The Church Is….
May 20, 2007
Rev. Susan Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Acts 1:1-11; John 17:20-26
“I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church together – all who follow Jesus, all around the world – yes! We’re the Church together. The Church is not a building, the Church is not a steeple, the Church is not a resting place – the Church is the people….”
Today’s readings help us to understand that the Church is not only the people, but the relationships – I heard recently something about physics that was fascinating to me, but I heard it from a theologian, and I wasn’t going to necessarily trust a theologian for that kind of information, so I checked with Paul Hladky, who teaches physical chemistry at the university. He very patiently walked me through my primitive understanding and affirmed that what I want to share with you is a fair description, as far as it goes. Here it is: when we look at atoms, which are (you remember) composed of protons, electrons and neutrons – it turns out that the energy doesn’t come from the protons, or the neutrons, but rather from the relationships between them. The energy isn’t intrinsic to each component, but comes from the dynamic relationship among them. So relationality is intrinsic to the universe even at the atomic level. And we’ve now exhausted everything I know about physics, and then some.
But it’s the very beginning for theology. Relationship is where it starts, where it goes, and what it’s all about. We start at the relationship within God – our understanding of the Trinity is of three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are in relationship as a single divinity. So relationship is not merely something God does, it is integral to who God is. And as we see in the Gospel passage this morning, it is the dynamism of that relationship that leads to what people experience as the power of Jesus.
Jesus, in this prayer, talks about the relationship between himself and God the Father, and describes the unity that they have, and prays that we would have that same unity so that through us the world might experience the love of God. This tells us something very important about the Church, and it comes through in the other reading as well – the Church is an organization that does not exist for its own sake.
Many organizations, especially membership organizations, exist for the benefit of the members. The members typically pay dues, and in return they are entitled to certain membership benefits – in the case of a country club or athletic club, the members can use the facilities of the club, maybe take lessons at the club. A union or a professional organization would be another example – members pay dues, and the mission of the organization is to promote the interests of those members. When I was first out of college, I was the executive secretary for a professional association called the American Dry Milk Institute, which shared offices and staff with the Whey Products Association. I grew to understand that the goal of these organizations was to fund research, advocate for legislation, and publish newsletters that would support the interests of these segments of the dairy industry. All of these organizations, clubs, health clubs, unions, professional associations, exist for the benefit of the members.
The Church is unique in that it does not exist primarily for the benefit of its members. We don’t pay dues, we give offerings, and the offerings go to support the mission of the God in the world. The Church gathers to be sent out; the Church is for others. A definition that I heard my first year in seminary is: the Church is the Body of Christ in ministry to God’s children throughout the world.
We are not merely ourselves; together, we are the Body of Christ. We are united in a transcendent reality. We find ourselves in the One who calls us. A paradox in discipleship is that as we care for others, we find ourselves, but when we make our own care the goal – happiness is somewhat elusive. God gives us what we need, as we give to others.
The Acts reading says that we are to be God’s witnesses: in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. This is really quite remarkable. Jerusalem was where they were, so they were to be in ministry in their own town. But not only in their own town – throughout the whole country of Judea. And not only their own country, but in the country they didn’t like – the country of Samaria. And not even just that – Jesus expected that the disciples, including us, would bear witness to his glory and love to the ends of the earth.
And if we think that this is difficult and unreasonable, how much more unreasonable it was at the time – I’m planning a trip to Tanzania for the fall. It will take roughly 21 hours of flight time to travel halfway around the world. That’s amazing. Nonetheless, although it can be relatively easily done, most of us don’t travel that far very often. About a year ago, Mary Grossnickle traveled to Ethiopia for a mission trip, and she will be sharing some of her experiences today in adult ed. Traveling to other lands and welcoming people from other countries here (as the upcoming Thailand Project will) is an important way for us to build awareness of the challenges facing humans around the world. We learn about the very real differences among cultures and that despite those differences, we share a lot of commonalities as humans. And we begin to understand better that we all really are related. Though there are many peoples, many cultures, many faiths, there is one earth and one God, and so building unity among people is important.
