The Church I’d Like To See

November 8, 1987

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Once upon a time, long ago and far away, indeed, in another epoch entirely, now shrouded in the mists of blessed forgetfulness, I served for a while as a District Superintendent.

I have since been forgiven, paroled, and returned to useful service, but it happened during that period  that one day I received a letter from a PPR Committee in a local church. Most of you, at least those with deep Methodist roots, know what a PPR Committee is. It’s NOT the ‘axe’ committee, as some still seem to think.... It’s not the ‘guillotine’ committee, charged with the responsibility of getting rid of the preacher at the propitious moment..... That’s a terrible misconception.

PPR stands for “Pastor-Parish Relations”, and this committee in Methodist terminology is a kind of personnel committee. It serves as a liaison between the minister and the congregation. It helps the preacher understand the particular people better, and it helps the congregation gain a better grasp of what ministry is all about in the United Methodist Church. It’s a support group—an important responsible committee.

Well, this Church was anticipating an impending ministerial change. That occasionally happens. I had asked them to think about what kind of minister they felt was needed at that church, what qualities and characteristics did the minister who would come to serve them most need to possess.

So, by golly, they wrote and told me.... AND YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN WHAT THEY SAID!

My stars! They wanted a young preacher, with years of experience.... They wanted a preacher with youthful vigor...who possessed wise maturity. They wanted one who was especially good with young people, and who had a lair for getting along with the elderly. They wanted a preacher who would visit, who would be out there knocking on doors, but who would spend a lot of time at the Church, so it would be easy for people to get hold of him. They wanted a preacher whose spouse was a fashion plate, but who didn’t spend too much money frivolously on clothes. Who could give good, effective leadership, but didn’t talk too much.

They wanted a preacher who could deliver brilliant, scintillating sermons, and could take good care of the yard, including cutting the grass every week. They wanted someone who could pray like E. Stanley Jones, preach like Charles L. Allen, sing like Placido Domingo, raise money like Jerry Lewis, organize like John Wesley, and look like Robert Redford.

I thought, mercy.... There’s nobody in the world who meets all these qualifications.... well, except me, of course, and I already had an appointment.

But at least it got me thinking, in itself the cause of some widespread astonishment. If a committee of the Church can come up with a concrete description of an ideal pastor, why can’t a pastor come up with a concrete description of an ideal church? And why not, indeed? What’s sauce for the goose...and all that sort of thing....

So, I want to play with it a little bit this morning on Loyalty Sunday. All of you have been invited especially to be here today. An effort has been made to get a good turnout, and the effort seems to have paid off. If you’re not a visitor, or a gate-crasher, both of which groups are cordially welcome, by the way...if you’re not in one of those groups, you’re either an inviter or an invitee...very special.

If we’re going to ask you to exercise your loyalty, if we’re going to have the gall, the nerve to invite you to express that loyalty by making a pledge to your Church’s program for the coming year, WHAT KIND OF CHURCH IS IT THAT WE’RE ASKING YOU TO SUPPORT? What are we trying to do and be that justifies seeking your committed response?

Well, I can only lay out one person’s vision. My view may be just as distorted and unrealistic as the idealized portrait of the besought preacher in the PPR letter, but I do have picture in my mind of THE CHURCH I’D LIKE TO SEE, and that I think the Spirit even now is creating among us.

Maybe it will seem funny to you as I begin to describe it, because I want to try to come at it through the back door, but I believe it’s a healthy picture, and I believe it represents something we can all feel good about investing our concern and our resources in.

Three things, though there could probably be 47. The rest will have to wait for subsequent Sundays.

1. First of all, the Church I’d like to see and why shouldn’t it be this one, is a Church where the members know how to fight. Does that get your attention?

Don’t misunderstand. Stay with me a minute. I don’t mean by that that I want it to engage regularly in physical fisticuffs. I’m not really craving a congregation of rowdy street brawlers, though there is some of that in the heritage of the Methodist Church, and I’m not sure it was all bad.

