CHANGING TIMES

May 2, 2010
Easter 5
John 13:31-35
Acts 11:1-18



(prayer)
As a minister in the United Church, I am not only connected to this congregation, but I am part of the wider church. The United Church is structured as a series of Councils, each one made up of the smaller Councils that precede it. That’s why we sometimes the United Church as a Councilliar church. The congregation (pastoral charge) is the base of the denomination. Congregations send representatives to Presbyteries; Presbyteries send representative to Conference and Conferences send representatives to the General Council, which is the national organizing body of the church.
As a minister, my main wider church connection is with the Presbytery. One of the main roles of Presbyteries is to work with congregations that are looking for new ministers. The first step of that process is to take a good look at the needs and capacities of the congregation and see what kind of ministry is needed and is possible.
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I spent sometime this past week with people representing four congregations who are looking at working together and sharing a full time minister. All four congregations have histories that go back to the late 19th century. One of them still meets in a building that was built in 1903. And the really good news is that all four churches are open to working out a new relationship between them.
There a few regions like this within Yellowhead Presbytery where, ideally, we would have smaller churches, with part-time ministers, work together so that full time ministry is possible. You’d be surprised how hard it is to get some of these churches interested in moving forward in this way. It’s almost as if they are reluctant to admit that things have changed and that shrinking is not the only option.
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It should come as no surprise to anyone that some of the churches in smaller towns or in rural areas are the victims of changing times.
There is no longer a family on every quarter section. Road improvements and the fact that many families have two or more vehicles, which means that people are more mobile, which opens up the possibilities for how they use their time. And further to that point ... we are busier than our grandparents and great-grandparents were – or at the very least we have more things on the go, that’s for sure.
Many churches that once flourished have shrunk significantly, just due to changing rural populations. When we also consider the cultural changes around church, we can understand why some churches have had to close or why they can no longer afford the ministry levels they have enjoyed in the past.
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These congregations (and our own here in Leduc) were results of the imperialistic European expansions into North America. Since Christianity was deeply imbedded into European culture at the time, as people immigrated into these lands, they brought their beliefs and practices – and they dominated and flourished.
We are all aware of some of devastating impacts that had on the culture of the peoples who already inhabited these lands. As Canadians and as people of the United Church, we are just coming to terms with the fallout from things like the aboriginal residential school programs – set up by government policy and willingly and complicitly run by churches.
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Building on centuries of Christian dominance in Europe, the new nations of the America’s would often be described as “Christian Nations” – that, in spite of common constitution separations of church and state; and ... rights and freedoms of religious expression and practice.
This presumption (either legislated or implied) that Christianity was the true religion of the society and culture could be described as “Christendom”.
In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Most historians would describe that as the beginning of the Age of Christendom.
The founding of the United Church of Canada in 1925 was a product of this thinking. Many European countries had “national churches” – the coming together of some of the transplanted British churches in Canada was an attempt to create something like that here. I’m never quite sure of the legal significance to it, but [did you know] that the UCC was actually brought into being by an Act of the Canadian Parliament. It’s the only church in Canada to have ever been created in that way.
The United Church of Canada is a Christendom Church.
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I would suggest that the Age of Christendom has, for most part, ended.
There was a time, even a half a century ago within our nation, when Sundays were expected to be days for church exclusively. Laws prohibited stores from opening and doing business; sports organizations never would think about scheduling games or practices on Sundays [A preacher-dad wouldn’t have to miss his son’s second day of summer games football try-outs]. It was even illegal to sign a business contract on a Sunday. The law in Alberta was even called “The Lord’s Day Act”.
All that has changed over my life time; I am part of the generation that witnessed the change.
I know that this is a depressing prospect for some people (who were raised in the church before the days of Sunday shopping), but (personally) I am less concerned, in fact, I think it provides opportunities that are wonderful and exciting.
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This is not your great-grandfather's church.Times have changed and the church needs to get with it.
The funny thing is that it has always been that way - changing.
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Jesus reminded his closest followers that they had been loved. Loved in the spirit of the way the old scriptures describe God loving creation. Jesus further reminds them that love is to be dynamic – it is to be shown and shared.
34”I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
The fact that this conversation is maintained and relayed through the writing of the gospel of John, we can imply that it was a strong belief of the early church that one of the signs of a person’s discipleship was that they loved as Jesus loved.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned the fact that the Greek language has more than one word for love: I had mentioned phillos [slide]: “brotherly love”; love of friends and family. There is also: agape [slide] “unconditional love”. I never had cause to mention eros [slide] as in erotic – that’s passionate love. Back to agape [slide] – that’s the word used again in John. Love - like Jesus loved – without reserve, just ... love.
