The Shelter of the Children of God
A sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington Presbyterian Church
January 28, 2007
Psalm 84:1-7
1How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.
Selah
5Happy are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.*
6As they go through the valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
7They go from strength to strength;
the God of gods will be seen in Zion.
Scott Peck, the author of the popular book The Road Less Traveled, is very interested in Christian community and has devoted a great deal of his time writing and lecturing about it. Peck is not known for his tact and was approached by an individual following a lecture on Christian Community. She started the conversation by saying, “I wanted to ask this question of you privately…..” Peck interrupted her and said, “I have just finished lecturing about Christian community and the importance of sharing within the larger community and how we bear one another’s burdens and hopes. Did you not listen to what I said? There are no private conversations within community.”
This is the second sermon in a series of sermons on the “Great Ends of the Church.” This series is an opportunity to step back and examine the purpose for the church. At times we get so busy with “things” and activities, that we lose sight of why we exist. Last week, I spoke about the first end of the church and that is the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humanity. Today I want to discuss the second great end: the shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the people of God. The theme behind this purpose is that there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. Christian faith is experienced and lived in community with others.
The great 16th century British poet and preacher, John Donne, in a sermon about mortality, preached: "All mankind is of one author, and is one volume… No man is an island, entire of itself” Human beings are not created to live in isolation, but with others. In our western culture we have personalized and privatized just about everything, but genuine Christian faith cannot be experienced alone. It is experienced in sharing, trust, mutual support and growth. Today I want to explore the three parts of this community: shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship, and then conclude with a story.
I
Shelter: When we speak of shelter, we usually refer to having a roof over our head. Shelter is what protects us from the elements. Shelter is where we feel safe. During WW II, there were a number of public shelters throughout England, where people went during air-raids. The shelters protected them from the hail of bombs. We seek shelter as protection, be it from the elements or from other dangers. The church also provides shelter.
In many of our cities the church is a literal provider of shelter. Congregations offer their buildings for homeless people, protecting them from the cold and criminal elements that might prey on them. But shelter is larger than that. The church needs to be a safe place! I often think about this in terms of our youth. It is not easy growing up in this world. There are bullies of all types. One of the most important aspects of youth ministry is to provide a place of safety for our youth, where they are safe from bullying, teasing, threats and harm. The church needs to be a place where they can safely develop and mature with others. The scandal of the abuse recently exposed within churches was that it violated the sacredness of this safety. All of us need a place of safety and refuge… where no matter our circumstance, our history and story.. we are accepted…. This is grace. It is the tie that binds.
Psalm 84 beautifully shares this image of shelter. It is a psalm of a pilgrim traveling to the temple in Jerusalem. He sees the temple and breaks out in song.. part of that song says, even the sparrow is able to make a home and safely raise her young there.
II
Nurture: Safely raise our young. Without food and water, we perish. All of us need nutrition. Jesus, responding to the tempter, stated that we not only need to feed our bodies, but our spirit also hungers and can starve. The church is a community of faith that nurtures the young and old in its midst. This, too, is a community activity. I spend a great deal of time in personal study, but I have discovered that when I am teaching, or spending time facilitating study with members of the congregation, that is when I truly grow and mature in my faith. Once again, no-one is an island…. Christian education and nurture is not a solitary activity!
The Plan for Ministry was an attempt, 7 years ago, to focus Abington Presbyterian Church on the things that were ultimately important. It stated that all the members of Abington Presbyterian Church should to be involved in some type of community Bible study. This is still a challenge for us. There are about fifteen different opportunities for this study... we need more.... Something very powerful happens when people get together to pray and study… the soul is fed and nurtured.
III
Spiritual fellowship. The early church had a word, koinonia. It is a difficult word to translate because of the subtlety of its meaning. It referred to the fellowship of early Christians. The Second chapter of the book of Acts describes this early Christian fellowship: “They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teachings and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers…. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need….”
One of the banes of the contemporary church is our emphasis on size…. We often believe that good churches are large churches. Often what is lost, is the intimacy, the sharing, and the fellowship that the human spirit needs. All of us need to connect to other people. All of us need friends and people who will love and care about us…. That intimacy requires smaller groups…and this is behind small group ministry. Our world is large and impersonal… our neighborhoods are not what they used to be…. The connections that people need with each other is absolutely vital to our spiritual well being.
This is a challenge for a congregation that is almost three hundred years old. Most of us have friends here and we have our groups that give us the support and nurture that we need. The challenge is to be open and welcoming to the stranger: to offer the fellowship of Jesus Christ with those whom we do not know.
Let me conclude with a story about a stranger. The story is true and ultimately it speaks to this great end of the church, the shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the people of God.
It began about a year before I came to Abington Presbyterian Church. I was in Texas and one Sunday, following our first service, I was approached by a thirtyish man, who looked Middle-eastern. He could barely speak English, but he asked if I would baptize him. I responded that I needed some assurance that he understood baptism and was willing to make the commitments that are required at the time of baptism. I met with him a few times and through a translator was able to learn that he was from Iran, and was living in downtown Houston. He affirmed the commitments of baptism and so a few weeks later, in worship, I baptized him. He was a regular in our worship service and continued to participate and that is where the story should probably end… but it doesn’t.
About three months before I came here I received a call from one of the members of an adult bible study in the congregation. This class met weekly on a Thursday evening and apparently this individual was meeting with them. “We need your help.” The leader continued to explain that the individual I baptized was about to be deported to Iran. Apparently he was in the country illegally, and was appealing for asylum on the basis that he was a Christian, converted from Islam, and if he was deported back to Iran, he would be killed. “Would you be willing to testify at his hearing at the immigration court?” I agreed. I went with the bible class, about fifteen of them, in the church mini-bus to the hearing.
In the course of the hearing this is what I discovered. The government wanted to deport him because they believed that he was faking his Christian faith. I remember the prosecutor for the government stating that his baptism was a “baptism of convenience” for the purpose of getting him asylum in this country. He really wasn’t Christian. I along with members of the bible class testified on his behalf, but inside of me, I began to wonder and doubt if this really wasn’t a baptism of convenience. Was I duped?
At the hearing I also discovered that he regularly attended the bible study and that after about six months took a leadership role in it. Now the irony: A federal judge would have to decide if this individual was a Christian. I remember his verdict as though it was yesterday. First, he stated that he believed that it was a “baptism of convenience.” That this individual got himself baptized as part of a greater strategy to stay in this country. I felt the sting of those words. But the judge went on to say: “something happened after that.” He believed that at some point, for lack of a better expression, the baptism took. He felt that although the individual was not motivated by faith when he was baptized, that as he stood before the court that day, he was a Christian… why? Because of the presence of the fifteen women and men from his bible study; because of the presence of the fellowship of Christians. The proof of Christian faith was the presence of the Christian community.
The story, illustrates this great end of the church… the young man sought and found the shelter of the church… he was nurtured by the scriptures through study… and the presence of the spiritual fellowship of the church ultimately was his salvation.
I remember that moment in the courthouse. I felt like Moses standing on holy ground. Something special occurred that day. The words of the old hymn sang in my mind:
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love.
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that
above. Amen.
*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.
Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania, www.apcusa.org