This Week's Sermons

Sermons for the Month
A Passion-Driven Church
DATE: August 23, 1998
SERVICE: Pentecost XII
TEXT: Hebrews 12:18-29
"To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

What's your passion? Has anyone ever asked you that? Have you ever asked anyone else that? I am sure you will agree the answer to that question reveals more about you than any other question anyone can ask you. My father's passion was medicine. I am a DK--a doctor's kid. I remember as a child being in awe of Father particularly when we were in public. There were so many people who would come up to him with a medical question or go out of their way to say, "Hi Doc" on the street. Evenings he was always reading books or medical journals. The AMA several times recognized him for his extremely accurate diagnostic proficiency. We never saw him on Mondays or Fridays, as those were his long office hours until 10 PM. Tuesday and Wednesday it was 10-6. Thursdays was house calls. Mornings always included stops at the hospital. We soon learned that medicine was his passion, his life.
Some would have called him a distant father. He was not a cuddly man. He was, however, a caring man. He cared about his patients. They were first in his life, we all knew. His family was second; sometimes even God when he would prefer a trip to the hospital rather than worship service. And we, his family, lived with that because his passion was healing people, making them well. We all knew when he lost a patient. Silence reigned throughout the house.
Christians are people who are passionate about Jesus, and passionate about God. Lutheran writer Richard Webb calls this kind of passion "caught-up-ness in God's flow." Failure is nothing more or less than falling out of God's flow. Success is nothing more or less than being in "The Flow." Our Scripture reading this morning is about our being Passion-Driven Church, a church that lives and moves and has its being out of its passion for Christ's passion. Hebrews 12:28-9 "…Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire."
Rick Warren is senior minister of one of the largest churches in America: Saddleback Church in Mission Viejo, California. Rick has a book out that has sold over 100,000 copies. It is the best handbook on the market for how to reach suburban boomers for Jesus. It is called The Purpose-Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995). In the book, Rich recalls an old saying from the early days before the split between the Episcopalian and Methodist churches. Before the split, the cry went out that the Episcopalians needed the Methodists, and vice versa, because if the Methodists were the fire, the Episcopalians were the fireplace, and a fire needs a fireplace if it's not going to burn down the house.
Rich is concerned that our church houses are primarily cold fireplaces with no fire. He is quite strong in his opinion that today's churches don't stand in danger of burning down any more -- at least not from an inside fire (outside arson, maybe, but not inside fire). A New Jersey rector said not too long ago that she knew a church that was "so close to death you can smell the resurrection." While once upon a time our ancestors worried about the church burning down from all that passion, our churches today are falling down from lack of passion.
In a Synod meeting earlier this summer, we were discussing a mission trip that I hope to lead to South Africa in 1999 on behalf of the Companion Synod Committee. When the cost was revealed one pastor across the table said, "You might as well give up now. Lutherans will never pay that kind of price to do mission work?" To which another said, "But if we were Pentecostals, do you think we wouldn't?"
In Art and Chip Sansom's comic strip "The Born Loser," a mother is leaning over the back of her husband's chair, where he rests with his young son sitting on his lap. "Have you ever had a near-death experience, Pop?" asks the lad.
"Can't say as I have, my boy," replied the father. Whereupon the mother intrudes: "The question is, has he ever had a near-life experience."
There was once a woman in a community who was well known for her simple faith and great calm in the midst of life's many trials. There was another woman in this same community who, having heard of this woman of faith, wanted to meet her and find out the secret of her calm, happy life. As she met her, she said: "So you are the woman with the great faith I've heard so much about."
"No," came the reply. "I am not the woman with the great faith, but I am the woman with faith in a great God."
"Can you or I say the same thing?" writes Charles Settle in his Pine Bluffs, Arkansas, church newsletter. "Do we have great faith or do we have faith in a great God? Max Lucado writes that 'Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. Faith is the belief that God will do what is right!' Now that is faith in a great God.
The question before us this morning from our Hebrew's text is "What will it be for us today? Will we demand an artificial God to whom we pray, 'Unless you come through this time, the way I want, I'm not going to believe in you,' or, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will we live by faith in the great God completely revealed in Jesus Christ?" (Charles Settle, "Great Faith or Great God?" The Columns, 42 [February 17, 1998], 1). The writer of our Hebrews text was burnt-up with the passion of God. He burned up the pages of the Bible with his passion for the Passion. Everyone who has made a difference for God has done so by being burned-up with passion. Paul, Peter, Augustine, Bernard, Luther, Wesley, Frye, Graham, Kallestad, Warren, all have been driven by a singular passion—to win people to the passion of Jesus Christ.
St. John of the Cross, after he escaped from prison, wrote this poem: There in the lucky dark, none to observe me, darkness far and wide; no sign for me to mark, no other light, no guide except for my heart -- the fire, the fire inside!
It should no longer be a surprise to anyone here that my passion has become the great commission of our Lord Jesus: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
When I started out in the ministry 25 years ago, it was assumed by the seminary, most of my colleagues, and myself that a pastor's primary purpose was to be a chaplain to a gradual succession of congregations who had each banded together for the mutual care and concern of one another. To be sure there was an office to run, bulletins to prepare and a building to maintain but being a chaplain was foremost.
