Near the Tower of London there stands an ancient parish church called "All Hallows". Just inside the wall enclosing the graveyard at All Hallows there is a large sign, placed so that tourists leaving the Tower may read it. The sign at "All Hallows" cites a bit of history and then raises a pointed question: "Jesus Christ has been worshipped in this building for 600 Years; on this site for 1100 years, and in Britain for 1300 Years. Don’t you think it’s time you got started?"
That sign points to the amazing persistence of the church of Jesus Christ; and it also suggests the reason why, after storms and splits, war and famine, mistakes and malfeasance, misjudgments and maladjustment, there is still such a thing as the church. Some of the secret has to do with the commitments of countless believers, of course; but most of the secret lies in the intention of God for the church. The church has lasted simply because God has wanted it to last. That’s all. That’s the bottom line. The church has lasted; and the church will continue because God has intended it to.
"By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed", says the hymnwriter. Yes, and sometimes savaged by the forces of evil and more often sabotaged by her own members, still the church persists.
How can this be? Why does this happen?
A number of years ago I read a little book called, “Who’s Killing the Church?" The authors of, "Who’s Killing the Church?" were intent on proving that the church as we know it was dying; it probably had less than a generation to live. They argued that unless we Christians came to grips with serious issues like war and poverty and racism and the like, no one would pay any attention to us. They insisted that the only way for the church to continue was for to abandon so much talk about spiritual stuff and get out there on the front lines of these issues.
It was not an easy book to read. It was hard to stomach. Some of it I don’t agree with. Some I do. But I did learn that the church of Jesus Christ has a whole lot less to fear from its announced enemies than it does from its alleged friends. Do not be afraid of those who directly attack the church. You will do more for the church by carrying on a lover’s quarrel with it than you will by defending its critics. The folks in Jimmy Swaggart’ s crowd down in Louisiana would do the church a whole lot more good by raising their own questions about his fitness for ministry than they will by trying to defend the indefensible.
Don’t love the church by defending it. Love it by quarreling with it. Love it by arguing with it. Love it by pushing it to be what it ought to be. "Who’s killing the church?" Not its announced enemies. Too often its alleged friends.
We celebrate today the occasion on which a young German monk named Martin Luther decided to take public his lover’ s quarrel with the church of his day. On the eve of All Saints Day, what we call Halloween, the young man Luther marched up to the door of the castle church in the town of Wittenberg in Saxony, and tacked up for all to see some ninety-five theses, or propositions, concerning the nature of the Christian faith and the practices of the church.
Someone has said that as Luther nailed these to the door, every hammer-blow rang out the death-knell of medieval Europe. No one, least of all Luther himself, could have predicted all that would happen. But if you had been there in 1517 and someone had asked, "Who’s killing the church?", you might have been tempted to answer, "He is. Luther is. Those who challenge, those who raise questions, those who take to the streets with their complaints. They are killing the church." It would have been easy, had we been there in Germany in 1517, to have said, "This man is killing the church. The church cannot survive such attacks. Authority is being questioned, new ideas are being brought forward. Who’s killing the church? This man who attacks its traditions, its history, its doctrines … he is killing the church."
We might have so answered. But we would have been wrong.
You and I now know that the church of Jesus Christ is alive. It is amazingly alive. It is vital and vibrant and vigorous in many places. And you and I know why. I said it a moment ago, but I say it again. The church of Jesus Christ has lasted simply because God has wanted it to last. That’s all. That’s the bottom line. The church has lasted and the church will continue because God has intended it to.
Maybe that means that you and I had better find out how to cooperate with God’s intention. Maybe that means that you and I need to be much more clear about what it is to be a part of this amazingly persistent thing called church. "Who’s killing the church?" No one is going to succeed in killing it, but some of us who think we are its friends are trying to.
The apostle Paul prays in the Ephesian letter for the church. He expresses his understanding of what God has intended for the church, the living church, and then he mentions three things which a living church must know ... three things which we have to understand if we are not to be among those who will at least try to kill the church.
See if you can identify these things as we read it.
Ephesians 1 :15-23
Let me make this morning’s idea very basic and very simple for you. Paul’s prayer is for a living church. It has to be a living church, because it is the body of Christ, under Christ as the head. If the head is alive, so is the body, right? The body might be vigorous or it might be weak, but it is still alive. The body might be toned up or it might be paralyzed, but it is still his body and so it is still alive. That body might be well-fed and thoroughly grounded, or it might be emaciated and undernourished, but as long as the head is alive, the body also is alive. And if the risen Christ is the head, then both head and body are alive.
