Sermons

“The State of the Church”

Psalm 8; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – June 11, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that your Spirit might find fertile ground in our hearts and yield fruitfully. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

At least once a year, we have a meeting. The meeting is to settle all the organizational details for the upcoming year, with the input of the whole congregation (or at least all of you who show up that day!). And on the day of that meeting, which happens to be today, I have determined it is useful for me, as the pastor, to share with all of you my perspective on the state of the church, “church” in this case meaning our congregation here, not the broader manifestation of the body of Christ world-wide. It’s a convenient time to do it, because the preparations for all that we will vote on later mean that I’ve had occasion in the past few months to be reflecting on how things are coming along.

So let me begin by sharing some of what we covered at our Leadership Retreat last weekend. The theme of the retreat was “Bearing Pruning, Bearing Fruit.” As I did then, I have to confess that I am not a gardener. So for me to venture into the realm of gardening metaphors is a little tricky, especially with people like Ruth Tiffany and Jerry Bailey in the room! I tried to talk a little about the differences between good pruning, which leads to fruitfulness, and bad pruning, which leads to ugliness, using the example of the crepe myrtle trees which were all over where I used to live in Alabama. Dangerous territory for a non-gardener. But in my defense, these metaphors are biblical. They’re all over the gospel. And the difference between me and Jesus – well, one of the many differences between me and Jesus – is that I’ve managed to keep these succulents alive for over three years, and the closest thing to gardening we have record of Jesus doing was causing a fig tree to wither because he was hungry and mad that it didn’t have fruit out of season. The man was supposedly a carpenter, after all! And yet, he kept using these gardening, farming metaphors. So if he did, I’m going to too!

So last weekend, we spent quite a bit of time talking about pruning and fruitfulness. It had occurred to me earlier this spring that it felt as though our congregation was going through a season of pruning. Things that used to be there simply aren’t anymore. And since this is a State of the Church address, I will share that list with you now. It included recent low worship attendance, fewer kids and young people around, loss of members whether because of recent deaths within the congregation or because of those who have officially or unofficially left, depreciation of our facility including leaky roofs and other challenges, an incomplete slate of nominees because of not having enough people willing and able to do the work, reluctant attitudes towards change, and perhaps most poignantly, the disbanding of the Deaconesses, which we’ve already commemorated this morning. That is, indeed, a fairly depressing list.

But it’s also not the end of the story. The importance of the biblical metaphor of pruning is that pruning isn’t the same thing as ripping something out by its roots and throwing it on the fire. Our theme scripture from John 15 assured us that “Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” And so we also talked about the ways we’re already seeing signs of new fruitfulness within the life of our congregation. And it turned out that list was longer than the first one!

Our fruitfulness list included many things related to our intensified commitment to Outreach, including Welcome Saturday, Interfaith Shelter, El Nido, MCRD, and Housing for Homeless Schoolkids. We also celebrated deeper commitment to learning and faith development, through Children Worship & Wonder, Michael’s Bible study and our Library renovation, along with our new adventure in becoming a teaching church, welcoming our summer intern, Rachel Shomali, and a seminary intern in the fall, RJ Lucchesi. We listed our increasing engagement with ecumenical and interfaith neighbors, as well as the gifts we share with the wider church, primarily through your support of my work with Disciples Peace Fellowship, District 8 organizing, and other denominational ministries. Finally, we have racked up some major infrastructure accomplishments, including a beautifully re-modeled kitchen, a bylaws revision process nearing completion, and despite low levels of participation, giving that has held steady and put us in a stronger financial position than anticipated a year ago. It’s really quite a heartening list! And so with that as background, let’s get deeper into where we go from here.

The most important part of our theme scripture was not the bit about pruning. Rather, it was the part where Jesus reminded us of the need to stay connected to him. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” The thing about a season of pruning is that if we respond faithfully, it will become an opportunity to learn more deeply what it means to rely on God. When we’re really trying to be church – that is, when we’re trying to do things beyond the capacity of a small gathering of sometimes-committed, often-distracted human beings, like transform lives and create hope out of thin air – it becomes amazingly obvious that it only works if we’re continually asking God’s help and guidance.

We talked at the retreat about the difference between urgency and panic. A sense of urgency is a vital thing for a congregation in our times. We live in a world that desperately needs a church with a strong and appropriate sense of urgency. Sharing the good news of God’s transformative love has become a life-or-death proposition in so many ways in our times. If we don’t feel urgent about that, we’re not paying attention. Urgency can lead to fruitfulness. Panic, on the other hand, just leads to paralysis. Panic assumes there is nothing we can do, and completely forgets that we’re not supposed to be able to fix what is broken on our own. Panic turns us inward, into some kind of self-concerned death spiral. Urgency turns us outward, allowing God to work through us to continue the transformation of the world, right on our doorsteps.

Perhaps the point here is that the state of the church has yet to be decided. Let’s turn to another gardening metaphor to explore what I mean. The parable of the sower illustrates four different responses to the gospel. As Jesus tells it – and remember, he was a carpenter not a farmer – the story has a sense of inevitability, and the odds aren’t portrayed as being all that good. Three out of four responses end up bearing no fruit. But here’s what Jesus left out: If we are the farmers, it is true that we do not have the power to make things grow; but we do have the capacity to cultivate the soil and improve it. If you want to turn your backyard into a vegetable garden, you don’t just go outside and throw some seeds around and see what happens. First, you take out that charming paved path that leads to nowhere, because seeds that land on the path are basically bird food. Then you remove the rocks that make it impossible to till the ground. Then you rip out the old, thorny plants that grew up while you were ignoring what was going on back there. Once the soil is ready, then you plant your seeds.

It is crucial, during a season of pruning, to remember to rely on God for growth. But it is also imperative that we don’t wait for God to do it all, without making the efforts that are within our capacity. So how do we cultivate good soil within our hearts? How do we make sure the seeds of Christ’s gospel are falling on good soil, and not on the path, or in the rocks, or among the thorns? It turns out the answers are the same as they have always been, the classic practices of the faith: study of scripture to combat our lack of understanding, centering our lives in Christian community to deepen our roots in the faith, and worship of the Living God to decrease the power of temptations like wealth and self-centeredness. If we want to be a church that is bearing fruit, we must first be church: a gathering of people committed to living as followers of Jesus, coming together for learning and fellowship and worship, so that we can be equipped to carry the light of Christ and the love of God to a broken and hurting world, by the power of the Holy Spirit. May it be so! Alleluia and Amen!