May 22, 2011
Why Go to Church? - John 14:1-14
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadThis Church has lots of rooms in it, lots and lots and lots of rooms. It was built in different eras. The oldest part of the Church is actually the hallway between the Sanctuary and education wing. I’m still not sure whether the education wing or sanctuary is older, but I do know that the choir room and parlor (I think) was added sometime in the 70s, when the sanctuary was expanded. We built the fellowship hall sometime in the 70s, too. And then, of course, we built the family life center about seven or eight years ago. All of those rooms/buildings have different keys. If Wray Moxely, our grounds guy, went to the doctor and stepped on the scale with his key ring in his pocket, then he would definitely be considered obese. I don’t even have access to all of our keys. I know where the “key cabinet” is, but I have no idea what all those keys are supposed to fit. If a crook came to Central Steele Creek to clean us out and got access to the key cabinet, I’m sure he’d throw his hands up in frustration and quit before he actually stole anything.
So here’s my question. Jesus told us in John 14 that he had prepared a place for us, that he had lots and lots of rooms in that place where his disciples would reside. Do you think that he was possibly referring to these rooms? Or is this strictly about heaven? Jerry Corbett spent much of his life working on these rooms. Jerry died several weeks ago and I read John 14 at his funeral, about Jesus preparing rooms for us. I also said that, knowing Jerry, he was working on those rooms that Jesus had already prepared. But is it possible that he had worked on those rooms before? Is it possible that Jesus was referring to both the rooms in heaven and the rooms here at Central Steele Creek?
The answer to that question, at least according to popular opinion, is no. First of all, I’m not real sure that popular opinion would give two thin dimes for either what Jesus said or for what John said that Jesus said. And even if popular opinion does accept what Jesus said and in what John said that Jesus said as the truth, then it clearly has decided that Jesus was not referring to these rooms. If popular opinion did think that God has prepared these rooms, that God has prepared this house, that there is something about this place that’s true and beautiful and eternal, then popular opinion would be here. And even though we have a good crowd this morning, most of popular opinion has stayed home. I have traveled to this Church for over 150 Sundays, and I have yet to encounter a traffic jam anywhere in Charlotte on Sunday mornings.
The center of Christianity has moved to the Southern Hemisphere. There are twice as many Presbyterians, for example, in Kenya today than in the United States. From a sociological perspective, Christianity has run its course in America, or at least it’s coming to the end of its course. There are a ton of old Churches in American that have very storied histories, kind of like this one. They were founded by Scotts-Irish immigrants, like this one was, in the late 1700s. They grew and flourished, and had their heydays. And then they started declining. This Church had four hundred members twenty years ago. Now we’ve got three hundred. We clearly reached our zenith, and now we’re coming back down. And even though the population in Steele Creek has boomed in the last twenty years, it’s very difficult for these type of Churches to keep up. Statistically speaking, the odds of us reversing our decline are very low. If there was an easy answer out there, we would have found it and we’d be doing it.
Much of the culture around us has decided that if there is a God at all (and that is very questionable to them) then he can be found in a place other than the Church. Or, the rooms that Jesus was talking about are not by any means these rooms. Besides, people feel closer to God going on a hike, or watching a sunset at the beach, or playing with their dog, or reading the Sunday paper drinking a latte at Starbucks, or simply staying in bed, than they do here. Religion is a consumer product now. People are by and large turning the Church down. So the main question with just about any Church (be it a small congregation like ours or a large denomination) is what do we do about that?
John 14 starts Jesus’ farewell discourse. Jesus is going away. He will be crucified, resurrected, and ascended. His disciples are going to have to find some way to make do without his physical presence. So Jesus tells them all this confusing stuff about being him being connected to the father, none of which they seem to understand. And for that matter, I’m not sure that I understand. What is clear to me, though, is relationship. It’s about relationship. It’s about people gathering in Jesus’ name, doing what Jesus told them to do. Jesus starts the Church in Matthew’s Gospel in the 9th Chapter. It’s clear there. In John’s Gospel, Jesus starts the Church in the 14th Chapter. It’s clear to me that somehow Jesus has promised to always be with us no matter what, in life and in death and at any point in between or beyond. But it’s in the context of us gathering together as the Church. It’s in the context of this new thing that God has begun called the Church.
What I’m trying to say is that I think that when Jesus told his disciples in John 14 that he was preparing a place for them, a place with lots and lots of rooms, I think he meant Central Steele Creek Presbyterian Church. He meant a lot more than that, to be sure, but this is part of it. The world was supposed to end yesterday. It obviously didn’t, but I’ll bet it got you to thinking about what it would be like if did end. We all wonder what heaven is like. What if it’s kind of like this? What if it’s a huge house with a thousand different keys and HVAC systems that go out all the time? You know all those meals that we eat together? What if that’s kind of like the Messianic Banquet? What if we’re sitting in a foretaste of heaven, right here and right now? I really think that’s what Jesus was talking about here. The disciples were losing Jesus, and yet he told them when they gathered together in Jesus Name, that he was there, and that there was something eternal, something heavenly about that.
We are recognizing our graduates today, and it sure is good to have a slew of them. We watched most of you grow up. We taught you in Sunday school and youth group. We took you to Montreat and Mexico. We don’t want to let go of you. People generally get away from the Church in college, and then they stay away until they settle down and get married. They get especially interested in Church when they have babies. For whatever reason, the boomer generation (your parents’ generation) never came back. Generation X, my generation, stayed away even more. Much of your generation, Generation Y, never went to Church to begin with. Those who attend Church now make up a slim minority of people. The traffic on Sunday morning says it all.
I want you understand that when I say that the Church is a foretaste of the Kingdom, that, first of all, it’s not the Kingdom itself. Secondly, that it has anything at all to do with the Kingdom of God has nothing to do with us. That’s something that God has done. Now some of us have worked very hard to do what we believe God has called us to do, but we actually are the reason that the Church is not the Kingdom itself. The Church has people in it, and people are sinful. So lots of things about the Church are not attractive. We have egos and hurt feelings and turf wars. And, Ill have to say that for a long time, the Church completely disregarded the younger generations. We’d tell them to come, just so long as they shut up and did everything our way. That’s starting to change, but it’s still there.
You can do a lot of good things in Church: make good friends, make a few connections, hear some good speeches, do some good community work…, the list goes on and on. Of course, you can do all that at the Rotary Club, too, or even a bar on Friday night. But God has breathed into the Church in a very unique way. God has made some promises to it. And God is still working in it. So why come to Church? It’s hard to explain it. Come and see.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
