What is the secret that allows churches to work together?

What is the secret to working together with other churches in order to multiply the resulting impact within the community?  The answer is exceedingly simple, but often difficult for some Christians or churches to accept: Don’t care which church benefits.  If you, or your church, are more concerned with your numbers on Sunday morning than you are with fulfilling the mission of the Church to care for the poor and needy, you might as well continue to do what little you can on your own.  If ten churches work together to run a food pantry, a pantry that will physically be housed in one of those ten churches, and as a result, new people who are served by that pantry end up going to the church that is the host, that is a cause for praise for all ten churches because the Church of Jesus Christ is the beneficiary.  There is no reason for each church to try to have its own food pantry, clothing collection and distribution program, after-school ministry, home repair team, or whatever other avenue of ministry you can think of.  Each church should find out what their passion is, through serious introspection and assessment of talents and resources, and focus on that area while at the same time lending a significant hand to the area of focus of other churches through financial and volunteer support and in turn allowing those other churches to contribute to your focused ministry.  The end result should have one church running the food pantry, with all other contributing, one church running a clothing program, with all other assisting, one church running an after-school ministry, etc.

                Why shouldn’t such ministries be duplicated in each church?  The practical objection is that it is a waste of resources, as each does far less than the sum of them could do together.  The PR objection is that is shows the Lost, those we aim to share the Gospel with, that we’re in competition with each other and not cooperation.  What does that say about the love of fellow Christians for each other when they can’t even work together?  The spiritual objection is that it fosters the false belief that we own our local church, that we aren’t part of the universal Church of Jesus, as well as depriving Christians of the positive impact in their own faith walk of being part of a collective effort that will actually make a difference in your community.  Last, but not least, it is in keeping with the prayer of Jesus before his passion began that his followers be one.  We certainly aren’t “one” in structure, but we can at least be “one” in spirit and “one” in cooperation.

                There’s another benefit to being a part of ecumenical ministry for your congregation:  It allows the men and women of your church to take part in a ministry that they’re passionate about even if your church doesn’t have that type of ministry.  The alternatives are that they don’t utilize that gift/talent/calling because no outlet for it appears to exist, or that they leave to go to a church where they feel they can contribute.  Does either of those options appeal to the pastors and church board busy building a moat around the church building to keep other Christians out?

                In the end, the final evaluation is beyond dispute: Are more people shown the love of Jesus Christ when churches work collectively or when they work alone?  You know that the answer is clearly when collective efforts exist, how can a disciple of Jesus Christ, a committed servant of the Kingdom of God, fail to set aside whatever objection he/she has to ecumenism and start working with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?  Whatever the excuse is, it isn’t good enough.

Sermon Video: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - Luke 10:38-42

Life can be busy, it can be hectic, stressful, and frustrating.  Work needs to be done, things need to be taken care of, we have responsibility.  All this is true, and the Word of God doesn’t attempt to gloss over such concerns, but it does offer hope.  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is confronted by a frustrated hostess Martha whose efforts to prepare for Jesus’ needs and those of his disciples, has been hampered, in her mind at least, by her sister Mary’s lack of contribution to the work.  Martha interrupts Jesus to complain about this unfair situation and request, with much emotion, that he order Mary to help out.  What was Mary doing this whole time, why wasn’t she helping?  Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, soaking up the wisdom of his teaching, and acting as if she too, even though she is a woman, is going to be his disciple.

                This passage can be viewed as a sibling rivalry, the struggles of an older sibling to deal with responsibility and the younger of shirking it.  Or it can be looked at as a clash of personality types, with Martha’s “A” personality being frazzled by Mary’s laid-back attitude.  We’ve all experienced such turmoil, in our family, at our work, or in our church.  When people work together on projects it always seems that some are left holding the bag and doing all the work while other skate by.   

                How will Jesus respond?  Will he scold Mary for not helping out?  Keep in mind that the previous passage was the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a message about helping out someone in need, and Mary isn’t helping out.  Are the situations parallel?  They are not, and therein lies the key to Jesus response.  In the parable, it was a question of life or death, right and wrong were clearly in the choice, to help was righteous, to fail to help was a sin of omission.  Here in this situation, Martha and Mary are not dealing with a right vs. wrong decision, but rather a good vs. better comparison.  Is it better to work hard to provide for the needs of others, as Martha is doing, or is it better to satisfy the spiritual hunger of learning from Jesus?

                Much of the commentary on this passage attempts to point out that Martha’s preparation were overly indulgent, that she had put too into it, and thus the lesson for her from Jesus is one of simplicity.  While there may be some truth to that line of thinking, it isn’t necessary that we criticize Martha in order to understand why Jesus takes Mary’s side by declaring that she chose something “better”.  Martha’s didn’t do anything wrong, per se, she just didn’t make the best choice possible.  There will always be more work to do, but Mary recognized that learning from Jesus was a unique spiritual opportunity not to be missed.  That was the better choice for Mary, it would have been the best choice for Martha as well.

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Sermon Video: "Who is my neighbor?" - Luke 10:29-37

As the conversation between Jesus and the expert in the Law continues, the lawyer and Jesus have agreed that the heart and soul of the Law is loving God with everything and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  At this point, the original question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” has been answered in that what is required by the Law has been clearly summed up.  The next part of the conversation should be a discussion of how we reconcile the Law’s demand with humanity’s failure to fully keep it, i.e. a discussion of repentance and forgiveness, of mercy and grace.  The lawyer, however, in an effort to justify himself turns the discussion in a new direction by asking Jesus, “and who is my neighbor?”  The lawyer’s question is focusing on the object of the Law, who it applies to, in the hopes that a narrow definition will make it easier to keep.  As Jesus typically does, he doesn’t answer the question he is asked but instead chooses to focus upon the subject of the Law, that is, us, by explaining what it means to be a good neighbor.