Maybe you’ve read about Lorenzo Dow, an early Methodist Circuit Rider. To call Lorenzo Dow colorful would simply be an understatement. The man was unforgettable. Once he held a revival meeting in a little town in Kentucky. The kingpin of that community owned and operated a combination saloon and gambling emporium.

After Dow had been in that town just two days holding his meeting, the Kingpin sent him a note suggesting that it would be advisable and in the preacher’s best interest for him to be out of town before the sun went down. Well, you didn’t challenge Lorenzo Dow like that without eliciting some kind of prompt and positive response. The evangelist straightway marched in the front door of the saloon and said, “Sir, I am Lorenzo Dow. I understand you sent for me.” Both men stepped outside into the alley, and went at it.

Later Lorenzo Dow wrote in his Journal, “I thoroughly whipped him while I sang ‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.’” But he added: “I’m a little embarrassed about it. It took me 2 full stanzas to do a complete job.” It’s part of our heritage. I’m not suggesting anything quite that violent, but a fighting church is at least a church that can get excited about something. It’s a church with passion, with conviction, with a blood pressure.

The worst kind of Church is one that doesn’t do anything because it doesn’t care about anything. That kind of church doesn’t need much of a budget. John in the Apocalypse talked about a church that fit that bill, the famous church at Laodicea. Remember? The lukewarm church. And John says Jesus says, “You’re neither hot nor cold. Would that you were at least one or the other instead of something in between...therefore, I spit you out of my mouth.” Unforgettably graphic.

That’s worse than being bad, worse than being wrong. Bishop Moore used to say, “I’d a whole lot rather try to put out a fire in a church than to try to start one where there was nothing combustible.”

I have a kind of recurring nightmare that comes every now and then. Maybe it reveals more about my own interior state than anything else, but I dream sometimes that a Judgement Day, not only individuals, but whole churches, denominations are brought before the Lord and asked to justify their existence on earth. And the Lord in the dream asks, “What do you believe? What do you think is important?”

And the Jehovah’s Witnesses tell Him what they think is important. And the Assemblies of God tell Him what they think is important. And the Southern Baptists.... And the United Methodists just sort of stammer around and shuffle their feet, and say, “Well, it’s important to be nice, and, uh....to be tolerant, and not offend anybody....” And the Lord in the dream pauses.... Always that restrained pause...and says, “Is that all?” That’s when I wake up in a cold sweat.

Oh, friends, I know I’m coming at this obliquely, but WE DO HAVE SOME THINGS WE BELIEVE AS UNITED METHODISTS.... We DO have a theology, some things important enough to fight about. It’s what gives us our identity and our reason for being. It’s why we’re not embarrassed about asking you to be a substantial part of it.

We believe Jesus Christ can change human lives. Call it old-fashioned if you want to. It’s still basic to our agenda. We believe every person is important to God because God loves every person. How does that old children’s song put it--- “red, brown, yellow, black, and white, they are precious in His sight” That’s a lot more than doggerel. It’s solid Christian theology. It makes us mad to think of anybody being excluded.

We believe that injustice, and repression, and exploitation, and manipulation are wrong, are an affront to Almighty God, and need to be opposed with all the strength we can muster. We believe the Church was called into being as the Body of Christ in the midst of a society that in many ways has gone crazy.

We believe that we have a responsibility to be faithful stewards of the limited resources of God’s good world. It’s all God’s you know, every bit of it, even the part entrusted to us individually. What we politely call loyalty is really just paying the rent...because it’s not ours in the first place....

Well, that’s not all we believe, of course.... We believe some things about the Bible we believe some things about human nature, we believe some things about life after death, some things this generation needs to hear.

The Church I’d like to see is not going to be bull-headed, close-minded, or arrogantly pugnacious, but it will have a carefully informed and articulately expressed set of beliefs, that reflect the depth of the Gospel of God’s saving action in Jesus Christ, and it will be willing to defend those beliefs even in the face of scorn and hostility. I can pledge my support to a church like that, and I hope you can, too.

