The Reverend John E. McGinn, Rector
Saint John’s Episcopal Church
Sandwich, Massachusetts 02563
April 20, 2008 5
Easter
Today’s sermon is taken from
the Epistle 1st Peter, chapter 2, verses 1-10.
There’s a
old story about a small church out in a rural area that needed a pastor to fill
in for a short period of time, so they contacted a nearby seminary. The seminary sent a student who had never
been outside of the city. When he
arrived that the church, the student preacher was shocked to see a hound dog
seated in the second row next to the church’s lay leader, a crotchety older man
who was known to run off those young student pastors. In a heat of righteous indignation, the young
preacher headed straight toward the dog, and he screamed and it,
and he drove the dog out of the church.
A startled congregation held its breath to see what the lay leader would
do but nothing happened. After the
sermon everyone quickly scooted out the side door and waited for the older man
to come out. When he graciously greeted
the young pastor at the front door, everyone was taken aback. They had never seen him be that courteous to
a student preacher before. The old lay
leader extended his hand and said, “I want to thank you for kicking my dog out
of church.” The seminary student was
also shocked. “You want to thank
me?” “Yup,” said the older man, “I
wouldn’t have had my dog hear that sermon for nothing.”
Churches are sometimes funny
places. Sometimes things happen in
churches that aren’t so funny. Sometimes
they are downright tragic. Churches can
be a disappointment to God. There are
many times when the church has remained silent in the face of unspeakable evil. I am certain that many times in our history
the world has directed that question to the church. Why do you not do something? I am equally certain that God directs that
question to us as well. Why do you not
do something?
I love the church. I believe in the church; but let’s face it…we
are not having the impact on the world that Jesus has called us to have. It may be that we have not understood who or
what Jesus has called us to be.
I want you to listen again to
these words from today’s Epistle that Jack just read from 1st Peter
and ask yourself what it is that you believe Jesus asks of us. “But you are a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the
praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are
the people of God. Once you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Who are we? A chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. I am convinced that there are many people who
do not understand who we are and what we are about. Many people, even many on our own membership
roll, look at the church as a chapel, a temple, a shrine; even - God help us -
as a museum. That is, to many people the
church is a place to do to pay homage to God.
Some go weekly, some go every month or so, some
perhaps twice a year. Once they’ve done
that, they feel they have fulfilled their religious obligation. And these are nice people; however, they
don’t have a clue about what it means to be a church.
The church is not a place we
go. The church is who we are. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God.
This building, as beautiful as it is, is not the church. It is where the church meets, and when you
leave this building, you are still the church; and when you go to your civic
club, you are still the church; and when you dine with your family, and when
you have recreation, and when you go to the office, and when you fulfill your
civic responsibility and cast your ballot on election day, you are still the
church. And if you do any of these
things with no thought to God, you are betraying your calling as a follower of
Jesus.
Around 125 A.D., Aristides, the philosopher, describes the early Christian
community to the Roman Emperor Haydrian like this: “They love one another. The never fail to help widows. They save orphans from those who hurt
them. If they have something, they give
freely to the person who has nothing. If
they see a stranger, they take him home as a brother or sister in the spirit of
God.”
That’s who we are; or at
least that’s who we’ve been called to be.
Church is not a place we go.
Church is who we are. Our
confusion about who we are reminds me of a joke that has been circulating from
time to time. It plays on the stereotype
of our somewhat liberal Unitarian friends:
Q: What do you get
when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness and a Unitarian?
A: Someone who
knocks on your door for no particular reason.
I’m convinced that is a
picture of many modern Christians - not just Unitarians. Many of us are nice people, religious people;
but we are confused about who we are and what we’re supposed to do. It would be helpful, I believe, to think of
ourselves as priests. The priesthood of
all believers, after all, is supposed to be the rock upon which faith is based,
but it is a doctrine which has been nearly forgotten. When I say that we are to think of ourselves
as priests, I don’t mean that in a religious sense - serving Sacraments, and
preaching, and hearing confessions.
However, we are called to be representatives of God, just as a priest
represents God, we are to be priests to one another.
Christian believers have a
responsibility for one another. I think
the New Testament is clear about that.
Who are we? Priests who want to
know. Regardless of whether we see eye
to eye on things, we have a responsibility to one another.
There is a Zulu proverb that
goes like this: “When a thorn pierces
the foot, the whole body bends over to pull it out.” When one person in a community experiences
pain, the rest of the community shares its strength with that person in order
to ease the pain. That’s who we are -
priests to one another.
We are also called to be
priests to the world. That is, we are
God’s representatives to our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, and to the
wider world for whom Jesus died.
A leader at a church
conference told about his young son who one day came home from school with
something he wanted to show his mother.
“Mom, we’re studying dinosaurs and look what I have!” he said
enthusiastically. He showed her a
picture of a gigantic dinosaur towering over a two-story house, and then he
asked his mother a very difficult question:
“When did we kill off all the dinosaurs,” he asked, “so that it would be
safe for houses to be built and for kids to play outside?” “Well,” replied his mother, “we didn’t kill
off the dinosaurs, and we don’t know exactly how they were eliminated. Many scientists believe that it was the
result of an Ice Age when the plants the dinosaurs ate were frozen out, and the
dinosaurs starved. And others suggest it
was a giant meteorite that caused a great change in the temperature, and
dinosaurs could not adapt and survive in the cold. Nonetheless,” explained his mother, “it was
the result of tremendous climate change that humans were able to build cities
and children were able to play outside - not the result of a successful hunting
of dinosaurs.”
This leader went on to
suggest that in similar fashion, the task of the church is not necessarily to
slay the giant dragons as much as it is to change the climate so that the
Gospel may flourish. And I think that
that’s a wonderful metaphor. The purpose
of the church is to change the spiritual and social and moral and political
climate of our world, so that the kingdoms of this world bear a more striking
resemblance to the Kingdom of God. We do
this by ministry to individual persons in need, and we do this by the witness
of our lives to the world.
This church is not a place to
go. The church is who we are. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God.
We are to be priests to one another.
We are to be priests to the world.
We are people who have a strong sense of God’s presence in our lives.
Author Jane Smiley in her
novel A Thousand Acres describes the condition of many people who bear
the name Christian. She tells about a
highly dysfunctional family. They had
many problems; still they were faithful in their attendance at church each
Sunday. And here is how the novel’s
narrator sums up their religious commitment:
“We came to church to pay our respects, not to give thanks.”
That’s how many people,
unfortunately, regard the church. They
pay their respects, but then have no real consciousness that God is alive in
our world. They come to pay their
respects, but not to give thanks. It
grieves me that many of the people who even come to our church feel that
way. No wonder the church has so little
impact on our world. We need to show
them who we are: A chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.
A few weeks after he was
elected President of the United States, Ronald Reagan shared with the nation a
letter that he had received from an elementary school in Iowa. A child had written, “Dear Mr. President, You
have now been elected President of the United States. Now go to the oval office and get to
work.”
It’s time, I think, for the
church of Jesus Christ, this royal priesthood called by God to represent God in
the world, to get to work so the world knows exactly who we are. Do you know who you are? It’s a lot to live up to: A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people belonging to God.
Amen