Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: II Corinthians 4:1-12
Note: This sermon was the second in a trio of sermons for the annual stewardship campaign orchestrated under the title “Don’t Let Go.” It was preached on a Sunday when the music was especially spectacular, given the presence of guest composer, conductor and concert pianist, Joseph Martin. Earlier in the service, Roger and Barbara Timm (relatively new to First Church) gave a campaign testimony and spoke about the issue of “church shopping” in their faith journey.
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Now that Julie has left Georgia for California (albeit via Massachusetts), chances are slim that I am ever going to get back to Atlanta. Which I didn’t see enough of while she was there. Although I did once stand in the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church….Daddy King’s church…. Martin’s, too (for a spell, and perhaps still). It was a Tuesday, as I remember, along about 2:00 in the afternoon. So had I felt inclined to preach, there wouldn’t have been any reason to preach, given that there was nobody in the room to hear me preach, save for Kris and Julie (who have heard all they care to hear of my preaching). So I didn’t. Although I wanted to. And still do.
Fred Craddock preached at Ebenezer a few years back. Fred teaches preaching….or did….at Emory University in Atlanta. So Joseph Roberts, Ebenezer’s pastor in those years, invited Fred to come over and bring a good word. Well, you need to know that while Fred is wonderful to hear, he is not all that imposing to see….given that, by his own admission, Fred is an old, short, bald guy with a high voice.
Which is a lot to overcome. And which may explain why, when Fred got up to preach, Joe Roberts began to sing (while seated on the platform behind the pulpit). Whereupon everybody else on the platform began to sing. And the congregation, they began singing, too. Then the piano and the organ came along for the ride, followed by the drums and the electric guitar. All the while, Fred stood waiting at the pulpit until he figured out that he was the only one who wasn’t singing. So even though there wasn’t anything in the bulletin that called for singing, he sang, too. Which got everybody going….not only singing, but swinging and clapping.
Then, after a spell, Joe Roberts put up his hand and it got real quiet. People sat down. Fred preached. And it felt as if he could have preached all day. After the service, he said to Joe Roberts: “That kind of shocked me a little….the singing, I mean. You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.” To which Joe said: “I didn’t plan to.” “Then why did you do it?” Fred asked. “Well,” said Joe, “when you stood up at the pulpit, one of the associates leaned over and said to me, ‘Looks like that boy’s gonna need some help.’”
Well, we all do from time to time (need help, I mean). Me, more than most. But, then, I get more help than most. Like this morning. Who wouldn’t be ready to preach after music like this? Preaching is easy here. I have been known to cry when I hear the choir. Nothing unique about that. There are lots of ministers who cry when they hear their choir. But, when they tell me, they’re not smiling.
“We have this treasure,” Paul says. “And we carry it in clay jars (earthen vessels).” So what’s the treasure? You tell me. On any given morning, the treasure can be just about anything.
The treasure can be the Lord.
Or the treasure can be the faith that proclaims the Lord.
Or the gospel that declares the faith that proclaims the Lord.
Or the message that articulates thegospel that declares the faith that proclaims the Lord.
Or the ministry that carries out the message that articulates the gospel that declares the faith that proclaims the Lord.
Or the anthem that puts melody under the ministry that carries out the message that articulates the gospel that declares the faith that proclaims the Lord.
Or maybe even the church in which melody, ministry, message, gospel, faith and Lord are simmered into a stew that feeds and flavors the world.
Maybe it’s all “treasure.” As treasures go, don’t try to parse it or sort it out. Just give thanks for the fact that we’ve got some (treasure, I mean) and that ours is of infinite worth and value.
So what do we do with our treasure, Paul asks. We carry the whole schmear in pots made of clay. Which everybody in Paul’s world (Jews, Greeks and Romans) knew were the most flawed containers known to man. That’s because they dried, don’t you see. And when they dried, they cracked. And when they cracked, stuff leaked from them like sieves. So what is Paul saying? I’ll tell you what Paul is saying. He’s saying that this incredible treasure (however defined) has been entrusted to a bunch of cracked pots.
Don’t look at me funny. I don’t write this stuff. I only read this stuff. But I know ‘tis true. When Paul talks about himself as the vessel, he’s talking “mortality” (meaning he’s got death in him). But when Paul talks about the church as the vessel, he’s talking “fragility” (meaning we’ve got failure in us). Which is a confession worth making in a day when people want more and more out of church and are not bashful about expressing their expectations.
As my title suggests, people shop churches. I suppose a few always did, but not many. In days gone by, the Roman Catholic model of institutional loyalty defined us all. Born a Catholic, you lived Catholic, stayed Catholic and died Catholic. What’s more, when you moved, you went to the Catholic parish that serviced your new neighborhood. Seldom did you ask the realtor: “What is the finest Catholic church in these parts?” Instead, you asked: “What is the closest Catholic church in these parts?”
Protestants may have seemed a bit more choosy, but just a bit. Methodists, in the main, paid attention to the sign on the door (even before we had the cross and flame to mark our turf). And most suburban Methodist churches grew numerically as Detroit Methodists picked up stakes and left the city in search of better schools and greener lawns. The “brand name factor” was a big factor. And even those moving Methodists who didn’t stay Methodist sampled “Methodist” before looking elsewhere.
