We are continuing in one of the Bible’s most comprehensive pictures of the church, a picture of a church that will meet many of the deepest longings in our hearts for rich and deep relationships, but a joyful and effective church. And there is so much in it to build that it takes a while to do justice to it. But every theme is important.
Ephesians 4 starts out saying that the members of the church must be united. That’s so important. Disunity is poison.
Then Paul says the members of the church need to be different, even while they remain united, each expressing the spiritual gifts that God gives to each one. That’s so important because the church just can’t get the job done without every member making the ministry contributions that God has equipped them to give. And you can only grow so far as a spectator in the church. The real fun comes blessings come when you come down out of the stands and venture out onto the playing field, accept Jesus’ call to use your gifts and get into the game.
And we are now in a portion that you could call, ‘grow together.’ It draws a beautiful picture of the members of the church building each other up, finding God’s grace and power in their relationships as together they become so much more than they could ever be apart.
And I’m sure that some people are saying in their hearts, “Let’s move on. Help me with my kids today. Help me cope with my stress today.” But I hope you can see the big picture. Being the best church we can be is a wonderful gift for your kids. Being the best church we can be will be a wonderful support through your stress, today and every day.
Last week we looked at a construction image that Paul uses for the church. He said to build one another up, using a construction term. He pictures the church as a building, a temple in which God will be seen and experienced, made up of us, living stones.
But we are more than a static building, an institution. And Paul quickly switches to a different metaphor, one he uses many times. The church is also a living body. The church is a living body.
Have you ever been tempted to wish the church had more money, and to feel that if we only had enough money all our problems would be solved? Well, money is important, but it can never make a church. I remember hearing about a church in the Boston area that had incredible amounts of money, a huge endowment. That had an incredibly beautiful building, that spared no expense. If any repair was needed, there was no need for any member to lift a finger except to pick up the phone to call a professional repairman. They had the most polished choir you could imagine, with every singer a paid professional. Imagine the performances they could do! But the church was dying. The pews were empty. The money propped up a dying institution. There was no need for any normal human beings. There was no mission. The human connections dried up. Nobody wants to go to a church like that.
I remember hearing about another church. This one started about 49 years ago here in Oak Lawn, at Sward School. They didn’t have any building. When they started meeting they didn’t have any formal members. They had to start every program and ministry from scratch, often meeting in members’ living rooms and basements. But they were determined to worship God. They quickly learned to love each other. The Spirit of God worked in their hearts to build something that was alive, something that grew, something that has been a blessing for 49 years to who knows how many people, something that started out with the name, Garden Methodist Church, and is today this congregation, now called the First United Methodist Church of Oak Lawn. And I believe that the next 50 years can be even better than the first fifty.
The church is a living body. Would you please stand now for the reading of God’s word? Bob will read for us Ephesians 4:11-16, one of the most important texts for understanding how churches grow.
11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.
I want you to meet a friend of mine (hold up a paper cut-out of myself). I just feel like he and I have so much in common. He’s very handsome. He dresses like I do. He has the same degree I have, from the same seminary. He has his own ordination certificate, signed by Bishop DeWitt, just like mine, only smaller.
In fact, we are so much alike, I was thinking maybe I could take a couple months off and head for the Bahamas and leave him in charge here. Would anybody notice? Watch how you answer that!
He looks like me. We can give him many of the same trappings I have. But there’s a huge difference. He’s not alive.
And there are many ways that we try to describe the mystery of life. A theologian would say he doesn’t have a soul. A biologist would say he doesn’t have any DNA. And this morning I want to talk like a biologist for a minute, even though I’m not a biologist and I don’t even play one on TV.
DNA is that amazing, microscopic substance that makes us who we are. It contains in just one cell every instruction to make every kind of cell in the body. That’s why stem cells are so much in the news today, because they haven’t started differentiating themselves yet and some scientists are very keen to learn to control them so that they can make any body part they want. Real cells, with real DNA can reproduce, grow living things, repair damage, create brain cells that can learn and think and respond to challenges in the environment.
As handsome as he is, my friend here can’t care about you. He can’t make his way to the hospital or your home in a crisis. He can’t pray for you. If he is injured, he can’t heal himself. If the church catches fire all he can do is sit here. He can’t think or act to put it out. And if the flames came his way, he’d just end up feeding them.
It is so easy to see the church as an institution. The building is visible, and it takes a lot of our attention. The Book of Discipline tells us committees that we are supposed to have. And we have them and they meet, discuss, take minutes, vote and do their work. We raise money and we spend it. We have classes and circles and an MYF.
I suppose that theoretically the bishop could send a church inspector with a clipboard who would check for all those things and conclude, yes we are a church.
But are those the things that make us a church? No way! A church that was those things and nothing more would be as inadequate as a cardboard cutout for a pastor, even a very handsome one. We can all feel the difference.
