Dying or Born Anew?

Sermon

Happy birthday to the church! I thought I would see what the traditional birthday or anniversary gift might be, but when I Googled “what is the traditional 1,991^st anniversary gift” (1,991 being the year 2024 less 33, the age Jesus was when he died and rose and sent the Holy Spirit to Jerusalem), I found no answer. But happy birthday anyway, Church. Birthdays are a good time to take stock, to look back to what was, to look at what is, and to imagine what might be.

Let’s start by looking back. 1,991 years is a long time to reflect on, but let’s give it a go, and let’s start by saying what we mean by “church.” The church is the body of Christ; the church is also an institution and the vessel to hold the Christian religion. The church might also refer to a church building, but not for today.

When we say it’s the church’s birthday, we’re saying that the church was born on that first Pentecost, when Peter and the other disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on the work that Jesus had done, to be about the business that God would have them be about.

So they went out to Jerusalem and took care of each other. Then the apostle Paul came along and took the work of Jesus out to the cities around the Mediterranean. Then those Jesus followers started to be called Christians, and they were persecuted by the Romans. Then a few centuries went by and Emperor Constantine decided to wed the church with the state, and Christianity became the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire and Christendom was born.

So the church went along for a few more centuries, and then the Christians in Eastern Europe and Asia and Africa didn’t see eye to eye with the Christians in western Europe, and the first big church split happened. Then a few more centuries went by, and this monk named Martin Luther didn’t like what he saw the priests were doing, selling indulgences and things like that, and he wanted to reform things, and Protestantism was born, more or less.

And that is church history in two paragraphs, and if my church history professors were dead, they would be rolling in their graves. Still, looking back we can remember that the church has a history of doing good works, and that the church uses and abuses its power especially when its power is tied to political power, and that the human beings who make up the church disagree, sometimes to the point of no longer talking with each other.

It would be interesting to explore the idea of whether the church has done more harm or good in its history. Surely the body of Christ has been committed to the well-being of people, to their health, to their ability to have daily bread and the like. Art and architecture would be entirely different things without the church and its patronage. The same can be said for music. And through the work of the church, the good news of Jesus Christ has been heard for thousands of years.

And… the church has been involved in wars, in land grabs, in crusades, in genocides, in diminishing the value of certain human beings, in confusing mercy with power, in mixing up faith with political stances, in enslaving people, in abusing people, and in covering it up.

On the whole I would say the church has done more good than harm, but it has done harm. And it continues to do both good and harm. So let’s take a look at the church today.

To begin, “church” is a vast, unbounded thing. The body of Christ is at work on every continent (maybe excluding Antarctica). Instead of that unpronounceable list of Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, Asians, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Cyrenes, Romans, Cretans, and Arabs—instead of that, we get Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Church of God in Christ, African Methodist Episcopal, Anglicans, American Baptist, Southern Baptist, Evangelical Lutherans, Missouri Synod Lutherans, Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, Adventists, Four Square, Congregationalists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Quakers, Mormons—and those are the ones you’ve heard of! There are now an estimated 45,000 denominations or expressions of Christianity in the world.

That’s too many, so let’s make this a little more specific. How is the church in the U.S. doing today? Well, the church is still about the business of caring for human beings, and every time someone decries the church, I want to say, “Do you know what would happen if every church closed tomorrow? Do you know how many food pantries would close, how many shelters would close, how many 12 Step groups would have to find a different free place to meet? Do you know how many tutoring programs would also close, or daycares, or preschools?” I think the American church continues to do the good work of caring for the least and the last in a way that no other institution does.

But today’s church in the U.S. has also developed a complicated relationship with political power. We see that in all the conflicts around women’s reproductive rights, about LGBTQ issues, about which political party (if any) has cornered the market on God.

Beyond that, today’s church is struggling. Even before COVID, the church in the U.S. was struggling and getting smaller. Some say Christianity in the U.S. is dying. Denominations are reporting fewer adherents; fewer people want to go into ministry, and a high percentage of those who do become clergy leave ministry after five years. Church buildings sit vacant, and few become something new, the way the Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst has become Barbie’s Village.

