Community
Church Sermons
Third Sunday of Easter
– April 25, 2004
“Reinventing the Church
Becoming a Christ-Community”
Life is a lot like the game of Monopoly.
I don’t remember how old I was when the kids in our
neighborhood first started playing the game, but it was a big hit with us. We
were drawn to the allure of fame and fortune. And it was fun devising
strategies to win. Everyone knew, of course, that whoever managed to own Park
Place and Boardwalk together would eventually rake in all the dough. And my
best friend Dennis Astrella and I discovered that you could also rake in the
dough by volunteering to be the banker. If you know what I mean!
Trouble is that there turned out to be two problems
with Monopoly. One I discovered the day I owned both Park Place and
Boardwalk and had hotels on each property. My pile of cash was growing higher
and higher. I was a soon-to-be zillionaire. And I was very happy.
But then, outside on the street, there came the
familiar song of the Ice Cream Man, driving his big colorful truck through our
neighborhood, music blaring away. We Monopoly players – not trusting
each other one bit - picked up our stacks of money, jammed them into our
pockets for safekeeping, and dashed outside to buy some ice cream.
I had my eye on a Red, White and Blue ice cream
cone. I can still see it in my mind’s eye! When it came my turn to order, I
said, “Give me that Red, White and Blue ice cream cone!” The ice cream
man held it out to me and said, “That’ll be 10-cents.” I reached into my
pockets to get a dime…
And that’s when I realized that life is a lot like
the game of Monopoly.
My pockets were full of cash, but no real money. I
was a zillionaire, and yet dirt poor. I owned Park Place and Boardwalk and had
hotels on both. I was the Donald Trump of my neighborhood. My pockets were full
of $500 Monopoly bills.
But I didn’t have a dime to buy what I really
wanted.
So, disappointed, I returned – ice-cream-less - to
the game, and took out my revenge by buying even more property and constructing
more hotels. My stack of money grew higher and higher. But that’s when I
discovered the second problem with both life and Monopoly. Dennis’
mother came into the room and announced it was suppertime. Time to go home.
Clean up the mess. Pack up the pieces. Close up the board. TURN IN YOUR MONEY!
And everything I owned, I had to give back!
Oh, life is a lot like the game of Monopoly.
And Monopoly is a lot like life!
The first part of the human dilemma, it seems to me,
is that we face life and all its challenges without the tools we need to make
true life possible. We try to buy real life with fake money. And sooner or
later, we discover it doesn’t really work.
Take Tom and Sharon – two great people,
well-educated, successful, wonderful parents. But then one day, they learn
their little girl has incurable cancer. They have lots of “things” in life to
help them deal with most mundane issues. But how do you deal with your little
girl’s dying? Where do you get the strength and the faith and the resources for
facing something like that?
Or, take a look at Martin King. Just an ordinary
person – a minister like me – thrust by circumstances beyond his control into
the middle of the struggle for Civil Rights. How do you find the words, the
actions, the power to motivate a whole society away from the evil of racism and
toward the goal of racial equality? And how do you do it without resorting to
violence? Where do you get the resources for that?
And consider Harold who retired some time ago. For a
while he thought he could find fulfillment playing golf, boating on the lake,
and just taking it easy. But now he senses there’s something missing – a lack
of purpose. And besides, his wife now realizes she has twice as much husband
and half as much income! And she doesn’t like it one bit! Where do you get the
resources to find new purpose and meaning after your career is over?
You see, when you’re facing the great challenges of
life, you soon learn that you’re holding a lot of Monopoly money that
can’t buy you what you really need. That’s the first part of the human dilemma.
And the second is this: at the end of the day, we
all have to give back everything we’ve gathered, and everything we value.
Ultimately we lose everything we love – possessions, families, careers - to the
fact of our own mortality.
Life is a lot like Monopoly, and Monopoly
is a lot like life.
But today, I want you to hear some Good News about
that sad situation. There is a God who loves us and desires to come alongside
us to lend strength, direction and wisdom for living, and to make our lives
blossom into true beauty. And there is a God who raises up life from the grip
of death and makes it possible for us to enjoy the things and people we love forever!
It is God who offers us gifts and resources far better than the fake money
of a Parker Brothers game! And it is God who gives us Jesus Christ, and the
gift of Resurrection, as the real-life alternative to powerlessness and
mortality!
You see, God is sad about this two-fold human
dilemma. God created you and me for life far more powerful and satisfying than
any of us is presently living, or can even imagine. And God gave us the things
we love – like our families, and friends, like art, and our intellect, and
beauty, and our talents, and music…and golf!… not to be turned in at the end of
our days, but to be enjoyed forever!
