Laughter

There is usually a look of barely restrained shock when I ask a couple preparing for marriage “Do you have a will?, because if you don't, the state in effect has one for you, and you probably won't like it.”

I remember the woman who called me to the hospital years ago and wanted me to baptize her husband who had already died of a heart attack...they just couldn't get around to that before then.

Sorry, baptism is not for the dead but for those who want to live now in Christ Jesus.

The forces of death are lurking around us all the time, just waiting for us to step off the curb at the wrong moment.

From time to time each of us has had a great and powerful experience, the “mountain-top” experience.

For me, some of the times I can name include: confirmation day in 1963, the very first Easter Vigil in which I participated in 1965, singing in the Thomaskirche in 1971, playing my master's recital in 1973, our wedding day in 1973, ordination day in 1977, the first Sunday here in 1996, walking the Camino Santiago last month....

But in between those high points there are lots of other kinds of days, when the deadly sorts of things hold sway, the things that try to drive us to despair.

You know them as well as I do.

The day-after lows that inevitably follow the mountaintop experiences.

And so we need to come together Sunday after Sunday.

Every Sunday is a little portion of Easter, we say,

--an appetizer of the great and final Easter banquet,

--in anticipation of that time when everything is put right and everyone is finally together at his Table of Grace.

We need to say this very carefully:

We come to the church's worship not to escape into a fantasy world of faith,

but rather to escape the unreal world where death rules and defeat wants to have the last word, and people play games to try to pretend that it isn't so.

We come here to the church at worship in order to get our heads straight, to rejuvenate our faith in Jesus' resurrection victory which is promised to us.

We can get this all confused in several different ways that put ourselves in charge of things and effectively scoff at Jesus.

One of them is to neglect or ignore the church's worship and concentrate on doing good deeds.

Of course, without the church at worship, one has lost the basis for judging what makes a deed “good,” and it becomes merely a subjective opinion, a whim of the moment.

What is good for me may not be good for you, or good today but not good tomorrow, etc.

Chaos is right around the corner!

This spring a church [I think it was in California] canceled its Sunday services and instructed its members to take part in several different projects around their community instead.

They have put themselves on a slippery slope; their own judgment comes ahead of the word of God.

Disaster is sure to follow what they think are their good intentions.

Then a problem of a different sort:

I need to tell you about another church, the Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona, which used to be on the rolls of the ELCA.

In 2002 it showed all the signs of ecclesiastical success.

It had grown from a tiny mission of a couple of dozen people to a giant mega-church with a membership of 12,000 on 187 acre campus.

It was wildly successful with its efficient parking lot system, fashionable food court, and every flavor of coffee.

But behind the scenes, all was not well.

The famous founding Pastor, Walter Kallestedt, darling of the Chicago church bureaucrats, was having trouble sleeping at night.

The leadership of the Church of Joy seemed to be oblivious to the social problems of the city around them.

The pastor in dismay realized that they were interested mainly in taking care of themselves, in “having their needs met.”

That's another way of laughing at Jesus.

So the pastor began pointing this out to the parish.

He took some very unpopular actions.

He began dismantling a bunch of the fashionable things that they had established over the years at the church such as the square dance classes and the dining clubs that visited local restaurants and the bridge clubs, etc.

Things changed. Many were not happy.

Half of his staff quit.

4,000 of his members left in a huff, and thousands more dwindled away as it became clear that the pastor was serious when he said that paying attention to Jesus needed to be at the heart of the church, and nothing else.

Then from that attention to Jesus at worship and study there will spring all sorts of actions, he added.

It was a major shift in direction for such a prominent mega-church.

How has it worked out since then?

I went to their website this week and the headline on the website is about making this a summer of compassion.

Folks are being invited to bring the following items each week with them to worship, and also to help distribute them afterward as they have knowledge of the needs:

June 10- Bottled water for the thirsty
June 17 - Stuffed animals for the orphans & sick
June 24 - Restaurant & store gift cards for widows & single moms
July 1 - Clothing for the naked & poor
July 8 - Coffee shop gift cards for strangers

They had a photo of the hundreds of colorful stuffed animals that were collected on June 17 on the chancel steps.

The congregation is much smaller these days, but truly more alive in Christ.

Its worship style would still drive me crazy, but the crucial difference is that the congregation is now focusing on Jesus rather than on themselves.

“It is time for you to grow up in the faith”, Pastor Kallestedt told his people, and they are taking the opportunity to do just that.

Worship...study...discern...do.

There is no surprise about that pattern.

The challenge is to actually follow through with it, with each step in the process.

Cynical laughter is sometimes the response of those who don't want to bother.

There's an excuse and a laugh for each of the four steps:

--I don't need to worship.

--I went to Sunday School as a kid.

--Planning is a waste of time.

--Someone else ought to take care of that.

We've heard them all, and they're all lame.

Let's lay them all aside, and allow Jesus to begin again with us.

It would be a little bit of resurrection breaking into our lives together right now... and it would be wonderful,

it will be wonderful,

because this little story from Mark just happens to be true.

Jesus transforms anything that he touches.

He just says the word, and there is life, a new world, a future that we could not have had on our own.

So instead we say in faith, “The same Jesus who said to the little girl 'Arise' will on the last day say the same thing to you;”

and even better, he is saying it to us right now, too.

No joke.

Are you hearing it?

Are you heeding it?

…. because it is true!

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.