SCRIPTURE: Mark13:1-8
TEXT: 2b“Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” THEME: The mission Jesus brings to us is not the building but beyond. INTRODUCTION The Samoan Congregation’s youth conducted the service last week. They did an excellent job, a bit of Bruno Mars type synchronized dance steps, Scripture readings in both English and Samoan, signing the songs they sang, a Sermon admonishing parents to be examples of faith that they can emulate, prayers and grab and go food at the end. It was a COVID safe event. From what I know about ‘White Sunday’ it is about adults listening to what the children and youth have to say. Faith is being instilled in these youth. They invited me to make a few remarks at the end, to which I added, “Our job as adults is to model and live the Christian life as best we can, and when the Youth and children come, and say this is what we believe God wants the church to be, it will be our responsibility to get out of the way.” SCRIPTURE If I had preached last week, it would have been about the Jesus answering the question of which commandment is the greatest. In essence Jesus says to love God and to love our neighbor. In the Gospel of Luke, the further explanation of who our neighbor is, is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Following the lectionary, this week’s passage should be the story of the widow’s mite, but I am reserving this passage for next week’s sermon, on Stewardship. Jumping ahead, Jesus is coming out of the temple as the disciples are admiring the wonderful stone architecture of the temple, to which Jesus adds, 2b“Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” Peter, James, John and Andrew privately ask him what this means. Jesus gives them an apostolic (or revealing) answer, that worship, in the future is going to be different. The Judaism that Jesus is proposing, cannot be contained within these temple walls. This stone building too, will be too small a container for what God is doing through Jesus. APPLICATION If we continue to do church the same way that we have been, then I have serious concerns about the future church. A seminarian today, graduates with about $60,000 in student loans. (The other fearful thought is that, the Hawai’i Conference does not have anyone who is currently in seminary that I know of.) This means the newly hired pastor from seminary, will need to have a salary that will help to pay down the loans, as well as housing for a Maui rental and contribution into a pension for retirement. The model of a church supporting a full-time seminary trained pastor, solely with on membership contribution, is obsolete. In order to afford a pastor, run programs, and up keep of its facilities, the church will have to have other source of income or consider different ministerial models. As of the writing of the Gospel of Mark, the stone temple in Judaism was destroyed by the Roman Empire, ‘with not one stone left upon another.’ Judaism was forced to change how they worshiped. Last year we celebrated the bicentennial of the missionaries coming to Hawaii. Many of our church buildings are over a hundred years old, along with the problems of upkeep, repairs and termites. The vitality of the membership has been reduced, sometimes only to family clusters that hold onto the glory days, symbolically represented in the preservation of their sanctuary. Is the church just the building, one family, or is there a mission that they are missing that goes out to their neighbors, that didn’t require their building? What is the something new that Jesus is bringing to us today, to participate in, that might not require our stone building? Or how is our building an asset to the ministry of Christ? Every so often I get a crazy idea that I follow down a rabbit hole. We had to scrunch up the pews during the pandemic to create a 6-foot spacing for our safely meeting with each other. One day while sitting in the empty sanctuary, I wondered if we needed all of the pews. We actually have two different set of pews. I think the original ones are made of Tiger Oak, while the newer additions were made of pine and fill up the alcove by the back door. Before the pandemic, we were about 50-60 people on a good Sunday. Post pandemic, with our hybrid Internet service I don’t image us ever being that full on Sundays. Then I read the introduction of a book published by Pilgrim Press, where Remove the Pews Spiritual Possibilities for Sacred Spaces by Donna Schaper “Judson Memorial in Manhattan, took out the pews in 1969” She writes. “A postmodern dance group met on Saturday night when the church thought, “Why not give them more space?” Their sanctuary became a center for dance, theater, music, protest, and more. These guests to their property began showing up on Sunday mornings. Today, Jordan Memorial Church is dependent upon the income from these events, and as a way to bring new people to their church to be part of their ministry.” What if we got rid of our pine pews, spread out the rest of the pews in a spacious manner, there would be an open feel and we would have more possibilities for different kind of events and people to join us. We would keep the original tiger oak pews and bring in the blue chairs from Dodge Hall when we larger events. What is the something new that Jesus is calling us to be as a church that might be beyond our stone building? Thirty years ago, when I first visited Wailuku Union Church, I came with 3x5 index cards in my pocket. I wrote down my first impressions. There was only street parking at that time. As I got out of my car, I felt afraid for my young daughters, warning them not to get out on the traffic side of the car. We walked from the side walk up a few steps, and then to the front steps of the church. The members then, loved the grassy lawn in front of the church. I proposed a turnaround drive way with on campus parking. I told them of my fearful experience with my young children. It wasn’t until a senior member of the church, missed a step and fell in the front, that things began to move in putting the turnaround drive way we have today. We sacrificed our lawn for safer accessibility into the church and preschool. Mega churches are built around charismatic leadership. There aren’t too many of those types of leaders around. But there are more people like me, that are just run of the mill type persons, taking the word of God seriously and trying to find ways to live its truth in life and in our world. In the future, there may be incarnations of Wailuku Union Church that will meet in a coffee shop, with pizzas at a laundromat, hosting an AA meeting, or group of Micronesian young adult men in a home every other week sharing a meal and watching a video, with run of the mill type persons. The leader of each of these groups would need training, as most of them would have a sense of call but no formal seminary training. The Hawaii CTEL classes from PSR would be an affordable and accessible source for Continuing Education. These churches are independent but would benefit from the wider community of faith with us and our Tri-Isle Association. These churches are not self-sufficient, not being able to support themselves or their pastor but seeking a subsidy from a church body that might find themselves with the finances from a housing project to support such a church gathering as part of their mission. A different model of what church may look like as the church moves out side to where the people are. CONCLUSION I am thankful for the faithful who have come before us and who have preserved the faith and challenged us to live faithfully in our world. They were Saints. We may have to let go of how things were done in the past, for the something new God wants to do in our age. At chapel this week I took the preschoolers out the front door and to the left. On the side of the steps, there is the largest stone of our building. A large square stone with the year. 1911 chiseled on it. This is our cornerstone. We thought more people and more money was the mark of a Church’s success. Now we see faithfulness and missional community as the marks of following Jesus. We will have to leave some stones behind for something else that God is doing. I was never tempting that we be on TV, but through the
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