Sermon Text

I am a collector of church bulletins and newsletters. People bring them to me from their travels, and friends send them to me from other places. I enjoy getting new ideas from the things I read. But, being human, I also find myself comparing our congregation with the other churches I read about. As I make these comparisons, I think about what kind of church we are.

What kind of church are we? How does our worship together on Sunday morning meet your needs, and provide you ways of growth in faith? What kinds of things are being taught in our Sunday School classes and Bible studies? What kind of life is being lived out through our committees and organizations? What will our response be to God’s leading in our combined Stewardship and Capital Campaign later on this month? What kind of impact do we members and friends of St. Philip Presbyterian Church make as we leave worship every Sunday and live for a week in God's world?

Maybe you ask these questions, too. At any rate, Jesus and the rest of the New Testament make clear what kind of life the Church is to live and what kind of impact it is to make in worship and work.

The parable this morning from Matthew's Gospel compares the Kingdom of God to a party! That's a revelation for some of us! Many people have told me that, if heaven is one long worship service, it is sure going to be boring! Well, maybe that says more about our earthly worship services, and the ways we respond to them, than it does about heaven.

When Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God he had obstacles to overcome. One was the problem of semantics. What did he mean by the "Kingdom of God"? Was it an other-worldly Kingdom, peopled by the faithful departed, or was it an earthly Kingdom, more powerful even than Rome, leading God's people into prosperity and power? Both of these pre-conceived notions gave Jesus no end of trouble, and they both ended up playing a role in his execution. They are both popular pre-conceptions even today, and they are still problematic. An other-worldly Messiah is not too great a threat to life as it is, and a political Messiah is too easily adopted for the political ambitions of particular leaders and nations.

But Jesus also had another problem, and again it is one still current today. That is the pre-conceived notion that to be truly religious people, you have to be highly proficient in unhappiness. Religious leaders said to Jesus, in effect, "Jesus, you just don't act religious. Everybody knows that religious leaders are supposed to be very serious, and to deprive themselves of pleasures, and to go through uncomfortable and difficult religious rites. John the Baptist and his crew were OK that way, they fasted regularly and they lived simply, out away from the cities. The Pharisees fast even more, more than the Scriptures require, and they spend lots of time in meditation, prayer, and study of the law. But look at you. You and your group travel around, enjoying yourselves, eating, drinking, laughing -- we don't think you are a very religious person."

The thing that bothered these religious leaders was that Jesus and his followers were so normal! The world is always trying to equate religion with suffering, somber faces and morbid behavior, with unhappiness and being more than a little odd. And in spite of Jesus' example and teaching, the Church quickly forgot that part of his message. It wasn't long before monks began depriving and even mutilating themselves, thinking to please God. That part of our religion may be gone, but the mental picture is still with us.

I guess it's a miracle that anyone ever visits a church when that view is still abroad. Of course, we also have plenty of people on the TV and in the megachurches who want to tell us that religion is nothing but oblivious happiness, and what that usually means is that God will give you something if you'll just keep sending in your money to the guy on the screen. I heard one say recently, "Jesus can heal your back, and Jesus can heal your checkbook."

No, Jesus was trying to say to us that his Kingdom was more like a party than a funeral -- more a time for celebration than a time for mourning, more a time of release and joy than of restriction and somber solemnity. Now, he warned, there will be difficult times, times of persecution, times of hardship, sorrow, pain, and sacrifice, but the undergirding strength of his people was to be their deep, abiding joy.

I hope that we will never be caught, in our congregation, in the heresy of gloom. I hope when people come for the first time to join us in worship, they will be impressed, not with our pomp and circumstance, and not with any empty, air-headed, attempts at religious entertainment, but with our deep and abiding joy in Christ and with one another. Joy and Christianity ought to be inseparable, like heat and fire.

Our joy comes from what God has done for us in Christ. You know as well as I do, that guilt is a terrible burden. I once counseled with an older woman who had carried around a load of guilt for years, decades really, and who wondered if she could ever be forgiven for what she had done. But the faith she was so hesitantly claiming had covered that guilt years before. She just hadn't believed that it was possible. But for God, all things are possible.

Not only are we set free from our bondage to sin and guilt, but we are also opened to people, all people. In Christ, we are opened to every person on God's earth. There isn't anyone, Jesus tells us, whom we can't love, by God's grace. We can still choose not to love, but that is because we consider secondary things -- political views, lifestyle, skin color, nationality, or any number of other things -- to be more important than this amazing call to love others as we have been loved by God in Christ.

Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." What a tragedy it is that we don't live up to that call. Until we claim it, and live it, we will not have discovered the fullness of joy that is ours in Christ.

So, I am going to make a few suggestions to you that might start us a little ways down the road to this deep and abiding joy. First of all, when you come to worship, expect joy to be a part of it. Maybe I am never as funny as I think I am, but sometimes I get the feeling that some of you are afraid to laugh in church. "Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy!" Look for joy in our worship together.

Second, over the next couple of weeks, we will all be listening for God’s leading and making decisions about what we will commit to the church’s ongoing annual programs and ministries and to the three-year Fulfill the Vision Together Campaign. I challenge you to look on that process, and those commitments, as an occasion for joy, and not just as a burden. Remember, as Scripture reminds us, “the Lord loves a cheerful giver.” Our giving is supposed to bring us joy!

Third, look around you during the time for the Passing of the Peace. Look for someone whom you don't know, or whom you haven't seen in a long time. Go to them after worship and welcome them gladly. Most of us sit in the same places, and see the same faces every Sunday -- but there might be someone who needs for you, not someone else, but you to greet them. Share with one another the joy of Christ!

I was reminded by someone this past week that joy is not only one of the fruits of the Spirit mentioned by Paul -- it is the second one on the list, preceded only by love.
The invitation of our Lord is an invitation to joy. We may have missed that message somewhere, but if so, let us hear it clearly today. Jesus says, come to the celebration!