Sermons

“Silver & Gold Have We None”

Psalm 19:1-4,7-10; Acts 3:1-10 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – September 2, 2018

The “Peter, Paul and What’s-Her-Name” Sermon Series

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might boldly claim the gifts that you have given and share them with joy. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Let me begin with a word of apology to folk music fans. We are beginning a short sermon series today called “Peter, Paul, and What’s-Her-Name,” but I will, at no point, be singing you either “Puff the Magic Dragon” or “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” At least, not during the sermon.

What is more important, by way of introduction, is a little context. This congregation recently committed to growth in ministry, members, and sustainability. It’s not at all that we weren’t interested in those things before, but somewhen around May, a number of realities coalesced and God’s timing and direction became clear. Vista La Mesa Christian Church is being called to a deeper level of commitment to being church. And a large part of what that means is focusing on sustaining and growing our ministries and inviting more people to become part of them. We are not enrolling in a packaged program or launching 10-step plan, but rather coming together to intentionally cultivate an organic transformation into a congregation that is always growing and deepening. How will we know when it’s done? We won’t, because there is no end-point. But we will be able to tell if it’s working.

We began this shift with a six-part sermon series at the beginning of the summer, focused on the fundamentals of our faith. And I’m hoping to fan the flames now at the end of summer with this three-part sermon series covering some of what I’ve learned in 17 years in ministry about growth in small-membership churches. “Peter, Paul, and “What’s-Her-Name” are not actually folk singers in this context, but biblical characters whose stories can frame our conversation and offer us hints about the path of faithfulness.

So let’s take a look at the story we just heard about Peter and John and see what it can teach us about our own situation. There are three main points I want us to take away this morning, but before we get into them, let’s lay something else aside. This is a miracle story. There is no way around that. But I don’t want that to get in our way. There is plenty of room here for all the many interpretations of biblical miracles that may rest in the minds of all of us in this room. You may be perfectly comfortable with the idea of Peter performing a healing miracle through the power of Jesus’ name. You may even understand such a thing to have happened in your own life. On the other hand, the “supernatural” healings described in scripture may be a barrier to you, one that requires you to find some rhetorical, allegorical, metaphorical, theological work-around. Blessings to you in that process. There is room here for all these understandings of scripture and everything in between. We do not have to be on the same page about that part to benefit from reflecting on Peter’s actions and the results. This freedom of interpretation is one of the blessings of our Disciples heritage.

The first lesson about growth that I want to pull from this story is to stop focusing on what we don’t have. Peter deals with this very succinctly in the scripture passage. The man was expecting “something” it says, so Peter begins by saying, “I have no silver or gold,” and then he moves on. Small churches have a bad habit of comparing ourselves to churches with different callings than ours. We worry that we need to be able to replicate the multi-leveled programming and slick brochures and hip coffee carts of mega-churches in order to enter the game. We know we need to grow, so we look around desperately and grab hold of the first clever idea we see some other church trying and attempt to make it our own.

We so easily forget how refreshing it is to encounter people who aren’t trying to be everything to everybody. That is a game we’re never going to win, and if we tried to play it, we would lose ourselves in the process. Blessedly, it’s not the game we’re being called to play. The title of this sermon is “Silver & Gold Have We None,” but it really ought to have a subtitle clarifying “And That’s Just Fine!” There are some people out there who belong in a much larger church, but those are not the people God is calling us to welcome. Those folks have plenty of options. We need to give up the comparison game and let go of wanting to be something we’re not. There’s no gain in sitting around moping about what we don’t have. Especially when what we do have is so tremendous.

The second lesson from this story is a bit more subtle. Peter begins by saying, “I have no silver or gold,” and then he effortlessly pivots to, “but what I have I give you.” I want us to think a little more deeply about what’s behind that seamless shift. Peter didn’t show up the day before and suddenly know how to heal in Jesus’ name. He’d been following Jesus for years and learning from his mistakes. He was slowly and painfully formed into the leader God had called him to be. He’d finally gotten it together. And that’s a process churches like ours have to go through as well. We need to get and keep our house in order so that we can be ready to offer others what we enjoy here. It may not feel like the ridiculously long bylaws-revision process we finished a year ago was preparation for embarking on a journey of evangelism, but it was. Our leadership retreats, the Policies & Procedures Manual, newsletters and welcome packets and other publications with explanations of what’s going on – all of these things are tools that help newcomers understand how to get involved. The clearer they are, the more inviting they are. Nobody wants to join a jumbled, chaotic mess. But a place doing what’s it’s doing well and effectively? Yes!

