Resurrection Life

"While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering": a sermon on the future of an established, declining congregation with great things in store for it.

3 Easter 2012

Luke 24: 36b-48

Pastor Chris Enstad

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Brothers and sisters, I bring you grace and peace in the name of our Risen Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.  Amen.

“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”  

What an amazing statement by Luke. “While in their joy they were disbelieving and wondering.”  

In truth, those could be the words stamped on the outside of just about any Christian congregation could they not?  Oh, I know that there are plenty of Christians walking around feigning certainty but, usually I find that that certainty is really a smokescreen for uncertainty.  Indeed, often times the louder a Christian shouts at an unbeliever or questioner about the faith, the more often you have to wonder what they have that the rest of us don’t.  Christ appeared in the flesh only between the Resurrection and the Ascension, so, unless you have Jesus locked away in your basement then you are in the same boat as the rest of us.

We possess a very real but a very fragile faith.  Faith in and of itself is a gift given to us by the God who created us.  But, in giving us that gift, God entrusts it to some very human humans,  frail, easily distracted, sinful, judgmental, and capricious.

I have had friends in the faith who have had awful things happen to them or to someone they love, get lost in that most scariest of questions, “If there is a God, why would he let something so awful happen to me or to that person?”  

I also have friends who have so many crazy things going on in their lives that they seek a Christian faith that is unchanging, unshifting, uncompromising.  Both of those extremes, unfortunately, miss out on the living breathing gift of the fragile but real faith granted to us by the God who created us and loved us.

Elim: A people of joy who still, at times, disbelieve or wonder about this whole God thing.  I wonder if a church put that phrase on the outside of the door if more people might not darken the doors.  A church is all too often seen by those who are questioning, those who perhaps are in active states of disbelief, they are often seen as clubs for those who have it all down pat when, in fact, if folks out there knew that, “Hey, we have questions too,” might they not join us in our journey as a church?

I wonder….
“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering”.

You know, I wonder about this whole thing all the time.  Who is this Christ that we claim has risen from the dead and what in the world does it have to do with us?

We say that we meet Jesus when we walk in the doors of this place.  Pr. Theim referred to the sign that is in the pulpit up here “That we would see Jesus”.  Well, if I’m doing my job and Pr. Marcia is doing hers and Pastor Theim is doing his, and we are meeting Christ in the flesh when we walk in here... what is keeping us from sharing that amazing news with all of the souls walking past the doors of this place.

The last verse you heard in the Gospel text this morning says, “You are witnesses of these things.”…….You are witnesses of these things.  

But, man oh man, don’t we wish we could just be witnesses and not have to testify to what we have seen?  We don’t want to be seen as being too pushy or too in your face like some other kind of Christian that we see on TV or on the street corner.  But, we can testify to the wonder of the resurrection in many other ways.

Being a believer gives us the story to tell.  It gives us the path to walk.  It gives us our way forward.

Elim is taking great steps in faith did you know that?  I don’t think we have all grasped the significance of four congregations worshipping together in the same building.  Do you know what kind of seed it is that God has planted?

Pr. Theim preached on Easter Sunday.  Some folks questioned that decision, others got it.  The way ahead for our congregation will not look or sound like the Elim of 40 years ago.  This afternoon a team made up of the pastors and 4 lay people from Lao Lutheran and Elim will gather around a meal to begin dreaming of new ways to expand our relationship with each other.  The opportunities are really and truly amazing.

But tell me this: What do you think might happen to us when we move beyond a landlord/renter relationship with Monument of Faith or All God’s Children churches?  One is a Pentecostal denomination, the other is non-denominational, what kinds of new ways of being Elim might happen when we take those next steps?  

And, what about new ministry opportunities in our community that are making themselves known to us?  We are actively putting together outreach teams for Lakeview Elementary School and Good Samaritan Speciality Health Community.  Please, let me or Shirley know if you would be a part of those teams.  

Or, how about our soon to be made, agreement with the Red Cross to become a disaster response location or with Families Moving Forward as they seek to increase the number of places homeless families can stay for a week at a time.  Or, North Memorial as they dream with us about ways we can serve as a health care outpost for them?  

The opportunities for us to make a positive structural impact on our community are amazing.

But, the question I have been holding out to our leadership is the same one I am holding out to you:

“What can Elim do uniquely better than the 1,000 other congregations in our area?  And why are we doing it?”

A pastor friend of mine put that question in an even more powerful manner: “If Elim were to cease to exist tomorrow would anyone in our city notice?”

I pray the answer to that last question would be, “Yes.”  My answer to the first two questions is from our scripture this morning: “Because we have witnessed the resurrected Jesus Christ, we have received the promise of salvation we have been commissioned today to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations.”

We are called to get over the fact that we are at once a people of joy and disbelief and are a people called to witness to our city, our families, and our world what an amazing thing God has done.

I asked our council last week to think about what kind of newspaper headlines might be written about Elim in three years time.  We had several pretty awesome submissions.  Let me share mine with you, and mind you, this is just visioning so, don’t get too freaked out:

The headline reads: “93 year old congregations closes its doors and reopens as The Oasis Church.  Come and see a multi-cultural, multi-denominational church as it works for transformation in the Robbinsdale area.  Come and experience the Oasis, a cup of cold water for your life’s journey.”