It’s amazing how hard unconditional love is – unconditional anything is hard to accept. There’s always a catch. There is always an exception isn’t there?
Surely even love has its limits.
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The News made its way to the followers in Jerusalem that Peter had been dining with gentiles while he had been away visiting the “believers” living in Lydda and Joppa. Jesus had said that they were to love one another as he had loved. Now this may been intended to mean unconditional love, but it was limited to just their small group, right? Love one another means love just each other, right?
Even though Jesus had demonstrated a willingness to reach beyond the origins of his own faith with his words and action, the “Jesus-Movement” which Peter and the others kept alive after Jesus death and resurrection was pretty much contained within Judaism, certainly that was true among the believers in Jerusalem.
Things were starting to change. Paul had now become an Apostle and he was spending time in gentile territory. We can tell from some of Paul’s letters that there was a significant vein of thought within the early church that felt that it was okay if gentiles became believers as long they followed the beliefs of the original disciples. In other words, gentiles could become Christian, but it would involve a conversion to Judaism, because for the original followers, this Way of Jesus was simply a new expression of their historic faith.
But the times they were a-changin’.
Peter felt that God was calling him out of this bubble. And so he told the others the story
‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven [slide], being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” The voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’
The Love of Christ was trying to be “unconditional” – who was Peter that he should get in the way.
The times they were a-changin’. [slide]
And they still are!
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With the dying of Christendom, being a Christian changes. No longer can we rely on government or society in general to force everyone to follow our practices.
And I say, Amen!
The job of sharing the Christian message and showing the Way of Jesus is the job of the Church and of the people who count themselves among the followers of Jesus – not the job of government.
To be honest, “we” got lazy and willingly gave that job away because we liked the numbers of people in church (many of whom were there simply out of a sense of societal obligation). We let inflated numbers justify our in-action.
Today ... there is little societal pressure to go to church. In fact, the pressure might actually be the opposite. You go to church? Why?
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So why are we still here? Why are you here? My guess is because you have a sense of a connection to something beyond yourself. Maybe it is a strong feeling that has convinced you that there is a God and that this God makes a difference in your life. Maybe it’s less defined, but is a yearning for Spirit (like there was for the gentiles in Caesarea). Maybe you’re trying to figure out if there is something more. Perhaps there is simply something compelling in the story of Jesus that draws you. Accounts passed on to us about the meeting of the human and the divine – and the comfort which the thought of that brings to what might appear to be our finite existence. It was the author of the gospel of John who expressed this with words like these: And God so loved the world, [slide] that in Jesus there is not condemnation, but unending safety.
There’s that word again: LOVE (agape).
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Some of the baggage of the age of Christendom causes us problems in the 21st century. Our arrogance: that we had the “only monopoly on the truth” was a means of stifling questions and worries, rather than addressing them and letting them teach us and grow us in the Spirit. Diversity and change were seen as threats, not opportunities.
I believe that a change in this attitude in many churches is leading to wonderfully honest 21st century faith. The times they are a-changin’.
When I was a Commissioner to the United Church’s General Council in 2006, we got a sneak peak at an advertising campaign that the church had just approved, which aimed to let people know that we (the UCC) value people’s questions; that we encourage really faithful engagement and that we weren’t going to try and quell compelling “real” questions with easy (but unsatisfying) answers.
Remember these United Church ads that were intended to start faith conversations with challenging questions, not end them with EZ answers: [slide]
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It isn’t all change. There is still a firm foundation on which all of this diversity can safely rest.
A belief that at the heart of God, at the heart of Jesus’ gospel is “agape”. We echo the words of ancient storyteller of creation – that the world we know - a world whose origins are in God - is “good”. Genesis 1:31God saw everything that [God] had made, and indeed, it was very good.
How tragic it is that Christianity has spent far too long preaching against this. We have convinced far too many people that to be Christian means that you can’t believe in a good world, but that you had to believe in a sinful one; that we can’t rely on God for unconditional love but must earn God’s love; that Jesus’ life means nothing – that he is merely the forced sacrificial martyr sent with the sole purpose of making God’s love conditional.
In my heart, I just don’t feel that. It may put me at odds with traditional Christian orthodoxy, but I can’t reconcile it with the call to love like Jesus loves – agape.
And I know that I am not alone!
The times are changing, I think more and more people are beginning to realize that the heart of the gospel is love not sin; and that we do a dis-service to that gospel (“good news”), when we try to hinder the Spirit’s efforts to show that God’s love is truly unconditional.
We are to love as Jesus loved – as the Spirit of Christ continues to love!
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We are invited to be witnesses to the [slide] Holy Mystery ... which is Wholly Love.
Let us pray: >>>>>>


(prayer)
Holy God,
May we know, deep in our hearts, that you love us. Amen.

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