Sermon: "When Church is Part of the Problem"

2nd in the "False Pictures" series.
Delivered March 11, 2007 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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Our vision is to be a church without walls and what that means is that we are trying to constantly think about moving people towards Christ where we live, work and play. That means that sometimes we will get into conversations with people about Jesus or share with people that we are a Christian and one of the disturbing things; one of the realities about life is that when we say we are a Christian for some people, the image that comes to mind will be the image of some of those pictures we just looked at. Now maybe that's not fair. Maybe you know when we look at the church more impartially we can see that all over the world the church has been the agent that has started hospitals and churches. It's been a group that has stood up for education of all people; stood up for women's rights in every country. It's been an institution that has gone to disasters and given mercy there; has been in the middle of wars and then part of taking care of people. All of this is true, but this isn't necessarily what comes to mind with people when we talk to them about Jesus Christ.

What might come to mind is the darker side of church history, because there is a dark side; the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, when the church tortured people to make them confess Jesus Christ. Eventually the church supported the abolition of slavery, but for so long the church supported the institution of slavery. And then in the period following the Civil War, even within our culture, there were African-Americans who were lynched at the hands of people who considered themselves good church folk. And then there are instances that are still in our newspapers like the pictures we have just seen. Those pictures are of Westborough Baptist Church. I will give you the name of that church because they have a website; that is where I got those pictures. They are proud of this. They go the funerals of soldiers carrying signs that say, "Thank God for IEDs. Thank God that the soldiers have died." On their website they say thank God that the tornado killed 26 Americans. We wish it was 26,000. Images like this are real for people as we share Jesus Christ. As we talk about who he is the church might be part of the problem why people don't believe what we say.

Now we are in a series on James and I warned you that it's hard-hitting. Last week we looked at the false pictures that our society gives us about God, about life, about the meaning of self; all kinds of false pictures and we need to go back to the scriptures constantly and intently in order to keep our focus, to keep on course. That is what we talked about last week. But it's not just our society that gives false pictures about God. Sometimes the problem is the church. The church gives a false picture of what life is all about and who God is. Now sometimes it's because the church and churches unquestioningly accept anything said in our culture. So you go into a church and you hear the same thing that Hollywood says. You go into the church and you hear the same thing the Democratic Party says. You go into a church and hear the same thing that the Republican Party says. The church does not think on its own. It's exactly like the culture around it and because of that we give a false picture of what life is all about. Sometimes the church reacts in an extreme way to the culture we are a part of and that's what we saw in those pictures of Westborough Baptist Church; an extreme reaction.

Now even as early as the time of James, just a few years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the church and its behavior became part of the problem. And so we are going to look right now in to James, Chapter 2 and see what he tells us about showing a true picture.

James, Chapter 2, beginning at Verse 1:

"My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?"

Let's pray: God, as we go into your words and these verses that follow, open our eyes and open our hearts to what you want us to hear. In Jesus' name. Amen.

So these first few verses describe the problem. Here in the church the church is showing favoritism. Rich people come in and the rich people; ah, move some people out of the seats and let them have the best seats in the house. But when someone poorer comes in, the church members don't even get up out of their chairs. As they sit in their chairs, the new chair they took, since they gave their best seat to the rich folk, they sit there are say, "Okay you can stand in the back." To the poor person they say, "You can sit at my feet." And so they are making distinctions among themselves on the basis of these economics. And what James tells them is that they have become judges between people who are making these distinctions out of evil thoughts and motives. Now let's go on. Lets' go to Verse 5:

"Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?"

James is telling them that the very people that they are going way out of their way to give special honor to are the very people that are exploiting them; the very people who stand and bring dishonor on the name of Jesus; they don't even value it. And he asks them why then are they not paying attention to the poorer people that God has shown their value, because he has given them a richness in faith. It's not likely that these Christian people, particularly their leaders, could have believed that what they were doing was right. Let me go on and read the rest of this chapter and we will think about that particular thing some more.

"If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!"

So let's go back to this situation where they are showing favoritism on the basis of these economic differences. The leaders could not believe that this was right, because from the very foundation of the Old Testament and certainly in the New Testament as well there is a strong call to treating people fairly and justly.

In Leviticus, Chapter 19, Verse 15 it says this.

"Do not pervert justice. Do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly."

In some of the earliest books of the Old Testament, it's right there. In the New Testament there is a theology that's given for viewing people equally. It's in Colossians, Chapter 3, Verse 11.

"Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all."

They are without excuse. This is what I think is going on. They know that favoritism isn't right in an absolute sense, but it makes such a good impression on these people. These people are used to being treated right and so its so much easier to go along with the flow of the expectations they have and of the expectation the culture has around them, let's do that and their error isn't in showing honor to the rich people; their error is that they did not show honor to everyone. See what's going on, I think in their minds is that they have a category in their heads that some sins and I want to define that word; sin, here we are using it to mean forms of behavior and thinking and attitude that is selfish, it doesn't honor God and hurts other people. That is what sin is. So they have in their minds that some sins are really bad, but other sins are sort of socially acceptable, because everybody is doing it.

