Today is part three of a three-part series based on scriptures that reflect on topics from the book, I Am A Church Member by Thom S. Rainer. The first week we talked about being functional members, and not just of this congregation but also of the body of Christ. Last week we talked about the way in which being members of a body requires us to work for greater unity – not uniformity but unity in purpose, unity in love for one another that draws even an enemy into a closer embrace.
This week we are going to talk a little about the way that church membership is a gift from God. Yes. I will be so bold as to say that being a member of this congregation is a dispensation of God’s grace. You see, I believe that there is a certain aspect of calling that is a part of joining and being part of a church, and it is God who calls us. When I say joining and being a part of, that means that our calling is not just to join. Our calling is to constantly evaluate our sense of purpose as a part of the Body of Christ.
Maybe you don’t need to do this in a literal sense, but some of the most amazing people I have known have been older members in their 80’s and 90’s who are still asking themselves what God might be calling them to do?
What I love about their witness is that it reminds me of how important it is to think of the church as the place we seek God’s direction together. It’s not the place with all the ready-made answers, although there are some things that we can answer pretty easily. Our natural instincts are for self-preservation. When that causes us to neglect others and the creation God has given us, that is bad, a.k.a. sin. God created the way for us to live differently through Jesus, and through his death and resurrection, we can be free from sin, love God, love ourselves, and love others.
I hate to say it, but we could probably even argue on some of those things. That’s because instead of being the place with all the ready-made answers, the church is a people that seek understanding together. We are a people who are willing to see their salvation as a gift from God and everything else as a response to that gift.
Of course, the big question most people ask is about our response. God calls us, but we still have to respond. We have free will, right? Sure, but what we have to remember is that, in every way, salvation is a gift. The gift is not made in the hope of our response. The gift is made because of the love of the giver.
That’s what Paul wanted to make clear to the church on Ephesus. God’s love is not about what you do or who you are apart from the fact that you and I are imperfect reflections of the Creator. Paul wanted to make it clear to the believers in Ephesus that they needed to realize for one what a big deal salvation is, so he described it in terms of life and death. If Paul were here today, I think he might tell us that without faith in Christ we are literally all a bunch of Zombies. What he would want us to know is that we can just as easily become spiritually dead in the church as we can without the church.
Thom Rainer describes this phenomenon by telling a tale of two memberships. One membership is to the church and the other is to a country club. Each has its own expectations for membership. Each has privileges or perks for being a part of it. While there are many differences, probably the biggest is that the church is not a private club that you enter because of status or wealth. The church is also not a place where paying your dues gives you privileges. The church is a place where you are called by God to live and thrive and become part of a beloved community.
We’ll talk more about what that means in a few weeks when we celebrate the reign of Christ, but for today we need to remember that God chose each of us in much the same way as God chose Abraham. You may not have had a vision of God’s presence like he did, but you were certainly called for the same purpose.
That purpose is to recognize that God is God and we are not. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes the same by asking, “What is the chief end [or purpose] of man [or humanity]?” and answering with, “To glorify God and live in [God’s] presence forever.”
Abraham was chosen by God to glorify God. There was no way he could earn God’s favor. There was no way he and his wife could bear children at their age! Yet God promised them ancestors like the sand below and stars above!
This story is the meaning of grace at its deepest. There is nothing we can do to earn it. All we could ever do is respond to it. That doesn’t make sense to us, even if we say that it does. Everything about our society is geared toward what we think is equal opportunity, the reward for struggle, and the expectation that the difference between success and failure is hard work.
We can argue how true or false this is all day long, but the point here is that God’s grace is not like that at all. God’s grace is based on a value system that honors and glorifies God in all things, even in basic necessities.
The Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well knew this. That’s why she left her jar sitting at the well when she went to tell others about Jesus. In some ways, I think this story demonstrates the difference between church membership and Country Club membership better than most.
