...and so it begins, again!

It’s on Good Friday in the congregation I’m serving, that all of our attention turns toward Easter morning.  The Lilies and tulips get delivered on Thursday—when it’s actually hard to find a hiding-place in the Church building that won’t make it smell like Easter morning for Maundy Thursday worship, or Good Friday observances in the years we’ve hosted the community service. 

And lo!  This year, before Jesus was ever entombed at sundown on Friday (to beat Sabbath observance), we were hard at work shifting our liturgical gears and worship space from Lent to Easter.  It happened as some of us returned from the Community Good Friday Service—because it’s the last chance to get things in order at church before the “weekend” so everything is set for when we arrive on Sunday morning.  By 5pm this Good Friday our sanctuary was already Easter-perfect! 

So if you walked into our sanctuary this Friday evening, you’d have been amazed at what you say—just as the gospel story describes Peter at the tomb on Easter morning!  It smells like Easter in the Church!  There’s absolutely no stench of death or any reminders.  There’s “no waiting.”  You can now fast-forward past the tomb.  We’ve gotten rid of the evidence of any pre-Easter parties; and with a deep breath and a hush falling on Havertown for the long Easter weekend…, we’re ready!  Way ahead of schedule! 

Maybe it’s like this where you are, too. 

Actually, no one really knows “when…” it happens.  “It” being God raising Jesus from the dead.  Tradition and the Bible say it was Sunday morning that Jesus was suddenly raised; but that’s only and because that’s when the empty tomb was discovered.  The Bible reminds us, Jesus says, “in three days” he would rise again.  But three days—wouldn’t that push us on toward Monday, rather than Sunday?  As three-days-worth of time has always been 72 hours, hasn’t it? 

Alas, before I get caught up with Dr. Who in the minutia of time, we remember that it’s “sometime”—between the tomb being closed and when the women arrive to the tomb on the first day—post Sabbath—a Sunday.  “Sometime” in there—could be anytime in there--God pulls the best Star Trek “beam me up” moment and yanks Jesus miraculously from the jaws of death, pulling him out of the tomb and releasing the world from the rule of death, and sin—and a host of other things. 

And because that “sometime” could be “anytime” between Jesus dying and rising, YES—even on Good Friday—for me it begins, again!  I start looking for the world for which Jesus gave his life! 

On this Good Friday, it was the gift of a moving community Good Friday service that included prayers of solidarity with Middle Eastern Christians, and prayers for faithful people around the world, hosted by the Armenian UCC congregation in our community. 

On this Good Friday, it was seeing the woman who earlier in the week had stopped me in the grocery store to ask if I was a local clergyperson, wanting to know the details about today’s service.  

On this Good Friday, it was an unusual number of Philly drivers who were kind and unusually courteous toward me and other pedestrians as I walked home from the community Good Friday service. 

On this Good Friday, it was thinking excitedly about an Easter-world to which Jesus and we are working to give birth—in ourselves, and the people around us. 

On this Good Friday, it was the Facebook post of a colleague who was bemoaning the usual reference to “C & E Christians” (those who attend regularly but only at Christmas services and Easter services) inviting Church leaders to be brave and consider that maybe it’s not what we do in Sunday morning worship that inspires people, but that they find hope and help in the stories of incarnation and resurrection.  Hmmm.   

On this Good Friday, it was gratitude—for God so loved the world—and for God still loving the world.  And maybe I and the people I know and love can still make a difference in the world—in which we must live with the realities of terrorism manifested in violent attacks, armed conflict, and a destructive political process.  But what a world in which to witness the love of God in Jesus Christ! 

So on Good Friday it always seems to happen to me that I witness glimpses of Easter-come-early—the gifts of a world Jesus gave his life to save. 

So…, what are you doing this weekend to prepare yourself to give birth to a world that Jesus gave his life to save? 

What must you make ready, so that come Easter Sunday morning, you’re busting out of church to raise up the world Jesus gave his life to save? 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The Presbyterian Church of Llanerch, Havertown, Pennsylvania

Directions Toward the Kingdom

In the congregation I’m serving, we’ve found ourselves struggling with the question, “what’s our mission?”  Despite having a Church mission statement, or organization by-laws and church structure prescribed patterns of behavior centered on keeping the organization running smoothly-- naming and electing persons to church boards, encouraging church membership to those who weren’t yet members, teaching the faith to younger generations, continuing the church’s educational programs and ministries. 

