“Adventure in Excellence”
I remember the day our professor, Maria Harris, had us act out this passage from I Corinthians 12. She had us remove all the chairs from our classroom, then, as we stood there in the class room she read the passage to us and asked us to form the body of Christ by forming his body with our bodies, by standing in place for the part of the body we thought we best represented. We became the mouth, the heart, the hands and feet, the stomach, the intestines, even the sexual organs of the body of Christ. After everyone had found a place, we each had to tell what part of the body we were and why. Imagine thirty-five potential preachers in the same room and only one of us could represent Christ’s mouth.
While there was a playfulness in carrying out this exercise, it also has a serious side. And ever since then, I have seen the way we all work together in the church to fulfill Christ’s purposes in a fresh way. All of this has been very real to me in my nearly three years of being part of this body, Dennis Union Church. The apostle Paul calls the kind of cooperation and respect which different persons should carry out toward one another “a still more excellent way”. That is a great phrase and I’ve renamed it from my perspective an “adventure in excellence” partly because my time amongst you feels like just that kind of adventure.
I continue to be amazed at all that we accomplish and I confess as well that often I don’t even know all that happens behind the scenes. I have run an errand at the church late Saturday afternoon and found a deacon carefully going through the sanctuary, making sure that we are fully ready for Sunday morning. If you come here on Saturday morning you’ll see that Cindy, our youth director and church school coordinator, fairly camps here setting up Sunday school to make everything go smoothly for the children, the parents and the teachers.
These past two weeks were especially challenging for us here at church as we learned of the sudden and unexpected deaths of Jackie Ayres, Helen Clemence, and Ed Parker. No one person could count all that gets done in preparation for funerals, memorial services and receptions.
Our Women’s Fellowship often organizes collations for church members and, as many of us know, these are truly in the category of labors of love. Some bake, some make sandwiches, some serve tea, coffee and punch, some make flower arrangements, some set up or clean up. It takes the whole of the body to bring it all together.
Every time a memorial gift is made to the church, the treasury team is needed to determine where the family wants the gift to go. Then the Memorial team does its best to be sure that people are thanked.
Now that we have new audio visual equipment in the sanctuary and fellowship hall, we have a whole new team of persons who can operate our high tech equipment. Even so, when we have services during the week, some of our folks actually still have to work for a living, so we do some scrambling to take care of all that is needed.
When I served a small church years ago, I realized that there just weren’t enough people to accomplish all the jobs. In that church I shoveled snow, restarted the finicky furnace, folded the bulletin when necessary, even typed it on occasion and sometimes put the secretary’s daughter on the school bus to go to half day kindergarten. Sometimes, there was so much to delegate in order to take time off, that it just seemed easier to stay. I once interviewed at a church that said they did just fine without a secretary, and right away I knew that we weren’t a match.
This past week our summer auction teams began reporting for duty. Their work is made possible by the Servac men who collect donated items year round for our now famous August auction.
Today we enjoy the talents of our Chancel Choir who rehearse all during the school year on Wednesday nights. Three others choirs have their own rehearsal and performance schedules. Every Friday a team comes in to fold and assemble Sunday’s bulletin and once a month a team comes in to mail the monthly newsletter. This past Friday several volunteers stayed over night with our Friday night guests and this week we will begin to host women overnight guests once a month on Tuesdays. Yesterday the Servac men held their second summer Pancake Breakfast. No one person here could ever tabulate all that we do and all the roles that we play.
That is the image that Paul is lifting up. In the church, all kinds of gifts are needed and each of us has roles to play. We don’t all do the same thing and it isn’t necessary for any one person to have all the talents needed. I find that as a grandmother, I am often better able to cheer others on than I am able to do all things. Yes, sometimes I am able to be a servant for Christ. And just as often or perhaps more often, I am what I call a “cheerleader for Christ.”
Today I want to explore some perceptions I have of our church and some of what makes us in my opinion a rather exceptional faith community. I often think of something which Harry Emerson Fosdick observed about the church he founded in
I believe that such is true of us as well. I know that at times Dale or I do not manage to respond in a timely way or even recognize when there is a need. And I am sure that each of us here sees moments when a dear person slips quietly away… perhaps because of a misunderstanding or unmet need. Such inconsistencies or mistakes do occur.
Even as a community founded in the name of Jesus, we can be inconsistent, thoughtless, or simply unaware. I know of no perfect churches, no perfect people. I believe that perfection is reserved for God and the position of God has already been filled. The one role I have most resisted in my life is the role of perfect pastor, presumably set above the rest of humankind. I can never fill that role and I always fail persons who seek perfection in me.
