Jesus Brings Good News Transcript

 What is the role of the church? What is our purpose?

Why are we here? Why are we a part of God's plan for salvation? Are we simply a respite, a place to find out outside of the chaos of these walls to come and gather and find something that is steady and rock solid so that we can find rest? Well, that's part of it, but it's certainly not all. Are we a place where we can gather as people who have similar beliefs, have similar ways of living and thinking about the world, and where we can find comfort in the words that we hear, not only from our neighbors but from me, that could be part of it? 

But today's passage says that's not the only thing. Are we here to comfort those in power? And make sure that nobody gets offended or perturbed by what we say? I can guarantee that that's not it. 

We, as the church, have a unique role in this world and a unique place within God's story and works of creation, recreation, and reclamation. We are invited to be a part of all that God is doing. My battery is going to die soon. The goal, or the task for us, is to figure out what that role is and to say yes to God. 

To say yes, I want to be a part of your actions. I don't want just to come and sit and be nourished. I don't want just to come and sit and be comforted. I want to be, to have the waters disturbed just a bit, the waters of my Spirit and my soul disturbed enough that I can see what God is doing rather than sit and gaze at my reflection. 

Sometimes, I think our life in church is to come and sit, and when the waters are calm, it's like looking down at a still lake or a still pond or a puddle. What we see reflected back at us is what we are, who we are, and what we want to see. And that brings us comfort. It brings us comfort to see the familiar.

It brings comfort to see what we know and what we've trusted for so long. But when we do that, we are only looking at the surface. And that comfort will not last. Comfort cannot last. What we get when we gather as God's people together is asking God to disturb the waters so that we are not comforted by our own reflection but can look deeper and see what lies beneath. 

This can be disturbing. The waves on the water can get rough. What we see below can get rough. My family once rented a houseboat up at Raystown Lake. We went there a lot as a family. My cat and my grandfather had a cabin up there. And so one time, after we didn't go to the cabin, we decided to rent a houseboat.

There were times when the lake was pristine and flat, with just a little bit of haze above the water. Now, you may not know this about that particular lake, but it is incredibly deep, and it does not take long for the water level to drop. You cannot see the bottom once you're maybe five feet off from the edge.

My dad and I once went parasailing up and down the lake, and you could literally see the drop-off from where you could see the red cliffs and then black. Now, I had a sister—well, a step-sister, really—who was afraid of what was under that water. She was terrified of what fish could be swimming underneath her, of what could be down there. 

She did not want to go into the deep water because she didn't know where it would lead; she didn't know what could jump out at her and scare her. And so she clung to the boat, stayed near the surface, and refused to get deeper out of fear of the unknown. But when we ask God to disturb the waters, ask God to take us more profound, and ask God to draw us into what He is doing, we have to leave the safety and security of what we cling to.

We have to look deeper. We have to push past our fear of what could be, 

trusting that God will be with us in the depths. My sister clung to the boat, afraid to swim far. She missed out on some fun gatherings. She missed out on some fun activities. In fact, at one point, we were for safety's sake, let's say, let's pretend this was perfectly safe and normal.

But at one point, we were soaping up the houseboat's roof, running down it and sliding. Underneath the railing, out into the lake. And we had a lot of fun doing that. 

And she was afraid. She could not get past that fear of not knowing what was beneath the surface to join her siblings in that fun, and I think she missed out. I was a daredevil as a kid. I liked to jump off things, including back flips off of the railing. I was probably the one who came up with the idea of soaping up the roof of the houseboat. 

And in my mind, she missed out. How much are we missing out on God's redemptive work and God's transforming power, both in our lives and in the lives that we encounter? We're afraid to go deeper, afraid of the unseen and the unknown, afraid to look past our reflection and see what lies beneath. 

This comes together when I ask, "What is the role of the church?" Because when we sit and stare at our reflection, when we sit and want to be in comfort, we get things like what we saw in the news over the last week after the inaugural sermon. The church, the bishop was criticized for her sermon of asking for mercy for those who need it most. 

And she was criticized by other Christians. Government officials criticized her. She had threats that she should be deported for preaching the gospel. And that, she did. Now, I'm not trying to get political here, but when someone proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ when someone preaches the good news, and they're criticized for it, then that is our role as the church to say, wait a minute, we need to stop looking at our reflection and start looking deeper. 