Stay with me on this, but you may remember that when they got into town the disciples went to find food. Who could blame them? They were tired. They were on the run and had to take a detour into territory they would have called “enemy territory” before meeting up with Jesus. They left him at a well, while they went to handle the necessities. That hardly sounds like a country club, right?
Then you have this woman who was just trying to get some water. Most likely it was her daily supply. Then a stranger strikes up a conversation. Maybe she thinks he’s flirting. That seems to be the way of men, and the way of her survival. Maybe she wanted to set him straight for trying. What we do know is that going to her neighbors to tell them about the nice Jewish man she just met could have gotten her killed, yet she realized that what he had given her was more important than water and it was worth the risk.
The disciples came back, and even though they realized it was odd for Jesus to be talking to a woman in broad daylight, their first concern was for themselves. Did someone else bring him food? Was it Kosher? Did we fail him?
These were all good questions, but Jesus also reminds them that they are part of something greater. Others are bringing in the harvest even as they speak... and in walks the Samaritan woman who has had five husbands and is living with a man she isn’t even married to with a whole village full of people!
My friends, the point of all this, as I understand it, is that we are a people chosen by God in the way of Abraham. We were chosen not because of anything special about us, but instead because of the way God can do things through us. That is not to say that you are not special or unique in all the world. It’s not to say that your contributions to the church do not matter. It is to say that thing that matters more than life itself is the fact that God is God and you are not, and in God’s mercy we are yet able to do far more than we could on our own.
Saying that everything that we have and are is only by God’s grace does not mean that your contributions do not matter. If anything it means that they matter more, as long as we understand them as a response to God’s grace. According to Thom Rainer, our membership in a congregation is just that – a chance to respond to God’s grace. He believes we should treasure our membership, and while my inner Calvinist worries that “treasuring” anything other than God is the first step toward idolatry, I think what he means is that we need to see it for what it is – the chance to experience the very presence of God.
God is, of course, not bound by these walls. If anything, this place is the proving ground where we come to understand how we might be in God’s presence out in the world. It’s the place where we realize who we might be called to grab and bring so that they may hear of grace and mercy. It’s the place where grace and mercy become real, and we become wrapped in the vision of something God is doing that is well beyond our means. Let us, then, live into that vision with all that we have and all that we are!
This week we are going to talk a little about the way that church membership is a gift from God. Yes. I will be so bold as to say that being a member of this congregation is a dispensation of God’s grace. You see, I believe that there is a certain aspect of calling that is a part of joining and being part of a church, and it is God who calls us. When I say joining and being a part of, that means that our calling is not just to join. Our calling is to constantly evaluate our sense of purpose as a part of the Body of Christ.
Maybe you don’t need to do this in a literal sense, but some of the most amazing people I have known have been older members in their 80’s and 90’s who are still asking themselves what God might be calling them to do?
What I love about their witness is that it reminds me of how important it is to think of the church as the place we seek God’s direction together. It’s not the place with all the ready-made answers, although there are some things that we can answer pretty easily. Our natural instincts are for self-preservation. When that causes us to neglect others and the creation God has given us, that is bad, a.k.a. sin. God created the way for us to live differently through Jesus, and through his death and resurrection, we can be free from sin, love God, love ourselves, and love others.
I hate to say it, but we could probably even argue on some of those things. That’s because instead of being the place with all the ready-made answers, the church is a people that seek understanding together. We are a people who are willing to see their salvation as a gift from God and everything else as a response to that gift.
Of course, the big question most people ask is about our response. God calls us, but we still have to respond. We have free will, right? Sure, but what we have to remember is that, in every way, salvation is a gift. The gift is not made in the hope of our response. The gift is made because of the love of the giver.
That’s what Paul wanted to make clear to the church on Ephesus. God’s love is not about what you do or who you are apart from the fact that you and I are imperfect reflections of the Creator. Paul wanted to make it clear to the believers in Ephesus that they needed to realize for one what a big deal salvation is, so he described it in terms of life and death. If Paul were here today, I think he might tell us that without faith in Christ we are literally all a bunch of Zombies. What he would want us to know is that we can just as easily become spiritually dead in the church as we can without the church.
