Sermon for November 16, 2003
23rd Sunday after
Pentecost
What I Have Learned about South Roanoke Church
Heb. 10:23-25; Mark 13:1-8
As you know Cheryl
and I have been meeting with most of you over the past several weeks in a
series of “Neighborhood Gatherings.” In these informal settings,
graciously hosted in the homes of the members of your Staff-Parish
Relations Committee, we visited together in groups of 5 to 20. 128 of you
attended 10 such gatherings as we shared a moment together getting to know
one another better. I also took the opportunity to hear from you what you
think of your church and her future. Early on I knew I wanted to
summarize in a sermon what I have learned from you about South Roanoke
Church.
God has a wonderful
sense of humor. I hope you know that. That has certainly been my
experience. I discovered that again as I prepared for this message this
morning. Let me tell you why.
When I turned to the
Scripture texts suggested to be read for today, the 23rd Sunday
after Pentecost, I was heartened to discover these words of encouragement
to the church from the letter to the Hebrews. But when I read the Gospel
lesson for today where Jesus speaks of the throwing down of the temple and
warns of wars and rumors of wars, I began to wonder exactly what it is I
am supposed to assume about the church this morning! Yet again I
discovered what a wonderful sense of humor our God has.
But the more I
pondered these texts and what you have said about your church, I believe I
am beginning to sense the message of the Gospel that the church needs to
hear today. I want to suggest to you this morning that the Scripture and
your own hopes, concerns, and dreams for South Roanoke Church can find
appropriate expression this morning even in the form of the Word of God
through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That surely is my intention today.
So would you walk with me as we consider God’s Word and your hopes,
concerns, and dreams for your church?
As those of you who
attended the “Neighborhood Gatherings” will remember, I asked two basic
questions of each of you to share with all of us gathered in the small
group that met together. Those two questions were these:
1) What
is your best hope for South Roanoke Church?
2) What
do you believe is the greatest challenge South Roanoke Church faces
right now.
Now, it was my
experience that the person who was brave enough to go first in answering
these questions often found himself quoted by just about everyone else in
the group as they responded (when it became their turn to answer these two
questions!), “I agree with him!” But I learned after awhile not to let
you get away with that! Seriously, I discovered a rich variety of
perspectives within this community of faith as I listened to 128 answers
to these questions. Let me then address these two questions in general as
I heard you responding to them.
1)
What is your best hope for South Roanoke Church?
This question,
obviously the easier of the two to answer, elicited a variety of
responses, as you can imagine. You dream of a congregation where
everyone is involved in one aspect of ministry or another, especially
among the younger and newer members of our church. You hope for a
community where everyone can experience God in a personal way through
worship, finding inspiration, courage, and hope for living the Christian
life. The Sunday School is named as one of the best hopes for the church,
and you have taken heart in its recent growth. I heard from so many of
you how proud you are of our children and youth ministries with the hope
that these vital church programs will continue to flourish, including
Peanut M&M’s (which is our weekly pre-youth group program), United
Methodist Youth, and our Preschool, just to name a few. Our music program
is especially valued in its various expressions, from bells to voice to
guitar to organ, and I know you are especially proud of our recent growth
in the vocal choirs we celebrated just last week. There is genuine
gratitude to God for the rich tradition and history of this congregation
that was most appropriately celebrated at our recent Homecoming and
Anniversary. Our senior citizens among us especially cherish this
community of faith and find such renewal of spirit and care for the soul
in its fellowship, especially through the ministry of the Adult
Fellowship. There is also a deep longing in the very heart of the church
for mission that has expressed itself in a long history of outreach to the
needs of those beyond ourselves in our local community, in the nation, and
in the world. This outreach has found generous financial support as well
as active volunteer involvement through programs and ministries like
Aftercare (where we host a community of mentally retarded persons once a
month here at the church), Interfaith Hospitality Network (homeless
persons are housed and fed here once a quarter), the Trinity Outreach
Program (an urban ministry in Roanoke), as well as volunteer in mission
trips to Africa, Alaska, and Appalachia, to name just a few of those.
You also hope for a
refreshing and new movement of the spirit of God among us. That desire
finds ideas for possible new opportunities:
--more small groups
for growth in Christian discipleship,
--a regular church-wide meal where we can all fellowship and feast
together and get to know one another better,
--a full sanctuary every Sunday with persons of every age in attendance
--the full participation of every member so that the church would no
longer be so dependent upon the same dependable, faithful folk who
always see to it that the mission of the church is accomplished
--a fully funded annual budget so that the church can realize all the
goals to which we feel called by God
These and more are
the expressions of your best hope for South Roanoke Church as we shared
them with one another.
I find in these
expressions the very essence of the life that the letter to the Hebrews
seeks to encourage:
Let us consider how to
provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet
together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another..
