Notes from Pastor Wells

          George Barna, religious pollster, has done some research on moral behavior among born-again Christians, and discovered little or no differences between those who claimed to be Christians from those who did not!  Christians seem to have just as many divorces as the general public, just as much cheating on their taxes, just as much nastiness!  But his analysis suggested that this was a surprise to him!  I believe that it supports a total misunderstanding of the nature of the church!  When St. Paul says that as the church and as Christians, “we are in the world, but of the world,” he is not suggesting a higher morality or spirituality for Christians.  Instead, he means simply that we have the power of a grace-filled life because of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit.  This grace experience is not something we achieve on our own.  It is rather, something that God gives to us in love, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

           If you are questioning or wondering about this idea, look for a moment at how Jesus entered into this world of ours.   If there were ever a statement of grace, it comes in the birth of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t come into our world as a powerful king.  He didn’t come as an authority figure or some kind of spiritual or moral giant.  He came as a helpless infant . . . a baby boy . . . totally dependent on his earthly parents to care for him.  And what did Jesus find in this world he came to save?  He found hatred, anger, murder, hypocrisy.  He found inhumanity and cruelty.  He found power-hunger and barbarism.  But he also found simplicity and joy.  And He found goodness and kindness.  He found love and grace.  He found comfort and care.   He found all of these things because that’s the world in which we live.

            The church is simply a microcosm of the world.  It’s not any better and it’s not any worse.  It is just as inconsistent and just as hypocritical.  The difference between the church and the world is that hopefully, those in the church know they need help.  That’s why we’re here in this place tonight to worship the newborn Savior!  The people on the outside of the church continue to criticize the church, because they haven’t fessed up to their own hypocrisy and their own inconsistencies.  They haven’t admitted their own sinfulness and addictions.  They haven’t honestly faced their humanness and naively believe in things like peace and love as values and believe that they can be somehow be achieved by human effort.  And they think these virtues somehow apply to other people, rather than themselves.  The bottom line is that most of these critics have never experienced grace!

             On this Christmas Eve, I would like to suggest that if you are one of those who has complaints or criticisms about the institutional church, you stop for a moment and remember exactly who and what the church is.  And I’d like to challenge you to get involved in your church.  Don’t just be a “once-in-a-while worship attender!”  Don’t just stand on the sidelines and criticize something that you’re not involved in.  Because the more you become involved in the church, the more you will see it as it is — in all its humanness . . . in all of its inconsistencies . . . in all of its wrangling and struggles.  As one person said so insightfully, if you are looking for the perfect church, be careful if you find it, because they probably won’t let you in!

            Christmas is certainly a time when people show up for peace and love and Silent Night and then go about the rest of their year just like they’ve always done.  But tonight, I’d like to suggest that Christmas is a time for a reality check!  And I want to issue a challenge to you tonight!  I want to issue that challenge to regular church-goers and those who show up once or twice a year . . . to people who think they know all there is to know about God and Jesus and those who are still learning . . . to atheists and believers.  And my challenge is simple!

            When you feel that you want to criticize the church and what you call “organized religion!”  Stop, for a moment!  Instead, remember who and what the church is.  The church is the body of Christ, the people of God, the communion of saints!   The institutional church is no better and no worse than the world in which we live!  The one difference that people in church do recognize is our need for Jesus.  We admit that we need some help!  We know we need a savior.  And we are honest about it! And on this Christmas Eve we can say with the certainty of faith . . . that a Savior has arrived!  Jesus is the one to put the pieces back together.  And Jesus has given us the church as a community of messed up people who understand how much we need a savior.  That’s it!  That’s all it has ever been!  That’s all it will ever be! 

            Don’t make your faith or your membership or your relationship with God as some kind of spiritual achievement in your life.  Just accept it as God’s gift to you . . . in the form of a baby born in a manger . . . in the form of grace and truth . . . in the form of love.               

     -   excerpt from Christmas Eve Sermon preached by Pastor Knight Wells . . . “What do I want for Christmas?”    

During the Lenten season, we are encouraging our small groups to spend some significant time reading, reflecting and discussing Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved.  Here is a brief excerpt from that wonderful book:

“I would like to tell you a little story about our community. There is one of my friends there who is quite handicapped but a wonderful, wonderful lady. She said to me, “Henri, can you bless me?” I remember walking up to her and giving her a little cross on her forehead. She said, “Henri, it doesn’t work. No, that is not what I mean.” I was embarrassed and said, “I gave you a blessing.” She said, “No, I want to be blessed.” I kept thinking, “What does she mean?”

We had a little service and all these people were sitting there. After the service I said, “Janet wants a blessing.” I had an alb on and a long robe with long sleeves. Janet walked up to me and said, “I want to be blessed.” She put her head against my chest and I spontaneously put my arms around her, held her, and looked right into her eyes and said, “Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are.”

She looked at me and said, “Yes, yes, yes, I know. I suddenly saw all sorts of energy coming back to her. She seemed to be relieved from the feeling of depression because suddenly she realized again that she was blessed. She went back to her place and immediately other people said, “I want that kind of blessing, too.”

The people kept walking up to me and I suddenly found myself embracing people. I remember that after that, one of the people in our community who assists the handicapped, a strong guy, a football player, said, “Henri, can I have a blessing, too?” I remember our standing there in front of each other and I said, “John,” and I put my hand on his shoulder, “you are blessed. You are a good person. God loves you. We love you. You are important.” Can you claim that and live as the blessed one?

I think it is very important that when we are in touch with our blessedness that we can then bless other people. People need our blessing; people need to know that their father, mother, brothers and sisters bless them.Then we are broken. We are broken people. You and I know that we are broken. A lot of our brokenness has to do with relationships. If you ask me what it is that makes us suffer, it is always because someone couldn’t hold onto us or someone hurt us. I know each of us can point to a brokenness in our relationships with our husband, with our wife, with our father, our mother, with our children, with our friends, with our lovers. Wherever there is love, there is also pain. Wherever there are people who really care for us, there is also the pain of sometimes not being cared for enough. That is enormous.

What do we do with our brokenness? As the beloved of God we have to dare to embrace it, to befriend our own brokenness, not to say, “That should not be in my life. Let’s just get away from it. Let’s get back on track.”

No. We should dare to embrace our brokenness, to befriend it and to really look at it. “Yes, I am hurting. Yes, I am wounded. Yes, it’s painful.”

I don’t have to be afraid. I can look at my pain because in a very mysterious way our wounds are often a window on the reality of our lives. If we dare to embrace them, then we can put them under the blessing. That is the great challenge.

Quite often we want to solve people’s problems and tell them to do this or to do that, that we will help them out and let’s get over it. The main task we have is to put our brokenness and the brokenness of the people with whom we live under the blessing. If you live your brokenness under the curse, even a little brokenness can destroy your life. It is like an affirmation that you are no good and suddenly you say, “You see what has happened? I lost my job. This friend didn’t speak to me. He rejected me.” We can hold on to it and see it proven that we are no good. We always thought so.

The great call is to put our brokenness under the blessing, to live it as people of whom good things are being said.”

May the gift of the Lenten season allow you the time you need to reflect, to pray and to consider such things . . .