This call to international mission dates back to the earliest missions of the Church, when travel and international communication wasn’t nearly as easy as it is for us. If God expected the earliest disciples to reach out to the ends of the earth, we should assume that we, too, are called to take international mission quite seriously. Not all the early disciples traveled; sometimes they sent funds to reach out to those far away. But we aren’t told to reach out only to those far away – we are also called to reach out to those nearby, in our own town. This is something that Frame has understood for years – our members are involved in many local organizations, and our church gives thousands of dollars each year to missions right here in Portage County. This Tuesday, our Session will vote on the $10,000 in local grants that the Mission committee is recommending. These funds come from the interest on our Memorial Mission fund, and we give the grants out each year. And of course, many of our members give individually, both in funds and in effort, to help other people in our area.
Next week, when we collect the annual Pentecost offering which funds missions around the world for children and youth, particularly at-risk youth, we will get to give 40% of what is collected to a local mission. Last year, we gave the local portion to the program Jerry Gargulak told us about working with at-risk youth.
Local mission and international mission are both important – and it would be a mistake for us to ignore either dimension of what Jesus calls us to do. We’re supposed to make a difference in our own neighborhood AND far away.
Likewise, our relationship with God and our relationship with each other are both important – the church isn’t only about each of us developing our own inner peace in relationship with God, and the church isn’t only about our relationships with each other. And both of these relationships – with God and with each other – should involve challenge as well as comfort. Just as our mission should make a difference, these relationships will make US different. It’s easy to get into comfortable habits of sitting with the same folks, talking with the same people at coffee hour, and asking the same people to serve on committees or to help out. But that kind of comfort can result in a sense of clubbishness that is hard for folks who are new to the community, or whose interests and abilities have changed. We should be a lively community that is always growing and changing, and challenging ourselves to grow and change. So I would challenge each of us to change our routines a little bit – get to know someone you haven’t gotten to know before. The Youth Group will be holding a potluck fundraiser in two weeks where you will have the opportunity to sit with people who are born in the same month as you – that will likely mean chatting with people you don’t always talk with. Give it a try.
The energy in the atom comes from dynamic relationships – the movement of molecules. I didn’t ask Paul about this, but I am pretty sure that if everything stays the same, there is not much energy produced [Paul nods his head, it turns out]. That’s certainly the case with electricity – static electricity makes a little spark. Flowing electricity, a current, electrons in motion, can create quite a charge.
As the church, we’re called to be in relationship and to be in motion. It may seem a little unsettling, literally. But we are not called to be settled – in the whole Bible, God never says to anyone, “You’re doing just great, stay as you are.” God continually called people into motion, to travel far away, to create new relationships, and to be changed in the process. We’re called to be in ministry with those in our town, in our country, in other countries, and far, far away. We’re called to be in close relationships with God and each other. Taking both these charges seriously can feel pretty precarious. Being real is hard, because most of us are used to keeping ourselves fairly well hidden. Perhaps that’s part of the reason we find our relationship with God difficult – we know that God knows us totally, and it’s hard to be in a relationship when we have no place to hide. And yet, to be in a relationship that is grounded in full acceptance is pretty amazing – it is both scary and utterly safe. It is safe because we really are accepted, just as we are – and scary because when we really understand that total acceptance, it will change us.
In community, we learn that our gifts and efforts are important, but they are not sufficient. We each do and give what we can do and give. And what we do joins with what other people can do, and is joined with what God is doing, so that our own individual efforts can become part of something that we can’t fully see. One of our members, David Smith, is known as Dr. Doodle – he’s an artist who uses the beginning doodles of others in order to build something larger. While we were chatting together earlier this week, I doodled part of the drawing that is on the cover of the bulletin. Dave took the beginning doodle I started, and turned it into something that was more involved and more interesting than I would have done on my own. I didn’t anticipate some of what he drew. My beginning doodle of a few interlocking circles reminded me of the church – his enhancement of my doodle reminds me even more strongly of the church. We’re connected to some of the people who are here – those relationships are part of a larger relationship. And these relationships aren’t just about what happens in the church – they lead outward to the world.
And our efforts in the church may be picked up and built upon by someone else – and what results may be different than we intended. That’s part of the dynamism and energy of life in community, and life in God. When we are in authentic relationships, we can’t really control the outcomes. We are connected to each other, we are connected to God, and we are called into relationships with people in the church, out of the church, both near and far, and we will be changed in the process. “The Church is not a building; the Church is not a steeple; the Church is not a resting place, the Church is the people….I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church together; all who follow Jesus, all around the world – YES, we’re the Church together.” Amen.