Now I have served
churches before where the folks seemed to have learned very well how to
provoke one another! And I believe I sense that South Roanoke, like most
churches, well, we also have our own way of doing exactly that depending
on what the issue is that being considered! But the Scripture this
morning calls us to provoke one another to love and good deeds. As I have
listened carefully to your best hope for us, I believe that this same love
is a part of the very fabric of this community of faith called South
Roanoke Church. I believe that because more than anything else I have
heard you say, your hope for your church is for unity.
This, then, leads us
to consider your answers to the next question:
2)
What do you believe is
the greatest challenge South Roanoke Church faces right now?
As I heard you
sharing your perspectives on this question it became clear that this was
surely the more difficult of the two to answer. Your answers more often
than not invited genuine and open discussion of matters that are very
important to the life of the church. Your pastor especially appreciated
these spontaneous discussions, and I believe you did, too. These
opportunities seemed to provide a moment for us to contemplate together
before God the challenges that face us right now. I also believe it
provided us a moment to begin to let God shape our community of faith
according to divine intention.
If I can at all
accurately summarize what you have shared I believe you believe the
greatest challenge that South Roanoke faces right now has to do with two
things:
1)
communication
2)
unity
You describe our congregation as a community of colorful personalities who
speak their minds when issues of particular importance are considered. As
in every church that I have served there is the obvious difficulty of
communication between the generations. As in every church I have served
there is the difficulty of communication between particular groups who may
from time to time take opposite positions on particular decisions the
church may face. As in every church I have served there are differences
of opinion within the body; and where there are differences of opinion not
everyone can get their way. Now I do not intend to list the issues among
us from the pulpit this morning, for I believe a more detailed discussion
of these by the pastor is more appropriately addressed publicly in the
annual report to the Charge Conference. But the greatest challenge I
understand you believe our community of faith faces right now is the
challenge of communication and unity.
Those who have
studied the church for a long time suggest to us that the church is like a
family, a system of relationship where we all inevitably affect one
another as we experience our common life together. Like any family,
communication is key to its health. When communication is clear and
direct and genuine and persons stay connected with one another, that
promotes health in the family and in the church. If I have learned
anything from those who have studied the family and the church for a long
time I have learned that genuine communication is the key—that’s the place
to start on your way to unity. It has been well-documented that when
members of a family always say to one another what they say
about one another, communication is clear and genuine, people stay
connected together, and unity is nurtured. For example, if a sister is
irritated by her brother’s behavior toward her and she is encouraged to
say to her brother just as much as she complains to her parents
about him, relationship begins to find healing, love is nurtured, and
unity is enhanced. So, if it is true (and I believe it is) that a church
is like a family, and communication and unity is a challenge for us right
now, I want to propose a covenant with you this morning. This is a
covenant I believe every healthy family and every healthy church
implicitly, naturally commits to in their relationship with one another if
they want to have a healthy family or a healthy church. That covenant,
that promise, that pledge is this:
Never say anything more about one another than you are
willing to say to one another.
I would challenge you to take this one step further in our
relationship together in this church. If you hear someone saying
something to you about someone else, would you ask that person if they
have shared that with the person of whom they are speaking? I would also
suggest that if you find yourself in a conversation about someone and you
suspect that that person has not heard about this, at least absent
yourself from the conversation if indeed you cannot encourage others to
address their concerns directly to the person under discussion. If
communication and unity are the challenges we face, then South Roanoke
Church needs all the mature, Christian, genuine leadership it can find
right now. Every family in our congregation needs this kind of covenant
with one another to enhance our home life. Every family, every
organization, every business, every church in our community, in our
nation, and in the world needs this kind of genuine, mature leadership.
It is the lack of this kind of commitment in the human community that
fosters wars and rumors of war.
If communication and
unity are the greatest challenges our congregation faces right now, we
are in very good company. When Jesus spoke of the falling of the temple
and of rumors of wars, what did he call these things? He called them “but
the beginning of the birth pangs.” What is being born in the midst of all
of this? Jesus believed the Kingdom of God was coming to life
right there. He believed that even when his own disciples argued with one
another about who would be first or who would sit at his right hand. The
early church had to believe it when they experienced great conflict over
the place of the Gentiles in the early predominately Jewish Christian
movement. We have to believe it as we study the history of the Christian
Church even to the present day. You see, God knew all along that we would
make a complete mess of life, but God gave us life anyway. And God has
patiently worked with humanity, and families, the people of God, and the
church ever since we fell flat on our face in the Garden of Eden. And God
is not about to give up on us now.
The Scripture brings
us such word of encouragement and hope this morning:
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without
wavering,
For he who has
promised is faithful.
Sisters and brothers, any unity that the church has at all today is a gift
from God. If we give ourselves to this hope with all that we are, God
will grant us everything we long for, because God has already promised it
to us if we but accept it.
William G. Davidson
South Roanoke United Methodist Church
