Based upon 1 Corinthians 12:4-16, September 29, 2024

Rev. Mark Seifried @ Haydenville Congregational Church, UCC

For more than a few years, I have been reading about the decline of the mainline church. The mainline church has historically included our congregation. Back in 2008, church historian Phyllis Tickle pointed out that every five hundred years or so the church experiences convulsions as a reaction to dramatic changes in society. She says during those times of change, the church has a giant rummage sale and gets rid of stuff that is no longer useful – things like wrong-headed belief systems, outdated biblical interpretations, icons and other material trappings that have become like idols, rituals that have run their course, and toxic relationships within and beyond the church that flout the faith of Jesus Christ.

Five hundred years ago it was the Enlightenment that sparked a rummage sale when the church moved from being rigidly hierarchal, grounded in mythological understandings of God and the world to being more grounded in knowledge, thereby embracing science that had previously been suspect and the work of Satan. An offshoot of that movement was led by the German Catholic priest, Martin Luther, who taught that each believer had access to the heart of God and that interpretation of the Bible is an important practice for all believers not just clergy. We would not have the level of literacy in our world today or the strong lay leadership of the Protestant Church if it weren’t for the enlightenment and 16^th Century reformations.

We are presently in the midst of another giant rummage sale and more reformations. You see the signs as well as I do. Around 4500 churches in the US are closing each year. Churches are imploding because so many people have lost trust in them. Clergy sex abuse scandals have had a lot to do with that, also because people have found other ways to feed their spirits and to be in community. Church attendance is no longer the norm in the Western world as it had been the previous five hundred years. Even among people who consider themselves committed Christians, only about 20 percent of the US population attends worship each week. 40 percent attend an average of once a month. As you might imagine, there is a lot of hand wringing and grief about that. I’m not so concerned.

My belief is that we are living Jesus’ parable about separating the wheat from the chaff. Sure, we have lost quite a few people, but those who have remained, even if they worship with us just a few times a years, are committed to living a life closer to the teachings of Jesus that are steeped in radical love, serving others with compassion, and striving to ensure justice for all. It’s my belief that further downsizing is critical to the church’s future. 

Let me explain why: even though weekly church going was the norm for so long, it was as much a cultural expectation as it was genuine devotion to the radical ways of Jesus. I say that recognizing that throughout most of the last 500 years, women have been treated as the property of their fathers and husbands. Corporal punishment for misbehaving children was common. Oppressing those who cannot or refuse to conform to white patriarchal norms has been supported by church teaching. Violence, including waging war, to force Christianity and Western values upon other faith traditions has been championed by so-called righteous Christians. Even in the face of massive loss of life. All in the name of Jesus.

Nowadays, in many churches, preachers tout the connection between God and guns and assert the absurd notion that Jesus would carry an AK-47 military-style, semi-automatic assault rifle if he were walking the earth today. Those who claim to worship the Prince of Peace cheer for the death of those who are victims of state sanctioned executions. So-called Christians say “Jesus died for my sins” and that seems to give them permission to treat others as non-human. 

I do not lament the death of the branches of the church that condone all that, do you? I say the church that supports those violent and twisted worldviews needs to be sold off. I say that something humble and gentle like we are trying to do here is supposed to take its place. I believe that we are on the cutting edge of the church’s revitalization with an empowered laity witnessing to the faith of Jesus Christ in love and spirit. I say that this form of church is about as close as the institutional church has gotten to actually following the way of Jesus. And I say, “We’re not there yet. We have more stuff to get rid of, like the baggage and habits of white dominant culture we’ve been mired in for so long to the point that we are unaware of its effects on ourselves and others. 

Where and how do we use our gifts to become the church God is calling us to be? Let me share a story that may give us some perspective. This is a story is about a mouse who grew up in a large metropolitan area.

The metro mouse had all the urban survival skills any proper mouse would need. She knew how to get through the city by scampering through the sewage systems. She knew which cathouses and alleyways to avoid. She knew how to cross busy streets, where to find food scraps that restaurants and grocery stores were throwing away. She knew how to squeeze under doorways to find warm places to live in the winter. She knew how to look tough and walk strong on the sidewalk around other mice, and she knew to avoid strangers.

One day, she decided to get out of the city and off she went on a bus trip to her wild country cousin’s home. It was a wooded and green place filled with buzzy noises, whistling winds and the odd unsettling racket of hidden animals. There were hungry mosquitoes, darting dragonflies, peering hawks and silent hunting owls. At twilight, it got very dark – unlike the city mouse’s illuminated city – which of course made the scary sounds even scarier.

Worst of all was the food in the countryside. It was terrible and she had to gather it herself, as if she knew anything about gathering wild food – grains of grass, flower seeds and berries for breakfast. Nasty stuff! And of course there were plenty of predators breathing down her neck. The city mouse couldn’t wait to go home for fear she might be invited to dinner … as someone else’s meal. *.

