Sermon Preached By: Dr. Larry Corbett, Pinnacle’s former senior pastor
Date: Aug. 12, 2007
Scripture: Luke 12: 32-40
Sermon Title:

“It’s Not About You”

Two little snapshots to begin this sermon:

In a London school a teenager with no church connections hears the Christmas story for the first time. His teacher tells it well and he is fascinated by this amazing story. When she concludes the story, risking his friends’ mockery, he raises his hand, and thanks her for the story. One thing had disturbed him however, so he asks: “Why did they give the baby a swear–word for his name?”

One Sunday in Oxford a man visits a church building to collect something for his partner who works during the week in a creative arts project at the church. He arrives as the morning congregation is leaving and recognizes the minister, whom he knows. Surprised, he asks: “What are all these people doing here? I didn’t know churches were open on Sundays!” (Stuart Murray Williams tells these vignettes in an essay entitled, The End of Christendom.)

The stories depict a culture in which central figures of the Christian story are unknown, and churches are alien institutions whose rhythms of life don’t impinge on most members of society. In his new book The Secret Servant, Daniel Silva observes about an old stone church in stately Amsterdam, “It’s a church without faithful in a city without God.” It could be said of many cities in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe.

The end of Christendom is supported by recent statistics:

In Great Britain only 4 percent of the children are involved in church;

If the current rate of decline isn’t arrested, the Methodist Church will have zero membership by 2037 (30 years!)

If the Kirk of Scotland continues to shrink at the present rate, it won’t last as long as the Methodists – it’ll die in 2033 (26 years from now!)

And it’s not much different for the PCUSA. I was ordained in 1968, 39 years ago, and our denomination has lost members every year since then. And, some have mistakenly laid the blame on Angela Davis in the mid ‘60’s.

Although we should treat these projections with caution it’s not likely we’ll see the complete demise of the mainline denominations. But neither can we turn our backs on it.

In this community I have observed eighth grade children who don’t know the Lord’s Prayer or the 23rd Psalm or I Corinthians 13. One of the great ministries of Pinnacle’s Church School and our graded choir program is that the children are learning such basics of the faith.

Today, at the adult level in our land, many are basically Biblically illiterate – I like to say they don’t know the difference between a Philistine and a Pharisee. And, meanwhile, we’re exposed daily to religions about which we are mostly ignorant:

• Islam – We know about radical jihadists, but not the Muslim community down the street.

• Buddhism – Some of us have seen our college age children get interested in Buddhism and go off to a Buddhist monastery to seek a new identity but that sums up our experience with it.

And, the only things many of us know about Judaism are the high holy days when our children complain about their classmates being excused from school, and they aren’t.

Meanwhile, for many our exposure to Christianity is dominated by the religious right and daily political judgments on television. As one scholar has observed “it is not merely a story of church decline, but the end of Christianity as a means by which men and women, as individuals, construct their identities and their sense of self” (Callum Brown in The Death of Christian Britain). Who among us think of ourselves as Christians when we look in the mirror?

While much of the culture has stopped going to church, and going to Sunday School and not baptizing their children, this congregation has experienced the exact opposite in the last two decades. Two years ago we had over 70 baptisms in one year! So, you see, in one sense, the end of Christendom is not about you, and yet… it is about you.

In the last eighteen years this congregation has welcomed over 1750 persons into active church membership with 400 of them in that same time frame, leaving do to natural attrition – death, job transfers, divorce, or found a new church. (No, I didn’t run off all these folks!)

While much of Christendom around us has declined and died, you have been part of a lively, energized, committed congregation. It has been about you, and will be about you for these reasons:

Pinnacle Presbyterian Church is a safe place to seek answers to your questions of the scriptures, spirituality, theology, and moral/ethical issues. Here, we have sought to create a milieu of acceptance and openness without judging, rejecting, or discounting you as you’ve sought to grow in faith and discipleship.

It is about discovering and rediscovering the meaning of spirituality. Whether through participation in Lectio Divina, or experiencing the labyrinth; or participating in unique services of healing and wholeness…each of these expressions of faith have lifted up the mystery and the awe of God. It’s about the reverence of God… providing opportunities for silence, prayer, and personal reflection in the context of worship.

How important that is! In a class I co–taught this past year on Talking with your children about God I recall a mother saying to the other parents that she had discovered with the help of one of our clergy staff that it wasn’t the answer that you needed to have for your child’s question, but to preserve a sense of awe that a child has for the mystery of God.

It’s about the deep value of forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, and restoration in families, small groups, and neighborhood organizations. Such tenets of the faith are essential in a world increasingly violent, estranged, and full of fear and hostility.

It’s about worship – a recognition that something deeper is needed in our life in which spiritual roots can be nurtured and grow so that we can are anchored in faith in the face of relentless stress in a global community.

It’s about building a sense of community and breaking down the loneliness, isolation, and polarization of life in north Scottsdale as we worship together.

It’s about accepting the demise of culturally supported Christendom and affirming the liberating decision to be a Christian. We don’t have to apologize for our faith, yet in a pluralistic culture we must find creative ways to invite others to join us while being careful not to be intolerant or feel superior to others. (I cannot think of a single instance of intolerance and superiority of Jesus in the gospels.)

It’s about not only having a clear statement of purpose but having a real sense of purpose in our personal and congregational life. As Jesus reached out to those on the margins of life so we must use our most creative energy, imagination, intelligence, and love to go to those in the margins of life today. As one author has suggested, we need to be “friendlier than Disneyland, and a community of people in whose lives the gospel is palpable, visible, and real.” (Evangelism After Christendom by Bryan Stone)

So what makes us real? Love – the love of God and one another. Do you remember that beautiful childhood story, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams?

The little velveteen rabbit, a Christmas gift stuffed into a child’s stocking lived in a toy cupboard where no one thought much about him. And, among all the toys the Velveteen Rabbit felt quite inferior to the mechanical toys, and the models, and erector sets. The only person kind to the Velveteen Rabbit was the Skin Horse, who had lived longer than anyone else in the nursery. The Skin Horse was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out….

The Rabbit asked him one day, “What is real?” “Does it mean having things that buzz inside of you and a stick–out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the skin horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.

“Does it hurt?” asked the rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the horse, “but when you’re real you don’t mind being hurt.

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, or “bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse, “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand… and once you are real, you can’t be unreal again. It lasts always.”

In an age of declining Christendom, it’s been real, here folks. Thank you, and bless you, and may God always be real to you in your journeys of faith. It is about God’s transforming love… and you. Amen.