Thom Rainer describes this phenomenon by telling a tale of two memberships. One membership is to the church and the other is to a country club. Each has its own expectations for membership. Each has privileges or perks for being a part of it. While there are many differences, probably the biggest is that the church is not a private club that you enter because of status or wealth. The church is also not a place where paying your dues gives you privileges. The church is a place where you are called by God to live and thrive and become part of a beloved community.
We’ll talk more about what that means in a few weeks when we celebrate the reign of Christ, but for today we need to remember that God chose each of us in much the same way as God chose Abraham. You may not have had a vision of God’s presence like he did, but you were certainly called for the same purpose.
That purpose is to recognize that God is God and we are not. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes the same by asking, “What is the chief end [or purpose] of man [or humanity]?” and answering with, “To glorify God and live in [God’s] presence forever.”
Abraham was chosen by God to glorify God. There was no way he could earn God’s favor. There was no way he and his wife could bear children at their age! Yet God promised them ancestors like the sand below and stars above!
This story is the meaning of grace at its deepest. There is nothing we can do to earn it. All we could ever do is respond to it. That doesn’t make sense to us, even if we say that it does. Everything about our society is geared toward what we think is equal opportunity, the reward for struggle, and the expectation that the difference between success and failure is hard work.
We can argue how true or false this is all day long, but the point here is that God’s grace is not like that at all. God’s grace is based on a value system that honors and glorifies God in all things, even in basic necessities.
The Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well knew this. That’s why she left her jar sitting at the well when she went to tell others about Jesus. In some ways, I think this story demonstrates the difference between church membership and Country Club membership better than most.
Stay with me on this, but you may remember that when they got into town the disciples went to find food. Who could blame them? They were tired. They were on the run and had to take a detour into territory they would have called “enemy territory” before meeting up with Jesus. They left him at a well, while they went to handle the necessities. That hardly sounds like a country club, right?
Then you have this woman who was just trying to get some water. Most likely it was her daily supply. Then a stranger strikes up a conversation. Maybe she thinks he’s flirting. That seems to be the way of men, and the way of her survival. Maybe she wanted to set him straight for trying. What we do know is that going to her neighbors to tell them about the nice Jewish man she just met could have gotten her killed, yet she realized that what he had given her was more important than water and it was worth the risk.
The disciples came back, and even though they realized it was odd for Jesus to be talking to a woman in broad daylight, their first concern was for themselves. Did someone else bring him food? Was it Kosher? Did we fail him?
These were all good questions, but Jesus also reminds them that they are part of something greater. Others are bringing in the harvest even as they speak... and in walks the Samaritan woman who has had five husbands and is living with a man she isn’t even married to with a whole village full of people!
My friends, the point of all this, as I understand it, is that we are a people chosen by God in the way of Abraham. We were chosen not because of anything special about us, but instead because of the way God can do things through us. That is not to say that you are not special or unique in all the world. It’s not to say that your contributions to the church do not matter. It is to say that thing that matters more than life itself is the fact that God is God and you are not, and in God’s mercy we are yet able to do far more than we could on our own.
Saying that everything that we have and are is only by God’s grace does not mean that your contributions do not matter. If anything it means that they matter more, as long as we understand them as a response to God’s grace. According to Thom Rainer, our membership in a congregation is just that – a chance to respond to God’s grace. He believes we should treasure our membership, and while my inner Calvinist worries that “treasuring” anything other than God is the first step toward idolatry, I think what he means is that we need to see it for what it is – the chance to experience the very presence of God.
God is, of course, not bound by these walls. If anything, this place is the proving ground where we come to understand how we might be in God’s presence out in the world. It’s the place where we realize who we might be called to grab and bring so that they may hear of grace and mercy. It’s the place where grace and mercy become real, and we become wrapped in the vision of something God is doing that is well beyond our means. Let us, then, live into that vision with all that we have and all that we are!
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