3 Questions

This was preached on October 19, 2008. There has been some updating.

“Why do Jehovah's Witnesses show up so 'faithfully' at my door on Saturday morning?” asks our sermon suggestion, rather plaintively. Well, as it turns out JW's, as they are called for short, blog. And on one blog named Stuff of Interest to JW's there is a story from the San Antonio News about their door-to door ministry. Called “publishers,” these 8.7 million Witnesses aim to reach every household in the world at least once a year. So they carry laminated “territory” cards about each neighborhood and make notes on each household that talks to them, noting concerns like crime and the meaning of life. (Although last week I saw them use a tablet.) They've gone to court several times to keep their right to do this form of evangelism. But if people don't convert, that's fine. Their only duty is to share their message. After that, it's up to the individual to accept or reject it.

Bishop Frade loved to tell this joke: “What do you get if you cross an Episcopalian with a Jehovah's Witness? Someone who knocks on your door and then doesn't know what to say.”

Even if you dislike having JW's showing up at your door, you have to admit that they are at least acting on their beliefs. Their version of the Bible, like ours, has the book of Matthew ending with the Great Commission: “Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” The spread of Christianity throughout the world is directly attributable to this commandment. And contrary to what you might think, not everyone has heard the gospel. Even here in America, where only 20% of the population attend church every Sunday, trends indicate that an decreasing number of our children will ever go inside a church, except to attend weddings and funerals. This is especially true if their fathers don't go to church. We live in a post-Christian world.

The good life we have been living since the end of the Second World War has distracted most Americans from pressing spiritual concerns. And when folks do sense that something is missing from a life devoted to meeting physicial needs and gratifying material desires, there are plenty of options. There are both Eastern and Western forms of meditation. There are both religious and secular cults. There are even atheist kinds of spirituality. And there are 33,000 Christian denominations.

Because of the proliferation of denominations, many American Christians don't feel there's any need to spread the gospel in our own country, certainly not in our own neighborhoods. No wonder every major denomination, including the Southern Baptists, are shrinking. Many reasons are given by experts for this, but I think it all boils doen to the fact that many Christians can't answer the 3 questions that Adam Hamilton wrote in his book Leading Beyond the Walls.

The first is “Why do people need Jesus Christ?” And I believe the thing that makes it a tough question for most people is the word “need.” It begs the question “Do people really need Jesus?” People are free to believe what they wish, and many don't believe they need Jesus. Of course, what people believe and what the truth is are 2 different things, even when it comes to what they need. As a nurse, I met patients with anorexia who didn't believe they needed to eat. So the question is how essential is Jesus to one's life?

That depends on what a person thinks Jesus came to do. There are those who feel that he simply came to enlighten us. And certainly Jesus provided us with unprecedented insights into human ethics and the nature of God's love. And that would be sufficient if, as Plato believed, humanity's chief problem is ignorance. But while ignorance accounts for some of the troubles the world has, it doesn't explain why some of the better educated countries have been the source of some of the greatest evils in the last few centuries. Wars of conquest, the slave trade, concentration camps, racial segregation and genocide were dreamed up by some awfully bright people and carried out with the frightening efficiency of industrialized nations. And they knew what they were doing. That makes the world's problem not ignorance but willful evil.

But that's just some people, right? I mean the majority of people are good, aren't they? The majority of Germans didn't put Jews, Slavs, physically and mentally ill people, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Romany people (“Gypsies”) to death. But neither did they rise up against a government that did. How many white Americans protested our government removing Native Americans from their lands and moving them to reservations? How many actually approved of it because it meant more land for them? How evil is it to simply stand by and profit by evil done on our behalf? What do we make of the ordinary people who posed for photos in front of the corpses of black men at public lynchings? How about the average folks at political rallies calling for the imprisonment and even the deaths of opposing candidates?

“There is a way that seems right to a person but its end is the way that leads to death,” says Proverbs 14:12. If there is a just God, and if we are honest, none of us would fare well before his judgment. Our only hope is for someone to step between us and our rightful punishment.

