Union Church

October 26, 2008.

This past week, during my study leave, I attended a conference at Queen’s Theological school.
It was entitled Christianity Under Construction and the theme speaker was Diana Butler Bass.

Monday evening, Diana spoke to us very clearly and directly. “The world has changed. If our churches are stumbling it is not because we have failed. The world has changed.”

But she didn’t stop there. She moved on with story after story, example after example of vital active congregations all across the United States.

This information was coming from a 3 year Lily Endowment study of mainline Protestant congregational vitality between 2002- 2006.
Her book, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith was published soon after.

Diana began the project with the hypothesis:
"Congregations that intentionally engage Christian practices will find new vitality."

The key word here is “intentionally”. Congregations that intentionally engage Christian practices will find new vitality.

We all engage in practices.
We are very busy people in the church.
But are we intentional?
Do we know why we are doing what we do?
Do we see the bigger picture of the Christian way of life? Maybe. Maybe not.

When the church doesn’t remember the tradition or know the wisdom, then the critics have a very good point. The church/the people may be seen as hypocrites. They may be experienced as phony.
The church becomes irrelevant to many people.

So Diana Butler Bass takes the inverse of these criticisms to observe spiritual vitality.
The inverse of hypocrisy is coherence:
Our words and our actions match.

The inverse of phoniness is authenticity:
Practices emerge from the life and experiences of real people in community.

The inverse of irrelevance is a relevance that leads to transformation. The Church is called to lead people into greater love of God and neighbour which transforms lives.

To back this up, let’s think about Jesus.
Whenever Jesus meets people, he expects them to change.
He expects everybody to change and be transformed. Everybody that is, except children. And we all know they just change on their own.

With this preamble about coherence, authenticity and transformation let us hear today’s gospel reading.

Let’s hear the tradition and recognize the wisdom.

Matthew 22:34-40

We learned in the 20th century, as anthropologist, Houston Smith reminds us, that
“locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released however, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the Divine, the image of God that is within us. It too can only be activated through bombardment. In its case, love’s bombardment.”

Jesus and his followers after him, showed in word and in deed that God was present in them. (coherence)
The people heard, they felt, they saw and they began to understand that they also were beloved, cherished children of God.

With this new insight, this new experience, this new revelation, something powerful was activated deep within them.
Something profound was released through them.
This profoundly powerful thing was radiant love.

As they experienced this love bombardment, they were compelled to share it with others.
As others noticed this new peace which certainly passed their understanding, and this new joy that could not be contained, they wanted some of it.

And so the Shema, a foundational part of Jewish life and law, took on a new meaning with a new addition. The addition expanded the terms of whom to love.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength...AND...You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Seeing, hearing, and feeling a deep inner love caused these people to pass that love, that acceptance,
that peace on to others regardless of ethnic divisions.

Loving God through loving one another over and over again unlocks and releases a store of love that partakes of the divine - the image of God within each of us.
A magnification occurs.
A releasing of radiance shines forth through ordinary lives.
A new identity is formed and transformed because we are partaking of a love greater than our own limited lives.

We find ourselves giving to God what excites us, what moves us, what interests us, what energizes us.
We find ourselves giving it to God through giving it to our neighbour.

The vitality of a church is measured by how much love it gives away.

So hope is choosing to believe that this love is bigger and more bountiful and more profound than anything that stands against us.

It is true for us as individuals.
It is true for us as a church.
It is true for us in life and it is true for us in death.

So the application for today:
It is time to remember the love commandment.
It is time to remember why we follow it.
It is time to recognize the bigger picture, the deeper wisdom of releasing God’s love into the world and expanding that circle.

And the thing about hope: It keeps us loving until God’s love is released.
So let's beging nowl.