Luke 4:14-21 ; Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost: May 31, 2009
Luke 4 marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and Acts 2 is traditionally seen as the beginning of the church. From one man to the institution, some might say. And depending on who that “someone” might be, they might say it with a hint of derision. We have all heard it; the church is nothing like what Jesus would want. The perception is that we only care about maintaining the institution for its own sake and judging who is righteous and who is not. In one poll I saw recently, one of the most common reasons people gave for leaving the church was the hypocrisy – people saying one things on Sundays and doing whatever they want Monday – Saturday.
I would like to humbly challenge these critiques of the church. Not necessarily because they are entirely off base, but because they miss the much bigger picture. The church tries over and over, every day as best we can, to be the realm of God here on earth. Of course the church is hypocritical. If you are only going to be a part of the church until that day when you see hypocrisy in the church, I can save you the trouble. It’s here.
Theologian and fellow church-lover Walter Brueggemann points this out in a refreshing way. To paraphrase him, “Every Christian knows that with some regularity what is said and done and what must be proclaimed as possible inescapably exposes her as something of a fraud, because proclaiming the ideal must speak a truth that the Christian’s own life does not always attest to.” In other words, we are proclaiming something that we ourselves cannot accomplish in full. But, here’s the thing: We must proclaim it. Only by proclaiming what is possible, what we are called by God to do and be, do we have a chance of moving in that direction. And only by proclaiming it does the world see what is possible for all of humanity and creation.
In Luke, after Jesus says what he has come to do, he wraps it up by saying, “today the scripture has been fulfilled.” But we know that scripture is a story that never ends. The scripture that he declares fulfilled is this one from Isaiah that announces a ministry – an ongoing ministry. Jesus is announcing the beginning of a ministry that will continue through the ages to even us. We too must continue to fulfill this scripture – to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed.
And we do. Not perfectly, but we do. How? I think by being the church in all its churchyness. Each week of Easter we have talked about how in our actions – through verbs – Christ is manifest. And each week we have seen how when we become these verbs, it looks different from how those verbs operate in the rest of the world. We are called farther, to go beyond and above, to be radical in our actions. We should, in many ways, look very different from the world. And when the church is being the church, we do.
Even all the “regular” things we do here every week are actually the extraordinary things of the church! We learn the crazy, counter-cultural stories of the scriptures, we sing out loud about our love for and trust in a God of weakness and mercy, we exercise a preference for the poor and outsider, we pass this gold plate each week and put in our hard earned money, we take communion and say it represents the body and blood of Christ, we pour water on people’s heads claiming it has sacred significance, we gladly humble ourselves and serve others in joy.
Each week, every day, the church in all its churchyness gives a glimpse of the realm of God, which is both near and not yet. We are at times undoubtedly anything but a glimpse of this realm, but we are the hope for the world of being the realm not just here on Sundays, but out in the world as we love, feed, visit, share, forgive, befriend. And the world needs that. The world needs us to be different and to go above and beyond. I truly believe that. There is good in the world, but there are also ways in which humanity and creation are fundamentally broken, ways that make suffering and violence and hate virtually inevitable.
Today we celebrate the children and youth in the church. We do this for a number of reasons. First, this is yet another way we are proclaiming the realm of God and acting it out in our own small ways. Children, Jesus insisted, are a part of the realm of God – an essential part. The world needs the church and the church needs the children. Without them, we will necessarily fall short. We need them, and they need us. We are training the new disciples so the church will continue. We let them hear the ideal even as we live the imperfect. With their natural idealism, I think they can see images, visions in the words of the prophet Joel, and they can prophesy to something we can’t yet imagine.
Second, celebrating our young people this morning this is a very small way that the whole church can see what these teachers have been doing on our behalf. We handed over to them one of the most important things we do to fulfill the promise we make at baptisms to provide for Christian growth and education. We are a part of what they do, and we are obligated to know and participate in any way we can.
Third, we must celebrate the many ways that our young people fulfill the scripture too. We all have a part – even Slane in her baptism began the journey initiated through our bizarre ritual, thus playing her part in our community. Everyone must do their part to fulfill the scriptures. And when we see each of these children, we will know and understand how they are doing that in both little and large ways.
So let's bring up our young people now...
[kids are invited forward]
