Why Are We Here?

 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.

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[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.”