Called to Be The New Community of Christ—Let It Be Me

Anton DeWet

There is something bizarre, thinking back, about living in a small central African country and worshipping in a typical western style church with all the cultural trappings of a Christianity stooped in Western culture.

The church in our village of Enkeldoorn, was a beautiful example of the architecture of a famous South African by the name of Gerhard Moerdyk.

Church for me, was not something I ever looked forward to as a child, but once there I never regretted being there. There was a familiarity about it that brought me comfort as a child. It was the way it should be, me seated next to my mother with my father in the elder’s bench.

The silence before the service was a sign of respect for the sacred. The yellow glass windows cast a reverent glow about the place, the pulpit cloth proclaiming “God Is Love”, the sighing sound of the pipe organ warming up and the great notes that flowed from it warming one’s young soul.

The people were familiar to me and I knew them both in this setting and others when sacred world was replaced by secular world. These were good people. They tried their best to live good lives. They loved their children. They paid their taxes (that is everyone but Bill van der Merwe who once visited the IRS office, unshaven and bare feet and begged for a reprieve which he promptly received).

This was my community. This was my church. This was my experience of God’s gathered people. It was neither perfect nor did if ever claim to be. It served the needs of a child and later on, a teenager who had varying degrees of interest in issues of faith at that time.

But there came a time when the church of my childhood no longer met the needs of a growing young adult who felt called to ministry. I struggled with unanswered questions and a theology I could no longer adhere to. In later life I moved on, not only to new places, but also to a growing new faith comprehension.

And even today it fills me with great nostalgia, many years and experiences later, as I still remember the sense of the sacred when I think of my young parents and the smell of an aging pipe organ that breathed the music of our faith.

But I know that the new communities of faith I encounter even here in this place, are communities that have broadened my view of God. I have been able to learn from these new communities what it is to be more inclusive of people, more open to God’s grace instead of God’s anger, more open to imagining a more perfect world order where all of God’s people have a place at the table.

For me and many who lived and thought like me, that beloved old church is now only a memory. Today, sadly, it stands deserted. It served a purpose to a community to a point, and then it was over.

We stand before a challenge here at Faith Church. For many these buildings represent memories as dear to you as the church of my childhood was to me. It is not easy to let go of that which you love.

But there is nothing static about life. Only death can assure us the same old, same old. So, to choose life is to accept the joy of familiarity and also the pain of departure. It’s the way it is.

Jesus had a problem with his disciples. In him they saw God’s love become flesh. They knew they were in the presence of the sacred when his words informed and pled and scolded and comforted them. They wanted it to stay that way. Before he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane he tried to warn them that life goes on and that their time of parting was near. They chose not to understand. They chose denial.

In the reading from Matthew Jesus is gathered with these disciples for the last time and his departing words are a charge for them to claim his vision for a new community.

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you”, he says to them.

I would not be here if it were not for that beautiful old church, standing deserted and neglected in a small town in Africa, but my future did not lie with it. My future lay somewhere in uncertainty of the future. I moved on and now, at the ripe old age of 52…yes, I know I’m just a kid among you…I realize how limited my faith would have been had I stayed in Enkeldoorn.

Likewise, the disciples would never have reached maturity as Jesus Christ’s representatives—and they may never have amounted to anything much, had he remained with them. Just a bunch of listeners.

We are going to undergoing great changes here at Faith Church. We are selling our buildings and we are going to move into an uncertain future. It may be that many of the signs and smells and sounds that have offered you comfort through the years may fall away. In this I personally see God’s call to us to claim his vision once more, and keep on building that new community he refers to in Matthew.

I can tell you that the mainstream church as we have known it through the past 200 years is dying. For many pastors we find ourselves fulfilling the role of hospice chaplains accompanying these dying churches and listening to the lament of those who still try to retain the old even as we see the structures of the organized church collapse and become disoriented.

The disciples were caught off guard by Jesus’ death. For a while they hid, deathly afraid of the future. But God’s Spirit flushed them out onto the streets of Jerusalem on Pentecost Sunday and they came into their own as they began to understand what Jesus so desperately tried to teach them, namely, that their security lay not in protecting the gem of the Gospel for themselves, but to go out into the world and proclaim the vision of Christ to all who stopped to listen.

I am convinced that Christianity will never die, but I am also fully convinced that the church structures as we have known them will come to an end. Someone was telling me of their church’s thought to sell their precious land and build a new sanctuary in a less expensive place and I thought to myself; “Make sure it is designed as a restaurant because in time you will be selling that building too and at least it will be useful for something when that time comes.”

The organized church is in denial about its future. Jesus called us to go out into the world and to proclaim the Good News and what we did was go out into the world and build expensive churches.

I know there is a practical need for a worship space and a place to meet, but people of God, I also believe we are being called forth to build a new community of hope and service, a place for us to find sanctuary among each other and a place to grow in our understanding of our call.

