Sermon: Crossing Social Boundaries

Matthew 2
Cynthia O’Brien

“The Power of Love: Crossing Social Boundaries”
January 8, 2006

I just love to be welcomed. Last Sunday, we worshiped at a brand new church called Lumen Dei Church International, which meets Sunday afternoons in the Phonics Phactory School in Gresham. It’s just one year old. I found them on line, and they didn’t know we were coming, so when we walked in, right on time at 4:00, everyone looked at us, about 10 people our age and a handful of small children. Everyone introduced themselves and marveled at our incredibly beautiful daughters.

The worship was very different from our service here, with an hour long sermon and all that, but it was very good, and afterwards there were homemade cookies and an invitation to Nathan and Jocelyn’s home the following Tuesday.

But the young pastor, Tim, and a couple of other guys were not so attentive to us after worship – they didn’t have time to be. A disheveled looking man had come in during the service, and Tim had prayed “thanks to God for our brother, David ” –– and afterwards he and these three other men immediately focused on him. Tim was courteous to me, but he really wanted to talk to David.

The next day, Tim sent me an email – glad you visited and all that – and he explained that this David was someone who had been in terrible trouble and the church had been helping him and they were so glad that he had shown up. I wanted them to welcome me, and they did, but they were really focused on this strange person.

Strange people showed up to worship at the birth of Jesus. People with strange, rich clothing and even stranger beliefs. The Scripture calls them “Magi.” Astrologers. Wise men. We call them Kings, perhaps because of the ancient prophecies that said that the Kings of the earth would worship Jesus. We infer that there were three because there were three gifts.

An early Christian text gave them names: Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar, or Gaspar. During the Middle Ages, people began to interpret them as representing the whole world, at least the parts that were known at the time. Artist portrayed them as being different in ethnicity and in age. Melchior was an old man, Balthasar a middle aged man, sometimes with a dark beard, and Caspar frequently as an African youth.

The early Christian church recognized that the magi were outsiders. They weren’t scandalized by that; they were delighted. Outsiders were welcomed to worship at the manger.

When I was in college I attended a nice big Presbyterian church in Glendale, my home town, next to downtown Los Angeles. I served on the college group leadership team and sang in the adult choir. But I was about to have a cross cultural experience and not even leave the building.

A friend of mine in the college group – her mother was the pastor of Hogar Cristiano, a Spanish speaking congregation that met in our church. They knew that I was studying choral music, so they asked me to build a choir for Hogar Cristiano. So I rehearsed the choir, chose the hymns, typed the bulletin and played the piano for worship every Sunday in a room upstairs in the Christian Education building with about 40 people.

It wasn’t easy. I got into trouble pretty often. My other job was as bookkeeper for Acapulco Mexican Restaurant, and the Spanish we spoke at the restaurant apparently had some bad words in it that I didn’t know were bad until I said them at choir rehearsal! Found that out the hard way. Sometimes I picked the wrong hymns for worship. One time Senora Frances, the pastor, said, “That hymn is only for funerals!” And when she preached, I could not follow what she said, no matter how hard I tried.

The people were very nice to me, even though I was an outsider. And because they loved me and welcomed me, it was a good experience.

Churches that are welcoming make me very happy. When Michael and I have interviewed for church positions, and we read the dossiers of churches, every single one says, “We are a friendly church.” Even the mean ones. Everyone says that, but it’s certainly not true of every person and it’s not true of every church. I like to think it’s true of Smith Memorial, that we welcome anyone who comes through our doors. I want to say a special thank you to the people who go out of their way to say hello to someone they don’t know and make them feel extra welcome. You know who you are. It means a great deal to all of us.

I have been so impressed with welcoming churches that this idea has been an important one in my ministry these 20 years. It makes sense to us that we should welcome and be inclusive of anyone who wants to worship with us. This is the model I have promoted: Invite your friends to church. Be welcoming of everyone. Help everyone to feel at home in this room.

That’s good, but I am beginning to see that it is not enough. Our world is changing.

People in our community are searching for truth, but very few just walk into a church. Churched people who are unhappy with their current church will walk into another church, but people who don’t know God don’t generally make the effort to come to a worship service. And if they don’t look us up in the yellow pages, call for service times, drive up the driveway, find a place to park, walk in and find the sanctuary, we have no opportunity to do the welcoming that we do so well.

You know when you fill out a questionnaire of some kind and it asks your religious preference? There’s a new category out there. Besides Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Agnostic and Athiest, now there’s a new category. I’ve seen it on several different forms.

“Spiritual but not religious.”

This is not necessarily what we called “New Age” in the 80’s. This is a broad category for people who want to embrace the mystical, something beyond themselves, but they are not interested in joining an institutional church. They want to experience some kind of transcendent truth, but they don’t want to do it in the confines of a sanctuary.

They want to do something meaningful, but they don’t want to be churchy. They are interested in things that visibly help people. They want to go with a mission team down to rebuild in New Orleans. They want to lobby city and state policy makers to make right decisions. They want to start community gardens and clean up their neighborhoods and talk about their lives over coffee.

Can our church help people who are “spiritual but not religious?”

The very smartest people in Christianity today say that as our society changes, the church must change its approach. Waiting for people to come in so we can love them is no longer an effective way of building the Kingdom of God. I went to hear Reggie McNeal last fall – he’s the author of this book “The Present Future,” and he challenged me on this very issue.

You see, for the last 20 years, I’ve put most of my effort into making the church a place where people can feel welcomed, find God, worship, learn, grow, love and serve. I really love church – You might say I’m very “churchy.”

But I sense that God is drawing us towards a new focus, one that includes meeting people where they are rather than waiting for them to come to church. I’m thinking a lot about it and I’m going to share my thoughts wiith you in the next three sermons. It has something to do with giving each one of you support to live out your faith in your world. It has something to do with holding classes out in the community where the people are, that address needs that they are feeling. It has something to do with being strengthened here on Sunday, so that we can be a ray of hope to the people we touch on Monday.

Today we are ordaining the new class of deacons and elders, the people who will be serving in leadership for the next three years. Let me talk to them for a moment:

You are a great group of people. You’ve been called to a ministry that you’re excited about, but you might also be nervous about your new responsibilities. Don’t worry, you’re going to do great.

One thing you have on your side is that you love the church. That will serve you well, because you are called to take care of this congregation. We teach our deacons to care for the sick and the dying, to pray with and for people, to help those in need. We teach our elders to govern and provide spiritual leadership, to set vision and manage conflict. All these things you will do to serve the people who are inside this church.

But you are also called to live daily for Jesus Christ and lead the congregation to follow him, and this congregation lives in a culture which is radically changing. Everyone in this congregation knows someone who needs God and will never set foot in a church. Your ministry can reach those people, too. Your church leadership can help people beyond this church.

How will this happen? We will seek God together. We will pray together, study together, and share our lives. We will ask, “What is God doing in and around our church? How has God gifted each of us? Who is in need in my own family, in my workplace, in my neighborhood? How can we be faithful followers of Christ?”

All of us are on a journey together, following the star and taking the good news of Jesus Christ to the world. You have a fine group of leaders here to support you.

Let us pray.

God of love, we praise you, that in the baby Jesus, you welcomed the nations to worship you. I pray for all of us, and especially for these new leaders: Place in us the light of your star, that we might be your light to the world. Amen.