Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 20-25
“Fever Pitch”
Last week in worship, we talked about our deep thirst for God and how the only thing that can truly quench it is to be in God’s presence. We talked about feeding our spiritual thirst with the waters of God’s grace by coming together in worship and in small groups.
Today, we are going to talk more about presence, but we are going to look at it from a different angle.
I want to tell you about my very first day at church. In case I don’t mention it enough, remember that I was not raised in the church. I didn’t start actually going to church until I was 27. I was searching for meaning, I was pretty sure the church didn’t have any, but I tried anyway.
I got up that particular Sunday, had some breakfast, put on nice pants and a clean shirt and a tie, because I thought that was what people wore to church. I put my Labrador Retriever in his kennel despite the sad eyes that conveyed that he would really rather me stay home. I hopped in my truck and drove the mile to the church that I had seen on my way to work each day. I got there early and sat in the parking lot, sweating. I was nervous. The church had great signage on the street, but none in the parking lot, so I went in the wrong door and ran into the choir. Here were a bunch of people, up early on a Sunday morning practicing and warming up to share music and they seemed happy to be there. After trying to get me to join the choir, they helped me find my way to the sanctuary, where I sat in the back and watched, somewhat like a spectator at a sporting event to which I knew none of the rules or even the object of the game. I heard stories being read from the Bible, songs song about God. I watched as people prayed and listened to a pastor explain how the old stories were meaningful in our lives now. Then, I listened as another pastor retold a story about a dinner in a room long ago when Jesus said goodbye to his friends and I watched as people filed forward to share in this same meal.
Now in reflection, this church didn’t do everything right. They didn’t follow every suggestion of how to be a welcoming church. I wasn’t welcomed properly and the bulletin was full of all sorts of language I didn’t understand, but that didn’t matter. I was just there as a spectator. But hearing the stories, watching the response, made a connection in me and I went back the next week.
I hear a certain question quite often. I have come to realize that it is not a question, it is a statement that people want me to affirm. This is the question, “I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian, do I?” I also hear from more committed Christians, “I don’t go to church that often, but I give to the church and I read the Bible. That’s ok, right?” Sometimes I also hear “I read the Bible and pray and I go to church sometimes. But I don’t go that much because I don’t get that much out of it. That’s ok, right?.”
Let me say, as I have said before, “God’s love for you is not based on whether or not you go to church.” Coming to church is not a legalistic requirement that earns you grace. Grace is the unconditional love of God. Period.
But, let me retell my story, setting in a world where Christians don’t go to church. Let’s suppose they still give to the church, supporting its ministries financially, but they don’t go. Let’s start with the morning I decided to go for the first time.
I got to the church early and sat in the parking lot, sweating. I was nervous. The church had great signage on the street, but none in the parking lot, so I went in the wrong door and stood in an empty fellowship hall. Not seeing anyone around, I figured I was in the wrong place. I wandered around anyway until I went back outside through another door and found the sanctuary. I entered the empty sanctuary. Fortunately it was a welcoming church so there was a table there with a pamphlet about the meaning of Christianity. It looked somewhat interesting, so I put it in my pocket, went back outside, got in my truck, and went back home to read the paper and see when the first movie was showing at the mall.
Shema
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
So begins the Shema, as it is called in the Jewish tradition because of the very first word of it.
Shema
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
For many Jews, these words are taken quite literally. When the scripture says, bind these words a sign on your hand and fix them as emblem on your forehead, they do something called “laying tefillin.” This means affixing a small leather box, sometimes also called phylacteries, using leather straps to ones arm and one’s forehead. This box contains very small scrolls of God’s law or the Torah.
Most Christians don’t follow those traditions, although many of us have our own. We carry Bibles, we wear cross around our neck or in our earlobes.
But what about this part?
6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.
This is a word about instruction. This is about sharing the message with the next generation of believers.
20When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?” 21then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in
Last week I spoke about our need to quench our deep soul thirst for God by being in God’s presence. But there is another reason that we need to come into God’s presence, to learn, to share and to bear witness to what God has done and is doing in the world. We have been given a gift and we have a responsibility to pass it on – to those who haven’t yet heard it and to those of a new generation.
