Will Haughton’s Reflection on September 13, 2020
Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:31-35
Last week I mentioned that during this pandemic I’ve gotten into the habit of listening to podcasts—a kind of pre-recorded talk-radio you can listen to whenever you like over the internet. One of the programs I’ve heard lately was an interview conducted by the CBC with an American, Lutheran minister called Nadia Bolz-Weber, from 2013. Bolz-Weber is known for having served a congregation called House for All Sinners and Saints between 2008 and 2018 as well as for having written some popular religious books, wearing lots of tattoos and using relatively salty language. In the CBC interview, she described her mid-life call to ministry. Having grown up in a repressively religious household, she rebelled and eventually fell into alcoholism and drug addiction. As part of her later recovery, she was drawn to the Lutheran expression of Christianity. At the time, she was working as a stand-up comic. She noted that among stand-up comics, there is a prevalence of mental illness and addiction. Sadly, one of her fellow comics fell victim to such challenges and committed suicide. Known among her co-workers as, by then, the only person of faith among them, she was asked to conduct the funeral. While leading this service, held in a downtown comedy club, and looking out at the crowd of attendees whom she knew to be struggling with many issues and simply to find their places in the world, she felt called to minister to such folks who often don’t have their lives together. So, she helped plant a church for such people who certainly did not already have a church.
This thought raises the question of what, or whom, the Christian church is for. As church members or participants, and perhaps long-term ones at that, we’re likely to think and act as though the church is for us. We might not say it in so many words, but we’re often living in hope that the music, worship, activities and sense of community will be to our satisfaction and liking. After all, we’re the ones paying the bills and doing the work.
I rather think, however, that God has called us together for a different purpose. The church of God consists of us—we who are already of it a part—but it is for others: for the world, for our communities, for particular people around us who need God’s love.
The Christian Church believes itself to hold the same faith as Abraham and to be part of the fulfilment of promises God made to him: “your descendants will be numerous as the sand on the seashore and through you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Abraham and his descendants, biologically and spiritually, have, in other words, been blessed to be a blessing.
Perhaps we sometimes shy away from this vision because it seems too grandiose for us. It’s not that we’re self-centred so much as that we lack confidence. We find it hard to believe that God could do much through us, insignificant as we are through the world’s eyes. The amazing news is that God has been doing amazing things through the unlikeliest of people in every generation.
Jesus himself was a humble Galilean with a background in carpentry, or perhaps the construction trades more generally, who died the most inglorious of deaths. Who were his twelve disciples? They were mostly fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. Who were the first to proclaim the good news of his resurrection? They were some women whom no men of their era would believe. Yet, despite these shockingly obscure beginnings, here we are today—almost 2,000 years later.
Emily read to me a book, earlier in the summer, about some named Salva Dut. Born in 1974, in Sudan, he was 11 years old when the Second Sudanese Civil War reached his region. With the devastation of war all around, Salva survived as a displaced person for another 11 years, enduring hellish conditions which took the lives of millions of his compatriots. In 1996, he was sponsored as a refugee by an Anglican church from Rochester, New York, who brought him to live with a family there. Eventually, Salva attended a local community college. There, he took a course in well-drilling. Since 2003, Salva and his organization have dug more than 450 wells in the parched nation of South Sudan, including for communities of previously conflicted tribes.
A well-known preacher tells the story of a Sunday school class which was reciting a famous verse of the Bible, in front of the congregation, during the annual awards Sunday. One-by-one, the students were asked, what can separate us from the love of God? Each, in turn, would answer by giving the long list of things written by Paul in the Letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 39: “There is nothing in all creation, not life nor death, not angles nor demons, height nor depth…” At the end of the row stood a child with down syndrome, whom everyone in the congregation knew well enough to know would not be able to meet this challenge of memory and public speaking ability. Anxiety began to fill the sanctuary. However, in her turn, she was asked, “what can separate us from the love of God?” She answered, loudly and proudly, capturing the true meaning of the verse: “Nothing!”
Jesus taught often in parables such as this: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. It is the smallest of all seeds yet it becomes the largest of shrubs and even a tree, so that the birds come and live in its branches.” We sometimes question whether God is at work in the world. Yet, have we paused to consider the wonder that is all around us?
God is in the business of doing amazing things to redeem and transform the world in the unlikeliest of ways and, especially, through the unlikeliest of people. Rather than lacking in confidence as a community of God’s people, we can be thankful for the humble station where God has placed us. When God does the unexpected through us, no one will think it is because we are so special—it will be obvious that God is it work and God will be glorified. When God is given glory, we know the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst.