Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship · August 24, 2008
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Prayer of the Day
God of Our Fathers and Mothers, we long to serve you with our whole selves. Continue to believe in us, wait for us, and urge us forward in faith, love, and hope. Strengthen our convictions to be your people. Partner us with the courageous Spirit of Christ, our brother. Amen.
Scripture
Joshua 24:1-5,8,12-15
Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.
Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nabor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.
“‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out.
“‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land.
“‘I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you – also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Message
An Old Man Stands Up to Speak
Don Lanier
It’s impossible for me to put into words how excited I’ve been about this day and how much pleasure I’m finding in it. It is a wonderful honor to be invited back to help you observe your golden anniversary.
It’s amazing, too, that all of your ministers are still alive. Did you know that? Every one of us. Now listen... That is something! Fifty years! You called young preachers. That helps. But you know… Some congregations I know chew their ministers up and spit them out in a few years, but you take good care of your preachers. Bill Ryan, Rick Frost, Kim Ryan and I. Once we came here, we decided we wanted to stay.
Now to come back is just a joy beyond description, and I can’t thank Rick enough for his hospitality. He has been so gracious to me. I’m proud of what you have accomplished now that I’ve left. Do you know what it does to a preacher’s ego when the churches he has served do so much better after he has gone? Somebody told me that just means you’ve made good preparation, and I like to think that.
Seriously, most mainline Protestant churches like ours have been losing members right and left. You, however, have grown quietly on your way, enriching peoples’ lives, adding new members. Rick just baptized two new people yesterday – not old ones; new ones. You’ve been expanding your service to God. You have a program that is the envy of so many churches. In fact, I think you are the best-kept secret in Missouri. I really do. You just quietly go and do God’s work.
I remember my first Sunday at Broadway, July 4, 1971. I don’t want to hear, “Well, I wasn’t even born then.” After the service that morning (we only had one service in 1971 – can you imagine that!), George and Margaret Garner invited us to their home for Sunday dinner with their family. As I remember, George, it was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, homegrown tomatoes, corn on the cob, and maybe even home-made ice cream. Then we shot fire crackers. It was the 4th of July!
I remember Christmas Eve services, and those get-togethers at the Hilgedick’s house, and then later on Connie and Claude Johnson would invite us. In those years, we had three worship services on Christmas Eve. Everybody wants to go to church on Christmas. We would gather here for a nice worship service. Then in a few hours, we’d have another one. Therefore, we would run over to the Hilgedick’s or to the Johnson’s house and have a great fellowship. There would be all kinds of Christmas treats to eat. It was a mixture of adults and children.
Those are still some of the favorite memories of our sons, Mark, Steve, and Tim. They still measure the churches they attend against Broadway. You have made such an indelible mark on our family.
Well, see what happens when you get an old man to stand up and speak. Rick told me I could reminisce a little. A little! Instead I want to remember another time when an old man stood up to speak. His name was Joshua. He was a tremendously revered leader of the Hebrews. He led them across the River Jordan after Moses died and then throughout the land of Canaan. In one battle after another, they took control of that land. They elbowed the Canaanites out of the way, took over the hills and pastures, and just settled in. Moses said they could do it. Moses said, “Well, God gave this land to Abraham and all of his descendents.” So what the Hebrews were doing was going in and taking back what they thought was theirs.
It was a good land by in large. They raised crops and families there. After a while, the young men started marrying the Canaanite women. They were all pagans, of course, and they worshiped Baal, or a pile of rocks some place, and the gods of Thunder and Rain, and all that kind of thing. The in-laws turned out to be pagans, too. And if you’ve been married, you know that it’s good to keep the in-laws happy. So, they kind of went along with what the in-laws were doing. They fit in with the pagan culture. It seemed like an innocent accommodation to keep the wife and her folks happy. It can’t hurt; can it?
Joshua wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t so sure God was happy about it either, so he called them all together. He stood up to speak, and silence fell upon the whole city. It was so quiet you could hear the wind whispering through the trees. He said, “We’ve done well here. We’ve become a prosperous people, but there is one thing I need to remind you before I die. You are living in the land that was given to you. You are drinking wine from vineyards that you didn’t plant. For generations, we Hebrews have been blessed by the goodness of God, and if it weren’t for God, we would still be in Egypt, or perhaps dead along the way in the desert some place.”
“Now, you can forget God if you want to. You are free to do that. You can go on enjoying your prosperity and stopping at every little pagan shrine you can find just for good luck, but at least be honest about it. Stand up and say, ‘I believe in the power of Baal, or whomever it is that you patronize.’”
“But, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
There comes a time in a person’s life, when he or she has to stand up and declare an ultimate loyalty. Don’t wait. Go on and take a stand. If you believe God is as powerful and as gracious as Jesus said, and if you believe that God’s way is the best way to a successful life, then stand up and say so.
