Sermon for CATM – April 6, 2008 – “Worship – An Act of Community”
There’s a fellow who about ten years ago was a regular attender at CATM. Since then he’s had tremendous legal and then medical problems, and he’s been out here on Sundays only very rarely; I’ve been quite involved personally over the years in his legal struggles.
Recently we caught wind that he wasn’t doing so well. So I called Ruth, who does lay-pastoral work, and she and Kirk were all set up to go visit him and provide some practical assistance.
As it turned out this fellow had to go to the hospital and so he couldn’t receive Ruth and Kirk, but he said something interesting to me when he learned that Ruth and Kirk were planning to see him.
He said: “You know what? You don’t have a church; you don’t have parishioners – not in the usual sense. You have a family that takes care of each other; that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”
Scripture Readings: All Stand
"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved". Acts 2:42-47
"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need". Acts 4:32-35
How do those passages make you feel? Do they warm you because they speak of the unity of the early followers of Christ? One in heart and mind, breaking bread together, praising God and enjoying the favour of everyone?
Do they intimidate you because it sounds far too communal? Selling everything? Having everything in common? No possessions of my own?
Does it mystify you because you think of the church as a whole and you think of our church here as nothing like what described in this passage?
Does it encourage you because you perhaps see the same spirit at work in the church today, or at least you’ve talked to enough people to get a sense that there are many who value Christian community and deeply appreciate its potential, even if we fall far short of the mark?
Today we’re going to look at worship as an act of community. An act of community. Now that might strike you as a bit of an odd thing. Isn’t WORSHIP something that you and I do on our own?
Isn’t it your decision to come to church? Your decision to enter into worship or to keep your distance from God? Your decision to offer yourself to God as an individual choice? What does your worship have to do with the community around you?
We kind of think this way…don’t we? We think of ourselves as individuals, as separate persons. That kind of thinking is very normal in the western world. We are not often challenged when we talk this way.
When everybody thinks the same way, it’s pretty easy just to go along for the ride. And some Christians are content to allow “the way things are done” to be defined by the culture around them. Some Christians work very hard to keep up with the culture around them.
But if we take the Bible as more important than the surrounding culture; if we believe that the Word of God has more authority in our lives than the prevailing culture, we need to be open to what it says.
What does God call us to? Are these descriptions of the church that we’ve heard just pie-in-the-sky? Or is there more perhaps than meets the eye to this thing we do in this place, on Sundays and throughout the week for many of us?
There’s a story told by Randy Frazee in his book called "The Connecting Church." He has a son who was born without a left hand. One day in Sunday School the teacher was talking with the children about the church.
To illustrate her point she folded her hands together and said, “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple; open the doors and see all the people.”
She asked the class to do it along with her – obviously not thinking about his son’s inability to pull this exercise off. Then it dawned on her that the boy wouldn’t be able to join in.
Before she could do anything about it, the little boy next to his son, a friend of his from the time they were babies, reached out his left hand and said, “Let’s do it together.” The two boys proceeded to join their hands together to make the church and the steeple.
Frazee says, "This hand exercise should never be done again by an individual because the church is not a collection of individuals, but the one body of Christ."
What does that mean? That we are the body of Christ? And in terms of worship as we continue to look at worship in our current series, what does it mean…this idea that we are in this together?
If we’re not suppose to turn inward and follow our culture’s cues. If healthy Christians do not live or practice their faith in isolation…if worship is intended by God to be AN ACT OF COMMUNITY...then what does it mean for us?
Worship: An Act of Community: The Great Leveller
Let’s have a look at our key scriptures for today. [ Display Acts 2:41-47]
The first thing I want to point out is that worship the way God intends is a great leveller. There is nowhere else outside a blood-family where people of all ages gather regularly aside from the church.
That means that people at all stages of life from infant to school age to teenage to young adult to married-with-children to seniors…gather to do the same thing. Looking just at our Sunday gathering alone aside from all the things that go on during the week, just think of the diversity of the life-stages represented here.
As well, when the church is functioning as it should and issues of race and ethnicity do not divide, the church draws together people of all tribes and tongues, every ethnicity is found in the church.
Blended couples are found in the church, and they should in increasing measure. Church is where all cultures can come together and over time forge a culture that is unique to the church and that includes the flavouring added by each culture.
Worship the way God intends it to be is a great leveller.
Listen to this description of those called into the early church: “Brothers and Sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him”.1 Corinthians 1:26-29
If I take that seriously, I have to admit that whether I am educated or not, whether I am poor or rich, whether I am influential or wise by worldly, cultural standards…it makes no nevermind. Makes no difference. Amen?
Worship: An Act of Community: United and Transformed Together
God’s purpose for the church is that in worshipping together, we are united and transformed in our encounter with God. Does that mean that my growth as a Christian is linked meaningfully to yours?
Does that mean that when we gather here on Sunday after Sunday and join our voices and our hearts in worship we willingly become a part of something greater than ourselves? Absolutely…yes.
When you stand or sit or bow before God are you any higher or lower than anyone else here? Not even in the slightest. You are, just like I am, God’s child coming to Him, basking in His presence.
Coming to him for grace…needing his mercy and kindness and patience and longsuffering just as much as the person sitting next to you.
You don’t need to come here for long before you realize that we’re pretty informal. That we’re not big on dressing up or giving off the vibe that ‘pretending’ to have it all together is a good thing.