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Acts 1:1-11; John 17:20-26
“I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church together – all who follow Jesus, all around the world – yes! We’re the Church together. The Church is not a building, the Church is not a steeple, the Church is not a resting place – the Church is the people….”
Today’s readings help us to understand that the Church is not only the people, but the relationships – I heard recently something about physics that was fascinating to me, but I heard it from a theologian, and I wasn’t going to necessarily trust a theologian for that kind of information, so I checked with Paul Hladky, who teaches physical chemistry at the university. He very patiently walked me through my primitive understanding and affirmed that what I want to share with you is a fair description, as far as it goes. Here it is: when we look at atoms, which are (you remember) composed of protons, electrons and neutrons – it turns out that the energy doesn’t come from the protons, or the neutrons, but rather from the relationships between them. The energy isn’t intrinsic to each component, but comes from the dynamic relationship among them. So relationality is intrinsic to the universe even at the atomic level. And we’ve now exhausted everything I know about physics, and then some.
But it’s the very beginning for theology. Relationship is where it starts, where it goes, and what it’s all about. We start at the relationship within God – our understanding of the Trinity is of three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are in relationship as a single divinity. So relationship is not merely something God does, it is integral to who God is. And as we see in the Gospel passage this morning, it is the dynamism of that relationship that leads to what people experience as the power of Jesus.
Jesus, in this prayer, talks about the relationship between himself and God the Father, and describes the unity that they have, and prays that we would have that same unity so that through us the world might experience the love of God. This tells us something very important about the Church, and it comes through in the other reading as well – the Church is an organization that does not exist for its own sake.
Many organizations, especially membership organizations, exist for the benefit of the members. The members typically pay dues, and in return they are entitled to certain membership benefits – in the case of a country club or athletic club, the members can use the facilities of the club, maybe take lessons at the club. A union or a professional organization would be another example – members pay dues, and the mission of the organization is to promote the interests of those members. When I was first out of college, I was the executive secretary for a professional association called the American Dry Milk Institute, which shared offices and staff with the Whey Products Association. I grew to understand that the goal of these organizations was to fund research, advocate for legislation, and publish newsletters that would support the interests of these segments of the dairy industry. All of these organizations, clubs, health clubs, unions, professional associations, exist for the benefit of the members.
The Church is unique in that it does not exist primarily for the benefit of its members. We don’t pay dues, we give offerings, and the offerings go to support the mission of the God in the world. The Church gathers to be sent out; the Church is for others. A definition that I heard my first year in seminary is: the Church is the Body of Christ in ministry to God’s children throughout the world.
We are not merely ourselves; together, we are the Body of Christ. We are united in a transcendent reality. We find ourselves in the One who calls us. A paradox in discipleship is that as we care for others, we find ourselves, but when we make our own care the goal – happiness is somewhat elusive. God gives us what we need, as we give to others.
The Acts reading says that we are to be God’s witnesses: in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. This is really quite remarkable. Jerusalem was where they were, so they were to be in ministry in their own town. But not only in their own town – throughout the whole country of Judea. And not only their own country, but in the country they didn’t like – the country of Samaria. And not even just that – Jesus expected that the disciples, including us, would bear witness to his glory and love to the ends of the earth.
And if we think that this is difficult and unreasonable, how much more unreasonable it was at the time – I’m planning a trip to Tanzania for the fall. It will take roughly 21 hours of flight time to travel halfway around the world. That’s amazing. Nonetheless, although it can be relatively easily done, most of us don’t travel that far very often. About a year ago, Mary Grossnickle traveled to Ethiopia for a mission trip, and she will be sharing some of her experiences today in adult ed. Traveling to other lands and welcoming people from other countries here (as the upcoming Thailand Project will) is an important way for us to build awareness of the challenges facing humans around the world. We learn about the very real differences among cultures and that despite those differences, we share a lot of commonalities as humans. And we begin to understand better that we all really are related. Though there are many peoples, many cultures, many faiths, there is one earth and one God, and so building unity among people is important.
