Romans 5:1-8 Matthew 9:35-10:2
[The sermon begins with Zach holding up a sign – The End Is Near!]
So many people are holding up signs of protest these days that it is not asurprise that I am hearing those that are not protesting lament that the end times
must surely be upon us. Times of drastic change always brings out the fear that
everything we know and love must surely be coming to an end.
It may feel that way for some of us – and for all I know it may be that way for all
of us – but one thing is true: we are experiencing a time of change that feels like
a tectonic shift in the fabric of our society. Amidst all of the protests against racial
inequality and the conversations we are having about our unrealistic expectations
of our police and our fears over an even more militant response to those crying
out, I can’t help but ask – where is the gospel of Jesus Christ in all of this?
It seems almost irrelevant to say, as the church has for so long, “If you just
accept God’s love through Jesus, everything will be ok!” yet that is not all there is
to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, the good news is that Jesus offers us
salvation from sin on a personal level. Yes, the good news is that our salvation
carries healing in its wake and assures us of life eternal in God’s sweet embrace.
Yes! Our salvation is worth waiting for, but no, that is not all there is to it.
In our gospel lesson, we find the example of Jesus going out to those in need
and offering healing and casting out the demons that ensnare and entangle
them. Then he sends his disciples to do the same because that is how salvation
works. It’s not a gift to hoard and treasure. It is an invitation to the work that God
is doing in and through us, together.
That sounds like an odd thing to proclaim during a time of quarantine in a
recorded sermon, yet it is the Gospel Truth of what God is doing – even here,
even now – and it is worth waiting on. As Paul told the church in Rome, we
endure our trials with patience, knowing that it produces endurance and
endurance produces character and character produces hope, and our hope does
not disappoint us!
We are not hoping like children asking Santa for a pony. We are hoping for what
we know will come true. We are hoping for the Kingdom of God that Christ
proclaimed to be realized on earth as it is in heaven.
Some say that the end is near, and I could not agree more – although I’m not
talking about some “cataclysmic dissolving of the earth in fire” type of end. I’m
talking about the great end, the telos, the purpose, the reason for being of the
church.
During another period of rapid change, unheard of illness, and rising and falling
powers there were those followers of Jesus who also feared the end but placed
their hope in Christ. Today we call them the founders of the Protestant
Reformation, which is the tradition we embrace in the PC(USA).
One of the things that those founders agreed on is that the church is still God’s
agent of proclamation in the world and that we – like the disciples before – have
been called to harvest where the laborers are few. In their deliberations, early
Reformers settled on six “great ends” of the church, and we still embrace and
teach them to this day. Although you may have never heard them stated
explicitly, the great ends of (or purposes for being) the church are
● The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
● The shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the children of God
● The maintenance of divine worship
● The preservation of the truth
● The promotion of social righteousness
● The exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world
That’s a pretty big “honey-do” list, so let’s just stick with the proclamation of the
gospel for the salvation of humankind. That’s no small task, but we serve a God
who is greater.
Really all of these “ends” spring up from the first, and so it is a good place to
begin. The question remains, though, “How?” We’ve got the what and the why
pretty clearly spelled out here, but how do we do it?
I think the first thing to remember is that the message of hope is not ours, and so
we follow the model of the one who wrote the message. We don’t stop at the
telling, we have to put it into action, but the really beautiful thing is that even
though proclaiming the message is done through us, we do not do it all alone.
Sharing the gospel for the salvation of others requires us to reconcile our own
sin, our own complacency, and to realize our own forgiveness and respond to it
always and everywhere, but it doesn’t stop there!
Our salvation – and the message we proclaim together – moves like drips of dew
from tree to a tributary to canyon cutting river and out into the sea! How do we do
that in times such as these? We do it the same way we always have, but maybe
with a little different emphasis.
Right now, the church is being forced to be creative in our care for others. Right
now, the church is being forced to realize that “going to church doesn’t make you
a Christian any more than sitting in your garage makes you a car.” Right now, the
church is being forced to realize that – regardless of whether we meet online or
in-person – our care and our community are not “virtual” but rather they are vital
to the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind!
Of course, doing ministry outside the confines of the church walls is nothing new.
Woodstown Presbyterian Church in Woodstown, New Jersey does it every
October when they take a Sunday to worship by serving their community. Our
siblings at Grace Church here in town have done the same.
Likewise, there are members of this congregation that have personal projects
that continue such as sewing and distributing masks, calling members and
sending cards to those who feel lonely and isolated, or maybe just praying for
others and taking care of one person's need at a time, as you are able.
As a congregation, we have maintained our commitment to meals on wheels for
the elderly as well as our financial support of other partners in ministry like Family
Promise. For this proclamation that we share and for those that support it, I am
grateful.
Some of you are also involved in the constant work of those people of faith in our
community who provide food for those who have lost jobs and those who are
experiencing homelessness. There is, in fact, an opportunity to join with other
congregations in the area to demonstrate and proclaim the good news of Jesus’s
love on Wednesday by distributing food together. On that same day, there will be
others gathered at another church in town to celebrate and remember the
emancipation of slavery, known as “Juneteenth”.
I raise those together to acknowledge that each is a part of the proclamation of
salvation through Jesus Christ. Each is being planned and coordinated by
followers of Jesus as a proclamation of what the Kingdom of God includes, and it
includes you, and it includes me. It is present when we see the needs of others
as our own. It is present when we are moved with compassion in the way Jesus
was moved.
The Kingdom of God is present for us when we realize that it is here, that
proclaiming it is our end, and that the end is not just near – it is here. So let us
not only talk about it but let us also listen to others with compassion. Let us not
only listen but let us also act in ways that offer healing and ways that seek to free
one another from the demons of institutional practices that ensnare and entangle
us all. Let us not only act, but let us see that the Kingdom of God is here, that it
includes more than us, and that it offers salvation from all that ails. To that end, I
pray that we may be true, and to God be the glory, now and always. Amen!
Comments