[The contents of this sermon, originially preached May 21, 2006,
are my own convictions. That is true of all the documents
located in the Pastor's Pages. We are a diverse congregation,
in which many different views are held. Pastor Mike Loser]

For Joy

Most of what we do and what we say in the church has been shaped by centuries, if not millennia, of tradition and practice. It can, therefore, be very difficult to nudge the church in a new direction because of such entrenched traditions and the momentum behind them. There are times, however, when the church has gotten off track and when we simply must work as hard as we can to bring it back to faithfulness.

The Protestant Reformation was one of those times. The church began to take, and even require, financial compensation from those who desired to receive the church's blessings and assurances. The church had lost sight of its primary purpose of declaring God's grace and, instead, began putting a price on that grace.

One major impact of the Reformation was that it empowered people to question the prevailing traditions. That is always a good thing, because an institution as powerful as the church must be held accountable. There were also unfortunate consequences, however, as there began an endless splintering of the church, as those who challenged the institution lost their patience and went off to begin their own sectarian gatherings of people who agreed, at least, on the primary concerns they shared.

Still, despite all the division that has taken place since the days of the Reformation, many of the central traditions and practices of the church have remained remarkably consistent across the board.

One of the monolithic traditions that seems to have survived all of the divisions within the church over the centuries is the common understanding of the atonement. The notion that God sent Jesus specifically to die for our sins, to somehow satisfy God's anger or to take our place to receive the punishment we deserved, is a notion that holds significant influence in practically every tradition that calls itself Christian.

That's an issue I've been addressing for a number of years, and I will continue to address it. I am encouraged that there are increasing numbers of theologians who are also strongly suggesting that there are better ways to understand how the death of Jesus on the cross is meaningful. I am encouraged, also, that many lay people are beginning to see that there is much to be gained by questioning the prevailing views on atonement.

This common understanding of the atonement is just one way in which I believe the church has gone off track. There is another concern that I have about the church, however, which I have also addressed before. But the scripture texts we heard this morning (1 John 5:1-6 and John 15:9-17) speak to the issue so well, I decided I need to address it again.

The concern I have for the church is that we have lost sight of one of God's primary desires for the world and for us, and we have replaced it with a practice that is so contrary to the God we meet in Jesus Christ that, I think, we simply must repent - turn around - and get back on track.

We have heard from the first letter of John, for a number of weeks now, how central love is to the Christian life. Jesus also holds up love as central to what the Christian life is all about. Jesus said we can sum up all the law and the prophets as being about loving God and loving others as we love ourselves.

In John's gospel, this morning, we heard Jesus talking about love again, saying (15:9-10) "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments [which, we remember, are all about loving God and loving others and which, John says, are not burdensome], you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love."

Then Jesus says something that I want us to hear clearly this morning. He says (15:11), "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete." It is for joy that Jesus came and talked to us about love and encouraged us to love.

I want to suggest, this morning, that the church has lost sight of this basic purpose of Jesus, that we might live in joy. The truth is that this concern I have for the church is not that much different from the concern the Protestant Reformers had for the church almost 500 years ago.

A primary concern of the Reformers was, as I said, that the church had lost sight of God's grace. My concern is that we have lost sight of God's intention that we might know joy. The Greek words for grace (xaris) and for joy (xara) are both derived from the same word (xairw) which means to rejoice. The experience of God's grace and the experience of joy are intimately related.

Through all the division and re-division that has taken place over the past 500 years, the church has become so engaged in conflicts over relatively minor theological differences that we have not even noticed how we have slipped back into being an ungraceful or non-gracious and, therefore, a joyless institution.

The primary message of the church today, and for a long time now, seems to be a message of judgment against the world and against all who do not toe the line of our traditions. The latest example was the opening of The Da Vinci Code in local theaters on Friday. Protesters complained that the movie is out to destroy our faith. The church has become so accustomed to getting its righteous back up over various issues, that we have almost completely lost touch with the idea that the church is meant to be a place where people can discover God's joy.

There is a particular way that I want to frame this problem this morning. In our study this past week of Living The Questions, we heard a moving story about a young pastor who was on a spiritual retreat, at the end of which all the participants were asked to identify in the scriptures a passage or a story that somehow gave them their name or their identity.

Just as an example, a passage that has always "named" me in some important ways comes from Paul's letter to the Philippians (4:13). "I can do all things through him [God] who strengthens me." The bulletins at my ordination service carried that message. I have always remembered that text when I have felt overwhelmed by whatever it is I have needed to do.

Each participant in the retreat was asked to share what passage they had found that "named" them. When it came time for this one particular young pastor to share, he was silent. After some time of silence, the retreat leader asked him if he had found a passage that he thought "named" him. He said there were several that he wanted to claim, but none of them was powerful enough to overcome the name he already had. Then he was silent again.

