Beginning Anew
Before I start in on the sermon proper, I do have just a few words to say on what we’ve seen going on in Minneapolis this past week. The entire world watched in horror as yet again, an armed officer of the law killed an unarmed, handcuffed black man on the city streets. And the world continued to watch as the anger of the people at yet another brutal killing took the form of mass protests, some of which turned violent.
I’ve never lived a day as a black man in America. I don’t have regular run-ins with the police. When I do have an interaction with a police officer, it’s always been in the form of a simple conversation. I’ve never been touched by a cop except with a handshake. I’ve never been in handcuffs. I’ve certainly never felt anyone’s knee crush down on my neck.
When I see the news footage of protestors, some violent, most not – some rioting, most not. Some legitimately angry, and some, I suspect, just opportunists taking advantage of a chaotic situation… I think about the outlets of anger that people are finding.
I’ve never been and never will be a black man. I’ve never been a cop.
What I am is a white, Christian minister. And while there are a world of differences between my line of work, and what police officers do, I think there’s one very strong similarity. We both serve in institutions that have lost the trust of great numbers of the American people. Now, I don’t say that to start an argument over whether people should or shouldn’t trust the church or the police. But I think it’s a fair statement of fact. The sex abuse scandals of clergy from all different types of churches that came to light over the past several decades eroded peoples’ trust in religion. The abuses of power that are exposed as police officers kill unarmed men also erode trust. It doesn’t matter if you have 100 police officers or 100 clergy, and of those 100, 95 or 96 are consummate professionals who take their responsibilities and authority seriously… if those few who abuse and exploit their power are allowed to remain, and the systems in place protect them instead of their victims, then people will reasonably perceive them as a threat.
What do people do when they perceive a threat? Well, Psychology 101 tells us that generally, our response is fight or flight. Either punch the threat in the nose, or walk away from it. In the case of the church, most people have chosen flight. It wasn’t just the scandals of a few ministers and priests that caused people to lose trust in the church. It was the number of people, the time, the energy, and the money, involved in trying to cover their tracks and sweep wrong-doing under the rug. And I know that’s not the only reason we’ve seen declining church membership over the past 30 years or so. But we’d be fools to think it’s not a factor. People are free to join and leave the church, and if we’re perceived as a threat, or simply as untrustworthy, people will leave. And even though the vast majority of pulpits are filled with good and decent men and women of God, that burden of proving ourselves and re-earning peoples’ trust stays with us each and every day.
That’s the church, where people are free to come and go as they please. What we’re seeing in Minneapolis now, and in cities around the country, is what happens when there is no trust in law enforcement. Unlike church, there is no building or congregation that people can voluntarily just up and leave. So they’re using the tools available to them. Organizing. Marching. Usually peacefully. Sometimes not. Sometimes violent in response to violence.
And I’ve thought about this and prayed about this far many hours this week. And I’ll be honest – as angry as I was about the killing of yet another unarmed black man, and as my heart broke as I watched as protests escalate into conflicts… there was a small part of me that was glad to have something other than the pandemic to talk about this week. But that didn’t last long. With the pandemic, that puts all of humanity on one side, and a natural, invisible enemy on the other – that’s a lot easier to talk about theologically than this is, where the conflict is not man vs. nature, but man vs. man.
But as I prayed. And, like I said, I prayed a lot. I prayed about what the Christian witness to this cycle of violence should be. And as Christians, our arc should always be towards peace. The peace that says, “You shall not steal,” and for the most part – people aren’t. But the ones who are are all over the news. And some of them are doing it out of anger or, the jagged edge of grief, or to make a point, but others, I think are just opportunists… But even more importantly, the arc of Christian prayer towards peace must focus on “You shall not kill.” Riots and protests don’t just materialize out of thin air. They come from people who feel unheard and unvalued. And I know the temptation is to see George Floyd as an isolated incident. But the list of “isolated incidents” grows ever longer, and increasingly less isolated.
Christians are called to love. We are called to peace. We are called to be builders of bridges between neighbors. We do not kill, nor condone killing. We do not steal, nor condone stealing.
