Revelation 2:1-5

 

“Remembering Who We Are”

 

            At this time in the life of our church, we are taking youth, ages twelve and up, through what we call Confirmation Classes.  This is a time of learning about our Christian faith and to understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  It is also a time of learning about who we are as United Methodists.  And what I have discovered, is that many of the adults in our church have questions about who we are as United Methodists also.  This is why we are offering the Newcomer Classes. 

So today, I thought we would offer a little refresher course in this.  For those of you who are visiting with us today, this is an opportunity to better understand who we are as United Methodists.  And for those of you who have been long time members of the United Methodist Church, this will serve as a reminder of who we are as United Methodists.

            Now, I want to acknowledge the fact that I realize that many of you are here at this church, not because it is a United Methodist Church.  In fact, some of you have said that you joined in spite of the fact that we are a United Methodist Church.  And that's all right … there are days I feel the same way.  We have among us, some who are “died-in-the-wool” United Methodists that wouldn’t think of being anything else.  But most people don’t join a church today because of its denominational affiliation.  They join the church because of its unique character of fellowship; because of the people; and because of the ministries there.

            Yet, you need to understand that the very things that draw you to this church are all rooted and grounded in who we are as United Methodists.  And so, it is important that you understand who we are.

            Someone recently asked me, “Why did you become a United Methodist?”   I want to answer that just briefly, as a way of reminding us of who we are.  And let me say from the beginning ... I didn’t join the United Methodist Church because we are “a perfect church”.  If you're looking for a perfect church here, you’re not going to find it.  In fact, if you’re searching for the perfect church, I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing.  Because all churches are made up of human beings, who are sinners in need of God's grace.

            It’s not that we claim to be better than anyone else, or that we've got it all figured out and others don't, or that we have all the right answers.  We don't.  While I am proud of who we are as United Methodists, there are things I don't always agree with.  Yet, I am United Methodist by choice, because there are several unique emphasis that resonate with my soul and my understanding of scripture.

            Those of you who know my story, know that I grew up in the United Methodist Church due to the fact that my father is a United Methodist preacher.  So, growing up, I really didn’t have a choice of where I wanted to go to church.  United Methodism was all that I knew.  But, as children will do when they get the opportunity to spread their wings and light out on their own, after I graduated high school and went off to college I began exploring other options.  I was at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana studying to be a youth director when I began to feel the need to explore other churches and denominations, just to see for myself what else was out there.  While I loved the United Methodist Church, there was this curiosity to see if there wasn’t something better out there.

            A friend of mine invited me to go to his Pentecostal Church.  There they tried to teach me how to do all the things I was supposed to do; how to receive the Holy Spirit; and how to speak in tongues in a certain way.  But it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was not a Pentecostal. 

            I went with another friend to his Full Gospel Church, which was really an Assembly of God Church.  And there, I was drawn to the enthusiasm of their worship and how they emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  As a college student, the energy of the worship services and the music attracted me.  Growing up a United Methodist, I wasn’t used to such things.  Frankly, most of the services I had attended in United Methodist churches had been rather boring.  I’m sorry to say it, but that is an impression that folks outside of our church have of us.  So, for the first time, I was worshipping on Sunday morning with people who seemed to be having a good time!  They were clapping, and singing, and shouting, and raising their hands.  And I kind of liked that.

When I started going back to United Methodist churches, I found myself wondering why things had to be so subdued, with everyone holding their hands on their laps and afraid to smile.  You know, one of the qualifications for membership here is that you have to learn how to fall asleep in church with your head staying erect.  It’s an art that some of us mastered.

Having learned about the Early Methodists, I knew that it wasn’t always that way.  Those Early Methodist were known for their exciting worship services. They were known as, “shouting Methodists!”  In fact, it would probably do us all well to look in the front our hymnals at John Wesley’s directions for singing.  I love the part where he says, “Do not sing as if you are half asleep!  Sing lustily…”

I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie, The River Runs Through It.  It is set within the pioneer days of America and at one point the character playing a Presbyterian pastor said that he didn’t like the Methodists, “because they were Baptists who could read.”  We all have our differences. 

As a United Methodist, I had been brought up with certain beliefs and understandings that would not let me settle in one of these other churches.  While I appreciated their different emphasis and the experiences I had with them, I had come to understand that the world is much bigger and broader, than what I was experiencing in those settings.  The world is not always black and white … sometimes it is gray.  And there were questions that I had about life and about faith that weren’t satisfied by easy answers.  I longed for a place where I could grow spiritually and where the issues of real life were being addressed by my faith.

And that is what led me back to the United Methodist Church.  What I love about the United Methodist Church and why I think it has an approach to the Gospel that 21st century people will respond to, is that we are a church that holds in tension and holds together what most other churches separate.

We are a church of the “via media.”  You may remember that the Latin term, “via media” means “middle way.”  It was first coined during the Elizabethan era.   Henry VIII in England had moved the church out of Rome and created the Church of England.  And then “Bloody Mary” tried to change the church back to Roman Catholicism.  She had a number of the Protestant leaders put to death during this time. 

