely,
be attractive to some, perhaps to many.
But that is not the point. That is a potential by-product.

It’s this incarnation
that lies at the heart of today’s gospel story in Luke 10.
Jesus sent his disciples out into the surrounding villages
with the good news that God’s kingdom was near.
Their mission was a far cry from the mission of most congregations.
Jesus’ disciples went empty out into the world—
no moneybag, no sandals, nothing.
They made themselves vulnerable.
They made themselves dependent upon those they ministered to.
They lived out the reality of God’s kingdom
in the midst of places of need.
They were God’s hands and God’s feet,
and God’s mouth and God’s heart.
They were practicing incarnational ministry.

Congregations have a choice.
They can orient themselves around attraction—
and this is what the vast majority of American congregations do,
I’m afraid.
We can position ourselves as the “best church to go to,”
and work really hard, and effectively,
at attracting the most people to our “ministry center.”
One church in Orlando puts out ads saying, “Come to ABC Church.
Our worship is awesome, and our ministries are second to none.”

Or,
congregations can orient themselves around incarnation.
We can recognize that our primary task
is to be the literal body of Christ,
to embody a healing God in a wounded world.
We can orient our priorities around the question
of how much time, attention, people, and money
are being invested in the lives of our neighbors,
and strangers and aliens . . . and systems . . .
in the community around us?
versus how much is being invested at our own location,
and the religious activities that take place here?

Like I said,
there is nothing wrong with being attractive as a congregation.
I want us to value people who come to us.
I want us to give ourselves, even sacrificially,
to welcome those who come.
I want our doors to be open . . . wide open.
We must learn and practice habits of friendliness and hospitality.

But we cannot let attraction be the tail that wags the dog.
Otherwise, we’ve sold out to the consumerism and individualism
that controls our culture.
“Come to the church with the biggest and the most.”
“Come to the church that will meet your needs the best.”
“Come to the church that has ministries second to none.”

It is not our mission at Park View Mennonite Church
to convince people to “go to church” here.
The mission of this church is God’s mission.
Our mission is to embody
the loving and saving presence of the living God
precisely in those places in our community and in our world
that God most wants to save.
The places in the shadows that many of us like to avoid.
Or the neighbors down our street who we have never met.

We were not called into this faith community
known as Park View Mennonite Church,
so we could “go to church.”
We were called to “be the church.”
Being the church, includes, of course,
regularly and frequently gathering as a community
to serve God together in acts of worship,
to care for each other,
to nurture and challenge and support each other.
That is a priority.
But we cannot truly be the church,
unless all those acts of ministry are aimed toward
sending us out these doors
to embody the love and presence of God in this world.

Let’s move beyond being church-goers.
Let’s be the people God needs in this world we see out our windows.



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