Why Church?

Luke 23:13-35

 

Why church? Why go to church? Why are you here this morning and every other morning? What gets you out of bed and instead of having a lazy breakfast, a potter in the garden or a trip to the footy, why do you come to church?

 

What is it about this place that is important to you?  Some of you have been coming here to this particular church for several decades, most of you have been going to church since you were a small child, why? What is it about church that matters?

 

We live in a world where truth is questioned, metanarratives like the Christian faith story are not trusted or believed; instead it seems to be a mechanical world in which only scientific or productive narratives hold sway. Every action, thought or idea must have a practical and financial outcome. We are looking for product, return on investment and ownership. We need progress; the key indicator for a successful society is one that is growing by an agreeable percentage point each year. Our businesses must be more successful and earn more, we must produce at the cheapest level possible and sell at the highest level possible. We ignore local communities and exploit foreign workforces to do so. Local, small and connected to a narrative that gives life to community simply has no place in the modern economic kingdoms of large corporations and the governments they control.

 

Even the church, the institutional church, is on about growth, numbers, systems, programs, key performance indicators and outcomes. No longer are we allowed the time to simply cogitate on life and bring forth wisdom to feed and nurture our local communities.

 

The success of indigenous communities over the ages, where ever they have been found, has been their connection to place, people and time. They know the place they live in deeply, they understand their interdependence upon each other and they also know that the greatest asset they have is time. 50,000 years is what it took for indigenous communities to learn to live in harmony with place and people. It has taken the mechanistic world a little over 200 years to have a serious impact upon it.

 

Why church? Why the seemingly use-less-ness of church? Why is it important? And why should it have our full attention and support?

 

On the road to Emmaus two men are deeply engrossed in the politics of the day. They were personally involved in this story and it has apparently collapsed without producing the outcome they sought – revolution and a new world. They are despondent and closed in on themselves, having lost the narrative giving meaning to their existence. They are joined by another whom they hardly acknowledge, just as we would as we bump into people on the train, the tram on in the corridors of Chadstone shopping centre – aware that they are there but not taking notice of particulars.

 

Their eyes are closed. Their concern for their own worries prevent them from seeing who is right their in front of them. It is so easy to walk around with eyes closed. Even when we come to church, we can come with eyes closed. We bring with us all the concerns of our daily grind and go through the motions. We are comforted by the presence of familiar faces, familiar music and the familiar liturgy, but are our eyes open? Do we see who is standing next to us and who we owe our very existence to? Do we understand that this not about our concerns and our issues, but about the amazing hesed – unfailing companionship and compassion – of the Christ and that we owe everything to the Godhead who keeps and empowers us – even in the midst of our ordinary lives?

 

In this story, Jesus becomes the interpreter of the political events, of the events of society and explains what has been playing out in the world around them. And their eyes are still closed. Knowledge and information do not open closed eyes. Recent scientific evidence suggests that people are so impacted by preconceived ideas and prejudices that facts do not change their minds. Here is a case in point. Despite hearing everything about what had happened from the one who was there in a way no one else could, their eyes remain closed.

 

This is often the case for us, we are so committed to our opinions on, our knowledge about God and faith,  and our expectations about life and church that we fail to see what is happening and what is needed; we fail to see why we actually come to church. These men almost get this.  They are moved, challenged, enlightened by what Jesus says, but their eyes remain closed. The intellectual and evidential truth of Jesus’ words fail to move them out of their own self-interest – out of their concern for themselves.

 

Jesus stays with them for dinner and something happens, we are not sure exactly what it is but in the breaking of the bread a light goes on in the head and their eyes are open. In this moment of deep personal encounter with the symbolism of faith they see, as for the very first time, who is at the centre of their lives. Not just their faith but their lives. 

Here is a deep recognition of the centrality of the Christ to our identity, existence and being. Their world is refocussed and instead of going on with their ordinary lives centred solely on themselves, they return to Jerusalem, driven by the realisation that their life is no longer their own. 

Even though their hearts burned with in them on the road, nothing changed for them. We can be made warm and fuzzy by our attendance at church without being revolutionised by the Christ. It is the deep sacramental realisation that there is no thing else but the church and that our lives are to be completely oriented toward the church, the body of Christ, and its advancement counter-culturally into the world.

 

They get up immediately, abandon whatever their plans were and go back to Jerusalem and take up the mission of the church. There is no hesitation, no second guessing, no concern for their needs or desires; they return empty handed but open eyed into the church.

 

Why church?

 

·      Because there is no other response to the love of God and the indwelling presence of the Christ;

• Because there is no other response to the faithfulness of God to us;
• Because there is no other response to the beauty and mystery of creation;
• Because there is nothing more important than the maintenance and advancement of Christ’s body in the community in which we live.

 Why church?

• This is why we give of ourselves sacrificially in service and financial support. 
• This is why we give to the church before we give to ourselves.
• This is why we give up our comfortable beds to be here, because there is no other choice for us.

Why church? 

Because all the other experiences in the world do not open our eyes to the truth about the Christ we encounter like the moment we meet Jesus in the Church, his mystical body alive in the world. 

The Emmaus Road Story

Growing up poor in the bush I know about roads. Roads took you to relatives houses, grandma’s piping hot bread and her large feather bed. Roads took you to sport and social activities, often many miles from where you lived. Roads took you on holidays, connecting one caravan park to another, and another.