2. Let’s go on. In the second place, the Church I’d like to see, my ideal Church, will have a bizarre sense of humor. I mean, it will be able to laugh at itself. Is that surprising?

Maybe it doesn’t sound so important, but I think it is important, especially right now, at this particular moment of church history. In part, I suppose, it’s a reaction to illusions of pretentiousness in some other forms of contemporaneous ecclesiastical expression. You see those sometimes on television.

The Church I’d like to see will take seriously its beliefs, its convictions.... It ought to take God seriously, but it ought never to mistake itself for God, and it ought to be able to see its foibles, and frailties, its errors and silliness at times, and be able to laugh at them. If it can’t, something’s wrong. A person or a Church that can laugh at itself may not have arrived, but it’s probably at least on the road to maturity.

I’ll never forget it as long as I live. When I was in the 3rd grade, Rollin Hogan and I were in love with the same girl...3rd grade. The object of our mutual affection was named Thelma Duke, and I’m not changing the name to protect the innocent, either, because she was not all that innocent. Her name really was Thelma Duke.

Not only was she the most proficient marbles player in the class, but she had limpid, brown eyes, and could outrun any boy in the 3rd grade. Is it any wonder she was so desirable? I was passionately smitten with Thelma Duke, and planned my schedule and exploited all resources to win and hold her affection.

Well, one fall day after school, just about this time of the year, oh day of undying infamy, I caught that scoundrel, Rollin Hogan, walking Thelma Duke out to the school bus, and not only that, he was, with sickening chivalry, carrying her books, AND her lunch box, as if she belonged to him.

I was furious. I mean, livid with rage. How would any red-blooded American 3rd grader feel at having been dealt such a blow?

The adrenaline began to flow to wherever adrenaline does, in fact, flow, and instantly I roared into action. I tackled him from behind in a rage of jealously and started to give him what I thought was going to be the beating of his two-timing life. I even began singing “All Hail the Power....”...no, that’s not true.

What is true is that I had overlooked completely that Rollin Hogan was a farm boy. He had been plowing, I think, since he was 6 months old, or thereabouts. Even in the 3rd grade, he had arms that would have done justice to a truck driver.

He no more than hit the ground before he bounced right back on top of my chest, and before I could regain my composure, or anything else, he had me down, pinned to the earth in immobile humility, while Thelma Duke, the wonder girl, stood by and giggled.

There was no question in my mind right then that the world and all that in it is, was coming to an end, and I was ready for it.

When I got home that afternoon, my mother noticed rather quickly, the rather disheveled condition of my attire---mothers are notorious for that kind of insight--- She noticed as well the shiner that decorated my face, and the crestfallen condition of my demeanor...and began to inquire, discreetly, into the circumstances.

When, finally, the whole sordid tale had been confessed, interspersed from time to time with weeping and moaning, she took me up in her arms and said, “Tommy, Angel Pot.... that was a little term of endearment she sometimes had for me.... “Angel Pot, thank goodness for you not all women require a muscle man, and given your particular gifts and graces, which don’t tend to lie in that direction, perhaps you’d do better to cultivate some other attributes.”  I’m not sure those were her precise words, but that’s close. Then she said, “This, too, I promise...even this will pass.” And she was right, of course. The sun did come up the next day. The world didn’t end. I did, in spite of it all, survive, and as a matter of fact, I saw Thelma Duke a few years ago, and you don’t know how glad I am that I came in second in that encounter.

I can laugh about it now, and see the incident for what it was, one isolated experience in the long, complicated process of growing up. To be able to laugh at ourselves is healthy; NOT to be able to is UNhealthy. Sure we must take some things seriously... responsibility, duty, stewardship, God...but both individuals and churches also need to get out of themselves long enough to see how comical they are sometimes and enjoy the delicious irony of it all. Isn’t that, after all, essentially what justification means---to be liberated by God, for Jesus’ sake, and so to be able to laugh and dance, unselfconsciously, in His presence.

