Today's sermon incorporates within it an article by John Pavlovitz written in May 2019, entitled Dear Church. But I've set it up to go with today's scripture reading from John's gospel.
Show Us
(based on John 14:8-17)
I’ve been following a Christian
Youth Pastor and author for the past few years by the name of John Pavlovitz. For about 10 years he served as a youth
pastor at a mega church in Charlotte, North Carolina, until 2013 when he was
fired from his job because some of his articles were too radical for the church
he served. I started following his
writings in 2016. Most of today’s sermon
comes from his letter to the Church called Dear Church.
But before I read it, I want to
set it up by talking about today’s passage from John. In the previous chapter – Chapter 13 – Jesus had
just given his followers a new commandment to follow. He said in verse 34 and 35, “I give you a new
commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Just after this Peter tells
Jesus that he would follow him no matter what might happen and no matter where
Jesus might go. But Jesus tells him that
even before the cock crowed that Peter would deny him three times. When they still didn’t quite understand that
gravity of Christ’s foreshadowed crucifixion, Thomas asks, “Lord, we do not
know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” To which Jesus replies, “I am the way, the
truth and the life. Know one comes to
the Father except through me. If you
know me, you will know my Father also.”
Still at a loss for full
understanding, Philip says to Jesus in the passage we read this morning, “Lord,
show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
How many times just Jesus need
to tell them, that they’ve seen the Father because they’ve seen him? How many times does Jesus need to explain to
them that if they’d love him, if they’d love one another, they’d also love and see
God? How many different ways could he
have said it? Or explained it?
Lord, show us the Father and
then we will be satisfied? Jesus’
response was and has always been, “Look around you, the Father is present in every
living thing, in every single face.”
Show us the Father? You’ve been
given and shown the Father in every human being and yet you still can’t see.
Earlier this year, John
Pavlovitz wrote this article. I’ve
edited it a bit, but it is a letter of rebuke to the church; one that I think
we ought to hear. It is not an easy
letter to listen to, but perhaps it will remind us of what we should be doing.
Dear Church,
The Exodus has begun and it’s not going to stop.
People are leaving you and they’re probably not coming back.
I’ve been where you are and I know what’s happening within you
right now.
I know you’re panicking, scrambling to understand it all, trying
to somehow stop the bleeding, to reverse the swift and steady tide out the
doors.
I know that you hire consultants and hold emergency meetings and
plan bold strategies and brainstorm solutions—all designed to engineer a way to
bring all the prodigals home, to “reach the young people,” to grow numerically
again.
I know you imagine that if you just tweak the songs or shorten the
services or get a new sign or rebrand your logo or set up shop in a strip mall;
that if you just find the right aesthetic balance of vintage reverence and
hipster chic—that this will all magically change your fortunes.
It won’t.
This attrition is likely irreversible and here’s why:
The departure isn’t about the style of music in your worship
services.
It isn’t about the coolness of the coffeeshop facade in the lobby.
It isn’t about the amenities you have or don’t have.
It isn’t about the tricked-out tech you’re getting in the
sanctuary.
It isn’t about the youthfulness and charisma of your lead pastor.
It isn’t about how many pop culture references you make in your
sermons.
It isn’t about the bells and whistles of your new website.
It isn’t about your facilities or your staff or your social media
fluency.
It’s isn’t about the sprawling menu of ministries and bible
studies you offer.
The people who are gone—aren’t gone because your band wasn’t good
enough or because the messages weren’t clever enough or because your production
wasn’t tight enough.
They don’t give a darn about such things.
Church, people are leaving you because you are silent right now in
ways that matter to them.
You aren’t saying what they need you to say and what you should be
saying—and it makes them sick.
They spend their days with a front row seat to human right
atrocities, to growing movements of cruelty, to unprecedented religious
hypocrisy, and to political leaders who are antithetical to heart of Jesus.
They live with the relational collateral damage of seeing people
they love abandon compassion and decency; people who are growing more and more
callous to the already vulnerable.
They see in their daily lives and on the news and across their
timelines and in their communities, exactly the kind of
malevolence and toxicity they expect you to speak into with boldness and
clarity as moral leaders—and instead they find you adjusting the stage lights
and renovating the lobby and launching websites.
In the middle of the songs and the sermons and the video clips,
they can see your feet of clay and your moral laryngitis. That’s why
they’re leaving.
I know you’re worried about saying too much, about being branded
too political, about offending people or somehow making it worse by speaking.
Trust me, you are making it worse by saying nothing.
Yes, you may be avoiding conflict or keeping a tenuous peace in
the pews.
You may be causing less obvious turbulence inside your walls.
You may be appeasing a few fearful folks there who don’t want you
to trouble the waters.
But you’re doing something else: you’re confirming for millions of
people, why they have no use for you any longer.
You’re confirming the suspicions of those who believe the church
has no relevance for them.
You’re giving people who’ve offered you one more chance to earn
their presence—reason to walk away.
Your silence right now is the last straw for them.
They’ve been waiting for you to oppose hypocrisy in institutionalized
religion and in government the way Christ did,
to declare the value of every human life the way Christ did,
to loudly defend all marginalized people the way Christ did,
to stand alongside your brothers and sisters of other faiths, the
very same way even Christ did,
to denounce the current degradation of our planet, given to us by
our Creator to care for and tend —
to say with absolute clarity what you stand for and what you
will not abide.
And you have kept them waiting too long.
Church, people can get most of what you offer them somewhere
else. They can find meaningful community and entertainment for their
families and acts of service to participate in. They can get music and
inspiration and affinity and relationships without you.
The singular thing you can offer them is a clear and unflinching
voice that emulates the voice of Jesus.
If you really want to be relevant again: say everything.
Stand on your platforms and in your pulpits and specifically name
the bigotry, precisely call out the politics, unequivocally condemn the people
and the policies and the movements that sicken you. Jesus did.
Stop couching your words and softening your delivery and start
speaking with clarity about what matters to you. That’s what those who are
leaving want most.
It may be too late to stop the mass exodus at this point—but
saying everything will at least help you keep your soul as you fade away.
At least you’ll know you stood for something.
Speak, Church.
Based on this letter to the Church from John Pavlovitz and based
on the message of Christ and his word to the disciples – Do not be afraid to speak
truth, do not be afraid to stand on the side of love and acceptance. Do not be afraid to offer grace. These are the things that Christ did, every
day. Nothing less.
Show us the Father and then we will be satisfied, Philip
said. Here, in this message from Christ
in our scriptures and in this letter to the church, is the Father. Now, be satisfied and do what Christ
commanded.
No comments:
Post a Comment