 

At the same time I knew about walking. Walking around rabbit traps early in the winter mornings, walking barefoot across the 2 1/2 thousand acres following a mob sheep, lost in your own thoughts. Walking toward town when the car was broken hoping someone would pick you up and save your feet. Driving mobs of sheep through the scrub to be shorn.

 

Roads and walking were apart of my early life and both helped form who I became.  Roads were the lifelines and walking the only way to get from one place to the next.  Both allowed you to ruminate on life, the big questions, to day dream and imagine being somewhere else doing something else. I still like to walk and our favourite pastime is going for a drive.

 

On the farm you could easily get lost in your thoughts and almost step on a frill necked lizard just as it reared up to open its frill and its mouth, frightening the life out of you. It was there all the time but you were lost in your own thoughts that you simply didn’t see the obvious.

 

And that’s the Emmaus Road story. Two blokes lost in their own thoughts and conversation. Walking. Talking. Lost in their own troubles and worries. Their world had collapsed with the death of Jesus and they were going home, or at least I think they were. Their heads were down. Their words were low and sad. They probably weren’t even looking at each other. Like characters in a Harold Pinter dialogue they simply spoke out of their own pain without even connecting with the words of the other. It was a monologue delivered by two people who were trying to make sense of what had just happened.

 

No wonder they didn’t see Jesus. It is not that Jesus was mystically hidden from them. They just didn’t look to see who it was. It was just another voice, another person walking with them. As this was not a conversation as such, there was no need to look. Anyway if they did they wouldn’t have seen the obvious because the manner and mode of their walking and talking let no room for Jesus to be alive, let alone to be there. With them.

 

We all know the experience of not seeing the obvious. Our keys are where we left them or our glasses are on our head! It’s obvious to everyone else but us. We have all had the experience of trying to help someone with a major problem, the answer is so obvious but they are so convinced otherwise that it doesn’t matter what we do, they simply can’t see it. You can’t see the sun rising if you are always look to the west.

 

Yet this is where Jesus meets them. On the road. Walking beside them. In the midst of their preoccupation with misery and failure, Jesus comes and begins to converse with them. They stop talking and begin to listen as he talks to them. We know that they were listening, because after Jesus leaves them, they are able to identify that moment on the road when the light began to rise in them. ‘ Did not our hearts…… Something began to happen amongst the dust and the stones, the sun and the breeze. Their minds began to clear and hear. That’s what walking does for you. That’s what the road does for you. As it stretches out ahead of you and you take one step after another, almost without thinking, the worries of the world slip away or at least begin to clarify.

 

Jesus doesn’t avoid the dust and ruts of the road that is our life. Jesus walks with us everyday, the still small voice that speaks to us in then ordinary activities, the day-to-day rituals of modern human existence. Here, the resurrected Christ continues to walk amongst his people just as he had done previously. He steps into the conversation of the retreating disciples and gets his feet dirty. 

 

There is a rhythm to the road. Walking is only one part of the journey. Hospitality is the other. Those of us who have undertaken long journeys on the road know that the time comes to avail yourself of the hospitality of others. A fellow traveller, an inn or hotel, or just a camping ground where you get to rub shoulders and conversation with others – fellow travellers of the road.

 

Sharing a meal with another is a privilege, be it either as the provider of the meal or the one partaking. We were in Ranau in Sabah Borneo. We had come to lay the first stones in a memorial for Australian soldiers who had died there at the end of the Second World War. The village was a very poor. Little work and even less income, yet they offered us a meal after the little ceremony. I prayed over the stones and we walked up to the community hall.

 

It was indeed a feast. The old trestles were creaking with the weight of food we not only could not identify but had no way of pronouncing. The students looked around unsure what to do. All I said was, ‘Eat, it is a privilege to share in their hospitality’. The students did just that, although with some trepidation I have to admit.

 

The walkers ask Jesus in to eat. We are not sure if it was their house or simply some kind of inn. Jesus accepts their generosity and hospitality and sits down to eat. My life is punctuated by great meals, not necessarily by great food. Great food sometimes accompany great meals, but not always. It’s the conversations, stories, transparency and honesty that make a great meal. In Paris I remember sitting in an Indian themed restaurant with a Bulgarian, 2 gypsies, an Italian, another Australian and a couple of Frenchmen enjoying one of the greatest meals of my life. Conversation was limited by the languages spoken and the table etiquette varied from those using cutlery to those eating with their fingers, but it was full of laughter and camaraderie.

 

Jesus sits down at the meal and returns the hospitality by blessing the food and revealing himself to the two travellers. Suddenly in the relaxed environment of the shared table they could see what they missed on the road. Their companion was indeed the risen Christ! It was so obvious. How could they have missed it?

 

They turned around and went back to Jerusalem.

 

Every day the risen Jesus is active in our world and our lives. He is present in our relationships, our encounters, our ordinary experiences. He walks the dusty road of modern life with us. Do we recognise his presence? Do we hear his voice? Or do we become so entrenched in our problems, our tragedies or our preoccupations that we simply do not see or hear him?

 

It is in these ordinary moments that Jesus is revealed and turns us around to continue our journey in his presence. Amen