My last thought I want to share on this before I spend just a few minutes talking about Pentecost, is that yes, there is anger, yes, there is pain, and there are people screaming just to be heard. But in the midst of this, there is also healing.
Among the pictures of continuing protests in cities around the country now, there are also pictures of what’s going on in Minneapolis. Where neighborhood stores were shut down, we’re seeing images of people lining up to donate food and household items for their neighbors who need them. Where parking lots and storefronts are littered with broken glass and debris, we see people of all races and ages come armed with brooms, dustpans, and garbage bags, to begin the work of cleaning and restoration.
The Christian response to all things must bend towards love and towards peace. And that requires hard work. And that requires building up trust. And that requires discipline and accountability. It doesn’t sweep problems under the rug. It doesn’t give people a free pass to do whatever they like whenever they like to whomever they like. It requires us to see people… all people… even the ones we rage against… as children created in the image of God. If we cannot do that, if we’re not even willing to try… then the church and Christ serve no purpose.
Which segues nicely into what I want to talk about for Pentecost. The celebration of Pentecost, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and the followers of Jesus after the ascension, can be though of as the birthday of the church. At Pentecost, the first Christians truly went from being just a bunch of guys following this Jesus guy around from town to town, to being a church proper, worshiping God in heaven, as best they knew how. They didn’t have liturgy books or hymnals. They didn’t have a hierarchy of priests and ministers to tell them how to do things. The Holy Spirit came upon them, and then they were left to figure things out from there.
I’ve often spent time wondering… if we were to begin the church anew. Free of any traditions or expectations or denominational requirements… what might that church look like… how might it sound? How would the mood be different? What could we do that we can’t do now? On the other hand, what can we do now that a brand new church couldn’t?
We just heard that the governor plans to give a green light to limited indoor church services beginning next month. That doesn’t mean that when the green light comes, that we’ll all be able to pile back into the building and everything will be as it was before. Some churches will come back that same day – with significantly modified worship. Others will be more cautious, and continue to rely primarily on remote services. And we’ll be looking at what the appropriate situation is for our congregation, within our community, and with the guidance of our Classis and other local churches.
But when we do come back, some things will be new. And different. And we’ll be figuring things out, bit by bit. Church as we will know will not be church as we knew it.
But in an ideal world – what would church be? What would church do? How would Christians come together, stripped of our confines, to be the church that Christ most wants us to be?
Some changes might be more symbolic, even cosmetic. Would we change the name of our church? Would we see ourselves differently or engage with church differently if we were to model ourselves after a particular saint or apostle? If we were the St. Thomas Church of Hazlet, would we act differently than if we were the St. Paul Church of Hazlet? What would it say about us if we were the Hazlet Church of the Living Word? What would we expect of ourselves if we were the Hazlet Mission Church?
Would our liturgy follow the same order? Would we sing more? Sing less? Preach more? Preach less? Some church communities find meaningful worship in simple gatherings of prayer and scripture readings. Others turn worship into an entertainment or concert experience.
If we were a new church, who would we welcome? Of course, every church says they welcome everybody. But how would we react if somebody very conservative or very liberal wanted to join and shake things up? How would we react if our next new member came in rags and reeking of booze?
What other Christian groups and what other faith groups would we associate with? Right now we’re part of the Reformed Church, and I’m guessing that for most of us, it’s not because we’re particularly excited about the nitty-gritty details of Reformed theology, or because we’re proud of our Dutch heritage (most of us ain’t Dutch), or anything like that. I’d guess that most of our congregation came to the Reformed Church the same way I did – either we grew up with it, or we moved to a new town and were church shopping, and we stopped in and the pastor seemed nice and the people were friendly, so we kept coming. I know some people in this church didn’t know what the Reformed Church was before Pastor Mueller knocked on their door and said they were starting a new church in the neighborhood 60 years ago.
If we didn’t have those ties (and I like those ties – I’ve come to love the Reformed Church, for all its quirks and flaws), but if we didn’t have them… how would we know what other churches to bond with? To work on projects with? Would we just pick the ones closest to us? Even if we disagree loudly and often about this, that, and the other? Would we pick the churches we were theologically most closely aligned with? We sort of are that way now, but there’s a world of difference between Reformed worship in our most conservative churches and in our most liberal churches. Would we associate with other churches whose members sort of look the way we look, act the way we act, come from the same racial, economic, and family backgrounds?
