|
|
Have you ever thought about who brought you to church for the first time? Raise your had if the first time you came to church was with your parents. Now raise your hand if the first time you came to church was with a friend or someone else who cared about you, maybe a girlfriend, grandparent, or spouse. Now raise your hand if the first time you came to church was all by yourself, just because you thought it would be interesting. Jesus made an interesting comment in our gospel lesson today. He said, “And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.” We’ve just established that none (or only a few of you) came to church or to God in your own power. Something else was at work, some outside force compelled you to come and meet the Lord. From the looks of it, for most of you, that outside force was your parents. If you’ll bear with me for just a moment, I’d like to share with you a short Greek lesson. The Greek word that Jesus uses here for “draw” is helko. I did some study on this word and its actually kind of offensive. It generally means physically forcing someone or something to go where they don’t want to go. It’s the word that is used for hauling in nets of fish. When Paul and Silas are arrested and dragged before the authorities, this is the word that is used. Helko. “When I am lifted up, I will draw/drag/bring all people to myself.” There’s a short clip from Star Wars that demonstrates this word perfectly and how God works in the world. Pay special attention to what OB1 Kenobi says about their options as they are being dragged in.
Now, odds are, none of you have ever described your faith journey like a tractor beam from Star Wars, but that is indeed how God works. God draws people to Jesus. And he uses body of Christ – all of you – to accomplish this. Sometimes people go patiently and submissively, sometimes people go kicking and screaming, fighting every step of the way. But the truth of the matter is that all of you got up this morning and came to church because God drew you here. God dragged you to Jesus this morning – you didn’t come just on your own. So what? Why am I spending so much time on this concept? Well, because I think we have to give credit where credit is due. By acknowledging that God drew us in, we are acknowledging God’s grace and power in our lives. God loves us so much that he is not about to let us go. He’s going to get us one way or another because he knows what’s best for us. This has always been an important part of Lutheran theology, this idea that we didn’t choose God, that God chose us. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is a gift from God.” God has sucked each and every one of us in. Yet while this has been a foundational belief for Lutherans, I’m not sure we’ve ever really put it into practice. Although we’ve been drawn in, we’re notoriously bad at allowing God to draw others in through us, seeing how the average Lutheran invites someone to church once every 20 years. Roy Oswald and Martin Saarinen wrote an article for The Alban Institute, which is a large church research group. The paper is called Why Some Churches Don't Grow, and it bases these finding on research among Lutheran congregations. The Lutheran Church, like most mainline denominations, works under a broad unwritten assumption that the conversion to personal faith in Jesus Christ has already occurred in people's lives elsewhere and that church growth merely involves assimilating those "already converted" into the ongoing life of the congregation. Lutheran clergy are trained as nurturers of the faith, rather than as catalysts in any process of spiritual transformation in the lives of individuals. As a denomination, the Lutheran church is unprepared and ill-equipped to reach out to non-Christians and engage them in a transformational process that leads to an active faith in Jesus Christ. Now compare these findings with what Rick Warren writes about his church in “The Purpose Driven Church.” And as you hear this, think about how it relates to Hope. He writes: We've never encouraged other believers to transfer their membership to our church; in fact, we have openly discouraged it. We don't want transfer growth. In every membership class we say, "If you are coming to Saddleback from another church, you need to understand up front that this church was not designed for you. It is geared toward reaching the unchurched who do not attend anywhere. If you are transferring from another church you are welcome here only if you are willing to serve and minister. If all you intend to do is attend services, we'd rather save your seat for someone who is an unbeliever. There are plenty of good Bible-teaching churches in this area that we can recommend to you." This position may sound harsh, but I believe we are following the example of Jesus. He defined his ministry target by saying, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17). Here’s the scary part about this tractor beam concept. If God was willing to draw us in, who might God be drawing in next? Poor people, minorities, homeless people – people different than us. If we believe that God is out there in the world, drawing people to Jesus, than we have to acknowledge that we have no idea who God is going to bring us next. And how exactly are we helping draw those people in and how are we preparing ourselves to welcome these other people in? Unfortunately, Lutheran churches, even Hope, often mistake closeness for “closedness,” and we’re not really prepared to be like Philip or Andrew, who knew exactly what to do with the outsiders. Did you ever notice how much traffic is out on the roads on Sunday mornings? Have you ever once heard a traffic report on Sunday morning – there’s a massive back-up at Highway 94 and Zumbehl, must be all those Christians going to church. Don’t bother taking the Page Extension, its at a crawl this morning, look for an alternate route. There really is a whole world out there who has yet to be drawn to Jesus, and I seriously doubt its because Lutherans are doing their fair share while God is failing to do his part. Oswald and Sarinaan’s report went on to say, “Without exception, the congregations in our study had no active mission or vision for their growth. Their mission was maintaining themselves; their calling limited to serving those already included in their congregation…Missing completely was any desire to find out about the spiritual needs of outsiders or to see if their congregation had resources to meet those needs. Also missing was any sort of strategy for reaching the unchurched of their area.” Now, I could care less if Hope ever grows in numbers. Jesus never said that a bigger church is a better church. But what I do care about, and what I think that Jesus cares about is the rest of the world and our own spiritual growth. If we honestly believe that that God is drawing the world to Jesus, than there are two conclusions which directly affect us. First, we have to believe that God is loose out there in St. Charles. God is up to something much bigger than Hope Lutheran Church and it is up to us to discover what it is that God’s doing. I think God really wants to bless our community and he really wants us to be a part of it. Our new building is going to be part of that, but its going to be a small part of it. What is really going to bless our community is all of you, acting out your faith in love. And this brings us to the second implication of God’s drawing the world to Jesus Christ. A congregation that wants to do things better, but refuses to change is like a seed that bears not fruit. In order for that seed to bear fruit, it must change – in Jesus’ words, it must die. It must be willing to turn its entire future over to the will and power of God. Trapped in the tractor beam, OB1 Kenobi said, “There are alternatives to fighting.” As we are trapped in the tractor beam of God, as we are moving to some unknown future, we can fight it every step of the way, we can remain the same, or we can prepare ourselves for the uncertain future, trusting that there are no better hands to be in than God’s. |