Now we at Central Presbyterian Church are not likely to join the people at Westborough Baptist Church with really hateful signs in demonstrations, at least I hope not. It's far too extreme and ugly, but our sins and the sins of most churches are far more subtle than that. They are middle class sins. They are socially acceptable sins. And I would like to talk about some of them.

For the American church one of the socially acceptable sins is greed. We just don't like to talk about the responsibility that comes with wealth. We don't confront American extravagance at all. The fact that Americans use most of the earths' resources for a very small percentage of the population and we do so wastefully is something that is very hard to get the church to talk about on a deep level. And can you imagine no matter how extravagant something is that someone buys, can you imagine walking up to them and saying "Hey, that was wrong." Can you imagine walking up to somebody at church and saying "That was wrong." It's almost obscene to talk about money with people. It's very private. The socially acceptable sin; number one is greed.

Another one; apathy. Finally churches all over the world are starting to respond to the issues of AIDS, but it has taken us 25 years. For 25 years the church has been ignoring this pressing world problem where millions of people are dying. It was too dirty. It was too complicated. It was involved with ugly sins that we look down on and so we ignore it. We still ignore the fact that over a third of the world lives on only a few hundred dollars a year. We don't even think about it, much less do anything differently because of it. Apathy.

Another one; racism. There is a church in Liberty, Mississippi and it was built before the Civil War. It's a tiny little church. It's a Presbyterian Church. There is a staircase that goes to the balcony on the outside of the building and that was so that slaves could enter the building, go on to the balcony, be part of the service, but never mix with the white people. Now, we don't do that in our churches now, but even today people are made to feel excluded. People are made to feel like they are less important or they are unwelcome because they are of a different cultural group or a different race. It still happens. It happens all over the church. Racism.

How about classism? We are a certain socioeconomic group of Christians and we don't want to deal with the problems of a different group. We don't care what ethnicity. We don't want to deal with it. This happens. Twenty-five years ago in a church in South Louisiana I heard this story from the grandson of the woman who said these words. In a church there in a small town a bunch of blue-collar workers who were working in the area came to the Presbyterian Church in that area. The worship service went on normally, but on their way out this lady walked up to them and said, "You all don't really fit here. Let me suggest a nice Baptist Church down the street" because they were a different social and economic group. Again, I don't think we are apt to do things like that, but still the church no matter what socioeconomic group its part of struggles to accept the problems and issues and lifestyles of people who are different. We struggle with this class and economic distinction.

Another one; disdain. We look down at people who struggle with different sins than we do. Their faults are different. You see it all over the church. On one part of the church the biggest sin possible according to some Christian churches is intolerance. My goodness you're intolerant. Their curse word is fundamentalism. It can't get worse than that. They are willing to put that label on people in a second. On the other side of the church the curse word is liberalism. Boy if we use that word for them, terrible. And they are tolerant of everything. Your mind and soul wide open that your brain is falling out. And then all other parts of the church is it sexuality. That's the real ugly stuff. And so we look down our nose at people who are struggling with different faults; things that we don't consider acceptable.

It's not the whole list. There is pride, there is gossip, there is growing dissension, laziness, prayerlessness, faithlessness and all of these things are sins that are not scandalous so we handle them differently. It's easy to give forgiveness for these things, because most people don't even notice. It is shared by most of us, so no one is going to talk about it.

James hits this kind of thinking head on. Verses 9 to 11:

"But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker."

We like to think about sin in terms of different categories. We've got this idea that sin and righteousness and holding on to righteousness is sort of like a rope and so if we do something like minor; like gossip, its like fraying it a little bit and one or two of the fibers break off, but you still have a good solid rope there. You know, "I am not stealing. I am not murdering people." But that is not the picture that James gives. James gives a picture more like we are relying on a chain and if any link of that chain breaks we fall. Whoever breaks part of the law breaks all of the law. So he is not giving us any wiggle room for socially acceptable sin. All sin pollutes. All sin is an affront to God's purity no matter how cool we might be with it. When it comes to giving false pictures about God and about life, about human value, the church can be part of the problem. The church can be embarrassing, but folks this two-face church, this embarrassing church, this church that's part of the problem is not out there. It's us, because you are the church. We are the church. It's not the building. It's not somebody else. It's us.

So that means that there are times that we are the scandal. We are the problem. There are times that other people are apologizing for us. Verses 12 and 13 James tells us to be careful. He puts it this way:

"Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!"