If you thought having the Laotian pastor preaching on Easter was pretty far out, just hold on to your socks.  

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen, indeed!

Alleluia, Alleluia.

Amen.

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Thoughts on Caine's Arcade

This video:

http://cainesarcade.com/

Is making the rounds of the internet.  I think it is a tremendous teaching tool for companies, entrepreneurs, and congregations.

The lessons I take away from a story like this in regards to church life go like this:

1. Do what you are called to do as a church.  Don't look around wondering if you're doing it right, just get moving and figure out the details as you go.  Many congregations are stuck in "talk" mode and don't ever get to "do" mode.  Caine just started doing it, and he made it his young life's mission to staff that arcade... that's what we're called to do for the Gospel Good News!

2. Find your congregation's square root button.  It slips by so fast you might miss it but did you notice that Caine uses square roots to determine the validity of the fun pass?  What's your cool button at your church?  Or did yours fall off years ago and no one has thought to clue it back on?  The highest functioning congregations are the ones having fun doing what they're doing.

3. It's ok to be proud of something you and your church have done.  We often, as congregations and leaders, don't like to wear our "Caine's Arcade" shirt to school because we're afraid someone will make fun of us.  In the church world we are reknown for eating our most promising young leaders because of the scorn heaped on them for trying something new and breaking established traditions.  The last words out of Caine's mouth in the film credits are, "I'm proud."  I think God says the same thing when we forget about the critics and the naysayers and just get to work doing what He has called us to do as congregations.  Celebrate the victories!

 

"Makings" vs. "Meetings"

Seth Godin recently pointed out that there is a huge difference between making something and meeting something. We organize and prioritize things differently if we were, say, to be meeting a train over and against making a train. Working in the church can often end up in days of endless meetings. Meetings are necessary but they invite hurried boredom, frustration and downright rudeness (for the chronically late) because more often than not creatives and producers on your staff would rather be out DOING something than sitting in a room talking ABOUT doing something.

I wonder if we might not invite each other into "makings" where the staff team is invited into a relationship where they are making something not meeting about something.  What kind of inspiration would come from that?  How many silos might get torn down when different areas of your church stop defending their turf and start making something new and exciting?

My uncle: a eulogy (of sorts)

My dad is a fraternal twin with my uncle Paul.  Paul died last week at the age of 64 of all sorts of issues but whatever they were they were complicated by Paul's addiction to alcohol.  Addiction is a disease.  I have seen all the email forwards and read all of the hard-hearted things that people have to say to someone like me who insists that addiction is about more than just "quitting cold turkey".  It is an illness and it is a terribly destructive one at that.  Families affected by alcoholism are turbulent, often crazy-feeling, and kids raised in those households enter life with two strikes against them 1. that they were raised in an unstable environment and 2. their parents aren't there to provide the kind of safety net a normal family provides.

Alcoholics need to be intervened upon by friends and family and put through treatment.  Yes, I've seen the stats and they are, forgive the pun, sobering.  But sobriety without a program is not real sobriety.  Would you believe me if I told you that to this day I am convinced that George Bush's actions and decisions were affected by his untreated alcoholism?  He exhibits many of the symptoms of what we call being a "dry drunk"... what kind of man would he be if he were in a 12-step program that led to his truly being "in recovery"?

If you or someone you love is in the midst of addiction of any kind do yourself a favor and intervene.  There are websites that show you how to do it here's one.  Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.  Paul was intervened on many times and none served to break his addiction, but we can all rest knowing that we tried.  It shows just how powerful the drug of alcohol is that not even family and grandkids can get you to turn around.  

I loved (love!) my uncle Paul.  He reminded me of Paul in A River Runs Through It not that my dad was any kind of Norman but Paul definetly insisted on raising the crazy-bar at every turn.  He was bigger than life, as many alcoholics are; but you knew that in the glint of his eye he gave a crap about you and the world.  God bless the memory of Paul O. Enstad

Reading the Bible: Day 87: Acts 22 - Romans 4 (August 31)

Well we are getting close to completing the challenge of reading our entire Bible this summer!  Some of you have already finished, I hear so way to go!

Today I am going to focus just a bit on the Book of Romans.  The entire book is dedicated to Paul's theology of the Righteousness of God over and against the unrighteousness of man.  In the letter he exhorts the church in Rome to preach the Gospel rightly divided between law and gospel.  It is this little hook, law and gospel, that launched the reformation and continues to inspire churches in their evangelistic endeavors to this day.

We live lives under the law.  Follow the rules and you will not get in trouble.  When we mistakenly bring this line of thinking into what Christ did for us we miss the point of the death and resurrection completely.  It is because we cannot follow the law, for instance the Ten Commandments, that God sent his son to fulfil the law on our behalf.  This now frees us to live new lives in him.  And so we go about our lives ministering to the needs of others and proclaiming that good news not because we have to but because we can.