All of us, I think, tend to expect the church to be that place of serenity and peace, that place that is above petty squabbles and conflict. This letter of Paul’s suggests otherwise. Even the first century church struggled with how to get along with one another. Paul is saying we cannot all be alike, and pleads with his members to seek unity in Christ even in the face of their diverse gifts. My colleague Peggy Way once quipped that in the church, we talk a lot about love. Peggy suggested that we should be more specific and down to earth. Sometimes we need to learn how to be in the same room and just be able to stand one another.
Clearly whenever we bring people together, we have what is inevitable in human affairs, we have conflict. Conflict is a given in all relationships. The only real question we can ask is: Do we have constructive and helpful ways to resolve conflict? Or do we resolve conflict in totalitarian ways that create division and hurt?
Do we deal with conflict by disrespecting one another and setting up “my way or the highway” situations?
One of the things I didn’t really bargain for as a parent was for our grown sons to share all they perceived about us with the woman each chose to marry. Thankfully both Bob and I passed this difficult parenting test and both my daughters-in-law have said that our sons thought in retrospect that we had been fair and reasonable as parents. I sure do remember some moments back in their adolescent years, when Shawn and Seth didn’t act like they thought we were fair!
For a moment I’d like to back up to when I was called to be your Interim Associate Pastor at Dennis Union. One of the reasons I came was that this church just struck me immediately as being more deeply committed to the Christian way, what Paul calls “a still more excellent way” than most. All churches try to be Christian most of the time and as I said earlier, we all fall short in some ways. My introduction here was a tour of the church prior to an interview just three nights before the August auction. There were people everywhere getting ready for the big day. I was impressed and felt both welcomed and in my element. Right away I sensed a church that sets the bar high for itself.
After coming here to serve I followed the progress of the building plans and the Capital Campaign. The overall vision, the willingness of so many persons to help out, the attention to detail was the best I had ever witnessed in a church. And there was an element of quiet courage in it all. No one could guarantee that we would dig into our pockets and give as generously as we did.
Well, we’re a liberal protestant church, our form of government is democratic and that is always slower and messier than totalitarian systems. We held congregational meetings and hundreds of smaller meetings on our boards and committees to determine our plans. Many of us remember when we first learned of the idea to air condition the new areas.
There was a valid question raised about whether it was environmentally responsible to do this. The solution which evolved was to propose to the congregation that we use photo-voltaic technology so that we would be generating electricity, some of which would give us credits with the power company. Even so, we still have much to learn as we begin using our new space and new equipment. We don’t want to use more energy than we need, but we are still absolute beginners in using our new spaces and have much to learn.
As we settle into all our new spaces I think the image of an adventure in excellence can guide us. We don’t know what lies ahead. We don’t know what obstacles we might encounter. Surely we won’t be able to predict all that will happen. Such omniscience belongs only to God.
My colleague in ministry, Gordon Ellis, tells his church folk that the organizations that do the best in the long run are those that are willing to try to do a great many things and be willing to fail at some of them. He can quote statistics on how effective organizations are those willing to take risks, willing to try new things, and aren’t daunted when some things they try don’t work out. Truth to tell, most of us are so programmed to fear any sign of failure, that we are apt to run away, or worse yet, point fingers in search of someone to blame when things don’t go well.
I like to think of my own times of failure as learning moments, occasions when I can understand what went wrong and hopefully how to do better or be wiser in the future. Yes, and sometimes I look back over a series of instances and can see a pattern of making the same mistake many times.
Slowly, ever so slowly, over the years I have been able to see that Jesus is right when he says of me that I often can’t see the speck in someone else’s eye because of the log in my own eye. Unfortunately in the heat of the moment, I still don’t like to look at my mistakes.
As I close this message today, I’d like to leave us with a couple of thoughts on the changes that are going on here. About five months ago we tried out something that was totally new to me. In the dreary month of January we held a Jazz Sunday. Even though Ed and Ruth Parker had already moved to Linden Pond in
When Ed died so unexpectedly, his family knew immediately that they wanted his Memorial Service to be a celebration of his life and they were able to bring a jazz trio into the service. I think many of us were very moved by the uplifting effect the music had upon us in Ed.’s service last Monday. For myself, I plan to write this down for my kids: “Hold a service at church, jazz trio a requirement!” I see Ed’s service as just one example of how we evolve as a faith community. One thing leads to another.
My invitation to us all is this: We need the gifts of every one of us, even when it is a gift of dissent. You may be the one person God is counting on to redirect us if we stray. We are all needed on this adventure and Paul assures us that no part of the body of faith should be overlooked.
Much as junior high kids at a dance, we are inclined to stay safely on the sidelines as spectators. Such a stance will leave us bored and more than a little discontent. I say, get out on the dance floor. Be part of the body, join in the dance!
Shalom and Amen
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Psalm 19
I Corinthians 12: 12- 31
