The Changing Church
A Homily on Matthew 16:13-20
by Griff Martin
For the Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time (and the Twenty Third of Covid Worship)
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
August 23, 2020
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
The fall of the Roman Empire might not be on your mind much these days, but maybe it should be. There are a lot of schools of thought regarding the fall of the Roman Empire from the concept of mass lead poisoning (which can now be disproven) to the idea of moral decay (much harder to prove or disprove). Historians today suggest that the decline and eventual collapse of the Roman Empire had two main change agents: environment and at least two large scale pandemics, and in the end they may be one in the same.
Already a plague known as the Antonine plague had changed the Roman way of life, but just as they began to rebuild there was an environmental issue with a sudden onset of volcanic eruptions which not only made the skies dark for over a year, literally so full of ash it was like night all times, which has a huge impact on crops which in turn has a huge impact on migration and living things, which includes rats which suddenly moved looking for food, water and light, carrying new diseases with them, hence the second great plagues to hit Rome.
Andrew Solomon, in his well titled article from New York magazine “A Plague is an Apocalypse But It Can Bring About A New World,” pictures it like this: “To have the sky go dark for more than a year, and then to see a hideous disease fell half your family and friends, destroying agriculture, city and town life and religious practices was extreme trauma.”
So why am I telling you this? This might not seem like the most powerful way to begin a sermon this day and certainly not the most hopeful.
Here is why: Because of the next thing the article pointed out. In the face of total destruction something very interesting happened to Christianity, it grew. Andrew Solomon again, “the plagues proved to be a tipping point in the move from the old gods to the new one.”
As a result of this pandemic in Rome, Christianity grew. Several factors were at play in this. First, anything like this -- plagues, environmental disaster, mass death and pain -- brings about all the existential questions that we carry in our souls. People are more drawn to religious and spiritual conversations in days like this, days like today. Which I can certainly account for, I have had more conversations about life, death and faith in the past 5 months than any other time in my ministry. And Christianity is one of the few, if not only, major religions that contains death as a key narrative, that does not shy away from the fact of death, that actually comes close to celebrating it.
The second factor, Christianity was a useful social network based on people who embraced an ethic of sacrifice. The Christians were willing to care for the sick when no one else wanted to for fear of contagion. The Christians were the ones who were willing to get involved in the parts of life that no one else wanted to. We get noticed when we do the work no one else wants to do, hence Christianity being a way of love, sacrifice and justice.
Our faith grew in one of the darkest periods because we were not scared and we were willing to be the church.
Will the same be said of us in a decade, a century, 300 centuries? Will our faith grow in these days and the days to come because we were willing to be the church?
A lot about church has changed in the past twenty three weeks, a lot. We have learned how to create community despite screens and face masks and fears. We have learned that our houses can be houses of worship. We have found communion in our pantries and fridges. We have learned to sing together by singing alone. We have successfully and quickly transitioned so that church can happen; never again say the church can’t change quickly.
Church has changed a lot… some good, some bad. We are learning some new ways that will carry us forward and there are things we can’t wait to get back in terms of church. What we know now is that all of this will change church.
But here is what this pandemic won’t change… The sole purpose of church. What we are called to do and be in this world. It won’t change the heart of the Gospel story we are studying and experiencing this morning.
This is one of my favorite stories because it contains so much and calls us to such a clear truth. It’s a story we need to hear quite often because it reminds us of our one thing, our purpose. You see, the church is this odd thing, we are combination of institution and movement and we have to be both equally or things get out of whack.
Most typically we tend to lean towards the institutional side… it’s where you hear the language of "the ways things have always been," and "the way we have always done things." It’s a hoarding mentality, we find something that works and we hang on to it for dear life even when it gets in the way of what the very Gospel is supposed to be about.
It’s good to remind ourselves of what the church is and what our calling is on a regular basis.
While Jesus and the disciples are observing religion, they see religion in a most institutional light. The religion of the day was about exclusion and inclusion, who is in and who was out, it was about power and control and wealth, it was about keeping the social status quo, it was about keeping those in power in power, it was a social club for a small group of people, truly a boy’s club, it was about rules and it was very black and white. It was not at all what God intended, which Jesus makes very clear by literally flipping tables and creating a mess of things to demonstrate this is not God’s way.
So that is the religious system of the day and it becomes obvious that Jesus is re-interpreting things, calling us to more movement, to fewer rules and more relationship, to way less power, to service and justice, to an embrace of all. Jesus was calling us not to religion but to the very heart of God.