Today, everything is changed. Brand lines are blurred and people cross them without blinking an eye. On Groundbreaking Sunday, we received 40 new adult members into the life of this church. Six of them were Methodist transferees. That’s fifteen percent. Which is about the way it is now. Not good. Not bad. Just is. In fact, were you to do the math, it would be my guess that (over the last decade) we have received more members who could tell us about the Pope than who could tell us about John Wesley.
As you gleaned from Roger and Barbara’s message this morning, most people shop churches. Which bothers most clergy. Although I don’t know why my colleagues disparage church shopping, given that they’ll do it, too, the minute they retire. As Rodger Nishioka writes (in a wonderful essay entitled “Life in the Liquid Church: Ministry in a Consumer Culture”):
Shopping is the archetype of our age. If, by shopping, we mean scanning the assortment of possibilities….examining, touching and handling the goods on display….comparing the costs with the contents of our wallets or the credit limits on our cards….putting each item in our cart or back on the shelf….then we probably shop outside stores as much as inside….meaning that we shop everywhere.
But for what? As concerns shopping for churches, here’s where it gets foggy. Nishioka continues: “When it comes to churches, the shift in consumerism involves less of a shopping for needs and more of a shopping for desires….and, as such, is more volatile, ephemeral, even capricious.” Which is hard to explain, but I have seen it. People tell me that they started out to shop widely for a church, only to come here first and never leave. Why? “Because it felt right,” they say. It touched something. Or it satisfied an impulse they couldn’t articulate or a need they couldn’t name. Or maybe they shopped the landscape, came here, and then said: “This is it” (with the same vagueness of criteria). It wasn’t so much that they came shopping with a list, as with a lust….or an itch….or a hunger….or an attitude that said: “I’ll know it when I feel it” (rather than “I’ll know it when I evaluate it”).
The question is, how does one prepare for that (especially if you’re me….or the staff….or the Board)? It’s like trying to pitch a baseball with only a vague notion of the strike zone. So you go back to what other experts have been saying for 20 years. Namely, that people who no longer concern themselves with the name on the door, will join the church that
- helps them make sense of….and find meaning for….their lives (and)
- tells them in visible and tangible ways: “We will help you raise your children.”
Which suggests that meaninglessness and parenting are the two issues that produce more anxiety than any others. And which further suggests that any church…by any name….in any place….which addresses those needs will find a following.
Ah, but there is an additional expectation that shoppers bring to the table. I am talking about an expectation of excellence. Which is why the word “perfect” crept into my title this morning (“Shopping for the Perfect Church”). Back when five-year-old Julie was learning how to string words together in sentences (she’s brilliant at it now), she would awkwardly pair the words “more” and “better,” as in “This is more better” or “Which would be more better?” Today, the words aren’t paired in speech, but they are coupled in expectation. From their church of choice, people want “more” and they want “better.” Heck, if the shoe fits, wear it. As a church, you want “more” and you also want “better.” At every church I have served….and in every year of my ministry….the performance expectation has risen. And if you don’t believe that, ask anyone who works here and has accumulated enough career history from which to form a comparison.
Which is why we work at “perfection” in things small and large. This building is cleaner than it has ever been before. Our communication is more far-reaching than it has ever been before. Your weekly edition of Steeple Notes (which we turn over in about eight hours time) is better written and more mistake-free than it has ever been before. And the staff is bigger than it has been before, stretches you more broadly than you have been stretched before, and drives some of you deeper into the faith than you have been driven before. Truth be told, you don’t work here very long (or very happily) if you can’t pair the words “my ministry” and “next level” in the same sentence. Not because I demand it. But because you desire it….because the times cry out for it….and (here’s the important part) because God deserves it. If you don’t believe that, go back and reread the parable of the talents. As you will recall, the servant who puts his ten talents to work with visible outcomes is given ten more, while the servant who sticks his one talent in a box (or hides it under a bushel) ends up with nothing. It doesn’t seem fair. But that’s the way it is.
On even-numbered days of the week, I get to feeling guilty and think that maybe we should dismantle some of our staff, reallocate some of our resources, and back-burner the building, the organ project and the concert series, the better to help ten or twenty small, struggling churches keep their doors open for two or three years longer. But, then, on the odd-numbered days of the week, I realize we are not only doing that all over the globe, but that there’s nothing inherently wonderful about keeping some struggling church’s doors open….unless there are people coming in those doors who are getting something, or going out those doors to do something (for Christ and the Kingdom). In other words, if nothing’s happening, why sweat the doors?
My friends, I don’t know how you got here. Nor do I know why you stay here. This is not a perfect church. If it were, I’d only screw it up….given that I’m not a perfect pastor. So what are we? We’re a cracked pot church with a priceless treasure. And we’re doing what we can to contain it, carry it and continue it. So carry what you can of it. And don’t let go of it (flawed and fragile though you may be).
There was once a bent and crippled servant who served as a water carrier for the king. Every day he carried his empty bucket down the hill to the well. And every day he carried his full bucket up the hill to the castle. But because of his misshapen frame, he tilted (to one side). Meaning that water spilled over the edge (to one side). Upon arriving at the castle, his bucket was always half empty, owing to the spillage. One day his conscience got the better of him. So he confessed his inadequacy to the king and offered to resign. Which was when the king wisely walked him back down the hill, pointing out to him something he had never seen before….the flowers that were growing on but one side of the path (the side of the path where he spilled when he tilted).
Friends, we are such imperfect vessels. But we have left our share of flowers along the way.