James is telling us that even with these middle class acceptable sins, we need to be careful and not only do we need to be careful as people who know that we are being measured against a perfect law, we need to be people who are liberal with mercy, because we don't want to be in the position where we are being judged by the law without mercy. The whole reason for the existence of the church is that we are a people who know we need mercy and we have found it in Jesus Christ and so then we are called to be people who share that mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. That we believe as a Christian church. So that affects they way we share about Jesus Christ. It affects the way we present ourselves as a church to the world, because we are never going to be a perfect witness. There is not going to be any perfect Christians coming from Central Presbyterian Church. We all need grace, forgiveness and mercy. So at very least as we share with other people, we have to be honest and we have got to be humble about who we really are.

I want to recommend a book to you. It's written by a guy name Donald Miller. It's called, "Blue Like Jazz" and it's his musings about Christianity. And in it there is an interesting story about a campus group at a college campus, a Christian group, who decide that they want to do a special outreach during a big party that they have that envelopes the whole campus, the quad and all the areas around it, this big party with all kinds of drink and drug being shared and they decided that in the middle of that they wanted to do a Christian witness. And so, as a joke one member suggests, "Well why don't we have a confessional and dress up like monks?" People had a lot to confess after this party. So the group decided to have a confessional, but with one difference. They were going to confess to anyone who comes about the shortcomings of the church and their own shortcomings as people.

Don was one of the first, was the first to sit in that booth at that party. He is hearing this party, all the music going on outside and he is becoming more and more convinced this is not God's idea; this is a really bad idea; he is getting ready to stand up and walk out and tell the rest of the group go on without him when the first guy comes in and his name is Jake. Jake sits down and says, "Okay then, what's the game?"

It's not really a game. It's more of a confession thing.

"You want me to confess my sins, right?"

"No, that's not what we are doing really."

"What's the deal man? What's with the monk outfit?"

"Well we are, we are a group of Christians here on campus you know."

"I see, a strange place for Christians, but I am listening."

"So there is this group of us on campus who want to confess to you."

"You are confessing to me" Jake said with a laugh. "You are serious." His laugh turned in to something more of a straight face. "What are you confessing" he asked.

I shook my head and looked at the ground, "everything" I told him.

"Explain"

There is a lot and I will keep it short. Jesus said to feed the poor and heal the sick. I have never done very much about that. Jesus said to love those who persecute me. I tend to lash out especially if I feel threatened. Jesus didn't mix his spirituality with politics, but I grew up doing that. I got in the way of the central message of Christ. I know a lot of people who won't listen to the words of Christ, because people like me who know him carry our own agendas into the conversation, rather than relaying just the message. There is a lot more you know."

"It's alright man" Jake said very tenderly. His eyes were starting to water.

"Well," I said, clearing my throat "I am sorry for all of that."

"I forgive you" Jake said and he meant it. He sat there and looked at the floor and then into the fire of a candle. "It's really cool what you guys are doing. A lot of people need to hear this. You really believe in Jesus, don't you? You said earlier that there was a central message of Christ. I don't really want to become a Christian, but what is that message?'"

And at this point Donald Miller got a chance to share with him about sin, about the love of God and about the cross. And after he had gotten a chance to share that Don asked him a question back. "What do you believe about God?"

"I don't know. I guess I didn't believe for a long time. The science of it is so sketchy. I guess I believe in God though. I believe somebody is responsible for all of this, this world we live in. It's all very confusing."

"Jake, if you want to know God, you can. I am just saying that if you ever want to call on Jesus, he will be there."

"Thanks man. I believe that you mean that." His eyes were watering again. "This is cool what you guys are doing. I am going to tell my friends about it."

Whatever we do in our witness, it's got to be authentic. There can't be any masks of superiority. The high standards that James is calling us to is not to push us in to some kind hypocrisy where we act like we are living like this in every way and somehow look down our noses at other people who don't seem to make the grade. We don't have it all together. Our humility, our brokenness is part of our witness. Broken people rejoicing at the fact that mercy triumphs over justice. There is grace in the world in Jesus Christ. That despite our weakness grace holds us close to God. That's the good news and then we've got to extend that grace and mercy to other people, to broken people just like us. We are forgiven people forgiving freely; people who need mercy giving mercy.

No one here escapes the words of James. No one in any church does. You are the church. We are the church and our lives are either true or false pictures about God. To a world that needs a true picture, we are either giving a true picture or a false picture. Who we are, how we act affects how the whole world sees Jesus Christ. We can't escape that. So when they look at us, what do they see? They don't need to see the perfection of Jesus, because there is no hope of that. But they do need to see the truth. They need to see a people who are broken and still have hope, because they know that in their frailty they are still acceptable to God because of Jesus Christ. And to see a people that have not only experienced that mercy, but freely extend that mercy to others. Mercy triumphs over justice.

Let's pray. God you know who we are and so we ask now just for mercy and then we ask for the grace we need to be authentic people, as we share our faith with others, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

© 2007, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org