In a world where people appear more and more confused and feel so lost there is a need for God’s love to be enacted in practical deeds of mercy and justice. In a world now beginning to doubt the morality of the systems upon which our society is built, we have a message of inclusive love to share. In a capitalist society where we have been conditioned to believe that I need to enrich myself at virtually any cost we have a mission to minister to those who do not have the wherewithal to compete in such a world.

Can it be that God is calling you in this time to be part of this new community that will be venturing into the danger of the unknown?

In the language of our age we hear the cries for a new community and a new society listen again:

Well the world seems spent
and some presidents
have no good idea of who the masses are
Well I’m one of them and I’m among friends
We’re trying to see beyond the fences in our own backyards
I’ve seen the kingdoms blow like ashes in the winds of change
But the power of truth is the fuel for the flame
So the darker the ages get there’s a stronger beacon yet
In the kind word you speak, in the turn of the cheek
When your vision stays clear in the face of your fear
Then you see turning out a light switch is their only power
When we stand like spotlights in a mighty tower
All for one and one for all then we sing the common call

Let it be me

If you are ready to let go of the comfort of the familiar and open your heart and hands to the call of Christ to join this still faint chorus of voices, I invite you today, to listen for the sounds of this new community:

Let it be me!
Let it be me!
Let it be me!

Come join us on this journey, dear Child of God. Join us as we leave the familiar behind even as we shed tears of gratitude and nostalgia for its never easy to move on.

Come join the ranks of this new community of Christ no longer focused on the easy and the familiar but now asking: “Let it be me.”

Let it be me who will help serve the poor, share the communion, read the Scriptures, pay my pledge, visit the homebound, speak truth to power, plead for the future of the earth, express our collective prayers for our people.

Let it be me that stands up for justice and peace. Let it be me who answers God’s call to help build this new community of Faith into a vibrant, courageous collection of people sharing our gifts and our talents so others may hear the Good News, feel its vibes in their souls and accept Christ’s invitation to follow him.

Mathew promises us that in such a case we will experience the Christ among us who says of this new community:

“I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day,
right up to the end of this age.”

Let it be you…and let it be me. Its time to expand our minds and our hearts so we can expand the sacred community of Jesus Christ. Let it be us. Amen.

PRAYER

In our busy lives we often have no time to reflect on the things that bring meaning and content to our experience, o God. We are so busy managing our days that we end up with so much activity and so little quality. At times we feel overwhelmed by the demands of this modern day lives we live.

There is so little time we set aside to enjoy beauty. So little time to be filled with wonder. So little time left to connect with you.

Today we pause, here in this place, we be assured that we are not alone. That our lives are valuable. That we all have an inherent worth.

We look to our left and to our right and we see fellow sojourners and we give thanks for this community and its work over the span of 50 years. We look around us and see buildings that have served us well and we are reminded that they are just buildings, and that the heart of this congregation is grounded in you. We hear announcements of people working for peace and justice—we hear of opportunities to share our wealth with the poor—we see opportunities to loves others we may not even know. And we know that our work, as a congregation, is always beginning anew.

Forgive us, O God, where we have lost our way. Guide us back home to the safety of your presence. In these times of economic uncertainties and violent war, help us make responsible choices.

As we forge ahead as a church, into uncharted waters, we ask that you remain our true north as we focus our spiritual compass on the future.

Our thoughts turn to friends who are ill and others who mourn. We remember mothers and fathers who fear for the health of a child. We think of friends whose pain cause them deep anxiety. We pray for others whose relationship falter and yet others who have been devastated by these economic times.

In all things, guide us so we can enlarge the circle to include all of your people. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reading: Let It Be Me (Indigo Girls)

Sticks and stones, battle zones
a single light bulb on a single thread for the black
Sirens wail, history fails,
rose-colored glass begins to age and crack
While the politicians shadowbox the power ring
In an endless split decision never solve anything
From a neighbor’s distant land I heard the strain of the common man
Let it be me
(this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me
(not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me,
if the world is night.
Shine my life like a light

Well the world seems spent
and some presidents have no good idea of who the masses are
Well I’m one of them and I’m among friends
We’re trying to see beyond the fences in our own backyards
I’ve seen the kingdoms blow like ashes in the winds of change
But the power of truth is the fuel for the flame
So the darker the ages get there’s a stronger beacon yet
In the kind word you speak, in the turn of the cheek
When your vision stays clear in the face of your fear
Then you see turning out a light switch is their only power
When we stand like spotlights in a mighty tower
All for one and one for all then we sing the common call
Let it be me
(this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me
(not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me,
if the world is night.
Shine my life like a light

SCRIPTURE Matthew 28:18-20 (Message alt)
Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge:
“God authorized and commanded me to commission you:
Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life,
marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you.

I’ll be with you as you do this,
day after day after day,
right up to the end of this age.”