Because if we get offended by the good news, then we have ceased to be the church. But the only way that we can get the courage to speak up, the only way that we can get the courage to say, "Wait a minute, we are the church, and this is our good news," is to say, "Wait a minute." Jesus said, "I have come to proclaim release to the captives, good news to the poor, and restore sight to the blind." 

That was and is Jesus's mission. And that is our mission as well. I can't remember who said it. I left my phone somewhere in the back to look it up. I meant to before I started preaching, but there was a saying, this quote that said every church should be able to get a good reference from the poor in their community. 

That doesn't mean everything we do is exclusively about addressing poverty, but it does mean that everything we do should be good news to people experiencing poverty. Everything we do should release those in captivity. Everything we should do should bring sight, either literal if we're doing miracles, or figurative if we're not, to those who are blinded. 

We should command ourselves and invite those around us to look past the reflection and see a God that is bigger and deeper than the one that they've made up in their minds. This will disturb the waters and cause people to face fears and anxieties about what is unknown and what is beneath the surface. 

But if we're not going more profound, if we're not willing to go deeper ourselves, if we're not working to see beyond the surface level of who God is and what our mission is, if we're not willing to do that, then how in the world could we invite other people to do it? And why should they want to? How can we teach them? 

And so I talk about the small groups. I know I talk about Sunday School. I talk about our Lunch and Learn. And I would love to see more groups created. And I'd love to see every person involved in a small group in some way that dives more profound, that challenges one another that asks the question of am what I see, is what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing and what I'm speaking born out of a surface level understanding of God where God looks just like us? 

Or am I looking deeper? That only happens. In small groups, that only happens in prayer times. That only happens when you have someone you can trust asking that question, challenging us, and saying, have you gone deep enough? We're saying you must let go of the side of the boat. The church has lost its prophetic voice in today's world, all people to itself and Christ.

And we have done so not because the world has forgotten us and said, but because the world has seen what we do and what we say and say, what's the point? And all of that lands squarely on ourselves. But there is good news and hope. Jesus has given us his mission. It is outlined in scripture, as well as how the Churly church did it. 

They gathered to sing, eat, grow, and pray. They reached out and invited other people to participate. They went deeper, and they challenged each other. We see that in the disciples a lot. 

It is all for the purpose of grasping on to Christ and saying, "Take me where you want to go." Lead me, and I will follow. We will be united as we cling to him. 

This is the church. This is the purpose of the church. It is not just coming and sitting and listening to mediocre past Sermons from the pastor. It's not to gather and drink coffee at the sermon or check in with each other about how we're doing, though. Those are all good things, but we have to push beyond the surface, reclaim our mission and purpose, and be willing to dive deep with one another. 

And I can guarantee without any doubt in my mind that as we do that, as we are enabled by the power of the Spirit together going deeper, some people want to get beyond looking at their reflection, finding comfort in what they already know, being disturbed by the questions that are already forming in their mind. When they encounter a group of people willing to encounter those questions, to let them dive deep with those questions, they will want to be a part of that journey. 

Then, the ask and the invitation become simple. My hope and prayer for us here at Berwyn is that we learn how to grow deep together. We relearn what it means to be the church, not for our sakes or our comfort but for the transformation of the community. And we have hints of that; we have parts of that already happening, but we need to dive deeper. 

So, as part of that, this year, one of my goals, starting in February, is to have a gathering each month where we dive deeper into a spiritual discipline. We'll start with prayer in February. How do I pray? What ways do I pray? How do I deal with the uncomfortableness of prayer? We're going to get back to basics and say, "How do I read the Bible?"

What is this Bible? And how do I read it daily? How do I get more out of it? How do I go deeper with it? We're going to serve together. Find ways that we can do that so that all are involved. And we're going to do these things, not to make sure we have other things to invite people to, and not just so that we can be in each other's company and find comfort in that, but so that we can reconnect with that desire to grow deeper. 

Get rid of our fears and our desire to stay at the surface. So, as these events are announced, get. As we are talking about them, I invite you to consider participating in them. And I know nighttime is challenging, so we'll try to find different times and different days to do it, or organize pickups or whatever it may take to get people out. 

But I hope you'll be stirred into that desire to go deeper and to grow, 

begin, or not begin, but to dive deeper into our purpose. Amen.