August 28, 2016
Mark 2:13-17
The church has an image problem. We are supposed to be seen as the body of Christ, but that’s not often how pop culture portrays us. Just look at the portrayal of young Christians in movies like Easy A and Saved . For those that have not been exposed to real life Christian Communities, these film portrayals can seem pretty accurate.In a 2007 study by the Barna Group, young people were asked to choose from a word bank what words best described Christians. The top answers were Judgemental (87%), Hypocritical (85%) and Anti-homosexual (91%). A close fourth descriptor was “insensitive to others” (70%).
When a majority of American young people read this story from Mark, they see us as the Pharisees. Those inside the church of today are the ones who are chastising Jesus for hanging out with “sinners”.
The Pharisees get a really bad rep too. They were a sect of Judaism that saw a degradation of morality in the Jewish culture. People were not upholding the law of Moses, and so they sought to revive the people of God through a strict adherence to the law. They were hyper focused on the purity laws, which dictate actions, foods, and even professions that will make one unclean, and unfit to enter the Temple for worship. This included tax collectors, like Levi, whom Jesus invites to follow him, and whose friends Jesus goes to dine with.
The Pharisees question Jesus’ choice, because by dining with sinners, he makes himself unclean by association, and unfit to enter the temple for worship. They are trying to understand why a rabbi, an obviously religious man, would make this choice.
Jesus response is one of my favorite lines of the whole New Testament. “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, sick people do. I did not come to call righteous people, but sinners.”
Boom! Truth Bomb.
Theologian C.S. Lewis said,
“A church is the only organization that exists primarily for the benefit of non-members.”Read that again.
When Jesus is seeking to revive the Children of God, he isn’t one bit concerned with getting people into worship. That’s the Pharisee’s goal. Jesus' modus operandi is not to call people in, but to GO OUT and be with the people who have been barred from entering the house of God. And Jesus doesn’t go out to tell people everything they’re doing wrong. Again, that’s the Pharisees. Instead, he goes out and offers grace to people who would never imagine acceptance was possible for them.
This is the model of the Emergent Church Movement. Recognizing the decline in church attendance in the Western World was attached to perceptions of Christians as Pharisaic and unwelcoming, Emergent Church leaders seek to take church to the people, offering Christ in unexpected places.
One of those places is in bars. Jerry Herships runs a United Methodist Faith Community in Denver called AfterHours. They meet on Monday nights in different bars around the city. They have a message, community witnessing, share in communion, and pack lunches that they distribute to the homeless of Denver. Their slogan is “Church without the parts that suck.”
Beer and Hymns has become popular movement around the country. My best friend from Seminary, Karen Slappey, began a Beer and Hymns in Atlanta. She had such positive turnout that they began offering Bar Church, a full liturgy with a celebration of communion, once a month, in addition to beer and hymns. The idea is to provide a place for people to connect with God who would never step foot in a church. And it works.
I should mention that neither Karen nor Jerry are "Young People". They are above the 35-year-old threshold our church sets for that designation. They didn't do this just for the millenials that responded to that Barna Study. They simply recognized a new way of being the church needed to be attempted. And they’re doing it to roaring success.
BEING the church in this way requires a shift in mindset.
A lot of resources go into worship planning and programming inside churches without ever taking stock of what the needs are of the people surrounding the building. Don't get me wrong, I want excellent worship as much as the next guy in the pew. But our worship has to be about the right things. If all out energy is focused on what’s happening inside, we're going to be neglecting Christ's model of finding out what’s happening outside.
Christ’s life, death and resurrection create the possibility for this shift to be successful. In the Old Testament, worship was mostly about trying to atone for our sins through ritual sacrifice, burning of offerings and the like. But worship through Christ is different. Worship now is about remembering the forgiveness God has already offered us; offering confession and reminding each other of pardon; coming together to be honest about how we’re NOT perfect, but how we trust God can restore us to wholeness.
Worship now should not be about coming together to feel guilty. Worship now should be about coming to fill up on grace so we can GO OUT and offer it to others.
For a long time the church has treated worship as the final goal. Our existence has been centered around getting people INTO worship. But that's not the model Christ has for us. Worship is a starting point, a filling station for the work God calls us to in the world. Christ wasn’t about pulling people in. Christ was about meeting people where they are. That has to be our focus too.
We come into this space, not to pretend how perfect we are, but to admit to how broken we are, and to be reminded that God loves us anyway. So that we can go out and share that message with others. Whether or not those others will ever step foot inside this building. If our focus is about butts in seats, we’ll find ourselves behaving more and more like the Pharisees. But if our focus is about changing lives, we’ll find God takes care of the multiplication.
How do you view worship in your Christian life? Do you go out of your way to spend time with sinners? How can you be more focused this week on offering grace OUTSIDE of the church building or programs?