Who’s killing the church? No one will succeed, because God has intended that it live. That’s the bottom line. God has planned that the church live. But it may suffer, just the same, not so much from the attacks of its announced enemies but from the misunderstandings of its alleged friends.
Three ways in which we who are in the church try to kill the church. Very basically, very simply:
We are trying to kill the church if we do not see the possibilities in its future.
We are trying to kill the church if we do not appreciate the rich resources of its past.
And we are trying to kill the church if we do not participate in its powerful present.
Anybody can remember this outline! Future, past, and presentl
We are trying to kill the church if we do not see the possibilities in its future; if we do not appreciate the rich resources of its past, and if we do not participate in its powerful present.
I
First, then, who’s killing the church? Those who do not see the possibilities in its future. Paul’s prayer for the church is that "you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. "
God’s call for every Christian is always a call toward something. I do not believe our God calls us to sit still and be satisfied. God’s call is a restlessness, God’s call is a summons to what ought to be. And if you and I are satisfied with our church, just as it is, then we are guilty of betraying hope. And we are killing the church.
Who’s killing the church? Those who no longer have, burning within them, a bright shining dream of a world that is not yet, but could be ... a vibrant dream of a church that might be, faithful and alive in every respect. Who’s killing the church? Those who in their cynicism, in their weariness, in their insecurity, have not kept hope alive.
The other day, I was moving some old files here in the church office, and I ran across a souvenir bulletin from another church. I think it must have been kept because the former staff member whose file this had been had at one time been associated with that particular church as well. It was a 25th anniversary bulletin. It spoke of the fact that that was still a young church, and that it had overcome many challenges in its first quarter-century. But what struck me as I glimpsed through the booklet was the tone of pessimism. The writers of the booklet seemed to be saying that the best days were behind them, already, at the age of 25! They spoke of a changing neighborhood. They wrote of a rapid turnover in leadership. The underlying motif of the booklet was that the dream which had given birth to that congregation had already dimmed if not died. Only 25 years old.
Well, I happen to know a little bit about that church. And I know that after another fifteen years ... the church is almost forty years old now … it is almost gone. Only a handful of people remain. I’m sure the reasons are complex. That part of the Body of Christ is paralyzed, if not dead, and the reason is that its people lost hope. They lost confidence. They forgot the nature of the hope to which God has called us.
Friends, when you and I forget what God has called us here to do, we are going to kill the church. If we forget that the task is nothing less than the redemption of this world, then we are on the way to the cemetery. If we suppose that the task we have is just to maintain the institution or preserve the organization, then we are trying to kill the church.
No, the church of Jesus Christ is called to a hope. It is summoned to a future. And if we stay with the tasks of evangelism and mission and teaching and outreach and ministry, if we spend our time and our money and our energy on building islands of hope in an ocean of hopelessness, then we will live. I pray, Paul says, "that you may know the hope to which he has called you." Grasp the possibilities of our future.
II
Second, who else is killing the church? Those who do not appreciate the rich resources of its past. We will be on the way to spiritual suicide if we forget where we have come from and who got us here. Who’s killing the church? Those who do not appreciate the rich resources of its past.
Paul prays that the church may know, "what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints." "The riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints."
You see, a part of our problem is that we misuse our history. We abuse our history.
It was no accident that that German monk, Luther, pinned his propositions to the castle church door on Halloween, the eve of All Saints Day. Luther had seen that the church was abusing its history. The church of his day was taking the rich heritage of those whose faithfulness had been recorded in its annals, and it was making out of that a flimsy, exploitive commercial enterprise. The church of Luther’s day was running a kind of spiritual confidence game, telling people that they would spend endless years in something called purgatory if they did not purchase indulgences. Indulgences were certificates of forgiveness, which supposedly the saints had built up and which the church could therefore dispense. The church‘s chief salesman, a monk named Tetzel, was even supposed to have said, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul into heaven springs. “
Against all of this Luther rebelled. Against all of this mercenary exploitation he protested. Luther knew what Paul was praying for … that the wealth of the church not be found in buildings or in lands or in bank accounts. The wealth of the church is the spiritual treasure painstakingly built up over years and years by its saints. And we are killing the church if we do not recognize and make a part of us all that has gone before.
