Why Are We Here?
Psalm 107; 1 Thessalonians
2:12-13; Matthew 23:11-12[1]
Any parent has heard the question: “Why do we have
to go to church?” The answer depends on the age of your children. If they’re
very young, you might say, “That’s what we do.” If they’re a little older, you
might say, “We go to thank God for all he’s done for us.” If they’re teenagers,
you might say, “Because we follow Jesus, and we want to learn how to do
that better.” Those answers may or may not satisfy the question, especially for
teenagers. In this age of instant communications, portable digital
entertainment, and virtual reality, spending an hour sitting in a church
sanctuary on Sunday morning can seem like a pretty dull and boring way to spend
your time.
Even for adults, the question, “Why are we here?” has
gotten more complicated. In our world, we’re “consumers” of just about
everything. We “budget” our time by prioritizing activities, because there are
often just too many commitments to fit into one day. It should come as no
surprise that we do that when it comes to our commitments to church. And it’s
really not a new thing. Thirty years ago, Garry Trudeau addressed this issue in
his comic strip “Doonesbury.” In 1993 he featured an interview between Rev. Scot
Sloan, the chaplain of Walden College, and a couple who are “church shopping.”
Because he mentions that he believes that “we are all recovering sinners,” the
couple are turned off by the implied “negativity” and decide to “shop around
some more.” They’re looking for a place where they can “feel good about
themselves.”[2] The fact
that the church at Walden offers racquetball, which was the equivalent of
pickleball in the 90’s, doesn’t help! It turns out, if you take stock in what “Doonesbury”
has to say, we’ve been “church shopping” for a long time.
Truth be told, the decision to make a commitment to
participate in a church, as well as the choice of which church join, can have a
number of reasons behind it. For some of us, it’s a family tradition. It’s
something we learned as children growing up as our parents brought us to church
every week. For some of us, it’s a choice we’ve made for our families. We want
to raise our children in a community of faith. For some of us, it’s a matter of
our personal experience of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. Because God’s
love has changed our lives, we’ve committed ourselves to following Jesus and
serving others. For many of us, the decision to participate in this church is
based on a combination of these factors. At the end of the day, it’s about
choosing that what we believe is truly important, and working together with a
group of people who share that belief is also important.
I believe our Scripture lessons for today address this
question. In the reading from Psalm 107, the Scripture reminds us how God has
consistently demonstrated that he is “good” and “his faithful love endures
forever (Ps. 107:1). The whole Psalm is a celebration of the fact that God
loves us with a love that will never let us go. More than that, it reminds us
that God’s love for us is such that he seeks us out when we’ve gone astray. If
you were to look over the whole Psalm, you would find that there are several
“stanzas” about how God seeks out those who are in distress. Whether they are
lost in desert wastes, confined in prisons of darkness and gloom, or at their
wits’ end due to the dangers they encountered, in each and every circumstance,
the Psalmist says “‘LORD, help!’ they cried in their trouble, and he rescued
them from their distress” (Ps. 107:6, 13, 19, 28). Our Psalm for today
demonstrates that there is no situation in which we may find ourselves that
God’s love cannot reach us and restore us! That’s one of the main reasons why
we’re here. We come because God’s love has claimed us and changed us, and we
not only want to thank him for that love, but also to share that love with
others.
Our reading from 1 Thessalonians addresses another
motivation for being here. In the reading, St. Paul recounts his visit to the
church at Thessalonica. He had come to them from Philippi, where he was beaten
and imprisoned. He reminds them that his ministry among them was one of
declaring the Good News about Jesus Christ to them. It was not about trying to
trick them into giving him money, which was something that traveling teachers
did in that day. Rather, he says that his whole purpose was to encourage them
to live in a way that was consistent with the kingdom of God to which Jesus
points us all. Paul expressed his joy that they welcomed his message as “the
very word of God,” and that the “word” continued to change their lives (1 Thess
2:12-13). I think that’s another reason why we’re here. We’re here because we’ve
found in the Bible the “words of life” that support our faith, hope, and love.
In a time when there are so many other messages competing for our attention, we
come here because we want to continue to base our lives on what we learn from
the Bible.
I think our Gospel lesson also addresses the question why
we’re here. It’s not the easiest Scripture reading to hear. Jesus says some
pretty hard things about the Jewish religious leaders. Essentially, in
Matthew’s Gospel, the purpose for that was to remind the Christians of his day
that they were not called to live their lives for the sake of getting
attention, or feeling powerful, or any “reward” they might get. Rather, their
lives were to be grounded firmly on the conviction that we all stand before one
God, who created us all, and who is a loving Father to us all. And their lives
were to be grounded on the conviction that we all follow one teacher, Jesus
Christ our Savior and Lord. Because those convictions are the foundation for
our lives, we are all called to relate to one another as “servants.” In a time
when it seems like so much depends on how much money you have, or how much
power you can wield, or how “important” a person you are, I think there’s a lot
to be said about staying connected to a group of people who seek to serve
others.
There are a lot of reasons why people decide to participate
in a church. I hope you noticed what I haven’t said: I haven’t said (and never
will say) that you “have” to come to church if you want to go to heaven when
you die. Our eternal destiny was settled two thousand years ago on a hill
outside Jerusalem, when Jesus died to break the cycle of guilt and fear that
still colors some people’s notions about God. We’re here because God’s love has
claimed us and changed us. We’re here because we’ve found the message of the
Bible to be inspiring and life changing as well. We’re here because we’ve
decided to follow Jesus in a path of service. But “being here” is not just
about what we do on Sunday morning. It’s about committing all we know ourselves
to be to all we know Jesus Christ to be. And as we grow in our understanding of
who we are and who Jesus is, we’re called to commit all of life to this way of
life. And we gladly respond, because it is here that we find the love that
makes sense of our lives. We give of our time, our energy, and our resources
because we believe in the importance of forgiveness, of sharing with others in
love, and of sustaining hope in God’s light that always shines in the darkness.[3] These are some of the most important reasons why I’m here. And I hope that all
of us share these convictions about why we’re here.
[1] ©2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 11/5/2023 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Garry Trudeau, “Doonesbury,” June 27, 1993. Accessed on 11/2/2023 at https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1993/06/27 .
[3] See Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 117: “People who have
come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to
live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted
more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot
of darkness. They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and
remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God. They
discover that there are people who heal each other’s wounds, forgive each other’s
offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate
the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full
manifestation of God’s glory.”
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