That’s because of who comes here…a lot of us came into this environment because we didn’t have the greatest time at another church we went to; some of us came here as a last straw…we love God but we found the institution of the church a huge disappointment.
We heard about this mission church and we hoped it might be different and then we came and added our difference to the church and found that it was welcomed and celebrated.
Part of the reason we’re not into pretending about anything is due to our origins as a street church that served street youth and the street population who would never let us be anything other than authentic…even if that meant being authentically messed up, busted up, twisted and desperate while clinging for life to the God who rescued us over and over again.
So it’s in our DNA as a church to come as we are. And as we do that we come together to be in the same space, sometimes to break bread, always to sing about and worship the God who loves us and who we are together struggling to follow.
What does the Scripture say? “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching”. Hebrews 10:22-25
6 “us’s”. 2 “our’s”. No “me’s”. No “I’s”. We’re called together. Our drawing near to God is a communal one. What good does it do if you on your own draw near to God and I’m left out on the sidewalk?
What good is it if some of us become spiritual dynamos and others of us just stop growing? What good does it do the Kingdom of God if we as a church…those who are here now…get super-tight with God and have awesome worship times together…if there is ANYONE out on the sidewalk who is a thousand miles away from the grace of God in their own minds?
And this is where our worship as the gathered community of God and our mission come together. We’re united as we gather to worship God and as we come together during the week in small groups and in various programs at the mission.
We’re transformed more and more because of Who we worship… meeting with God and coming clean with God and confessing our sins together and singing songs of love, songs of lament, songs of joy and hearing the Word of God preached and celebrating the Lord’s Supper together.
We come together and a lot of us REALLY love coming together to worship. But because we take the Word of God seriously and the generosity of God seriously and the neediness of the world around us of which we are still a part seriously…we can never forget that there are more people out there than there are in here.
There is more need out there than is being met. There is more sadness out there than is being addressed.
There are, frankly, a great many people out there living in hell and going to hell…that we can never, we MUST never…forget that we are called together in unity and we end up in this long process of healing and transformation FOR A PURPOSE that goes way beyond ourselves. We’re here for those who are not yet here, as well as though who are here.
We’re here for the struggling addict, for the prostitute, for the ex-con. We’re here for the single mother and single father.
We’re here for the student. For the young adult. We’re here for the children, we’re here for all families, for our seniors.
We’re here for the store owner, for the white collar and blue collar and the dog collar and the no collar.
And as we come together we link arms, so to speak, and willingly enter the presence of the God who loves us with an everlasting love, who loves us too much to let us stay as we are, who loves us enough to call us His own…as we come we grow in unity and grace. We’re transformed. Together.
Worship: An Act of Community: Love and Be Loved: Know and Be Known
Two final scriptures. 1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
This speaks of knowing and being known. Paul speaks here of the clarity of knowing God that will come to all believers when we meet our Saviour face to face.
That clarity, he says, will be in knowing God as He knows us. Can you imagine having the capacity to know even one billionth of what there is to know about God? Let alone knowing God fully just as He knows us.
There is also, in the gathered community of Christ, which is His body here on earth, the potential and capacity to know others deeply, and accept all kinds of people who are really different from you.
But there is also the capacity to be known…for who you really are deep down, warts and regrets and all…and to likewise BE ACCEPTED for who you are. Knowing and being known.
John 13: 33-34 "My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another”.
This speaks of God’s profound view of the church. God is love, we are told in 1st John. And here in the gospel of John Jesus calls us, commands us actually, to manifest, to show, to demonstrate to each other this essential quality of God, this divine attribute.
Love one another as I have loved you. And just in case we ever start to think that something else can trump love, that love can go out the window if we can’t agree on the finer points of theology or practice, Jesus says…just in case…that we MUST love one another.
So in gathering to worship we are coming together to know and be known by God and, unavoidably, to know and be known by each other. This is a call to transparency. To humility. To generosity. To courage. To risk. And we’re called to love and be loved. This is God’s invitation to us.
Church…are we up for this challenge? Do you want to love and be loved? I’m asking. Do you want to know and be known? [Yes, I’m asking]
Then we’re ready to be the church. We’re ready to worship. We’re ready to sing that we are one body in Christ.
One last thing. Somebody said this: “Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused.
“It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. It breaks the chains of addictions, frees the oppressed, and offers belong to the marginalized of this world. “Whatever the capacity for human suffering, it has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.”
What was he talking about? This is a quote from Bill Hybels, a pastor in Illinois, and he’s talking about the church. Hybels concludes, “Still to this day, the potential of the local church is almost more than I can grasp. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.”
If I could speak a personal word right now to everybody in this place. Listen carefully.
YOU…ARE…NOT…ALONE. You are Christ’s body…every last one of you who professes Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and those of you headed in the direction of that confession.
You are the gathered community of grace. You are a part of something that Jesus started, that He died to create, that He chooses to be a refuge for the weary, a hospital for the sick, a school for His disciples, a launch pad for His mission to bless the world and bring the fragrance of our risen Saviour to a lost and dying planet.
You are, arm in arm with your brother and sister in the faith beside you, before you and in front of you, the belonging, the possession of Jesus Christ. IT IS TIME…that we embrace this reality completely. Utterly. And as we worship and embrace the God who embraces us, may we dare to dream His dreams for the hope and healing of our community.