It’s kind of a fun thought exercise, but thinking about it too much does send you down something of a rabbit hole. But it’s something I’d like you all to think about. Given who we are, who our membership is, what our passions are, the things we love about church, the things we don’t love as much… if we were to build a new church from the ground up – not the building, so much as the congregation and its purpose… what would we do? Who would we be? How would we share the good news of Jesus Christ with our neighbors?
It’s as much a comfort as a lament that we can’t really build a new church from scratch. That we are bound by our history, by our relationships, and by our traditions. And we don’t have to figure everything out from scratch and re-invent a hundred different wheels.
But I hope that as we envision how church will be when we come back, when we are sort of shoehorned into new configurations, and new adjustments to worship and liturgy, that it puts into sharp relief the sense of our purpose as a worshipping community together. That we don’t exist to be a social club, though I do hope that we enjoy our fellowship together. We don’t exist to be entertaining, though I hope that worship is engaging. But rather, we come together to share in the story of love, peace, and hope, that can only be found through Jesus Christ.
It’s a story that the worlds needs right now. Because there is chaos. There is grief. There is anger and despair. And it is within each of us to be bearers of Christ’s love. Christ’s peace. And Christ’s hope for the world.
This is to God’s glory. Amen.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, we look to you at all times and in all seasons. Lord, we cast our eyes towards you know as we walk through a world in lament. We lament the sickness that is the backdrop of everything we do and every decision we make. We lament the grief of people who have lived through generations of being devalued, unseen and unheard. We lament the destruction of those who lash out in anger, and use the pain of the world as a chance for personal gain. Lord, we seek newness in you. We seek a revival of our spirits. We ask for blessings of new faith and bold hearts. Hear our laments, Lord, and endow us with new spirits, blessed with your love, peace, and hope. We pray these things in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen.
Before I start in on the sermon proper, I do have just a few words to say on what we’ve seen going on in Minneapolis this past week. The entire world watched in horror as yet again, an armed officer of the law killed an unarmed, handcuffed black man on the city streets. And the world continued to watch as the anger of the people at yet another brutal killing took the form of mass protests, some of which turned violent.
I’ve never lived a day as a black man in America. I don’t have regular run-ins with the police. When I do have an interaction with a police officer, it’s always been in the form of a simple conversation. I’ve never been touched by a cop except with a handshake. I’ve never been in handcuffs. I’ve certainly never felt anyone’s knee crush down on my neck.
When I see the news footage of protestors, some violent, most not – some rioting, most not. Some legitimately angry, and some, I suspect, just opportunists taking advantage of a chaotic situation… I think about the outlets of anger that people are finding.
I’ve never been and never will be a black man. I’ve never been a cop.
What I am is a white, Christian minister. And while there are a world of differences between my line of work, and what police officers do, I think there’s one very strong similarity. We both serve in institutions that have lost the trust of great numbers of the American people. Now, I don’t say that to start an argument over whether people should or shouldn’t trust the church or the police. But I think it’s a fair statement of fact. The sex abuse scandals of clergy from all different types of churches that came to light over the past several decades eroded peoples’ trust in religion. The abuses of power that are exposed as police officers kill unarmed men also erode trust. It doesn’t matter if you have 100 police officers or 100 clergy, and of those 100, 95 or 96 are consummate professionals who take their responsibilities and authority seriously… if those few who abuse and exploit their power are allowed to remain, and the systems in place protect them instead of their victims, then people will reasonably perceive them as a threat.