The American church has been plagued with scandals which have needed to come to light, however painful or embarrassing that is. Abuse by clergy of all stripes continues to occur, but both civil and ecclesiastical judicial processes are addressing this. Maybe it should come as no surprise that more and more people identify as spiritual but not religious.

Some people are simply done with church, as described by Diana Butler Bass in her excellent book Christianity after Religion. “Many people are just bored. They are bored with church-as-usual, church-as-club, church-as-entertainment, or church-as-work. Many of my friends, faithful churchgoers for decades, are dropping out because religion is dull, the purview of folks who never want to change or always want to fight about somebody else’s sex life; they see the traditional denominations as full of …priggishness. On Sundays, other things are more interesting – the New York Times, sports, shopping, Facebook, family time, working in the garden, biking, hiking, sipping lattes at the local coffee shop, meeting up at the dog park, getting the kids to the soccer game. Or just working.” (p. 17)

Since the COVID pandemic, we at Westminster have seen longtime, active, committed members withdraw their membership because they’re just done. Each person has their own story, but if I were to say there is a theme, it’s that participation in the life of the congregation is no longer meaningful. I don’t know if that also means that God is no longer meaningful.

In light of church decline, there are a few responses. One is to dig in, to shout that we must go back to the good old days, to bask in nostalgia when there were 1,500 children enrolled in Sunday School; when there was a bell-chime choir for boys in junior high; the good old days when women and LGBTQ folks could not serve as deacons or elders or ministers, when a person of color was looked at askance if they ventured in to a worship service on a Sunday.

Another response to church decline is to remain faithful to God and open to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Because that’s how we got here in the first place—God let loose the Holy Spirit on Jesus’ disciples and the whole thing took off. And because the Holy Spirit was involved, well, things didn’t always go as planned. Things don’t always go as planned. Things will not always go as planned.

And that is marvelous. If you were to look at a graph of the decline of the number of churches or the number of Christians in the U.S., you would see a line that is moving downward. We might assume that line will continue to move downward. And it might. But who are we to second guess what the Holy Spirit is doing in our midst right now, or what that mischievous, omnipotent Holy Spirit will do in the years and decades and centuries to come?

We cannot undo the past and we cannot create the future. We can only work in the present, and we can only be faithful to God in this very moment. But we can commit—as individuals and as a community—to remain faithful to God and to the call that Jesus extends to us. And we can commit to this church thing—the congregation, the gathering of Jesus followers who hear the word and break bread together and love God by loving our neighbors.

Because whether or not we have a church building, or an organ, or Sunday School rooms, or coffee and cookies after worship; whether or not there is Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); whether or not there are enough ordained clergy—we can still practice our faith. As Diana Butler Bass writes, “we need to practice our faith intentionally in ways that anticipate compassion and justice. When Jesus said, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ he was directing his followers to do something. God’s reign does not fall from heaven to those who wait. The people of God must live the kingdom by purposefully doing actions that rehearse love, charity, kindness, goodness, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and justice.”

I’m not sure Jesus ever intended to invent a church or a religion. I really think he was about connecting people with God and each other, which is why he said the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. But then he left, and left us with the Holy Spirit, who is pretty unmanageable most days, but that’s what makes her so much fun.

Maybe the church is dying. Or maybe it’s being born anew into something we cannot yet recognize. Let me share with you one more thought from Diana Butler Bass that might help you find your place in all of this.

“In a very real way, we are all religious immigrants now, faithful people who have—willingly or unwillingly—left the old world for the new one, a place that exists largely in the hopeful risk taking of those seeking a meaningful way of life that offers peace and prosperity for all. This is especially true when it comes to faith. The old religious world is failing, but the Spirit is stirring anew.” (p. 268)

So happy birthday, church. May you have many more.