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Shaky Foundations

August 15, 2010 You’ve probably heard the Sufi story of a holy person busily searching the ground outside the front of his house. Asked what he was looking for, he replied, “My button.” “Where did you lose it?” came the question. “There, inside the house,” he pointed. “Then why are you looking here?” “Because the light is so much better out here.” The church seems haunted by a strange pointlessness. In presbyteries and conferences and in national offices we struggle through issues and develop our positions. But we have a queasy feeling that the people in the pews and the rest of society couldn’t care less! In our task forces and coalitions, we protest injustice and hear the hollow echo of our own voices. Pew sitters, and the folk outside the church, regard the larger church in the same way a jogger regards a yapping Pekingese behind a picket fence. So we go back to our analysis of theological, ecclesiastical, and justice issues, hone them more sharply, articulate them more precisely, and hope somehow in that to lead and inspire??????? We come up empty. We’ve left out the key ingredient. We’re looking for our buttons in the wrong place. [Ralph Milton, Good Time God, pg 26] Rev. David Ewart of North Vancouver, B.C., has been called “Doctor Doom” for his dire predictions of the future of the United Church. In an article in the June edition of The Observer, he notes statistical trend charts that show the church losing 26 percent of its congregations by 2025, with average congregational membership down to 107, and 14 people at weekly worship. “We’re on a downhill roll here,” says Ewart, “and there is no bottom to the trend.” General Council recently offered new programs to help congregations adapt, but the 2010 Observer Survey (which your Ministry and Personnel Committee has had access to) seems to bear out Ewart’s forecast. On this Pastoral Charge, where have all the people gone? More than a third of respondents (lay and clergy combined) say their congregations are not financially healthy, and 46 percent say they are shrinking. More than half don’t expect their congregation to last more than 15 years, and 24 percent give it a five-year lifespan. Some see their churches caught in the quicksand of changing social and cultural priorities as people turn away from religion. In rural Saskatchewan, Hugh Hawkins of Kyle United says dropping attendance may be due to the competition for that one hour a week on Sunday, but at the same time falling church membership is tied to shrinking rural populations. What can make a difference? Not surprisingly, ministers claimed preaching was the most important thing they do. Perhaps also not surprisingly, a good majority rated their last four sermons as “excellent.” And what makes a good sermon? Ministers say it’s well rehearsed, biblical, prophetic, grace-filled, relevant, and not too long. Okay??? Anyhow ... Lay people, on the other hand, especially those who are older and live in small towns, think pastoral care is most important. So do Maritimers, more than any other region. Although the Atlantic provinces are known for great preaching, Rev. Kendall Harrison, Conference personnel minister, whom we also know as friend, isn’t surprised by the response. “Nothing is more important here than community,” he says. It seems the Church we are affiliated with is on Shaky Foundations. In the June Observer, in an article entitled with those words, Rev. Connie denBok writes: This spring the General Council Executive launched a bold new initiative to restructure the church courts, retrain the workers, and restore a cutting edge to our communication technology. The days of denial are done: we don’t have to pretend the church is “losing the dead wood” (a standard response from the 1970s); “walking through a wilderness on its way to the Promised Land” (1980s); or “being undermined by reactionary forces” (1990s). These days, we’re better off quoting Jerry Lee Lewis: “There’s a whole lot of shakin’ going on.” “Yes, folks,” Rev. denBok writes, “we have finally arrived at the place where we can consider changing direction. Whew!” Forget the recriminations and “I told you sos.” This is serious business. And we don’t have much time (although God has a solid track record of surviving church crises!) The United Church of Canada was constructed like a new home built out of three existing buildings hauled onto a new piece of property and joined by a shared basement. As those who gathered for the inaugural worship service sang, “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.” Then, every few General Councils, we slapped a new porch onto the side. And now part of the roof is sagging, and some of the walls are leaning in increasingly eccentric directions. We have big decision to make: a coat of paint? renovate? or rebuild? The theologial word for making a new start is metanoia, which translates from New Testament Greek as “restructuring.” No, that’s completely false. Meta signifies a change or transformation. Noia is the state of our heart and mind toward another. The word really means “repentance.” Restructuring presumes disordered structures. Repentance presumes a misguided spiritual core: foundation problems. The concept has fallen into disrepute because most of us prefer our hearts not be judged in need of change!! A recent study by Tufts University quotes an American Methodist minister who admits he no longer believes in God but has not yet told his congregation. He describes his Sunday-morning duties as play-acting: “I see myself as taking on a role of a believer in a worship service and performing.” One thing to be said for us United Church of Canada people, we are not hypocrites about unbelief. A young person I know interviewed as a youth pastor last fall. “We wouldn’t want you talking about God. Our youth ministry is completely secular.” Later, the young man asked me, “Why is it considered a United Church ministry?” A very good question! Before church union, the question was,can a single church radically include Arminians and Calvinists; Methodists and Presbyterians; pietists and intellectuals; sticklers for church government and Congregationalists? The question today is this: Can a single church radically include those who assume their main business is working toward the kingdom of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and those who consider it peripheral at best? If our task is restructuring, what more can we do than shuffle pieces into new patterns? As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But if our task is repentance, then let’s go back to our foundations and dig again, but deeper. Let’s turn our hearts toward God and consider if, where and how we lost our way. Because as surely as there is a God, there is a way ahead. (Used with permission of Rev. denBok, to whom we owe our thanks for permission and for insight.) Amen. To Rev. denBok’s words, we would add the words of our Gospel Lesson, the confession of Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 13:16-18) If we seek a way ahead, I think we need to go back beyond the beginnings of our denomination or those groups who united to become the United Church of Canada. I think we need to go back to our roots in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our work in His church and in the world. Historically and factually, there would be no Christians, no Christianity, without the existence and the ministry of a Jew named Jesus of Nazareth, who lived, loved taught, cared, preached, and gathered folk together. Jesus who dwells with us right now ... living, loving, caring, teaching, and gathering us close. Jesus, whom Peter came to see as Christ, the Son of God, in whom we live and move and have our being as disciples and as the church. Our Gospel Lesson, Jesus response to Peter’s confession of faith is this: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah!!!” “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it!!” This verse has been used to support the view that the church is founded on Peter. This is historically the position of the Roman Catholic Church. Such a view though overlooks the play on words in the Greek text that Jesus made. He first said “You are Peter” (which in Greek means rock or “rock-man”) and then he said, “on this rock” (which also means rock but has feminine attributes) “I will build my church.” Two views of Christ’s play on words have been advanced. One is that when he said, “on this rock I will build my church,” he pointed to himself as being that rock, on which he would build the church. In the other view, the rock was Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God; and on that confession Christ would build his church. But that doesn’t matter. In either case the church is build on Christ. In I Corinthians (3:11) Paul says that the church is built on Christ: “... for no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.” And in Ephesians (2:20) he says the church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” Whatever may have been the role of apostles and prophets, Jesus, the chief cornerstone, is the one on whom the church is founded. All authority belongs to the risen and ascended Christ, who reigns in glory over the church. The way to repentance and renewal begins and ends in Him. The life of this church depends on the One who calls us to be the Church. There is a way ahead. I believe the way begins with the words, “You are the Christ ... the Son of the Living God ...” “Show us the way .....”