So the first four chapters of Romans center on God's righteous judgement.  We are not the judge, God is.  And God has already judged mankind and found us to be lost and hopeless.  The birth of Jesus Christ, that we celebrate on Christmas, is actually a judgement day for us!  Could we make our way back to being right with God on our own?  God determined the answer to be, "no".  And so he sent his only begotten Son to get us back.

And so our righteousness is not counted to us by the number of rules we follow but by another important reformation phrase, "faith alone".  To those who believe in Christ comes the justification of the sinner... you and me.

Reading the Bible: The Home Stretch! Day 86 Acts 12-21 (August 25)

The Acts 16 story of Paul and Silas in prison is a powerful image, for me, of the life lived in Christ.  Remember that they landed in prison for healing a demon-possessed girl.  They were not imprisoned, it seems, for the healing itself but because they took away the means of making a living for the girl's parents.  For this the two men were thrown in prison.

Two things to take away from this: note that throughout the entire book of Acts, as the early church was being planted, we see the profit motive bumping up against the motive of the Gospel.  My bible finds comparisons with Simon the magician, Elymas and Demetrius the silversmith!  It does seem that pure capitalism and the Gospel are incompatible.  I am not advocating pure socialism, either, however what does a system look like where the wealthy put their hope not in wealth but in something else entirely?  Read 1 Timothy 6:17-19.  Feel free to comment on this comment as well, I'm curious to know what others think.  Truly, in the name of healing that girl, Paul and Silas actually stole from her parents... so how do those two things exist in the same world (healing and profit?)

Secondly, look at how Paul and Silas reacted to their imprisonment: by praying and singing hymns to God.  It is vitally important that we continue to teach our young people to know their story by heart so that in times of trouble they have a deep spiritual well from which to draw the water of life.  So many young people are suffering at the hands of our amoral world because they do not know enough the love God has for them.  They do not have a liturgy to draw upon.  They have not been read the Psalms.  They have not memorized the Lord's Prayer or the Creed.  How can we be surprised that they are showing the signs not just of physical but of spiritual illness?

 

Reading the Bible in 96 Days: Day 58: Isaiah 52-64 (July 28)

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is known as the Fourth Servant Song.  Christians believe it is the fourth prophecy foretelling Jesus Christ that Isaiah preached.  In these words we see the Word that would come in the form of the opposite of Israel's expectations:

"His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind-...he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him."

Every time I read Isaiah and find myself in the middle of one of the Servant Songs they give me goosebumps.  For in taking on the sin of the world, Jesus Christ, indeed, became sin, he bore our griefs and sorrows.  Our savior became nothing, and, in doing so, became everything.

Watching the Footpaths

When I began college my alma mater had just put up a new academic building.  When being given a tour the guide noted that the sidewalks would not be put in until the following year.  When asked why this was so he responded, "Because they want to wait and see where the footpaths appear because that will show how people are getting to and from the building."

That insight is helpful for the Church as well, is it not?  There are always people coming and going from church life.  How do you keep an eye on how people are entering or exiting your church life?  

Also, it is interesting that rather than force a behavior on people (i.e. putting sidewalks in and forcing people to travel in perhaps awkward ways) it is better to build what you're called to build and then look at how people get in and out of it before making any further improvements or additions.

 

Reading the Bible in 96 Days: Day 53: Song of Solomon 2 - 5 (July 23)

This "love poem" is a part of the Bible.  That might be answered with a, "Duh."  But let me repeat myself, the Song of Solomon, a love poem, is a part of the Bible.

You know, the Bible... God's Word?  What many say is the "inerrant" Word of God.

Well, I have always been in the God's Word is the truth but stay away from the whole inerrancy debate because it is full of slippery slopes.  I always caution my parishioners to be careful that we not worship THE BIBLE instead of worshipping the Christ we find WITHIN its pages.

That being said, here is the love poem, in the Bible.  And we're not just talking about love... we are talking about love.  This is not the agape love of Christ for his brothers and sisters, this is the love best characterizerd by the word eros.  This is passionate love, this is the love of a bride for her bridegroom, these are the words of two lovers... this is also the Word of God about the love he has for his creation.

When Revelation talks about Christ and creation being joined like bride and bridegroom... what kind of love do you think that reflects?  Yes God's love for us is much more than a philosophical head nod towards us, God loves us... alot.  May our love for him be even a tenth as strong!

 

The Anchorite

The Anchorite is a medieval term used for one who has removed themselves from the world in order to pursue a purely spiritual or ascetic calling but without fulling taking on the ordination or call in a church.  Many anchorites lived in anchorholds that were attached to the outside of church communities so as not to be fully in the world but not fully in the church as well!

Julian of Norwhich is one of the most famous of the anchoresses.  A recent biography of her is reviewed in the latest Englewood Review of Books.

Many people I come across in my daily comings and goings are living in an anchorite style.  Not fully part of a church community, not fully in the world, but living attached to the brick wall of the institutional church.  There lives are lived looking through windows into the church world and into the secular world.  

They are those to whom we should be in intense conversation (as church folk) and dialogue!  What a wisdom of perspective they might bring to our callings and communities.

"Anchorite": who in your journeys would you ascribe this title too?  When was the last time you truly spoke with them?