What do people do when they perceive a threat? Well, Psychology 101 tells us that generally, our response is fight or flight. Either punch the threat in the nose, or walk away from it. In the case of the church, most people have chosen flight. It wasn’t just the scandals of a few ministers and priests that caused people to lose trust in the church. It was the number of people, the time, the energy, and the money, involved in trying to cover their tracks and sweep wrong-doing under the rug. And I know that’s not the only reason we’ve seen declining church membership over the past 30 years or so. But we’d be fools to think it’s not a factor. People are free to join and leave the church, and if we’re perceived as a threat, or simply as untrustworthy, people will leave. And even though the vast majority of pulpits are filled with good and decent men and women of God, that burden of proving ourselves and re-earning peoples’ trust stays with us each and every day.
That’s the church, where people are free to come and go as they please. What we’re seeing in Minneapolis now, and in cities around the country, is what happens when there is no trust in law enforcement. Unlike church, there is no building or congregation that people can voluntarily just up and leave. So they’re using the tools available to them. Organizing. Marching. Usually peacefully. Sometimes not. Sometimes violent in response to violence.
And I’ve thought about this and prayed about this far many hours this week. And I’ll be honest – as angry as I was about the killing of yet another unarmed black man, and as my heart broke as I watched as protests escalate into conflicts… there was a small part of me that was glad to have something other than the pandemic to talk about this week. But that didn’t last long. With the pandemic, that puts all of humanity on one side, and a natural, invisible enemy on the other – that’s a lot easier to talk about theologically than this is, where the conflict is not man vs. nature, but man vs. man.
But as I prayed. And, like I said, I prayed a lot. I prayed about what the Christian witness to this cycle of violence should be. And as Christians, our arc should always be towards peace. The peace that says, “You shall not steal,” and for the most part – people aren’t. But the ones who are are all over the news. And some of them are doing it out of anger or, the jagged edge of grief, or to make a point, but others, I think are just opportunists… But even more importantly, the arc of Christian prayer towards peace must focus on “You shall not kill.” Riots and protests don’t just materialize out of thin air. They come from people who feel unheard and unvalued. And I know the temptation is to see George Floyd as an isolated incident. But the list of “isolated incidents” grows ever longer, and increasingly less isolated.
Christians are called to love. We are called to peace. We are called to be builders of bridges between neighbors. We do not kill, nor condone killing. We do not steal, nor condone stealing.
My last thought I want to share on this before I spend just a few minutes talking about Pentecost, is that yes, there is anger, yes, there is pain, and there are people screaming just to be heard. But in the midst of this, there is also healing.
Among the pictures of continuing protests in cities around the country now, there are also pictures of what’s going on in Minneapolis. Where neighborhood stores were shut down, we’re seeing images of people lining up to donate food and household items for their neighbors who need them. Where parking lots and storefronts are littered with broken glass and debris, we see people of all races and ages come armed with brooms, dustpans, and garbage bags, to begin the work of cleaning and restoration.
The Christian response to all things must bend towards love and towards peace. And that requires hard work. And that requires building up trust. And that requires discipline and accountability. It doesn’t sweep problems under the rug. It doesn’t give people a free pass to do whatever they like whenever they like to whomever they like. It requires us to see people… all people… even the ones we rage against… as children created in the image of God. If we cannot do that, if we’re not even willing to try… then the church and Christ serve no purpose.
Which segues nicely into what I want to talk about for Pentecost. The celebration of Pentecost, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and the followers of Jesus after the ascension, can be though of as the birthday of the church. At Pentecost, the first Christians truly went from being just a bunch of guys following this Jesus guy around from town to town, to being a church proper, worshiping God in heaven, as best they knew how. They didn’t have liturgy books or hymnals. They didn’t have a hierarchy of priests and ministers to tell them how to do things. The Holy Spirit came upon them, and then they were left to figure things out from there.
I’ve often spent time wondering… if we were to begin the church anew. Free of any traditions or expectations or denominational requirements… what might that church look like… how might it sound? How would the mood be different? What could we do that we can’t do now? On the other hand, what can we do now that a brand new church couldn’t?
We just heard that the governor plans to give a green light to limited indoor church services beginning next month. That doesn’t mean that when the green light comes, that we’ll all be able to pile back into the building and everything will be as it was before. Some churches will come back that same day – with significantly modified worship. Others will be more cautious, and continue to rely primarily on remote services. And we’ll be looking at what the appropriate situation is for our congregation, within our community, and with the guidance of our Classis and other local churches.
