Let us pray: The Church of Christ in every age
Beset by change but Spirit led,
Must claim and test its heritage
And keep on rising from the dead. Amen.
When I grow up, I wanna be John Bell. I met him one very hot and sticky afternoon in Scotland. Let me tell you—it’s hardly ever hot in Scotland but on this day, it was miserable, and we were fussy! Us clergy types were assembled for the last workshop of a retreat, it was 2:00 in the afternoon, we were sleepy from lunch and eager to leave. The last thing any of us wanted to do was sing on a 90 degree day in a 10th century monastery.
John Bell walked in the room and 15 minutes later, the entire room was flooded with song and harmony and hearts set on fire.
The lower voiced folx bellowed lustfully, What does the Lord require of you? What does the Lord require of You?
And us higher voiced folx beautifully answered, To do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.
Then we added harmony and parts.
John Bell captivated us with his easy way of teaching beauty, and justice.
This is Kirke he said with gorgeous Scottish conviction. Kirke is the old Scots word for church.
He reminded us that the Body of Christ is like a choir. The voice of Christ speaking beauty and justice to the world. What a stunningly beautiful picture of who we are and who we are meant to be.
When I grow up, I wanna be John Bell! Creating beauty, inspiring justice and mercy and dissolving away sloth in an instant.
That’s what it means to be church—to yearn and say to ourselves in the fullness of our heart—I wanna be like so and so when I grow up. I hope that even if or when we’re 90 something, we will have that kind of longing in our hearts to see God in each other and desire to imitate it.
This is what we mean when we say growing into the full stature of Christ. To be imitators of each other’s spark of divinity is to be imitators of Christ.
The real purpose of church is to fall in love with each other and to extend that love to our neighbors.
That’s our call. First, we fall in love with each other here, practicing the Peace—the Christ in me recognizes and sees the Christ in you. Then we eat together. We stretch out our hands like the beggers we are to receive him in us. Every Sunday as the bread is placed in your hands and the wine comes to your lips I wonder--What’s Jesus gonna do inside you when he hits your belly and pumps through your veins.
It’s not easy being the church right now. We are smaller. We are older. We have less money, less sway in our community. We live in a world where religion has been taken hostage and used to abuse others. A beloved this week said to me with trepidation, the church is dying.
And that is true of the institutional church which is in decline and has been since the 1980’s or 70’s.
And I remind you, beloved that Jesus Christ is all about DEATH…
And resurrection. There will be new life for us beyond what we know recognize and understand. That’s who Jesus Christ is and who we are!
For the body of Christ who live in this current age of reformation, we are called to witness the resurrection of the church in this new age. We are called to practice falling in love with God and each other, we called to eat together and be transformed to be good news. That is changeless.
Samuel Wells in his book, A future that’s bigger than the past, talks about the church that he serves in London—St. Martin’s in Field near Trafalgar Square. St. Martin’s like many churches in the Diocese of London have known tremendous growth in their size by reclaiming their ancient Anglican spirituality.
And more importantly, by looking outside their walls and knowing their neighbors. They model stewardship of not just their members and their buildings but also their neighborhoods. That’s what we are called to do.
Wells named for his congregation that the system of pledging isn’t enough to sustain their church any longer. St. Martin’s started a business.
What would it mean for Ascension to think like entrepreneurs? Your vestry has been asking that question. This year we begin exploration of what it would mean to start a wedding business at Ascension, partner with wedding planners and help them know that this beautiful place is open for use.
The other day, another beloved came to me with an amazing idea—given our deep love for music would if we started a music school here?
There are creative ideas running around Ascension to explore and to help us imagine a future that is bigger than our past.
Our vestry is crafting a growth plan and doing research into what growing Episcopal and Anglican churches are doing. We are forging ahead with a GROW committee to examine the practices of growing Episcopal churches. They are out there. Those places hold in common a practice of building an ancient future that is a hybrid of ancient spiritual practices alongside innovative thinking.
Our grow committee will do research to learn from our sister churches that are leveraging spiritual practices and using their resources in creative ways. We will also engage in a process of listening and discerning the future of our music at Ascension in this time of interim.
Walking into a church on Sunday morning is not easy for some—there are barriers that keep people away. We need more soft landings. Opportunities to engage community outside Sunday morning traditional church. Pizza Eucharist is an example of that. We need divergent opportunities for soft landings for people to be a part of the Ascension community.
This church once dreamed the idea of having a pizza plaza and a potential ministry of feeding people from that oven. We are exploring that idea fully this year.
And I’ll name it—there are concerns people have and we are articulating those in our committee. Do we have the people power to make that ministry a possibility? Is an outdoor venue that overlooks the downtown but is across from the police station an attractive enough sight for us to use that space for other entrepreneurial ventures? What outreach and feeding could we do with bread or pizza for the invisible ones that experience food insecurity?
There are whispers at Ascension about Our Community Kitchen and a heart for feeding people. OCK was more than food—it was community gathering. Our Mission Committee is working on some redevelopment of what we are called to do right now for our neighbors and our community. Will it be another meal?
A young man in our community is pulling on Mindy’s sleeve. I want to go on pilgrimage with you to the Holy Land he’s told her. Another beloved in this community has said to me, I want to go on pilgrimage again before I get too old. Pilgrimage is another spiritual practice that has deep roots in our tradition and speaks dynamically in our world.
All of these are FABULOUS IDEAS!
And here’s the other side of the coin for us to consider:
Ideas are great but there’s another step involved and it’s the harder one.
Where’s the call?
The difference beloved, between idea and call is this: ideas float out there in the ether. Call is incarnate—it’s has the dynamic energy of people who are willing to do the work that needs to be done.
Do we have the people to sustain a pizza or bread ministry? Beloved if there are not folx on fire to make bread and craft events to feed hungry souls, we can’t build an outdoor pizza plaza. The church no longer has the luxury of using a “If you build it, they will come” theology.
We will need to form a pilgrimage committee to explore the spiritual practice of pilgrimage to make that pilgrimage a reality.
What’s going to set Ascension on fire? How will we get our hands dirty being good news in this community? The Mission Committee after brain storming ways we can be good news to our neighbors will present 3-5 ideas to the Vestry and the Vestry will give ideas to our congregation asking where’s the call?
The same goes for pilgrimage as for pizza and getting ourselves to the work of the beatitudes. We need bodies invested in the work of the kingdom.
Now if we were in the African American church, you would probably by now be saying to me bring it home, reverend—in other words, wrap it up, you’re going long. I apologize for that, but please stay with me.
The work of having an idea transform into a call requires careful discernment prayer and stewardship.
Call is the living out of who we are called collectively to be—WE wanna be this when WE grow up into the full stature of Christ.
Call is the place where our greatest passions and gifts intersect with the world’s deepest needs and woundedness.
What is our call? Not just good ideas but CALL from the Holy Spirit.
There’s no denying it-- the capital C Church is changing. To ignore that would be folly. We can’t be like blockbuster video beloved. We know that church is changing, society is changing. How will we embrace an ancient future that honors our tradition while speaking the Gospel with relevance for folx?
I love the part of the Gospel on Easter where Mary finally recognizes Jesus and she wants to hold onto him, but he won’t let her.
Resurrection is about embracing the new life that is sometimes unrecognizable and changed and yet deeply rooted in our identity.
To live into the fullest stature of who we are called to be as we grow up and grow into Christ we need to embrace dynamic tradition, ancient future, and to fall in love with each other, then take that love out into this very dark old world of ours.
Who do WE wanna be when we grow up?
We don’t know yet.
Let’s find out!