I needn't tell you what Jesus did to save us from the bad things we do and the good things we don't do, that is, our sins. And that is the answer to the question of “Why do people need Jesus?” They need him to deal with the evil in each of us. It's not a matter of ignorance. You don't commit adultery out of ignorance. It's called lust. It's not just a matter of desperate people doing desperate things. You don't dream up elaborate schemes to, say, con poor people into buying homes they can't afford and then turn the loans into risky investments out of desperation, which led up to the Great Recession. It's called greed. Throw in arrogance, too.

We need someone who can deal with the evil that is deeply rooted in the way we think and feel and live. That's why we need Jesus, and not merely another merely human philosopher. Not only can he save us from the penalty of sin, but through his Spirit within us, he can save us from the power of sin by transforming our hearts and minds and lives. So why are we so reluctant to tell others this good news? If we knew of a doctor who could cure cancer, we'd tell people. But for some reason we can't bring ourselves to tell them about the Great Physician who will restore them to spiritual health.

Adam Hamilton's second question is harder to answer: “Why do people need the church?” By this he means not one particular denomination but the church universal. There are a lot of people who will concede that the world needs Jesus but aren't sure that anyone needs the church. As in Hamilton's first question there is a word in his second one that brings up objections. It's the word “church.” It tends to bring up images that largely depend on one's personal experience. If to you “church” means dressing in uncomfortable clothes, sitting for long periods of time on uncomfortable benches, and listening to some guy drone on, or if it means a place where rigid, hypocritical people make judgments about you, then naturally you feel that nobody needs that. Some people selectively think of negative episodes in the church's history or of the flaws in some of the present day churches and dismiss it altogether. But why single out the church? Why not reject all goverments, all courts, all medical centers, all schools, all charities, all non-profits, since all of them are flawed and have shameful periods in their histories? True, the church is supposed to be special. But it is also made up of sinners seeking Christ. To complain that the church isn't perfect is like complaining that a hospital is full of sick people or that A.A. is full of drunks. That's kinda the point.

We in the church are supposed to be seeds of the kingdom of God, the people Jesus redeemed bringing others to him. We are also supposed to be a group of people following in Christ's footsteps, coming together to experience him and to carry out his command to love our neighbor. That's hard to do if you don't come to church where you are more likely to encounter folks other than just family and friends. Of course, it's much easier to think you are emulating Jesus if you don't put that to the test by actually venturing outside your everyday circle of acquaintances. It's harder when you become part of a group of imperfect folks engaged in the often unpredictable task of trying to model the kingdom of God, but that's what we are supposed to be doing. If you replaced the word “church” with the phrase “community of people making concrete the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ” then more folks might concede that, yes, people do need that.

But it is the third question Adam Hamilton asks that haunts me. It takes everything we've talked about and puts it in a very tight focus. It is perhaps the reason why Bishop Frade's hypothetical JW/Episcopalian is speechless. It is a question I don't have an answer for. It's a question that it will take all of us to answer. And we must find an answer to this question. Because the answer will determine whether there will be anyone meeting in our sanctuary in 5 years. And the question is this:

“Why do people need our church?”

Do they need it? Are we a necessary part of the community? If we were to disappear, would we be missed by the people of the lower Keys?

To answer those questions, for the next few months, we as a parish are going to be reflecting on our core values. Who are we? We will be trying to articulate our core purpose. Why are we here? We are going to be asking ourselves, “What are we best at?” I'm not going to be answering the questions for the parish. We have to find these answers together. And when we are satisfied with the answers, we are going to ask, “How do we make sure that the core values and core purpose of our church are carried forward into the future?”

But let's start with Rev. Hamilton's third question. I want you to consider it every day. I want you to put it in your prayers. I want you to wrestle with it as if our survival depended on it.

Because it does.

Be not afraid. I believe there is an answer. There is a reason why God put our church here. And the journey of self-discovery we must embark on will be immensely beneficial to our parish and to each of us.

So with faith in Jesus Christ and in confident hope for our future, let's begin:

“Why do people need our church?”