                The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most commented upon sections of the Bible, it has fascinated Christians down through the centuries with its powerful message.  In the story, the unnamed man who is robbed, beaten, and left for dead while journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho is only treated as a neighbor by one of the three people who pass by that way.  The first two that come along, both of whom are professional servants of God and thus in theory ideal representatives of the requirements of the Law to love your neighbor, yet they both walk by without even stopping to assess the situation.  Both of these men of God commit sins of omission by not helping a fellow human being in distress.  The lawyer who asked the question of Jesus about defining the term neighbor was hoping that the definition would end up being, “only people like us, our fellow Jews are your neighbors”.  Even by that narrow definition, the priest and Levite are in violation of the Law.  The broad definition of neighbor advocated by Jesus, everyone you meet is your neighbor, is embodied by the Samaritan who comes along next, takes pity on the wounded man, and goes far beyond the minimum to take care of his needs. 

                The twist of the story is of course that a hated Samaritan is the good guy and two respected religious leaders are the bad guys, that alone is a powerful enough message about prejudice and judging people based on outward appearances, but the parable also teaches us to not put limits on who we consider to be our neighbors.  The demand from God that we love our neighbors as ourselves has no boundary, there is no “us” and “them”.  Anytime that people start dividing the world up into groups of “us” and “them”, the process begins which allows racism, sexism, indifference, callousness, greed, and hatred to grow.  Why?  Because when we look at another human being as a “them” we allow ourselves to begin to minimize their suffering and treat it as somehow less than our own.  How was Hitler able to murder millions of innocent Jews, Gypsies, and other “undesirables”?  He had millions of willing men and women throughout Europe that also believed that those lives were less valuable, because it was “them” and not “us”, unspeakable horrors were unleashed. 

                What is the call of God for his people?  To love all, and treat all equally, to see everyone as your neighbor and imitate the love of God by loving them in turn.  The conversation between Jesus and the lawyer ends when the lawyer is forced to concede that the one who acted as a neighbor to the man in distress was “the one who had mercy on him”, it does not matter who he was, his actions spoke for him.  In response Jesus said, “Go and do likewise”.

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Sermon Video: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" - Luke 10:25-28

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  That question lies at the heart of mankind’s hopes to stand before our Creator without fear.  Connected to that question is the related question of, “What is the greatest commandment?”  Jesus interacted with those two questions on multiple occasions in the Gospels, and always came around to the same answer, whether he was answering the question himself or simply agreeing with the answer of someone else: Love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself.  These two summations of the duties and responsibilities of the Law of Moses are recorded in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.  That these two requirements of total love, for God and our neighbor, are an effective summation of the Law was one of the few things about which Jesus and his adversaries among the ruling religious clique of Jerusalem could agree.  The answer to the question is not in any doubt, in order to stand before God, we must love him with everything we have, body, mind, soul, and strength, AND we must love that which he loves, people created in his image, as we love ourselves.  This is what God requires of us, the stark difference between Jesus and the self-righteous leaders who opposed him is that Jesus knew full well that humanity was incapable of even approaching this standard of perfection, let alone accomplishing it.

                “What must I do” is a failing proposition from the beginning.  Because God is holy, our effort will always fall far short.  If we cannot “do” anything to save ourselves, are we simply left without hope?  From the very beginning, when God promised Adam and Eve that he would one day send a redeemer, the answer to mankind’s dilemma lay with God.  The Messiah, God’s own Son, was sent to remedy that which we could never do.  What mankind is incapable of, Jesus did, what we could not do for ourselves, he has done for us.  Where does that leave us?  Grace, God’s grace, that is our hope and our trust, when we put our faith in what Jesus has accomplished, the Spirit of God can begin to transform us, washing away our past sins, and starting us on the road, through his power, to becoming a people that loves God with everything we have and loves our neighbors, all of them, as ourselves.

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Sermon Video, "rejoice that your names are written in heaven" - Luke 10:17-20

When the seventy-two, sent out by Jesus to prepare the towns and villages for his arrival, return full of joy at their major success, they share with Jesus their enthusiasm that “even the demons submit to us in your name.”  Jesus confirms their success by relating to them that he witnessed the fall of Satan, “like lightning”, and then he goes further by telling them that they will do even greater things for the kingdom because he has given them his authority and power.  With that ability the followers of Jesus, soon to become the Church after Pentecost, are entirely capable of overcoming the forces of darkness and carrying the Gospel’s saving grace to the ends of the earth.  There is much in Jesus words to give us confidence and hope as we continue to be beacons of light in a dark world.

                After building up their enthusiasm and expectation, Jesus ends the conversation by reminding his followers that wielding power in his name, even over the forces of darkness, is not an end in and of itself, but rather an outcome of the foundational work which he is about to accomplish on Good Friday and Easter.  Jesus reminds them that the most important thing is that they can rejoice that their “names are written in heaven.”  If we, as individuals and as a Church, don’t have that, we don’t have anything.  This perspective has major implications for each one of us and for our collective efforts to do fulfill our mission through the ministry of his Church. 

                Is this then a call, by Jesus, to place our focus entirely upon evangelism to the exclusion of service?  Of course not, that would fly in the face of the approach that Jesus himself used as he continually met the physical needs of the people he met in the process of sharing with them the Good News of the Gospel.  This is not a call to divorce evangelism from service, rather it is a reminder that the two must be inextricably linked, because the evangelist who cares not for the people will soon have no audience, and the servant who doesn’t bring the Gospel with him/her will have no message.  In the end, figuring out how we combine service and evangelism in our personal, Church, and para-church efforts will be an ongoing task, but as long as we keep the proper perspective from Jesus that there is only one foundation we can build upon, we will continue to be useful to the kingdom of God.

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