But when we do come back, some things will be new. And different. And we’ll be figuring things out, bit by bit. Church as we will know will not be church as we knew it.
But in an ideal world – what would church be? What would church do? How would Christians come together, stripped of our confines, to be the church that Christ most wants us to be?
Some changes might be more symbolic, even cosmetic. Would we change the name of our church? Would we see ourselves differently or engage with church differently if we were to model ourselves after a particular saint or apostle? If we were the St. Thomas Church of Hazlet, would we act differently than if we were the St. Paul Church of Hazlet? What would it say about us if we were the Hazlet Church of the Living Word? What would we expect of ourselves if we were the Hazlet Mission Church?
Would our liturgy follow the same order? Would we sing more? Sing less? Preach more? Preach less? Some church communities find meaningful worship in simple gatherings of prayer and scripture readings. Others turn worship into an entertainment or concert experience.
If we were a new church, who would we welcome? Of course, every church says they welcome everybody. But how would we react if somebody very conservative or very liberal wanted to join and shake things up? How would we react if our next new member came in rags and reeking of booze?
What other Christian groups and what other faith groups would we associate with? Right now we’re part of the Reformed Church, and I’m guessing that for most of us, it’s not because we’re particularly excited about the nitty-gritty details of Reformed theology, or because we’re proud of our Dutch heritage (most of us ain’t Dutch), or anything like that. I’d guess that most of our congregation came to the Reformed Church the same way I did – either we grew up with it, or we moved to a new town and were church shopping, and we stopped in and the pastor seemed nice and the people were friendly, so we kept coming. I know some people in this church didn’t know what the Reformed Church was before Pastor Mueller knocked on their door and said they were starting a new church in the neighborhood 60 years ago.
If we didn’t have those ties (and I like those ties – I’ve come to love the Reformed Church, for all its quirks and flaws), but if we didn’t have them… how would we know what other churches to bond with? To work on projects with? Would we just pick the ones closest to us? Even if we disagree loudly and often about this, that, and the other? Would we pick the churches we were theologically most closely aligned with? We sort of are that way now, but there’s a world of difference between Reformed worship in our most conservative churches and in our most liberal churches. Would we associate with other churches whose members sort of look the way we look, act the way we act, come from the same racial, economic, and family backgrounds?
It’s kind of a fun thought exercise, but thinking about it too much does send you down something of a rabbit hole. But it’s something I’d like you all to think about. Given who we are, who our membership is, what our passions are, the things we love about church, the things we don’t love as much… if we were to build a new church from the ground up – not the building, so much as the congregation and its purpose… what would we do? Who would we be? How would we share the good news of Jesus Christ with our neighbors?
It’s as much a comfort as a lament that we can’t really build a new church from scratch. That we are bound by our history, by our relationships, and by our traditions. And we don’t have to figure everything out from scratch and re-invent a hundred different wheels.
But I hope that as we envision how church will be when we come back, when we are sort of shoehorned into new configurations, and new adjustments to worship and liturgy, that it puts into sharp relief the sense of our purpose as a worshipping community together. That we don’t exist to be a social club, though I do hope that we enjoy our fellowship together. We don’t exist to be entertaining, though I hope that worship is engaging. But rather, we come together to share in the story of love, peace, and hope, that can only be found through Jesus Christ.
It’s a story that the worlds needs right now. Because there is chaos. There is grief. There is anger and despair. And it is within each of us to be bearers of Christ’s love. Christ’s peace. And Christ’s hope for the world.
This is to God’s glory. Amen.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, we look to you at all times and in all seasons. Lord, we cast our eyes towards you know as we walk through a world in lament. We lament the sickness that is the backdrop of everything we do and every decision we make. We lament the grief of people who have lived through generations of being devalued, unseen and unheard. We lament the destruction of those who lash out in anger, and use the pain of the world as a chance for personal gain. Lord, we seek newness in you. We seek a revival of our spirits. We ask for blessings of new faith and bold hearts. Hear our laments, Lord, and endow us with new spirits, blessed with your love, peace, and hope. We pray these things in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen.