Where Is The Church Headed?
"Faith, when it comes down to it, is our often breathless attempt to keep up with the redemptive activity of God, to keep asking ourselves, “What is God doing, where on earth is God going now?”’ – William Willimon Acts, p. 99.
“Where Is the Church Headed?”
#1 “The Inside/Outside Church”
Acts 11:1-18
John 13:31-35
May 6, 2007
Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating
After attending our daughter, Katie’s freshman orientation last week at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, I have come up with a new metaphor for anxiety.
Anxiety is a ballroom room full of parents of incoming college freshmen, hundreds of them, who have all been force fed sugary sweet rolls and high-octane coffee before beginning an eight hour orientation program that starts with a workshop titled “Financing Your Child’s Education.” If we could have tapped into the collective anxiety in that room, we could have generated enough electricity to light up the entire state for a year.
All around us pencils were tapping, lists being made, eye brows furrowed. Someone next to me kept tapping his PDA like it was a drum. Meanwhile, the students had been whisked away to another room where they were being told how to deal with nervous parents.
That is not to say that parents are the only ones struggling with anxiety. The students, too, express anxiety, but they do it in their own ways. Not long ago, I winked at our middle daughter, Christine, and whispered a plan. We grabbed a tape measure and burst into Katie’s room while she was studying. To her shocked dismay, we told her were measuring for a new TV after we remodel her room next fall.
Why this anxiety?
For some it was the fear of leaving home, despite the joy that accompanies this evolutionary change. For some parents, the tragedy of Virginia Tech brought to mind all sorts of fears about college safety. Most likely, the anxieties in that room were rooted in a variety of experiences and feelings, and emotions, but one area sticks out: change. More precisely: The fear of change. It grips us because we cannot see past the status quo. We cannot see past the way things are. In his delightful fable of organizational life, Our Iceberg Is Melting, change expert John Kotter tells the story of penguins who are shocked to discover that their iceberg is shrinking. But as one group tries to motivate the others to change behaviors, they run into resistance organized by none other than a clever old penguin named “Nono.” Everytime change is suggested, Nono shakes his head and repeats over and over again, “oh, no-no-no-no-no…” Change is threatening, and it creates ripples of anxiety.
That’s the sort of crisis we encounter in Acts, and, if we’re honest, it is the sort of fear that provokes a response deep within ourselves. Just as Peter and the early struggled with the evolving journey of faith, so do we. The young church is pushed out of its theological nest as it is confronted by the new work God is doing in the world…and so are we. Whether it is a new place on our family’s journey or a new understanding of what God expects us to do, disciples, says William Willimon, are always struggling to breathlessly answer the question: “What is God doing, where on earth is God going now?”[1]
Poor Peter. Both exhausted and exhilarated from his preaching trip, Peter is summoned to appear before the council of apostles and explain himself. Peter shares his new vision. He confirms the rumors: he has eaten with Gentiles.
“Yes,” he says. “It’s true…God did lead me toward the Gentiles. I ate with them. I proclaimed the Gospel to them. I discovered that God is doing something new. I learned that God shows no partiality…that God is not interested in pinning labels people.”
“Who was I to hinder God?” Peter had seen that God shows no partiality: Jew and Gentile, conservative and liberal, the tattooed and the pierced mingled with button-down clean-shaven bankers and managers. No partiality? It was a shock, no doubt…but also, perhaps a relief. Suddenly, the church has been turned inside-out as it remembers who Christ called it to be.
That reminder comes as a challenge and as a relief. It challenges the church to be transformed, even as it reminded the apostles of the Good News they has seen in Jesus Christ. If no one is judged unacceptable to God, then all are welcomed at God’s table. Old assumptions and fears are rejected. Anxieties that question whether or not we are accepted by God fade as we see God’s love claiming our lives, and moving through us to love others. The Spirit’s work releases us from the prison of our anxiety, for we know that we are accepted. That creates in us new energy for expressing that love to others. And that is what is transforming the church. It allows us to trust and to feel the power of the Spirit at work in the world.
Peter sits down. The room is silent.
God is at work here. Yes…God is pushing Peter, the church, all of us in new directions.
Toward the end of our orientation last week, the assistant provost stood to share some encouraging words. Your student, he said, will succeed if they can answer three questions…(1) Why are you here? (2) What do you want to do? And (3) Who are you?...and I thought to myself, “that will preach.” For in fact those are the questions Peter answers as he sees where the church is headed. Why are you here? What do you want to do? And who are you? Peter calls to mind all that Christ had shown him…and he is released from the anxiety that keeps him trapped.
The inside-outside church.
Why are you here? What do you want to do? Who are you? Those are the questions we must answer if we are to experience the gift of God’s transformation. Faith will push us beyond our limits, and gives us a vision of where God will lead us...as individuals and as a church…if only we will let the Spirit lead us away from our anxieties about change.
The great preacher Fred Craddock tells a story about a church. It was a church of some stature, located downtown. Anybody who was anybody went to that church. As Craddock tells the story, you had to be somebody to belong to that church, and if you were poor, or from the wrong side of town, or black, or different in any way, you were not welcomed. Few new members ever joined this church, and it grew older in time. Eventually, all the people of status had died and the church closed. Craddock went back to the town once and discovered that the old building was still standing. Now, however, it was a fancy seafood restaurant. He walked in and saw that tables had replaced pews, and waiters had taken over where ushers once stood. Down where the communion table used to be was a big salad bar. Fred Craddock walked out of the church and muttered to himself, “Now I guess everybody is welcome to eat that the table.”