Do you remember what God said when, in Genesis, he
looked out over his newly created humanity – men and women created in his own
image? Why, God declared, “THIS IS VERY GOOD!” Now, God was not
referring to folks like we see all around us today who get beat up by life for
60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years, and then they die and go away! No, God was
describing people as we are created to be – FULL OF LIFE, WITH POWER TO FACE
EVERY CHALLENGE, AND HOPE TO FACE ANY SORROW, AND CREATIVITY TO NEGOTIATE ANY
PROBLEM, AND VITALITY THAT CANNOT BE STRIPPED AWAY BY AGE OR ILLNESS OR ACT OF
EVIL. What God created us to be is VERY GOOD INDEED!
God created us to be strong, beautiful, resourceful
people who will enjoy life with Him forever!
And it is sin at work in the world that keeps us
from being those people.
That’s why Jesus came. And died. And rose. To
reverse the debilitating and pathological effect that sin has on people.
In the Resurrection of Jesus, God sets us free, and
calls us to come to him, and trust him to make us truly human again! Strong,
loving, joyful, productive people! People who will triumph in the midst of
life’s difficulties. People who will make the world a better place. People who
will never have to give anything back, but who will enjoy the blessings of
family and friends, and the many gifts of life…into eternity!
That is the Good News of Easter!
And extending that Good News to the people around us
is the work of the Church.
Last Sunday, we talked about how many people feel
that the Christian Church in our day needs to be reinvented. You don’t have to
look very far to see what the Church has become mostly about – buildings,
organizations, growth, money, ideology. I’d describe it this way: we have
become more of an institution that serves ourselves, and less of a ministry
that reaches out to redeem others. And last week, I listed a few things that I
believe the Church needs to become for the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake
of the world. The first is becoming a community of people who extend God’s
acceptance, forgiveness and love to each other and the people around us.
In our Scripture reading today, the risen Jesus
shows Peter – and through him, the Church - how to express his love for the
Lord. Here’s what Jesus says:
“Feed my sheep. Tend my
lambs. Feed my sheep.”
They are all around us, you know – Jesus’ sheep -
people who are discovering the limitations of Monopoly money – people who are running out of time in this
life without any hope for the future.
Some of those sheep are members of your family. Some
of those lambs are all around us in the Village, or Lenoir City, Rarity Bay, or
Loudon. Some of those people are right here in our church.
Whether they realize it or not, they are hungry for
what only God can give. They need tending by the Shepherd who alone can lead
them to truly green pastures that roll on forever.
Some of those dear people are folks who life has
beat up on pretty badly. Whether by their own decisions or by some quirk of
circumstance, they are unable to provide even the basic needs of their lives –
food, housing, health care. You don’t have to look very far before you see
people who’ve run out of life’s currency and have no hope for the future. And
here’s what Jesus says to us:
“Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.”
Others are people who look successful on the
outside, but are poor on the inside. They’ve staked their lives on false
values, and don’t even know it. Yet. For some, it’s not until the career is
over, or the illness comes, or the end of life approaches that we realize how
empty we really are. One of our church members recently told me about her son.
Beautiful wife and children. Lovely home. Terrific career. Lots of stuff, and
money. “He has at 35 years of age more than we ever had,” she said. “But
he doesn’t seem to have any need for God.” The world, you know, is full of
people like this young man - or the rich young ruler Jesus once met – people
who’ve gained the world, but have lost the essence of life. And here’s what
Jesus says to us:
“Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.”
And, of course, there are those around us who’ve
been injured by bad religion. People who think God could never love them
because of things that have happened in their lives. People who, too many
times, have been told they’re going to hell, or that they are not acceptable to
God. There are many folks around us to whom the Church has slammed shut the
door of grace. Here’s what Jesus says to us:
“Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.”
The primary work of the Christian Church – of
Christian people like you and me – is to form ourselves into a Christ-Community
– a living community of people who embody the ministry of Jesus Christ.
Jesus was always out looking for lost sheep. He was
always listening for distant cries. He was always aware of the people out on
the fringes of life, who wouldn’t dare step foot in the Temple, or who wouldn’t
be let in if they did.
And here’s what Jesus did with those people. He
accepted them for who and what they were. He forgave them for what they were
not. And he loved them with a love that gently but persistently invited them to come and experience the
salvation of God.
It was, you know, a bunch of ordinary fishermen who
changed the course of history. It was a group of powerless women who brought
the news of resurrection to the world. The Church was built out of the lives of
lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners – it was formed out of the
experience of ordinary people like you and me who found in God the resources
they needed for living in this world, and the hope for a future beyond death.
And now, in our day, God is asking if we are willing
to become the Church again.
The Church is not for us. The Church is us…
FOR THEM!
“Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.”
God has LIFE to give to people! God has a FUTURE to
share!
And we have a calling to be a Christ-Community that
proclaims that message, lives that truth, and ministers that love to our kids,
and our neighbors, and our world.
“Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.”