Someone gave me a Peanuts cartoon not long ago. In the cartoon Charlie Brown says to Lucy, "We have to write something about early church history, Lucy. What can I do? I don’t know anything about early church history.” But Lucy replies, “You blockhead! That’s easy. Our pastor was born in 1938."
That struck home to me because your pastor was born in 1938! And most of us tend to think nothing happened until we got here! There wasn’t any history until I arrived or you arrived! But this church of ours is made hallowed by a richness and a spiritual heritage and we will kill the church if we ignore that.
Think of just a few items in the "richness of [our] glorious inheritance among the saints.” Think of the concern for missions which goes back to the very beginning, and which at one time was a self-discipline that required us to give away a third of our money. Remember the pattern of sacrificial giving which built these buildings and which even paid off the debt early. Factor in the decisions of twenty-five and thirty years ago to be a multicultural church and to minister to the human needs in this community . Live into the pattern of worship here, which is unlike many Baptist churches in that it recognizes the seasons of the Christian year and yet has the flexibility to involve Afrocentric as well as Eurocentric traditions. Add to that a long-standing investment in intensive prayer. Remember all of that, appreciate the "riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints" .. and we will be a living church.
Who’s killing the church? Those who fail to appreciate the rich resources of its past.
III
Finally, is there anyone else killing the church? Yes. Not only those who do not see the possibilities in its future; not only those who do not appreciate the rich resources of its Past; but above all, those who do not participate in its powerful present. We are sending the church to ecclesiastical burial if we who are its friends just sit secure within its walls, but do not participate in the power of its present life.
Paul just gets beside himself here. It is almost impossible to translate into English the way he piles up word on word. I pray, he says, that you will know "what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power."
My friends, how long has it been since you felt the power of God, so strong, so true, so glorious that it just about lifted you up out of your shoes? How long since you came to worship and shed a tear, how long since you could barely contain your voice? How long since you could feel Him touch your very soul?
And if you have not felt any of that, is it, just possibly, is it because you have set your sights too low? Is it because you just don’t expect Him to be at work? Deeper yet, is it because we are even afraid of God’s empowering presence?
I guess I just have to wonder sometimes if we will really want to succeed as Christians. I wonder if we really want to succeed as a part of the body of Christ. We so often just decide to get by rather that do something bold for Christ. We so often just come to church rather than come to be church. We come to be here for an hour or so rather than come to wait on the Lord and renew our strength. And if what we end up doing is deadly and dull, can it be that it is because we have not expected the present power of Christ? Because we even fear the power of Christ?
Oh,listen again to Paul’s prayer. Hear the words pile up as he tries to get it all out. "I pray that you may know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power." Let me use a couple of the Greek words in the way they have come into English; it might give you some feel for this prayer ... "I pray that you may know what is the dynamite for us who believe, according to his energy." Wow!
The tragedy of the church .. the thing that will kill the church .. is that we who are its friends have domesticated it, we have tamed it, we have decided not to expect much of it. And what God intended to be a tiger we have turned into a clawless pussycat!
At a critical point of the Reformation era, Martin Luther stood before the Emperor, the nobility, and the powerful at the Diet of Worms and declared his faith, though his very life was in the balance. Cried Luther in the hour of danger, “My conscience is captive to the word of God; here I stand, God helping me, I can do no other." God helping me .. a present power!
There is a power in the present for God’s church. There is an immeasurable greatness in His power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
And I have seen it this very week in the eyes of a young man, confessing the depth of his own need, but feeling called now to move out and to help the victims of AIDS. He will not be killing the church, for he will know the hope to which God has called us.
I have felt it this very week in the grasp of an old man, seriously ill, in a hospital bed, barely able to speak, but his grasp said, “What I have learned in the past I will trust in the now." He will not be killing the church, for he will appreciate the richness of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
I want to feel it again this very morning in someone’s life being changed. I want to feel it in someone being made new. It can happen, you know. It is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe. We will not be killing the church if we will respond to his life-changing power, right now.
Near the Tower of London there stands an ancient parish church called "All Hallows". Just inside the wall enclosing the graveyard at All Hallows there is a large sign, placed so that tourists leaving the Tower may read it. The sign at "All Hallows" cites a bit of history and then raises a pointed question: "Jesus Christ has been worshipped in this building for 600 years; on this site for 1100 years, and in Britain for 1300 Years. Don’t you think it’s time you got started?"
It’s almost All Hallows at Takoma Park, where Jesus Christ has been and will be worshipped for many years. Don’t you think it’s time you got started?