There is a book I’m reading by Anthony Robinson. He takes a very perceptive look at what is happening to churches like our church. He says, basically, things are not good for mainline Protestant churches. They are losing members and money and have for decades. He offers some helpful things for turning that around. What caught my eye especially was that there comes a time in the life of a congregation, like the halftime of a football game, when it’s time to sit down, catch your breath, figure out what you have been doing right in the first half, and then look ahead at what you should be doing in the second half.
Joshua sounds like that kind of a coach to me, giving his halftime pep talk to his team. The Hebrews had done well. They were playing the game well, but they were forgetting the fundamentals of what got them there. They had forgotten how important their personal commitment was to God. They had compromised because they wanted to fit in with the rest of society, go with the flow.
It was half time, and Joshua remembered what had really made them strong. “You promised to be God’s people. Well, then, be God’s people or lose the game!”
An interesting thing Robinson said in his book is that the majority of churches like us are losing the game. This is not true here. You are still playing the good game. There are people studying what is ahead, reading, and trying to figure out what challenges now lay ahead for Broadway. Where are we going? What is important to us?
As I pondered your fiftieth anniversary, I thought again about what Robinson says. You are not losing the game, but your fiftieth anniversary is a great time to sit down, catch your breath, and figure out what you’ve been doing well, what lies ahead, and how to prepare for that.
Already a group here is preparing for your future. One of the questions Robinson suggests as you ask, as you decide: “What is the purpose of this church?” He says churches are great about writing vision statements and mission statements. You’ve got them. Churches are proud of these statements. A great deal of time is spent on this. The statements get polished and printed up to give to the members to say this is what are vision is.
Robinson says that is the wrong question. He says the real question that a church needs to ask is: “What is the purpose of this church? What is the fundamental thing that you are trying to do here?”
Then he gives the answer. He wrote the book, so I guess it’s OK to do this. He said the purpose of the church is human transformation. What a church should be doing is changing people’s lives.
I don’t know about you, but in all my years of ministry I kind of had the feeling that people didn’t want to be changed. I kind of liked the way they were, and they liked the minister to stand up in the pulpit and say, “Oh you are so good. You are just doing everything right. Don’t change a thing.”
Robinson says the purpose of the church is to help people find a new way to live, to be transformed and changed. Because when you take Jesus seriously, you will probably have trouble living the way you have been living and fitting in with the way the rest of the world does things.
Jay Claiborne, with his tongue very much in his cheek, describes in a new book his experience. He says he knows there are people out there that say his life was a mess. “I was drinking, partying, and sleeping around, and then I met Jesus and my whole life came together. Well, God bless those people. For me, I had it together. I used to be cool, and then I met Jesus, and he wrecked my life. The more I read the gospel, the more it messed me up and everything I believed in, valued, and hoped for is turned upside down.”
Jesus will do this to you. He can make you very uncomfortable. If the church is really helping people to be transformed, it will be uncomfortable from time to time. It just is difficult to live in this world and yet be faithful, really, seriously faithful to Jesus. For instance, “Turn the other cheek; forgive those who abuse you.”
The world says, “Forget that! Get even.”
The common wisdom is, “Take care of yourself, because nobody else is going to take care of you. Look out for yourself. You are number one.”
Jesus says, “No, if you share what you have, there will be plenty for all of us.”
I saw a bumper sticker one day. I bet you’ve seen it, too. It’s the one that says, “The one who ends up with the most toys wins.”
Somebody came out with a report that said the economy is down because consumer spending had dropped. We need people to spend more. It’s the patriotic thing to do. Talk about pressure to conform. We all want to be patriotic. It’s everywhere.
And then one day you pick up Romans 12, and you read what Paul was saying: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
The business of the church is to help us in that process. It is not easy. It’s a struggle. We relapse because to live in the world is to enjoy the spending, and the consuming, and enjoy fitting in, and going along, because everybody else is doing it, and we slip back into that.
This is why the church is so important, because we need to come back with one another and gather as a community of faith, and support one another, to hang on to the vision that Jesus saw. But it is going to take all of us to do it.
Have you ever met someone who has been through the twelve steps of AA or Al-Anon and hear them describe their transformation? It’s impressive. But they can’t do it alone. If they try, they fail. They lose the game, and so they support one another.
So, every Sunday morning, we gather not just to say, “Hi, how are you?” but to support one another, to help one another stay strong in our commitment to the vision that Jesus has. It’s a life-long process, but it is the way God wants us to play the game.
And now, it’s half time, and the second half is about to begin for you.
And together we say… “Amen.”
Benediction
God of Changes, it is not you who changes. You are the same today and always. However, you do transform us. So bring it on! Change our hearts, and make us those who stand up and speak of a world and a people who can be different. Let us welcome, expect, and be this change. Amen.