Again, after a period of silence, the retreat leader asked the young pastor whether he was willing to share what his name was, this name that prevented him from claiming a name from scripture. He said, finally, "My name is not-good-enough. My father gave me that name a long time ago."

Not good enough. A name so powerful that it prevented this young pastor from being renamed and empowered by God's loving grace. What kind of a father tells his son, over and over, that he is not good enough?

Yet that is precisely what the church has been doing for centuries. We have been telling people they are not good enough. They are not good enough to participate in the joys and the blessings of belonging to God's people. They are not good enough to be among us and to share our fellowship.

I can remember when it was people who were divorced who were told, pretty much across the whole church, that they were not good enough. They were not good enough to take communion, or they were not good enough to be married within the church again. To this day, I still get requests to marry people whose own pastors refuse to do so because they are divorced. What truly perplexes me is how many of those people get married here or elsewhere and then go right back to that place that tells them they are not good enough.

The number of congregations and denominations where this dismissive judgment of divorced people occurs has diminished greatly in the last decade or so, but now we have a new group of people that the church declares to be not good enough. In the name of defending the sanctity of the institution of marriage, most of the church and the majority of our society are telling gay people right now that they are not good enough.

Most of us have become willing to offer God's grace to those who have been divorced, even though it is the ease with which people can obtain a divorce that is one of the greatest threats to the strength and sanctity of the institution of marriage. In spite of the deep desire among many persons to strengthen marriage, they have little or no desire to address the issue of divorce.

In a couple of weeks, the Penn Central Conference will consider a resolution from some of these folks that, for the stated purpose of protecting marriage, requests - among other things - that churches contact their state senators and legislators to urge their support for the proposed state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Not only do the authors of this resolution not address divorce as one of the greatest threats to the sanctity of marriage in our society, but they take a text of scripture in which Jesus specifically talks about the unacceptability of divorce and they twist it to support their contention that God intends marriage to be limited to one man with one woman.

So these folks want the church to "save" marriage by denying the opportunity to enjoy the blessings and joys of marriage to a whole group of people who simply want to have their desire to live out God's gifts of love and partnership in responsible, faithful, and committed relationships recognized by the church and by society as marriage. Instead of addressing the issues that truly threaten marriage, we go after a group of people who sincerely want to celebrate their relationships in the context of Christian marriage. What sense does that make?

Through this whole process, we are saying to gay people, loudly and clearly, you are not good enough for us. You are not good enough to be included in the joy of celebrating your relationships in God's presence. You are not good enough to fully participate in all the rights and privileges of God's people. You are not good enough to be allowed the privileges we enjoy.

Perhaps the most perilous aspect of this whole matter is that, whenever we put ourselves in the position of telling others that they are not good enough, we strongly imply that we are good enough. I can understand how people who have nothing to do with the church might make that kind of assumption. But in the church, we have long been schooled in matters of grace.

It is by God's grace alone that we dare to enter into God's presence. It is by God's grace alone that we have confidence to enter into God's sanctuary. It is by God's grace alone that we dare to hope that we might enjoy the fruits of God's salvation. If we are here by God's grace alone, where do we get the audacity to tell others that they are not worthy or that they are not good enough?

I am not talking about people who are harming other people. I am not talking about people who thumb their noses at God and at the church. I am not talking about people who care only about themselves. There are plenty of those around, both gay and straight, and they present a different kind of challenge to the church.

I am talking about people who simply want to be accepted as God has created them. I am talking about people who believe deeply in God, in spite of all the negative messages the church has given them, our brothers and sisters in Christ who want to find the same joy in God's presence and in the community of the faithful that the rest of us experience. I am talking about people who want to be in responsible, faithful, and committed relationships and who want to celebrate those relationships in the presence of the God in whom they deeply believe.

Where is our willingness to share the grace and to share the joy that we have found in our Savior Jesus Christ? What does it say about us that we insist on telling these people, these children of God, that they are not good enough?

The church needs to experience a new reformation, or it needs to, at least, reclaim the lessons of the previous Reformation. We need to relearn what it means to be a people saved by grace and, therefore, a people able to graciously embrace all others who have also experienced God's saving grace.

If there are any judgments to be made, that is God's business. Our work is to bring as many people as possible into the presence and power of God's grace, that they might experience the joy of salvation. I don't see how we can do that if we are busy telling anyone that they are not good enough.

God loves us and invites us to love others, that our joy may be complete. John says this commandment is not burdensome for us. Neither does it require us or even invite us to lay needless burdens on others. God calls us to live and to love for joy. I want to suggest that we make that more of a priority in our lives and in our life together.

Thanks be to God. Amen.