Most of us believe, at one level or another, that we should come to church, at least once in a while. And we are surrounded by people, both here in the pews surrounding you and in the houses and apartments that surround the church that are in some way making the decision about whether or not to come to church and whether and/or not to have a relationship with God. Even the children and youth among us are in the midst of making that decision. They may be here because we have brought them, but they are at some point going to make a decision for themselves as to whether or not to continue being active Christians.
Think back to the story I told at the beginning about what my first experience at church would have been like if no one had been there. Now to the alternative story I told where there was no one there. I said in that story that I grabbed a flyer and left, probably never to come back. Would that have been because I didn’t feel welcomed? No. Would it have been because there was no one there to “hook me in?” No. It would have been because of this: I would have figured, “If no one can bother to be here, it must not be that important.”
People who are making a decision about whether or not to engage in our faith tradition are both cynical and hypersensitive. You may want to hold that against them, but that won’t make it go away and if you truly want to spread the gospel you better get used to it.
I have to tell you, in my hypersensitive stage, when I had first started attending church, you want to know what I kept noticing? There were a lot of people who didn’t take what they were doing very seriously. I would meet people in church and then notice that I didn’t see them again for six weeks. I started to realize that many people didn’t really know the stories of the faith. I noticed a lot of people who didn’t think this was all very exciting or worth their time. Think about the mixed message, “You ought to come to church and have a relationship with Christ, it will change your life.” And “I can’t be bothered to spend a whole hour here every week.” That honestly made me seriously consider if church was all that people said it was. Do you think that I am the only person who has ever thought that way? Do you think our young people think about that? You bet they do.
Alisha and I watched a movie a couple of months back called Fever Pitch. Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore star in this movie about the relationship between a girl and a totally out of control Boston Red Socks Fan.
You know, after watching that movie, I actually found myself wanting to go to a baseball game. Jimmy Fallon’s enthusiasm was contagious. He knew everything about his team, he thought about them constantly, he never missed an opportunity to be at a game or to watch a game on television. He was so passionate about baseball that it nearly messed up the rest of his life.
When you see someone with that kind of passion, it makes you say, “Maybe there is something to this baseball thing.”
What is something that you are passionate about? It may be music, hunting, fishing, golf, pro-football, bird-watching, windsurfing, snorkeling. It may be your career – education, heath-care, business. I love people who are true enthusiasts. When I say enthusiast, I mean someone who has found something in their life that they just love. They do it, they read about it, they watch it, they talk about it to anyone who will listen. I love enthusiasts because enthusiasm is contagious. True enthusiasm is irresistible. When you are in contact with an enthusiast, you may not end up loving what they love, but you can’t help but wonder what the attraction is.
Shema
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
We may think it kind of odd for people to bind God’s word to their forehead and arms, though painting one’s body team colors for a football game- that is perfectly normal.
We have been given the gift of the love and knowledge of God and we have been given the responsibility of passing it on. We need to come into God’s presence, to learn, to share and to bear witness to what God has done and is doing for us and in the world. We need to have the kind of passion for this message that many of us have for our things in our lives. Otherwise no one is going to listen.
We need to come into God's presence, to learn, to share and to bear witness to what God has done and is doing for us and in the world. And we need to do that, not as if it were drudgery, but with the kind of enthusiasm that lets people know that this is the most important thing in our lives. We need to do this with the kind of enthusiasm that will let people know that we really believe that this is real, this is life changing that is really the good news of the love of the one who created the very universe. Our enthusiasm has to reach a fever pitch or nobody is going to think for a moment that this is important.
At the
No pressure, it is only their lives.
As we wrap up our emphasis on stewardship of presence, I again challenge you to step up. If you come to worship sporadically, commit to coming regularly. If you come regularly once a month, commit to come twice a month. If you already come twice a month, come three times. If your job keeps you away sometimes, commit to come when you can. If you are already coming as often as you possible can, consider diving deeper, partaking of the living water in a small group Bible study or fellowship. Learn more and dive deeper so that you can better learn, share and bear witness to what God has done and is doing in the world. If you are already doing all of that, you get an even bigger challenge: find away to relight, rekindle or fan the flames of your passion for the Gospel so that your deep enthusiasm will draw others closer to the life spring of God's grace.
Amen.
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