I tell you this story because it serves as a metaphor for the fact that the church has not only gotten too domesticated, we have sought to tame other cultures according to our limited perspectives on what is civilized and what is wild. And, we have sought to tame the gospel with its reckless radical love – one that loves all, no matter who they are or where they are from, a love that forgives all because God loves and forgives without condition, a love that rejects violence as even a possibility in the face of conflict and presents grace and reconciliation in its place. A love that liberates and manifests justice and joy for all.

A question the story of the city mouse raises is this: How do you give animals that are dependent upon so-called civilization the skills they need to survive in the wild? This is not much different from the question followers of Jesus ask: How are we going to survive in the chaos of this world? The apostle Paul was onto the answer when he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians that is our scripture lesson today. Paul says we must exercise our gifts or there’s little chance of surviving. Use ’em or lose ’em. Unfortunately, the transforming gospel often gets hidden away inside the church and seldom gets carried by followers of Jesus into the wild world where it’s needed most.

The gifts Paul talks about seem rare in this modern era, but they are present. Some may be subdued in our tradition, but not extinct: the gifts of wise speech, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. These may seem like spiritual gifts that were given and practiced a time long ago in a religion that is no longer observed, but we have all of these gifts in this community. We have people among us who have the gift of wisdom in abundance. We have bright, bright people among us with knowledge that can save the world. We have faith and chutzpah that brought this little church back from near death and emboldened it to be considered by the police department to be one of the most vulnerable places in Williamsburg because of the unfettered gospel we preach and live. 

We witness healings most every week, some of which are nothing shy of miraculous, with regular praise reports from our prayer team. We have community members who can see the that the world and our culture are in serious trouble and they live as prophets in the world, speaking about the brokenness and beckoning us to live and love more faithfully. Leaders from this congregation have been discerning the future of our common life for several years about how we can faithfully revitalize congregational life. In fact, today we are asking your blessing to forge that pathway. We have a history of welcoming people who think, act and speak differently from cultural norms, practice their faith differently, and access the Holy in ways that vary from our Congregational tradition and we have gained much as a result. 

I don’t know if you realize how many things we get right in the way you use your gifts. Recently, we had a visitor who sent me a five-page typed letter outlining his observations of the congregation’s spiritual gifts:

• He was delighted by our extravagant and home-spun hospitality. He wrote that he was warmly greeted by several people from the moment he got out of his car in the parking lot until he took a seat in the sanctuary and then people visited with him there until the service began. He was similarly greeted by several people after the service. He greatly enjoyed the refreshments and conversations offered at coffee hour.
• He remarked that as soon as he entered the building there were pleasant sounds of life and laughter all around, people preparing for the service, others chatting with friends. He says it’s a sign that people love being here together. 
• He was impressed that someone told him where to find more cushions to pad his backside from the hard wooden pews and was offered a rocking chair if that would be better. He noted that others must have observed his strained posture but they didn’t focus on that, which let him know how compassionate this community is and how connected we are with those who struggle.
• He talked about the strength of our welcome, specifically its inclusivity and that it seemed like everyone was proud to conclude the welcome with one voice: “Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”
• He loved the fact that we affirm the gifts of Mare and the choir with spontaneous applause after their musical offerings which adds warmth and sense of appreciation. And he loves the mix of contemplative and joyful, traditional and contemporary music and that we sing meaningful music even if it is what some consider as secular.
• He loves the way we talk about God and that our understanding of God isn’t limited to traditional church teachings, rather it reflects the wide variety of beliefs and practices from within the congregation, all of which are valuable. He loves that we don’t give God a specific gender, that the feminine and non-gendered attributes of God are as numerous as the masculine which has historically been the tradition in most churches.
• He loves that during each service we share personal stories and how faith informs the way we move through the world. 
• He applauds our commitment to peace and justice, our use of social media and is moved by the variety of information and inspiration on our website. 
• He says we don’t claim to be like family as some churches do, we act like people who have been called to live together in community, that our love for one another is palpable and contagious.

There was much more in the letter and it brought me to tears, reading the many ways that you function as the Body of Christ and reminding me of why I love this congregation so much and why God has called me to serve among you. You are using your gifts to grow in love and Spirit. And that is critical because the primary way we grow as a church is for you to use your gifts to build up the beloved community. We will grow the church in numbers and spirit even more when everyone in the community understands that they are essential to the health and welfare of the church. We will grow more when each of us commits to rewilding the gospel and sharing the radical transforming love that extends from it and we will embody the vision of Haydenville Congregational Church: Building a spiritual home, one act of love at a time. 

Beloved, the gifts you have are immense and they are essential to the health of the church. Your gifts matter. Your presence here matters because when you are here, you are home, affirmed as a beloved child of God, unconditionally and eternally. Praise God!

• The mouse story is a rift on “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” from Aesop’s Fables