Joy, Growth, and Encouragement

Why are people church members? Why not just show up at worship every few months? For that matter, why not just watch TV preachers? This sermon suggests an answer; and it's a result of the Easter miracle! I hope that it gets you thinking...

Well, Easter is over for another year. The bunny and chick decorations have been put away until next spring; the chocolate bunnies were eaten long ago; and the only reminders of Easter are the gaily-decorated hard-boiled eggs and the remnants of the ham that are still lurking in the refrigerator. Everything is pretty much back to the way it was before Holy Week. To the outside observer, it looks like Easter didn’t change much of anything. But we Christians know that Easter has changed everything! Because Christ is risen, nothing is the same as it was before. The whole world is different; and we are different, too! We have new thoughts and new hopes. We have new dreams and new expectations. We even have new ways of doing things! And that’s what I’m going to preach about during the next six weeks until Pentecost: how Easter changes things. It’s always good to be reminded of what a resurrected life looks like; because we tend to drift away from it as we live our day-to-day lives. Maybe my sermons will help to be guideposts as we move ahead into the future, both as individuals and as a congregation.

Now, before I go any further: I know that I promised you a whole year of sermons on the Gospel of Mark; and I haven’t forgotten that. The trouble is that Mark doesn’t say much about life after the resurrection. Mark’s agenda is to show Jesus as a healer and a teacher, and to reinterpret what it means for him to be our Messiah. So we’re going to put Mark on hold until June; and between now and then, we’re going to turn to the first letter of John. It’s a very small letter, buried in the New Testament after the book of Hebrews. There are actually three letters from John; and they rub elbows with the equally small letters of James, Jude, and the three letters of Peter. All eight of them put together are shorter than the book of Revelation (which gets most of the press when we talk about the New Testament). But John has some important things to say to us! He was writing to a Christian congregation to remind them how they should behave because of what they believe. That’s not a bad reminder for us, either. One criticism of the church that I hear all the time is that Christians don’t walk the walk the way that they talk the talk! John is trying to get his beloved congregation to walk the walk, too. So I invite you to listen to what he has to say to us.

The very first thing that he says is that fellowship is important. Community is one of the things that Christians do. It always has been; and I’m sure that it always will be. John claims that we proclaim the risen Christ so that we can join together in fellowship. Why, God himself models fellowship! God isn’t a solitary old man who sits on a cloud all by himself and thinks deep thoughts! No, God reaches out to have a relationship with the creation that he made. That means that God wants to have a relationship with us! And since we’re made in the image of God, we should have a relationship with one another, too. Now, it’s important to have a good relationship with everyone that we meet, as far as that’s possible. After all, that’s what Jesus did. But it’s especially important to have a lasting relationship with other Christians. We often call that fellowship a community of faith. We need to rub elbows with other Christians on a regular basis. After all, we want to spend time with other people whose goals and values are the same as ours. If we play baseball, for example, we want to spend time with our teammates. That’s because we all have a goal of winning; and we share the value of teamwork as well as individual achievement. In the very same way, it’s important that we Christians share fellowship with other Christians. After all, our values aren’t the same as those of the society around us. In our dog-eat-dog, win at all costs culture, nobody says that sacrificial service is a worthy goal. But sacrificial service is one of the foundational values that we Christians build our lives on!

So, what do we get through Christian fellowship that we don’t get from fellowship of other kinds? Why not just hang out with the fellows at the feed store and the other soccer moms? For one thing, we share a joy that non-Christians don’t know anything about – the joy of the resurrection. I have several friends who classify themselves as atheists. I can’t share the joy of the resurrection with any of them. I can joke with them, talk politics with them, and even argue biblical interpretation with them (and I often do); but I can’t share resurrection joy with them, because they don’t believe it happened. I don’t know about you, but I got goose bumps on Easter morning when our congregation shouted “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” The very basis of our lives is the certainty that Jesus is risen. When John says that Christians join in fellowship “to make our joy complete,” he means exactly that.

There’s something else that we gain from Christian fellowship: growth. Just as we grow in our ability to do math or in the skills that we need to do our jobs, our Christian faith should grow, too. If faith in middle age is still exactly what it was when we were 10 years old, there’s something wrong. Remember that Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways.” (I Corinthians 13:11) He was talking about growing in his faith; and he expected his congregations to do the very same thing. Paul wrote to members of that same church that when he visited them at first, they were just “infants in Christ.” “I gave you milk, not solid food,” he said, “for you were not yet ready for it.” (I Corinthians 3:1-2) Believing that “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” is a wonderful basis for faith! But if that is the only understanding of the faith that we have, maybe it’s time to move ahead a little bit! Now, you may be thinking that we can grow in our faith outside of our Christian communities. And we can, of course. Books, movies, and TV shows can help us grow in our faith. And sometimes, especially when we are challenged about our faith beliefs, we are forced to think hard about what we believe and why we believe it. But our faith communities can play an even bigger part in our Christian growth. If we take part in discussion groups, Bible study, and worship, we can deepen our faith and become more mature Christians. A community of faith can help us move past a baby milk faith to the solid meat faith of a mature Christian.

Finally, our Christian communities offer us a kind of encouragement that we can’t find anywhere else. When we experience a personal tragedy such as the death of a loved one, who rallies around us with support, comfort, and love? Our faith community! When we are overwhelmed at work and discouraged with life in general, who offers a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on? Our faith community! When we need advice to help us move ahead, who can help us by offering experiences that we may not have had? Our faith community! Ministering to each other, after all, is what we are called to do! I belong to a group of UCC clergywomen on Facebook. The members come from all over the country. Some of us are pastors and some are chaplains. Some of us live in the city and some of us live in the country. Some of us serve large churches, and some of us serve smaller congregations. But all of us have problems that are unique to clergywomen in general. We frequently share our frustrations that come with the job. And when one of us is experiencing a difficult situation, posts offering her support and encouragement appear immediately. After all, a sorrow shared is a sorrow lessened. And in this day and age, people don’t even have to be face-to-face to minister to one another. Virtual communities can be very effective ways to connect with other Christians! Just ask anyone under the age of 30!

Joy, growth, and encouragement. That’s what Christian fellowship offers those who take advantage of it. I often wonder how in the world a solitary Christian survives in the middle of a culture that is so un-Christian. I know that I, for one, rely on my faith community to help me celebrate, to walk the straight and narrow, and to get over the obstacles that pop up in my life on a relatively regular basis! They’re here for me; I’m here for them; and we’re all here for each other. What a wonderful benefit of the resurrected life that Jesus Christ offers to all of us!