On the other side of the equation, it was the responsibility of a congregation to "call" one of us trained chaplains into their midst to make sure that in times of distress everyone would be looked after, the heritage would be preserved, the daughters and sons of the group would be baptized, married and buried. We were also responsible for teaching the children, preaching to the adults and administering the sacraments on Sunday morning. The larger denomination that had sanctioned us as acceptably trained assumed we would act as a go-between the local group and the larger institution. We were to run the office efficiently and not spend too much, earn too much, give away too much. We were to maintain harmony in the committees, and generally make sure that the ministry ran smoothly, and do what the congregation couldn't or didn't want to do itself. In other words, pastors were asked and expected to maintain a well-oiled machine that would serve God and the others of the group. This arrangement has served the church well and still does in many circles. It has worked because it was predicated on the fact that outsiders would see what a caring, congenial group it was and naturally want to join, to become part of the organization, to pick up where the others before them had left off.
When I started out in the ministry, the typical spiritual journey would go something like this: I grew up in church because it was what my parents wanted. I attended Sunday school but dropped out after I was confirmed. I attended youth group but dropped out after high school. When I got married, had kids, and relocated; we looked for a Lutheran church close and rejoined. I was soon asked to join a committee, and my wife was asked to teach Sunday school. Later I was invited to serve on the Finance Committee and then the Council. I became President of Council while my wife was part of WELCA. We held those positions until retiring from church work. We've done our part, our children are grown, and now it's up to them. They are the future of the church…but somehow they don't seem as committed as we were.
But my friends, we all know that we can no longer drive our Father's Oldsmobile, as the commercial says. Times have changed and changed dramatically even in the last five years. Whereas once upon a time, change was slow, today market strategies are measured in months not decades or even years. Communications was measured in weeks, even years. Today it is almost instantaneous. Children often move far away from the family and one another exposing them to widely diverse attitudes and opinions, most of which are different from what they grew up believing. The result is a whole generation learning they can live and fairly successfully without joining any religious organization at all. That does not mean however that they don't believe in God or Jesus. It just means their spiritual journey runs a little differently. The typical spiritual journey of today runs something like this:
I only went to church Christmas and Easter and when I got married because it was the thing to do. Those services were some of the most boring times I can remember. After my parents got divorced, we stopped going unless Grandma was visiting. After I got married, had a kid, got the kid baptized in Grandma's church, I got a divorce. The divorce was devastating. It must have shown, because a friend suggested that I attend a group that met during the week in her home. It was sponsored by her church. Was I shocked! I met real people talking about real issues in my life. In a few months, I began attending worship at her church. It was nothing like I remembered. People were actually enjoying themselves. Later I married someone in the church, and we began serving one of the outreach missions. Three years later we officially joined the church. Our relationships with others and with god have steadily grown. It's been a great experience, and we expect it to get even better.
When I started in the ministry 25 years ago, I never even heard of the Great Commission. It was never talked about. We left it all up to the Holy Spirit. We all assumed that people would want to become a part of this mutual admiration and help society known as the church.
We now live in a world not unlike the world of the first century church. The choice today is similar to the choice of the faithful in the first century.
On the one hand, Christians can become a righteous remnant. They can follow monks of earlier days into the desert to form a retreat society, preserve pure doctrine, correct theology. In Jesus day, they were known as the Essenes. In Jesus day, they eventually chose to die rather than surrender.
On the other hand, Christians can become an apostolic witness. They can follow Paul, Silas, Lydia, and Priscilla into a mission to the unchurched, advancing into public places and personal conversations. They can bring increasing numbers of spiritual seekers in a joyous relationship with Jesus, a relationship that will bear abundant life. Our conversations need to include more than whether we should have one or two pocket envelopes. There is a whole generation of our sons and daughters who we are losing to immorality and Oval office peccadilloes. The Body of Christ will sacrifice anything and everything—property, offices, financial security, tradition, familiar heritage—for the sake of Jesus Christ. In every field of ambitious endeavor today, business leaders must answer the question, "What business are we really in?" The Christian answer will always depend on an even more basic question: "To whom do we really belong?" Christians belong both to Jesus and the community. Our business is Jesus and the community. To grow more like Jesus; to share what Jesus has done in our lives with others; to develop a community of love, hope, and trust in the midst of the yearnings of culture. That is our business. The purpose of any church is not merely to remember the story, but to be and share the story.
Is there fire inside your soul? Is the Passion of Jesus what gives your soul passion? Is Jesus what makes your soul leap? Is Jesus the source of your liveliness, your lovingness?
God fights fire with fire. In the midst of a world ablaze in sin and suffering, God sends forth people on fire. Those who have been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty ought to be fired-up.
Are you?
Will you open your heart this morning to a passion for the Passion? Will you be a passion-driven disciple? Will we be a passion-driven church? I would like to invite anyone of you so consumed to meet with me for eight weeks beginning Sunday night, September 13, 1998 at 6 PM. We will be talking not about fire, the passion, I will assume you come with that. We will be learning what the successful Passion-driven Church of the 21st century will need to look like in very practical terms.
Oh, one last thing. Since this is the week of confessions, I have a confession to make. (Don't worry Linda. You'll be OK.) My confession is this: I can't do it without you. It will take team of us or none of us. The mission agenda for the next millenium will not be set from above. It will be set from within or it won't be set at all. It will be set by gifted and called people called to do crazy, creative, caring, and spirit-filled things with excellence. It will be set by people willing to learn and then try. If you are one of those people, I would like to join with you for the sake of Jesus Christ and his church of the 21st century Sunday, September 13 at 6 PM. Until that night, for the sake of Christ.
AMEN