The Church I’d like to see won’t be so impressed with its own importance that it’s blind to everything else. It’ll be able to focus on issues beyond itself because its own sense of being will be solidly grounded. It won’t have to be continually spinning its wheels to justify itself, so it will be FREE to witness and serve hilariously. I can pledge my support to a Church like that, and I hope you can, too.

3. Now, finally, at least the final component of this vision for Loyalty Day.... The Church I’d like to see will be a gambling Church.

Don’t let this get back to the Bishop, please, without a proper explanation, but I’m in earnest on this one. The Church I’d like to see, and I believe this one increasingly is becoming, as the Spirit quickens individual lives, is a Church NOT AFRAID TO TAKE CHANCES.

I’ve served some of the other kind, some congregations that were cripplingly inflexible,

muscle-bound, almost Confucian in nature, in that what the people really worshipped were their ancestors. I don’t believe this church is like that. The Church I’d like to see will be a Church that believes the Promised Land is still ahead.

It may make mistakes as it plots its course in that forward direction.... It may commit some blunders. It may do some things wrong, and have to come back after taking a false turn and start off again in another direction. BUT ISN’T CREATIVE RISK WHAT FAITH IS ALL ABOUT?

Why did Abraham leave Ur and head out into the desert? Why did ol’ Moses tackle the entrenched tyranny of Pharaoh? Why did Paul start down all those roads that stretched across the Roman Empire?

Because he had a clearly marked, well-worn map? YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT. They were all taking a chance, a risk, a gamble. They didn’t know at any given moment what lay ahead. They didn’t know whether they would succeed or fail. BUT THEY WENT ANYWAY. THEY STEPPED OUT, first one step, and then another......They did it because they believed in God enough to trust Him. That’s what Christian Faith really means.

Jameson Jones was the Dean of the Duke Divinity School at the time of his death, too young, just a few years ago. The last thing he wrote, published posthumously, was a book of his sermons and talks, entitled “The Magnificent Future”.  In that book he tells this story, which I am paraphrasing slightly.

For a number of years the quarterback for the old Oakland Raiders, before they became the Los Angeles Raiders and long before they became the Rivington Raiders, or whatever they are now, was a former University of Alabama star named Kenny Stabler. They called Kenny Stabler “the Snake” ....

In his days at Alabama and especially his early years as a Pro, he had a powerful throwing arm. He could throw incredibly long passes, 50, 60, 70 yards, and when he connected, he could get a touchdown in a hurry.

Well, in those days the Oakland Raiders trained in Santa Rosa, California, which was also the home of the famous writer, Jack London. You probably read “The Call of the Wild” when you were in Junior High, or somewhere along the line. They’ve made a kind of historical museum out of the old Jack London home, and it contains a number of his papers, and books, and memorabilia.

One year, during the pre-season, a newspaper writer who was covering the training camp of the Raiders, visited the museum when he had a moment, and was taken by a Jack London quotation. London had written:

“I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than that it be stifled in dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy, permanent planet. The proper function of human beings is to live, not just to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying simply to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

The reporter read that quote to the quarterback and said, “Snake, what does that mean to you?”

Stabler thought a minute, and then said, “Throw deep.”

I think that’s where it is. I think that’s what our faith is all about, what Church is all about, what this moment in the history of the First United Methodist Church of Winter Park is all about....

We have a chance right now to move our church along significantly in the direction of meaningful improvement. We have a chance to take a big, important step. An exciting challenge grant will make our new and increased pledges worth more than ever.

The question now is what are we going to do with it? The Church I’d like to see is a Church willing to fight, a Church that can laugh at itself, because it knows it’s solidly grounded, a Church willing to take risks.... I know I can pledge my support to a Church committed to those things, and I hope you can, too.

They’re really simply backdoor, oblique ways of talking about Christian THEOLOGY, Christian MATURITY, AND Christian FAITH. Nothing especially new about any of it...just some old-fashioned stuff that’s basic, fundamental, and bedrock...and pretty dern important.

It’s what’s always been at the heart of Christian advance....and it’s time now for us to act on it.

Brothers and sisters, the blitz is on. Let’s throw deep, and get the job done.