And one day he takes the disciples on quite a trip, to Caesarea Philippi, which was quite the place. This was a place that their good Jewish mothers had warned them of, to never go here. You see it was a raunchy city, home to the worship of Pan who favored the flesh and fertility and goats, so the acts of worship which went on in front of their temples were the kinds of acts one sees in the Red Light District and in back rooms in Las Vegas: flesh-fertility-goats-the Grotto of Pan, need I say more?
And on top of that, it's a dangerous city because the entire city is built on a steep rock cliff. This is difficult, steep terrain where you watch your step because the path is rocky and steep. You work to get there and you work to get out of there.
So the disciples head there under Jesus’ direction; I can just imagine the conversation of adolescent teen boys making their first trip to Caesarea Philippi. I am sure it was some of the energy I saw when I was in the the Quarter in New Orleans and saw bachelor and bachelorette parties headed down to Bourbon Street. They knew they were in for a night.
And they get there to the city and Jesus stops them, probably a good time to remind them of some rules and set up a buddy system, except that is not at all what Jesus does. He walks them all the way there, which we believe is a long journey, and they get there and he asks them one question: Who do you say that I am?
Note their reply… well, some people say this and others say that… which does not interest Jesus at all, Jesus does not care that you know and understand what other people say about him nearly as much as he cares what you say about him.
So this time he rephrases the question because Jesus is really good at that… he does not fall for all the distractions we throw his way, instead he just gets more direct with us.
“What about you, who do you say that I am?”
And they do the nervous look down at the ground, look up at the sky, do anything but look him in the eyes dance until finally Peter says, “Jesus, you are the Messiah, son of the Living God.”
And Jesus responds, right answer… blessed are you Peter… and on this rock I will build my church.
Now here is what the church has done with that line… We took something very simple and we made it very complicated. We added a lot of history here about Peter being the first pope. We made this entire thing a confession, the confession you had to make to belong to Jesus.
But what if -- and you need hear me say this because I rarely say this -- what if we took this passage a bit more literal? What if the rock Jesus is talking about building his church on is the very rock where Jesus is standing? What if when Jesus talks about the church he is not talking about a confession or a system of power or even a building, what if when Jesus talks about the church, Jesus is talking about Jesus followers out in the world, being present in the places that need us most? What if Jesus is talking about us going to the scary messy places of life? What if Jesus is talking about us being the folks willing to engage in the existential questions that keep us up all night? What if Jesus is talking about us being the ones not scared of death or sex or dangerous places or the places that nice rule-following, safe people avoid?
What if Jesus is saying church is Christ followers out in the wild loving and living?
I don’t know what new form Christ following is going to take following the pandemic, I don’t know what church looks like when we can all gather again as a community, I don’t know all the ways this is going to change and reshape us, re-form us -- reform us.
I think I see pieces of it from time to time and one of those is this… I hope we keep out of the building more; I think that has been good for us. At least, it has been good for me.
It has been good for me to be reminded that God is as present when I pray here at the house as God is when I pray at church, it reminds me that sometimes I put walls up that God never intended and that God is present everywhere.
It’s been good for me to look into the eyes of my neighbors as they share the struggles of being step-fathers and their fears of trying to own a restaurant in the midst of this while I share the struggle of parenting in this and pastoring in this, to be reminded that people who hurt and need community live right next door to me, that we all have ways to minister to each other.
It’s been good for me to worship away from the church space to remind me that worship and communion do not belong in a certain space at a certain time on a certain day of the week.
It’s been good to see our neighbors downtown through masks; sometimes our facial masks actually force us to look deeper into one another’s eyes and I am finding eyes speak way more than mouths.
It’s been good to struggle with some of life’s hardest questions and not done it under the safety of the steeple. It’s been good to realize we are all in pain and fear together. It’s been good to learn to communicate about the old things in new ways (new wineskin days).
It’s been good to be reminded of the monastic truth about finding God when the desert father Abba Moses instructed followers to “go sit in your cell, it will teach you everything.” The days of fewer things, more silence, more space have led me to finding God within.
It been somewhat good, I think, to have this stillness. Stillness brings things to the surface and I think we are all finding things within ourselves that amaze us… both good and bad. This time of stillness is very telling about us and our souls, what is there and what is not there.
It’s been good to be the church.
Because in the last few weeks the church has never closed or stopped, we just moved and reinvented and reimagined, which is part of what we are supposed to always do. We have kept worshipping, we have kept praying, we have kept helping our neighbors, we have kept fighting for justice, we have kept in community, we have kept Christ following. And what more is there to church than that?
Church is Christ followers out in the wild loving and living.
And if we keep doing that, well, maybe we will look back later and see how our faith grew in the days of the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, it might not only restore and save our world, doing this might restore and save your own soul; I know it is mine. Amen and Amen.
*artwork: The Love that Holds Us - All People's Church by Tia Richardson
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