Church: A Community of Service
Question: What is Faith? How would you explain faith?
Intro: Tattoo story and the visibility of faith.
I found a story on-line this week about a church that was celebrating it’s first year anniversary with tattoos. Yup, that is right. No anniversary tea’s or pot-lucks, no guest speakers or special organ concert’s. This church, made up of mostly 20 and 30 somethings, celebrated their church anniversary by throwing a tattoo party. Along with loud praise music, and food, they lined up for tattoos. It’s actually a growing sub-culture in the tattoo world, Christian tattooing. What is it about tattoo’s.
We could be a bit cynical and say that once again the church is capitulating to popular culture. That these churches are more interested in being cool or hip than in being faithful. We could say that because the church in America has been steeped in a radical individualistic culture of self-expression that the traditional expressions of faith are being rejected for an expression that is no rooted in the Christian story and its history. In other words, these new young Christians do not become a part of the church, but instead completely make the church part of themselves… instead of conforming to Christ, Christ is forced to conform to popular culture.
While you could say those things and have a point, I do think there is something to learn from young Christians and their ink, and not just because I have a couple of tattoos myself. Because the act of getting tattoo’s does symbolize something that young adults and teens today are asking us, the established church to provide for them.
You see faith has long been thought of mostly as something interior and personal. I ‘have’ a faith and that faith consists of my beliefs and the ‘feelings’ I have when I pray, or worship, for example. Just the language I used, which is often the way people speak to me, shows how individualized faith is. It is deeply personal, it is mine. And as I have reflected on before, one of the phrases I hear so often, and which if I am honest drives me nuts, as much as I love the person saying it to me is… Pastor I haven’t been to church, but I still believe. Faith is interior, a system of ideas, an intellectual exercise at best, a feeling of warmth in its worst form really.
Tattoos symbolize what young adults and teens are begging us for… a faith that is not just inside me, but outside, not just in my thoughts, but in my actions, in my practices. A faith is isn’t something that I ‘have’ and therefore control, but is something that has me and controls me, compels me, drives me. Young Adults and Teens want a faith that isn’t something we have, but instead something we practice and pass on. They want, in other words to be passionate, not only in thought or word, but in deed. Faith without works is dead, James would tell us… and teens and young adults are begging us to make that verse our motto. Tattoos, as odd as they are, tell us something about what kind of faith young folks want… a faith that is visible and not private, a faith that is a part of the body and not just the mind or the heart, a faith that costs something, is even uncomfortable, for this reminds us of sacrifice.
The question is, are we passionate about practicing our faith? And the answer, as we talked about last week, is that young adults and teens are telling us that we are not. Faith is not worth sacrificing over. We squirm if we are asked to sacrifice more than an hour of our Sunday morning. Instead of faith being something we will sacrifice for, faith is often the first to be sacrificed. Worship for a walk in the woods or the beach. Sunday morning sacrificed for a good time Saturday night. They are watching folks and they are seeing and reflecting for us just what we are teaching them… Worship, Faith, is a option for feeling better, but it is simply one option among many others, and these others arouse more passion than practicing faith.
II. Back to interactive sermon time: What four things did Christ command us to do? Now three of these we actually do practice and one of them lies often forgotten or is optional. A hint. One of the three that we get, Baptists call ordinances and we practice them regularly.
Baptism
Communion
Love One Another
Jn 13:1-15
13:1 It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
2 The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"
7 Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."
8 "No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."
Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."
9 "Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"
10 Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13 "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
What do you suppose Jesus was trying to teach the disciples here? What specifically was he commanding them to do?
He was commanding them to live lives of compassionate service. Faith in him was meant to be practiced… and the washing of the feet was meant to be a regular reminder of all the acts of service that Jesus had showed them in his time with them…
Acts of service such as…
Feeding the starving thousands with bread and fish
Healing the sickness and disease of so many (not forgetting that poverty and malnourishment was the cause most likely of this sickness)
Again through healing taking lepers from the isolation of being outcasts and leading them back to home, to family
Placing himself between an angry crowd and a woman caught in sin
This foot-washing story and command is meant to remind us of the life of sacrificial service that Jesus lived, and to inspire us to acts of sacrificial service. Our faith is not complete in acts of piety such as prayer and worship, although these are vital aspects of faith. Our faith has not grown to its potential if it consists of warm thoughts, or a feeling of self-satisfaction, or in being nice when the occasion presents itself. The foot-washing story reminds of Jesus whose entire ministry among was was focused on seeking those in need, and serving them. Putting himself in harms way to provide for them. That is a lot more than just ‘nice’ I think you will agree. Our faith is not complete unless it is practiced in diakonia, in service to others. And not just occasionally. Service is meant to be the steady drum-beat guiding our lives just as worship and prayer is a constant part of our lives.
This, I believe, is something that young people can believe in.
This is something the early church believed in and struggled with.
Ac 6:1
6:1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
NIV
Ac 2:44-46
45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
NIV
Ac 4:33-35
34 There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
NIV
Ro 15:25-28
25 Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there. 26 For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem . 27 They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.
Distributing food, selling possessions to offer assistance to the poor, churches tithing not only for their own ministry, but to send back to Jerusalem… the early church understood what the foot-washing command meant… that they would live lives of service.
As I said before, a faith that does not include a passion for service and regular component of hands on service is not a complete faith.
And I think that we grow in this area by beginning with a change in our language. Instead of asking people to join a committee, lets start asking people what ministry they feel passionate about. Instead of asking new members what committee they are interested in (because whether we like it or not, committee’s are not going to raise new Christian’s passions) lets ask them what mission God is calling them too.
We have many… a clothes closet, a hygiene closet. We have a nutrition ministry. And let me pause there for a moment to say we are re-visioning that nutrition ministry. We will need a new coordinator for that ministry and we are considering working with the RI food bank, and opening the food closet twice a month instead of just having it available by emergency appt. But in order for this to work we will need many people who feel passionate about feeding the hungry, called to give time and energy to this mission.
Although our AI Visioning process revealed to us another mission, I would like to suggest that first and foremost our goal for the next couple of years is focusing on this nutrition ministry. I would like to suggest that our goal for the next couple of years is to widen the circle of those who regularly participate in these works of service, such as the food closet and clothes closet and Holiday food baskets and Summer meal programs. Not only encouraging more of us, the members of the church to get hands on involved in these ministries, but also more community members involved, for in inviting them to serve, we are inviting them to follow Christ. And in including our children we are not only teaching them to serve, we are teaching them to follow Christ.
Now our AI goal is to create a ministry partnership with an American Baptist Missionary and a community perhaps in central America; to get to know the people, to learn about their struggles and then to create a plan, a long term plan to serve them, visit them, but not just to serve them, to create a relationship with them.
I’m asking you to pray for both of these missions of service; the nutrition ministry and the sister relationship with a foreign missionary and church; pray for a coordinator for the nutrition program, pray for the families that we serve, and pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you your passion for service. Pray that the Holy Spirit will show us show us how to grow in faith, how to grow from a faith that believes into a faith that serves, how we all together should grow from a faith that we hold, into a faith that we practice and pass on.
Jn 13:17
17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
So let us also, in these 100 days of prayer, pray that we will be blessed with the courage and commitment to wash other’s feet as Christ has washed our own.
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