There must have been a time when people really dedicated their time, talents, energies, and monies to keeping the organization running smoothly, because we have expectations that that should continue!  But we’ve finally experienced the subtle shifts away from our Church’s need to perpetuate what was once given an institutional rather than scriptural form. 

For a long time, we helped create good church members.  Good church members did things like worship together weekly, participate in and support the congregation’s ministry and programs, respond positively to annual stewardship letters, care for others when asked, serve as church leaders when asked, say only nice things to the pastor after worship, show up for “clean-up days,” and helped support mission work through the places and people church leaders chose to support. 

There’s an old saying that when the pastor asks a question, part of the answer is always, “Jesus.”  But for too long, people have been asking deep questions, and the church’s response has been simply, “Church.”  Yet it’s no longer readily apparent how “Church” makes a difference in the world.  Maybe “Church” doesn’t. 

Rev. Dr. SueWestfall shares a story this week that transformed her understanding of ministry:

“I am not volunteering!” The parishioner who accosted me after worship one Sunday morning was not angry but so very earnest he definitely had my attention! That morning in worship we had asked for volunteers to work in our homeless shelter. His words surprised me because he’d been a creative, tireless, compassionate volunteer with that ministry for several years and seemed to truly love participating in this way. His adamant “I am not volunteering!” was even more surprising since he’d already signed up!
 “Please say more.” I invited, wondering if he’d had a bad experience or changed his mind or something. What he said not only caught me off-guard, it changed from then on my understanding of church volunteering. And of discipleship. “Listen,” he said, “I believe I am called to this work by God in Christ. I’m not volunteering out of the goodness of my heart but rather I am responding to the goodness of God’s heart who enlisted me in God’s service for the sake of God’s Kingdom. This work is one way my own life is increasingly surrendered to God in Christ.  Call me a follower.  Call me a member of the Body of Christ.  Call me a disciple.  Just don’t call me a volunteer.”
 Well now. I’d been schooled.”

I credit Joe Small for pointing out to me some 10 year ago that people were no longer wanting to volunteer or serve the Church, often because they found the experience was no different than any other community-service organization in town.  “Joe’s right,” I thought; “we read scripture, spend time in each meeting in prayer, we ‘do ministry’ and financially support mission-work.”  Yet I’ve been slow to notice we still meet around a line-item budget, we sometimes let Robert’s Rules suck all the air out of the room, and we try to push the true intervention of the Holy Spirit into an opening and closing prayer. 

The truth is, we almost can’t stomach people coming to our Church who want to live as true disciples of Jesus and not as strict adherents to the traditions of the Church. 

Because perpetuation is important, in our congregation, we’ve been clamoring for ways we could bring more people to participate—in worship, in stewardship, in programs, in planning, in progress.  So we’ve been asking, “how can we appeal to a broad spectrum of people, draw in families, increase attendance and giving—and it’s invited us to think about things like advertising, branding, evangelism, and outreach. 

And last night, at one of our Session meetings, one of our bright young ruling elders helped school us.  These things—advertising, outreach, evangelism, even mission—are tools that serve the greater mission, or what we’re doing together. 

Right.  I think we all knew this.  It’s just apparent that we’ve lost sight of what’s supposed to be in the middle—what we’re supposed to be about. 

“I’m not volunteering out of the goodness of my heart but rather I am responding to the goodness of God’s heart who enlisted me in God’s service for the sake of God’s Kingdom.” 

Maybe we haven’t realized that striving for perfect attendance records is different than struggling for justice and righteousness.  That singing “Amazing Grace,” doesn’t make it OK to sit back in our pews and pat ourselves on the back for making it to worship when violence breaks out at political rallies.  That hearing about how Jesus challenged the authorities in his day over issues of homelessness, illness, and how we treat each other as children of God should never lend itself to building walls and refusing entry.  And perhaps most importantly, when we lament how quickly the world is “going to hell in a hand-basket,” should we not be recognizing that God sent Jesus precisely so that the world could not go to hell in a hand-basket, and so it’s our task as witnesses to and believers of Jesus to put ourselves in the middle. 

We’ve taken it for granted that our Church leads us to the Kingdom.  But maybe it’s just been the kingdom of our own making. 

Jesus points us to another Kingdom. 

Maybe it’s worth double-checking our bearings. 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The Presbyterian Church of Llanerch, Havertown, Pennsylvania