The church is alive because of its DNA, not because of the building it’s in or the programs it has. A church can have the most beautiful building and offer every program, with everything perfect, but if it isn’t made alive by the Spirit of God, nothing will come of it. I’ve seen pictures of churches in Africa that meet under the shade of a tree because they don’t even have a building. There is no sound system, no organ, not even very many Bibles. But it’s the church and they are worshipping God and loving each other and filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit. That’s why I love getting out of the building and doing an outdoor service once a year, so that we can say, we don’t need any of that stuff to be the church.
And what is the DNA of the church? What are the different genes that give it that special identity and life?
Love has to be the most dominant of the genes. Jesus said, in John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
We have a structured ritual of friendship most Sundays. But does that make us a church? No way! When the DNA of the love of Christ is expressed in our hearts it just comes out, yes during the ritual of friendship. But in the coffee hour, and over the phone during the week, when we run into one another in the grocery store, when we go looking for each other, looking for opportunities to get together, maybe for a meal together, maybe to help each other with projects. That’s who we are when the church is alive.
When surgeons transplant a kidney from one person to another, they have to take great precautions so that the receiving body won’t reject the foreign DNA of the transplanted organ.
I love it, that when Marty Linderborg had to be transplanted from Illinois to Wisconsin to be with her father at Froederdt Hospital in Milwaukee, she could just walk into the nearest United Methodist Church on Sunday, and they recognized that she had the same DNA and they loved her and the pastors even visited Walt and she fit right in. She could be transplanted without fear of rejection. That’s something a church body can do better than our individual human bodies.
When we share Ash Wednesday evening together with Calvin Christian Reformed Church, it’s a time to celebrate our common DNA, to really accept and welcome one another. When they came here for coffee hour after our joint worship service for Vacation Bible School last summer, I looked around and every table in our fellowship hall had some Methodists and some Christian Reformed at it. I hope we can do that again when we share a supper together in their fellowship hall.
When love fails the body can even start to reject its own body parts and destroy itself. But God’s love will unite us and carry us through any challenge if we will let it be expressed in our hearts.
We could try to institutionalize love with institutional rules and regulations, but when it’s the DNA of the love of Christ functioning naturally in our hearts, it feels so much better. Love has to be the dominant gene of the church. It must govern all we do. When a committee meets to do business, we always need the opportunity to care for one another, to share joys and concerns, and if someone is hurting, business can always wait so that love can come out.
It takes a human body twenty some years to get all the parts built up to adult size and all of them working together. We have a good start on that, but we want to ever deeper. Can you have too much love? For us to really learn to love each other and to build a full network of supportive, nourishing relationships, not with just a few members, but each of us, with many members takes time and a lot of work. But each step of progress in that direction enriches everyone involved. Love is a dominant gene in the church. It’s what makes us alive.
Our DNA even has instructions in it to guide the cells to heal from illness or injury. Love is the gene that can heal anything in the body if we will let it. In 1 Peter 4:8, we read, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.”
Institutions hate change. It’s very hard for them to adapt. General Motors made lots of money making big gas-guzzling cars for a long time. And it’s been very slow to adapt to a new awareness of the need for cutting pollution and oil consumption. And they are paying a terrible price for that institutional rigidity
Institutions have trouble adapting. But love will always find a way. If we really love one another we can be flexible about most anything. If we really love our neighbors and those who are lost and hurting around us, we’ll find a way to touch their lives. Love will always find a way. That’s our predominant genetic trait.
When the church comes together, it is in our genes to study God’s word. It helps us cut through all the garbage of our world. It tells us who we really are and what a good life looks like, and the steps to get from where we are to where God calls us to be. Researchers are racing to map out the human genetic code. But God has already given us our spiritual genetic code, written in the Bible, and activated when we study it.
And we can institutionalize Bible Study as a formal reading of one passage a week. We can check off on a list that a few classes are meeting and say we have done our job.
But if God’s Spirit is in you, a love for God’s word will come out and be expressed in our meetings and groups and families and every individual spending time learning God’s word. To be a disciple is to be a learner, that’s the main meaning of the word disciple, a learner, a student of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus said, in John 8:31 and 32, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."” A love for the Bible is a mark of a true disciple. It’s in our genes. And if it’s hard for you to get started, then you need to be in a Bible study group because we can all learn. Bible study is one of most important genes for a healthy spiritual life.
Worship is certainly one of the genes of the church. Christians should be the most grateful people on earth with all the blessings we enjoy. Not just on Sunday morning, not only led by the pastor, but every committee, every household, every circle, every class can take even a moment for prayer, more than a formality, more than an agenda item, a living connection with God. Worship is in our genes. And worship will constantly renew and refresh us.
Service is one of the genes of the church. God makes us useful. He draws us out of our fears and our lethargy. The Holy Spirit within us drives us out of the church, to care about those who are hurting. We serve through our giving, through our prayers, and most effectively through face to face, hands on love and service. Every group in the church, every member expresses who we are as we look for opportunities to serve.
We are a living church. We are a structured institution, too because that gives us form. But, most importantly, God’s Spirit is in our genes. As we flow with what he has embedded deep within us, as we love each other, as we study God’s word, as we worship our God and as we serve our neighbors, this living body can adapt to any challenge, heal any hurt, grow and flourish. We are the living body of Christ. AMEN
