Sermons

“Listen! I Will Tell You a Mystery!”

Mark 4:26-29; I Samuel 3:1-10 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – June 14, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might give thanks for your work in our midst and listen for your voice in all we do. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

On this second Sunday in June, when we have our annual congregational business meeting in anticipation of the new ministry year starting on July first, it is my tradition to give a “State of the Church” address. Board members have submitted annual reports for your perusal, sharing the accomplishments and thankgivings of each of our ministry departments. So I, too, want to offer something of a summary and assessment of the ministry year we are about to close the books on.

So what is the “State of the Church”? The state of the church is good. The state of the church is active and vibrant and growing. In the last year, we have held weekly worship services involving more different people than I can count. We have held multiple special services, including at least one new one – our Longest Night service during the Christmas season – services which have touched on the wide variety of human experience with creativity and depth. We have offered spiritual growth opportunities for young and old, including new classes for children and adults. Any of you who were here last week witnessed the results of weeks of planning that went into a most awesome Youth Sunday. And of course we can’t leave out the best year for our Scholarship Fund since Aves Gascoigne’s gift!

Our Outreach ministries have continued to expand, both in scope and in involvement. Through our connections with the La Mesa Interfaith Council, we continue to strengthen our base for hosting the Interfaith Shelter and the Summer Lunch Program. We have been living into our identity as a Global Missions church, mostly recently through the Congo Bible study offered on Sunday mornings and the event we had with Paul Turner who is now in Congo as a missionary, with direct support from our congregation.

We continue to be a wonderful oasis for intergenerational relationships, in a world that is constantly trying to divide us up by age. The multiple fellowship opportunities available within our congregation – whether weekly coffee hour or game nights – are part of what it means to be the body of Christ. We laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. We learn from one another what it means to grow and age in the light of God’s grace. And the word is somehow getting around, which may have something to do with our beautiful new website that went live last fall. There are multiple new regulars with us now who weren’t here a year ago, and we give thanks for you! Each of us is assigned to a flock – did you know this? – anyone who’s been here for just a few weeks is placed in a flock that has a few Elders & Deacons assigned to care and pray for us, and generally make sure no one’s falling through the cracks.

We have invested in our facility in some major ways in the past year. The biggest example, of course, was installing solar panels to provide for our electrical needs. In addition to cutting our utility bill in a major way, those solar panels allow us to do our ministry with much less negative impact on God’s creation. And finally, we are beginning to see a new chapter in this church’s life when it comes to stewardship: in just a bit when the proposed budget is presented for the new ministry year, we will have the joy of voting on a budget with a surplus rather than an alarming projected deficit. That is the first time in my 14 years of ministry that I’ve ever seen that happen!

The state of the church is good. We are alive. We are growing. The kingdom of God is near. I hear that passage Noralea read from Mark, and I think of the words of Paul: “Listen! I will tell you a mystery!” Jesus talks about someone scattering seed and then being mystified by the arrival of the new grain. You might notice he called this person “someone” rather than “a farmer”. I think a farmer would be less mystified. And a farmer would have done more than scatter those seeds. All of this growth and life that’s busting out around here may seem of mysterious origin if viewed from a distance. But I was at our annual Leadership Retreat this weekend, and I saw it happen. Listen! I will tell you a mystery!

The kingdom of God is continuing to emerge at Vista La Mesa Christian Church because people are stepping up and taking seriously their call to follow Jesus, in so many different ways. They are working with children and cleaning out the coffee pot. They are coming down on a Saturday to prepare the sanctuary for worship and spending countless hours feeding children from the neighborhood. They are visiting the homebound and picking up new supplies for the bathroom. They are holding the sick in prayer and making sure the bills get paid. Sometimes the mysterious and the mundane are the same thing. The harvest is happening all the time, and it’s because of both the farmers’ efforts and the mysterious gifts of God like the rain and the sunshine and the life-giving soil.

Listen, I will tell you a mystery: The ministry of this church is held together by a core of lay leaders who really want others to join them. They want others to experience the spiritual benefits of getting involved in serving the homeless. They want to know how other people could find time for spiritual reflection and prayerful conversation in their lives. They want others to share their ideas for enjoyable ways to spend time deepening our relationships, with one another and with God. The life of a congregation doesn’t have to be an enigma; it can be something you get involved with and shape with your own unique contributions.

The state of the church is good, and poised for growth. We spent a lot of time this weekend talking about prayer. In fact, one of the exercises we did together was to write prayers for some of the regular meetings that are held throughout the year. We wrote a unison prayer to begin our board meetings.   And the next day, five different small groups wrote prayers to be used at the beginning of our monthly Elders & Deacons meetings. One of the words that was mentioned most often, as we discussed what sort of prayer those contexts demanded, was “guidance.” The people leading this church want to do what they based on the guidance of God. They want to lead by following Jesus Christ. And so, as we talked about prayer, we talked about the fact that sometimes – more often than not, perhaps – prayer is not talking, but listening. We read the story of Samuel. His context sounds a little too familiar to ours sometimes, doesn’t it? “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” “Samuel did not yet know the Lord.” That’s sometimes how it feels, isn’t it? Like we pray and pray, and sometimes we don’t pray, but regardless of how hard we try, we never hear a word back? Anybody had a vision lately? And yet, we discovered this weekend that there are multiple parts of learning to pray. It’s not just about finding the right words. Prayer is about listening, and learning to recognize God’s voice. And perhaps most importantly, if the example of Samuel can teach us anything, prayer is about that long period of preparation that makes us ready to answer “Here I am! Your servant is listening!” once we do hear the call.

The mystery of the ready heart is perhaps at the core of the kingdom of God as we experience it in church life together. We heard at least one story this weekend about someone asking an unexpected person to help in a new way and getting a Yes! We heard stories about people taking on new roles they don’t feel quite ready for, but said Yes to anyway. The open and ready heart is like the mystery of the fertile soil where the scattered seeds take root and yield a hundredfold. That is God’s doing in our midst, and it is mysterious and wonderful. But will we recognize it when it’s happening? I would like to declare this coming ministry year as the Year of Exploring Prayer. I am hoping for a year of deepening, a year in which we learn and experience prayer as, not just words that hold concepts larger than our comprehension, but the silence in which we listen for God’s voice and guidance, and all the activities and periods of respite that prepare our hearts for that prayer of response that says “Here I am!”

It is my hope that we will all renew our commitment to deepening our spirituality this year, through prayer and study and conversation, and service and fellowship and worship and stewardship. It is my hope that we can find new formats for spiritual formation that will fit into the lives of all the people of our congregation, and that our enthusiasm for this sort of seeking will be contagious, so that everyone will want to get involved. This isn’t just about Sunday school or being on the Prayer Chain. It isn’t just about being an Elder or a Deacon. It’s about being a Christian. It’s about becoming part of the kingdom of God that is breaking open in our midst. It’s about listening for the voice of God and helping one another recognize it when it comes. When we assess the state of the church, let us always be able to say: The church is open to the voice of God! The church is ready to follow Jesus! Alleluia and Amen!