[1] William Willimon, Acts (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 99.
“Where Is the Church Headed?”
#1 “The Inside/Outside Church”
Acts 11:1-18
John 13:31-35
May 6, 2007
Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating
After attending our daughter, Katie’s freshman orientation last week at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, I have come up with a new metaphor for anxiety.
Anxiety is a ballroom room full of parents of incoming college freshmen, hundreds of them, who have all been force fed sugary sweet rolls and high-octane coffee before beginning an eight hour orientation program that starts with a workshop titled “Financing Your Child’s Education.” If we could have tapped into the collective anxiety in that room, we could have generated enough electricity to light up the entire state for a year.
All around us pencils were tapping, lists being made, eye brows furrowed. Someone next to me kept tapping his PDA like it was a drum. Meanwhile, the students had been whisked away to another room where they were being told how to deal with nervous parents.
That is not to say that parents are the only ones struggling with anxiety. The students, too, express anxiety, but they do it in their own ways. Not long ago, I winked at our middle daughter, Christine, and whispered a plan. We grabbed a tape measure and burst into Katie’s room while she was studying. To her shocked dismay, we told her were measuring for a new TV after we remodel her room next fall.
Why this anxiety?
For some it was the fear of leaving home, despite the joy that accompanies this evolutionary change. For some parents, the tragedy of Virginia Tech brought to mind all sorts of fears about college safety. Most likely, the anxieties in that room were rooted in a variety of experiences and feelings, and emotions, but one area sticks out: change. More precisely: The fear of change. It grips us because we cannot see past the status quo. We cannot see past the way things are. In his delightful fable of organizational life, Our Iceberg Is Melting, change expert John Kotter tells the story of penguins who are shocked to discover that their iceberg is shrinking. But as one group tries to motivate the others to change behaviors, they run into resistance organized by none other than a clever old penguin named “Nono.” Everytime change is suggested, Nono shakes his head and repeats over and over again, “oh, no-no-no-no-no…” Change is threatening, and it creates ripples of anxiety.
That’s the sort of crisis we encounter in Acts, and, if we’re honest, it is the sort of fear that provokes a response deep within ourselves. Just as Peter and the early struggled with the evolving journey of faith, so do we. The young church is pushed out of its theological nest as it is confronted by the new work God is doing in the world…and so are we. Whether it is a new place on our family’s journey or a new understanding of what God expects us to do, disciples, says William Willimon, are always struggling to breathlessly answer the question: “What is God doing, where on earth is God going now?”[1]
Poor Peter. Both exhausted and exhilarated from his preaching trip, Peter is summoned to appear before the council of apostles and explain himself. Peter shares his new vision. He confirms the rumors: he has eaten with Gentiles.
“Yes,” he says. “It’s true…God did lead me toward the Gentiles. I ate with them. I proclaimed the Gospel to them. I discovered that God is doing something new. I learned that God shows no partiality…that God is not interested in pinning labels people.”
“Who was I to hinder God?” Peter had seen that God shows no partiality: Jew and Gentile, conservative and liberal, the tattooed and the pierced mingled with button-down clean-shaven bankers and managers. No partiality? It was a shock, no doubt…but also, perhaps a relief. Suddenly, the church has been turned inside-out as it remembers who Christ called it to be.
That reminder comes as a challenge and as a relief. It challenges the church to be transformed, even as it reminded the apostles of the Good News they has seen in Jesus Christ. If no one is judged unacceptable to God, then all are welcomed at God’s table. Old assumptions and fears are rejected. Anxieties that question whether or not we are accepted by God fade as we see God’s love claiming our lives, and moving through us to love others. The Spirit’s work releases us from the prison of our anxiety, for we know that we are accepted. That creates in us new energy for expressing that love to others. And that is what is transforming the church. It allows us to trust and to feel the power of the Spirit at work in the world.
Peter sits down. The room is silent.
God is at work here. Yes…God is pushing Peter, the church, all of us in new directions.
Toward the end of our orientation last week, the assistant provost stood to share some encouraging words. Your student, he said, will succeed if they can answer three questions…(1) Why are you here? (2) What do you want to do? And (3) Who are you?...and I thought to myself, “that will preach.” For in fact those are the questions Peter answers as he sees where the church is headed. Why are you here? What do you want to do? And who are you? Peter calls to mind all that Christ had shown him…and he is released from the anxiety that keeps him trapped.
The inside-outside church.
Why are you here? What do you want to do? Who are you? Those are the questions we must answer if we are to experience the gift of God’s transformation. Faith will push us beyond our limits, and gives us a vision of where God will lead us...as individuals and as a church…if only we will let the Spirit lead us away from our anxieties about change.
The great preacher Fred Craddock tells a story about a church. It was a church of some stature, located downtown. Anybody who was anybody went to that church. As Craddock tells the story, you had to be somebody to belong to that church, and if you were poor, or from the wrong side of town, or black, or different in any way, you were not welcomed. Few new members ever joined this church, and it grew older in time. Eventually, all the people of status had died and the church closed. Craddock went back to the town once and discovered that the old building was still standing. Now, however, it was a fancy seafood restaurant. He walked in and saw that tables had replaced pews, and waiters had taken over where ushers once stood. Down where the communion table used to be was a big salad bar. Fred Craddock walked out of the church and muttered to himself, “Now I guess everybody is welcome to eat that the table.”
[1] William Willimon, Acts (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 99.
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