Sermon for Sunday, May 2, 2004HEARING VOICESBy Rev. Cindy Bates Scripture: John 10:22-30
On Tuesday of this week, our denomination's General Conference began meeting in Pittsburgh. Between April 27, and when that conference ends on May 7, many different voices will be heard expressing many different opinions regarding the policies and ministries of the United Methodist Church. We will hear from laity and clergy, conservatives and liberals, delegates and lobbyists, Bishops and seminarians, retirees and youth. We will not speak with one voice but with many and the newspapers and media will be more than happy to point this out. When our church meets at our General Conference, every four years, it is an opportunity to see the church at its best and also at its worst. If you have ever had the opportunity to attend one of these conferences, you will know what I mean when I say there can be a lot of celebration and a lot of pain and strife when the church struggles to be who God is calling the church to be. There is incredible cause for praise and thanksgiving from the opening service. You can literally see the impact that the United Methodist Church has made as persons from all over the world and from many different cultures come together to worship God. But when the hard work of decision-making, discernment, and policy making begins to happen, it is hard to hear the voice of God amidst the anger and the angst that often takes place. When I read this morning's scripture, it seemed like an appropriate word to ponder this week with the backdrop of our General Conference. It felt like a good time to remind ourselves about who and whose we are when we are at our best, so we can be understanding and patient with ourselves when we are also being less than our best. The community John's Gospel was addressing was struggling and even torn apart by questions about who Jesus was. I believe the community of today's church is often torn apart by questions about who the church should be. Since High School, the church has really been at the center of my life. It was there in the youth group that I found friendship, acceptance and words and ideas to help me think about my faith and what was really important in life. I went to a church related college and after graduation returned to my home church, teaching Sunday School and working with the high school youth group. After teaching in the public school system for three years, I felt called to pursue a vocation in the church and spent several years preparing for a career in church and theatre. Finally, when I was 32 years old, I felt called to go back to school, enter seminary and become an ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church. Now, more than a couple of decades later, the church is still very much at the center of my life, but, there have been moments when I have really wondered if this is what God had in mind when God dreamed the Church. One day, not too many years ago I was having a conversation with a retired United Methodist pastor that had served the church for 60 plus years and we were commiserating about a particular situation being lived out in the church that was disturbing to both of us. Ray, with all of his years of experience wisely said, "Oh, Cindy. It's just the church. When you got church, you got people and when you've got people, you've got trouble." Perhaps when we are fortunate enough to be in a vital congregation like St. Andrew, and we often see the church doing good and nourishing persons on their spiritual journey, it is hard for us to imagine why people struggle so with and within the church. We are probably here today because we have seen the church at its best, the church that Leslie Weatherhead discusses in his book The Christian Agnostic, when he describes a church "...where people get a service which touches life where they touch it, which deals with the problems which they have to face, and which is not a demand but an offer, not a burden imposed but an energy imparted, not luggage but wings, not gloomy disapproval but the healing touch of a loving fellowship..." That seems to be a description of why many people are a part of the church, and yet we also know many people who have suffered greatly because of being abused, battered or rejected by the church. Philip Yancey, a respected and influential pastor and writer, in the introduction to his book, Soul Survivor, says, "I have spent most of my life in recovery from the Church." Yancey grew up in the more conservative Christian tradition but found it difficult to find a home in either the conservative or liberal camp. He goes on to say that he has discovered that the image that many people have of Christians is the opposite of the abundant life that the scriptures profess. "Sadly or wrongly, they see Christians rather as restrained, uptight, repressed-people less likely to celebrate vitality than to wag our fingers in disapproval." I wonder what conclusions persons will draw about United Methodist Christians as they see us trying to discover God's voice in the midst of our political and policy agenda over the next few days? I admit that when I think of the Church it is a real mix of what I believe to be the best of human endeavors, and at times the worst of human nature, and it seems to have been so from the beginning. You don't have to read to far into Paul's letters to the churches with his pleas to the congregations of the Early Church to know there has always been dissension, quarreling, gossiping, backbiting, and the list could go on and on. We are a flawed and very imperfect human endeavor but what a mixture of sin and grace. The great Italian spiritual writer, Carlo Carretto, in his book, I Sought and I Found, wrote these words in trying to describe his own experience with the Church.
So often, we in the church are like sheep who have gone astray no longer hearing the shepherd's voice. Our struggle seems to be that we often hear only our own voice or someone else's voice, calling to us, persuading us and we have forgotten how to listen to the Shepherd's voice. Ernesto Cardenal articulated our struggle when he said, "We want God's voice to be clear, but it is not....We want it to be clear as day, but it is deep as night. It is deep and clear, but with a dark clarity like an x-ray. It reaches our bones." Perhaps one of the greatest ironies in the Church is that with all the voices representing who we are it is often very difficult to hear God's voice and yet, I know of no better place than the Church to hear God's voice. Marcus Borg in his book, The Heart of Christianity says it so well when he talks about "thin places" as places "where the veil momentarily lifts and we behold God.... A thin place is anywhere our hearts are opened." He goes on to say that Christian practices have as their central purpose to become thin places where our hearts are opened. It seems to me he is saying we, in the Church, need to be about creating "thin places" where we can encounter God and hear God's voice. I don't know what you will be reading about your Church in the papers the next few days. It would be wonderful if people looking in at what is going on would say, "Look how they love one another." Unfortunately, it probably will not be stated that way in the media, but wouldn't it be a great blessing if that could be the end result. Whatever happens, pray for your Church, that the voice of the Shepherd will be heard. And if there are those times when you get discouraged or critical about all the voices that are making it difficult to hear the Shepherd, never give up on this incredible community called to be the Church. Barbara Brown Taylor in one of her sermons said it far better than I.
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