This call to international mission dates back to the earliest missions of the Church, when travel and international communication wasn’t nearly as easy as it is for us. If God expected the earliest disciples to reach out to the ends of the earth, we should assume that we, too, are called to take international mission quite seriously. Not all the early disciples traveled; sometimes they sent funds to reach out to those far away. But we aren’t told to reach out only to those far away – we are also called to reach out to those nearby, in our own town. This is something that Frame has understood for years – our members are involved in many local organizations, and our church gives thousands of dollars each year to missions right here in Portage County. This Tuesday, our Session will vote on the $10,000 in local grants that the Mission committee is recommending. These funds come from the interest on our Memorial Mission fund, and we give the grants out each year. And of course, many of our members give individually, both in funds and in effort, to help other people in our area.
Next week, when we collect the annual Pentecost offering which funds missions around the world for children and youth, particularly at-risk youth, we will get to give 40% of what is collected to a local mission. Last year, we gave the local portion to the program Jerry Gargulak told us about working with at-risk youth.
Local mission and international mission are both important – and it would be a mistake for us to ignore either dimension of what Jesus calls us to do. We’re supposed to make a difference in our own neighborhood AND far away.
Likewise, our relationship with God and our relationship with each other are both important – the church isn’t only about each of us developing our own inner peace in relationship with God, and the church isn’t only about our relationships with each other. And both of these relationships – with God and with each other – should involve challenge as well as comfort. Just as our mission should make a difference, these relationships will make US different. It’s easy to get into comfortable habits of sitting with the same folks, talking with the same people at coffee hour, and asking the same people to serve on committees or to help out. But that kind of comfort can result in a sense of clubbishness that is hard for folks who are new to the community, or whose interests and abilities have changed. We should be a lively community that is always growing and changing, and challenging ourselves to grow and change. So I would challenge each of us to change our routines a little bit – get to know someone you haven’t gotten to know before. The Youth Group will be holding a potluck fundraiser in two weeks where you will have the opportunity to sit with people who are born in the same month as you – that will likely mean chatting with people you don’t always talk with. Give it a try.
The energy in the atom comes from dynamic relationships – the movement of molecules. I didn’t ask Paul about this, but I am pretty sure that if everything stays the same, there is not much energy produced [Paul nods his head, it turns out]. That’s certainly the case with electricity – static electricity makes a little spark. Flowing electricity, a current, electrons in motion, can create quite a charge.
As the church, we’re called to be in relationship and to be in motion. It may seem a little unsettling, literally. But we are not called to be settled – in the whole Bible, God never says to anyone, “You’re doing just great, stay as you are.” God continually called people into motion, to travel far away, to create new relationships, and to be changed in the process. We’re called to be in ministry with those in our town, in our country, in other countries, and far, far away. We’re called to be in close relationships with God and each other. Taking both these charges seriously can feel pretty precarious. Being real is hard, because most of us are used to keeping ourselves fairly well hidden. Perhaps that’s part of the reason we find our relationship with God difficult – we know that God knows us totally, and it’s hard to be in a relationship when we have no place to hide. And yet, to be in a relationship that is grounded in full acceptance is pretty amazing – it is both scary and utterly safe. It is safe because we really are accepted, just as we are – and scary because when we really understand that total acceptance, it will change us.
In community, we learn that our gifts and efforts are important, but they are not sufficient. We each do and give what we can do and give. And what we do joins with what other people can do, and is joined with what God is doing, so that our own individual efforts can become part of something that we can’t fully see. One of our members, David Smith, is known as Dr. Doodle – he’s an artist who uses the beginning doodles of others in order to build something larger. While we were chatting together earlier this week, I doodled part of the drawing that is on the cover of the bulletin. Dave took the beginning doodle I started, and turned it into something that was more involved and more interesting than I would have done on my own. I didn’t anticipate some of what he drew. My beginning doodle of a few interlocking circles reminded me of the church – his enhancement of my doodle reminds me even more strongly of the church. We’re connected to some of the people who are here – those relationships are part of a larger relationship. And these relationships aren’t just about what happens in the church – they lead outward to the world.
And our efforts in the church may be picked up and built upon by someone else – and what results may be different than we intended. That’s part of the dynamism and energy of life in community, and life in God. When we are in authentic relationships, we can’t really control the outcomes. We are connected to each other, we are connected to God, and we are called into relationships with people in the church, out of the church, both near and far, and we will be changed in the process. “The Church is not a building; the Church is not a steeple; the Church is not a resting place, the Church is the people….I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church together; all who follow Jesus, all around the world – YES, we’re the Church together.” Amen.