I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, October 10, 2010. The text is Ephesians 2:11-21. Read it here.
I’ll start out by telling you what the church isn’t.
The church is not a country club.
A country club is a place where a whole bunch of people get together who have some things in common. Things like money, and careers, and politics. Like shared values, and a shared way of life.
Country clubs have memberships. And the members at a country club are carefully selected. When you join a country club, the idea is that you’ll act in keeping with the members who are already there. That you’ll assimilate. That you’ll integrate. That you’ll carry forward a certain way of life into the future.
Every so often in New York, I find myself out to dinner with someone who’s used to living a very different kind of life than me. And suddenly I have that feeling of being totally and completely wrong. My clothes are wrong and the way I speak is wrong. I don’t know the differences between the forks and I can’t pronounce the French on the menu. Something about the whole situation makes me think that somehow...I'm wrong.
The church is not a country club.
Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
St. Lydia’s had our Fall Community Meeting yesterday, and we had a wonderful opportunity to have some conversation about a process that we’re currently at the very beginning of. We’re discerning together about what it would mean to become linked or affiliated with a denominational body: the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Our relationship with Trinity Lower East Side means that we’re already in relationship with the wider church through this local congregation. But what would it mean to widen our relationship even further?
One of the concerns that I heard as we spoke yesterday was about identity. If St. Lydia’s is linked to a denomination, does that mean we might loose a sense of our identity? This is a fear that I understand, and I’ve been working to find language that adequately expresses the type of fruitful relationship I envision for us.
So we turn again to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, a letter that Paul’s writing to an early Christian community about his vision for the universal church. Paul’s writing to address an issue that has to do with assimilation. The new churches in many of the cities where churches have sprung up are all facing a problem. There are non-Jews who are converting to Christianity. And the Jews who follow Jesus want to say, Wait! You have to assimilate! You need to follow the Jewish law like we do, and get circumcised like we did! You have to fit in with us, follow our ways!
Paul writes back and says No, that’s not what we’re doing at all. What we’re doing is entirely new.
The Church is not a country club.
It’s not about assimilating.
The church, he tells us, is a household.
A household built on the foundation of all those followers of Christ who have gone before.
And the cornerstone of that household is Christ.
Think for a moment of your household, whether its the one you live in now, or the one you grew up in.
And think of the relationships at work in that household.
Think of the ways the people in that household impacted one another, changed one another.
Think of the diversity in that household.
How different its members are from one another.
How distinct their personalities are,
and the different roles they play.
In my house growing up, my mother kept things homey and running smoothly, I kept things silly and joyful, and my Dad, who’s a bit of a mischief maker, kept things just a little off balance. We all impacted one another, but I knew growing up that my family wanted me to be who I was, not they imagined I might be, or who they wished they had been.
When they’re functioning at their best,
households are places with roofs to keep out the rain,
with warm food and good conversation.
They offer support and encouragement to each member,
so that that person might grow into the fullest version of his or her self.
Not who someone else wants you to be,
but who you truly are.
They offer distance to retreat
room to be different from everyone else,
and room to grow away
and maybe come back.
Finally, everyone in the household has a role to play that suits his or her particular gifts.
No one’s being assimilated.
but everyone is a member,
joined together under one structure.
Everyone in the household has a particular role,
Some are the guardians of the history, of the memories.
Some keep their eyes on the future.
Some offer experience,
Others offer vision.
Some are listeners.
Some are always pushing.
Some always remember the forgotten,
Some seek the middle ground.
Everyone has a role.
St. Lydia’s is in the middle of a conversation about how to be a member of a household that is much bigger than ourselves. A household that’s built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as its cornerstone.
When that household of the wider church is functioning at its best,
we’ll have a place that keeps the rain off our heads and offers warm food and good conversation.
A place that gives us support and encouragement,
but also distance and room to figure out who it is that we are.
A place where we we have something to offer to the household as a whole,
a role to play.
In any household there is dissent, conflict, illness.
There is a pull away from diversity and toward conformity.
There are voices that speak more loudly than others,
and structures that oppress or silence dissent.
Our local and global churches are no different.
It’s not a vision and it’s not a dream.
But, thank God, it’s not a country club.
What the church is:
as Paul says, a dwelling place for God.
A nest made with human hands
where the holy might find a place to rest.
A place that offers peace to those who were near, and those who were far away.
A place where we might be one instead of two, members of God’s household.
We share the sermon at St. Lydia’s, and so I invite you to share a story from your experience that was brought up by the text or my words.
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