I preached this sermon at St. Andrew's and at Dominion City on January 20/08 and at Green Ridge on January 27/08

It’s January 27th today, and we definitely know we live in Manitoba in the middle of winter with this deep freeze. And I heard rumblings about bonspiel season and people looking for Brier tickets. And there’s another season we’re in. Any guesses? The season of Annual Meetings. Valley Pastoral Charge had its AGM on Thursday. Next Sunday Green Ridge, then Emerson, and then Dominion City will have theirs. And at these meetings decisions will be made that impact our communal life together.  As your church board prepares for this congregation’s Annual Meeting this is a good time for us to think about our church.

I have a story that’ll start us off.

One day Christopher Wren, the architect who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, was walking around the cathedral building site and he saw 4 bricklayers, one at each of the 4 walls under construction.
1. The architect went to the first bricklayer on the east wall and asked him what he was doing. He replied, “I’m putting cement on the bricks.”
2. The architect went to the south wall and asked the next bricklayer the same question, and he answered, “I’m building a wall.”
3. The architect went to the west wall and asked the bricklayer what he was doing and he said he was building a church.
4. The architect went to the north wall and asked the same question. This bricklayer replied, “I’m building a cathedral that will glorify God and will inspire and comfort a whole community.”

I heard this story six years ago in a stewardship sermon preached by a United Church minister named Michael Wilson and it has stuck with me ever since. It’s not really his story. Michael heard a man named Richard Olivier tell it on the radio. Often this story is the one that pop up whenever I think of the stewardship of the church. This story talks about a model of church with 4 perspectives. I think we can use each of these 4 perspectives or characteristics to think about our own church. And I need to emphasize that churches are NEVER so simple that they can be absolutely categorized like that. All churches have all 4 characteristics in them. It’s just that at any one time one trait seems to stick out more than the rest, and be the main thing at that time.
1. Slopping cement onto bricks group:
These churches make sure everything is stable and smoothly running. They fix everything in sight. A bill comes in they pay it. A pipe leaks they fix it. A baby needs baptizing, they get the baby done. They place volunteers. They set budgets. They fundraise. They plan dinners. This church is in a continuous loop of decide and do.
2. Building a wall. This is the committee church. This church creates elaborate committees that hold meetings whether or not they need to. Perks are provided in the committees so they’ll stay happy. All resources go towards committee work. During my first few weeks here Bob and Myrna told me that the committees at VPC behaved a little differently than I was perhaps used to. They do what they need to do in order to work. I am fascinated by the fact that I will be attending 4 Annual Meetings.

3. Building a church building  This church puts all its resources into its building.

4. Building a cathedral that glorifies God and inspires, challenges, and comforts a whole community. Last week’s scripture reading gives us a picture of this character of the church. What is John the Baptist doing? Testifying, telling the truth about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Today John and his brother James drop what they’re doing, leave poor old Zebedee in the boat and follow Jesus. Last week Jesus asked a very good question to his followers, “What are you looking for?” and then the church asked Jesus where he was staying, he said,  “Come and See” and the church stayed with Jesus. THIS is the church that is building a cathedral that glorifies God and inspires, challenges and comforts a whole community. This is the “Come and See” church. It’s not the “You should come and see”. It’s the “Come and you will see” church. This is the church that dares to tell the truth because this church knows that they are not the ones who are ultimately accountable. This church knows that God takes responsibility for what’s going on in the church.

My ordination interview: Last year at this time Jan 12, 2007 I was shaking in my boots and preparing for my ordination interview. The was the yes or no interview. Yes I was suited and ready to be a United Church accountable minister or no. I entered the room and there were 4 United Church ministers sitting in a circle. I was in court and they were all the judges ready to interrogate me. I was ready to testify how God has called me to ministry. Durnign the hour and a half interveiw I can't say that I said anything really profound. At one time I even asked for some time to think about my answer to a question they asked, ‘What would you throw out in the United Church of Canada? And I closed my eyes and I prayed to God. I took time. And then when too much time had passed I said, “I’m coming up with nothing. I don’t know.” After the hour and a half interview they told me that I was to leave the room and they were going to talk about me. After about 15 or 20 minutes they called me back. And this is what they said, “All of us were very impressed.” I thought to myself.....What!? Impressed? With that?

I’m learning more and more about that means. The church of God doesn’t have flashy splashy church leaders who have all the answers. The church has leaders who point to the one leader, God, who does have all the answers. The church is not a place where we endlessly fix things with an long To Do list. The church is not a place where umpteen meetings are supposed to happen. The church is not a brick building. When Jesus said ‘church’ in the New Testament he really meant people not buildings. The church ultimately is God’s church. God’s mission. God’s instrument.

Yes, we pay bills and we fix pipes and we place volunteers. We organize committees. We maintain a building. We do all those things but none of those things is our ultimate purpose.  We do all those things in order to carry out God’s ministry here at ____________ United Church. And so we have to keep our ears and eyes toward God. We listen and see for where God is staying. Where Jesus is staying. And we go there and hang around Jesus for awhile. We pray.  God promises to be our God, naming us, equipping us, sending us, even protecting us and it is up to us to hold God accountable to all that. God is ultimately responsible for what goes on in this church.

Now, our part is to let go and let God run the church and that’s not an easy task. It’s not easy because we live in the world out there and the world out there lives in us. But still we have to do our best. God is already working out in this church planning and planting and growing seeds of kingdom all over.

I’m not sure how the season of Annual Meetings will turn out this year but I hope that in our call, in our struggle to be the church together that someone, maybe even a few of us, or even the whole congregation might look up at some point during an Annual Meeting or during a Board Meeting or a Potluck Lunch to see Jesus beckoning us to follow and I hope when this person or these people see Jesus, that they might dare to tell the rest of us “Look I see the Christ bringing life and passion where there is apathy and dullness.” Look I see the Savior liberating us from our stuck places. Look I see the Prince of Peace ushering in peace and justice for all. And when that person or those people, those John the Baptist’s among us speak out, may we all hear go there and follow.          May it be so.