The development of Welcome Saturday, from the first moments we contemplated borrowing that model of ministry from First Methodist through the sign-up sheets in the Fellowship Hall right now, is part of our preparation for growth. We need to know why we’re here, why we do what we do, and how we do it. We need to be able to introduce our ministries and describe them clearly to newcomers. We need to know what our priorities are and be able to explain how they reflect the priorities of the gospel. We need to understand and be able to show how investing in what’s happening here is worth it and how that investment will be managed wisely and faithfully. It’s a subtle moment in Peter’s story. But if you compare the Peter from the gospels, who was always putting his foot in his mouth, with this new Peter in Acts, who pivots seamlessly from what he doesn’t have to what he can offer, the importance of getting our act together becomes clear. We have been working on this, and we will continue to as we move forward, but we’ve done enough of that work over the past few years that we can now focus on building on it, rather than just getting the foundation put together.

The final lesson we can pull from Peter’s story is probably the most important. We need to know what we do have and how and why to offer it to others. This is often about helping ourselves truly appreciate what happens here. But occasionally, as in Peter’s story, it will turn out that what we have to offer is actually better than what people thought they wanted. Often, for small-membership churches, this requires a process of re-framing our situation. Because we only have a small cohort of people to do what is necessary to make a church function, we’ve frequently heard the complaint that “the same few people are doing everything.” Lately, however, we’ve managed to break through that over-burdened malaise to a new place. We now recognize ourselves as a church where it is easy to get involved, to be welcomed into leadership and live out your calling, and we’ve come to understand that as the other, much happier side of that coin.

Some of the misconceptions we have about what a successful church looks like are shared by people in our neighborhoods who are only peripherally aware of church. They may be just as confused as we sometimes are about what they really want from a church family. We all know that churches need families with children to thrive. Often, when small churches look at the children’s and families’ programming at larger churches, we throw up our hands in despair, knowing that we will never have enough personnel, let alone participants, to replicate those grade-tiered classes and activities. But what we forget is how important it is for children to have significant, authentic relationships with adults outside their own families. That is a gift that small-membership churches can provide, that isn’t available much of anywhere else. If we can notice how this happens here at Vista La Mesa and talk about it with our children’s friends’ parents, some people will begin looking for something different, something like what we offer here.

We may feel discouraged when we visit our cousin’s church and see the flashy lights and large praise band, but if we come back here and allow God to adjust our perspective, we can come to appreciate the authenticity of our humble, participatory worship service, where people are real and mistakes are made and Jesus is present in ways that truly touch us. There may be visitors who are a bit overwhelmed when they first arrive because they were hoping to be a bit more anonymous or even get lost in the crowd; but what we offer here is a chance to be truly seen, and welcome, and loved, and I do believe for many people, that is a bigger blessing once they’ve gotten over the shock.

In order to grow, we need to recognize the blessings we enjoy here and live with a constant awareness that those blessings are for sharing. “What I have, I give you,” Peter said. And what did he have? The healing, empowering, life-giving love of Jesus. We have that too. We just need to recognize what it looks like here and trust that people need it, even if it’s not quite what they seem to be asking for. Sometimes what we have to offer will turn out to be better than what they thought they wanted. And sometimes it will just be more complicated, and that could be a blessing too.

Let’s go back to that man whom Peter healed. He was walking around and leaping and praising God. But then what? What happened next? He’d been lame since birth, so he probably hadn’t learned any kind of trade with which to support himself. He may have had family, who may or may not adjust well to his new circumstances. People were going to expect him to do all sorts of things for himself now, that he’d never had to do before. It was certainly an occasion for jubilation, but it must have also been a bit daunting.

It’s important to recognize that wholeness isn’t always easier than brokenness. We may have gotten to a place where we feel proud and joyful about what we share here at Vista La Mesa, but we’re not solving everyone’s problems. We’re not offering easy answers. There’s no reason why we need to pretend we are. We know life is complicated and hard, but we also know the blessing of going through all that alongside this loving community of faith. We know that even when each of us can only give a little, when we combine our efforts in with the grace of God, we can offer hope and bring joy and change lives. We can trust that others need what we enjoy here because we know how much we need it. “What I have I give you,” we are called to say.   It’s not flashy or slick. It’s not a simple answer to your problems. It may not be what you thought you were looking for. But it’s pretty great, and we’ve been working hard to make it easier for you to become part of it. Come and see! Alleluia and Amen!