And so, for the next 200 years the Church was in turmoil.  So, by the time John Wesley was born … a lot of people ha just thrown up their hands about religion altogether.  I mean, there were the high church and the Low Church people fighting it out.  There were the Calvinists and the Armenians fighting it out.  There were the Rationalists who had nothing good to say about the Pietists and the Pietists who had nothing good to say about the Rationalists.  People had been fighting over religion for such a long time, that the time was right for someone to remember the “via media” … “the middle way”.

That is to say, those who are Pietists have something important to say.  And those who are Rationalists, we need some of their rationalism.  The folks who are high church have something really important to offer us and the folks who are low church have something really important to remind us of.  Those Roman Catholics, even though we don’t understand them, they have something important to teach us.  And so do the Protestants. 

We needed a way to hold these things together in a tension.  And this was part of the genius of John Wesley.  Of course, he leaned one way or another at different times, but he had that “catholic spirit” that sought unity and oneness.  He managed to bring together those things that were hard to hold together, yet, were so important.

            And this is what has resonated with my heart and why I became a United Methodist.  And for a moment, I want to remind you of some of these things that we hold together.

            As United Methodists, We are “both/and” not “either/or”.  As people who pursue the “via media” we are not an “either/or” kind of faith.  You know, the world is full of “either/or” kind of folks.  You’re either “this” or you’re “that.”  You’re either Republican or Democrat.  You’re either “rich” or you’re “poor.”  There are a whole host of “either/or’s”.  But what I love about being United Methodist, is that we are a “both/and” kind of church. 

            For, as United Methodists, we value both intellect and experience (heart).  We are folks who like to think about things.  We realize that God is not offended when we ask hard questions about our faith.  We believe that we are called to engage our brains and not to check them at the door when we walk into the church.  We’re supposed to think about the songs and the hymns that we’re singing.  The preaching should be thoughtful and reflective. 

Yet, at the same time, we believe in a faith whose “hearts have been strangely warmed.”  We believe that it is okay to experience something when you go to church.  You know, if we can go to Tiger Stadium to watch LSU play or to the Rebel Stadium and we can get excited about a football game, my goodness, can’t we get excited about Christianity? 

            I can remember watching a concert of Billy Joel and Elton John on T.V.  I’m probably dating myself with the young people here, but that’s what I grew up on.  So, when I saw them on the T.V., I just had to watch it.  It was an amazing concert!  And then, towards the end they got on stage with their dueling pianos and they started singing, “Norma Jean”, that song about Marilyn Monroe.  The lights went dim in the sanctuary, I mean, the arena, and suddenly, people started flicking their Bic lighters.  Soon, everybody joined hands and began to sway, with their lighters, singing, “Goodbye Norma Jean.” 

You talk about a buzz … those people were high!  They felt something!  You know, if we can feel something when we’re singing about Marilyn Monroe, we ought to be able to feel something when we’re singing about Jesus Christ! 

Of course, during the 18th and 19th centuries, we as United Methodists became afraid of “the heart that was strangely warm” and we gave the right foot of fellowship to the folks who were emphasizing the heart too much. 

But what makes us strong as a church, is that we believe both in the intellect and the heart.  We recognize that these two things need to go hand in hand.  When you have the heart, without the intellect, you have folks who are not thinking about what they are doing.  People start doing all kinds of things that “feel good”, but they are not of the Spirit of God.  Yet, if all we have is a religion of the intellect, with no heart, we’re missing out.  I love this about being United Methodist. 

I love the fact that we hold together both Scripture and Tradition.  We believe that the Bible is the foundation of our faith.  But it wasn’t written in a vacuum. We understand that it was interpreted by the Church through the ages.  And there was a lot wisdom in The Early Church.  And there was a lot of wisdom in the Church of the Middle Ages.  And there was a lot of wisdom in the way John Wesley approached the faith.  There is a lot of wisdom in the Church throughout the ages.    There was a lot foolishness in the church too, but a lot of wisdom in the church. 

So, we value “tradition” in the church.  I am so grateful for the traditions of the church.  To this day, when I sing those old hymns of the church, what power is contained in “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” and songs like “Amazing Grace”.  We value both Scripture and Tradition.

            We are also a church that holds together both the Evangelical Gospel and the Social Gospel.  The Evangelical Gospel says that we believe people need Jesus Christ … that a personal relationship with Christ is where life is found.  It is our belief, that we can’t really address the social needs of the world, until we address the spiritual needs of human beings.  We are encumbered by our sin, until we are set free to become new creatures in Jesus Christ.  So, we hold to this Evangelical Gospel … that people need the Lord.

            But we hold it alongside the Social Gospel.  We understand that you can “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength”, but until you “love your neighbor as yourself” you’re not really living out the Gospel Jesus calls us to. 

Now again, I appreciate my experience in those other churches I explored during my college years.  But I don’t remember any time as a church, where we fed meals to the homeless; heard a sermon on social justice; or even heard about the Minor Prophets.  Those wonderful passages in the Bible like: “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”  “What does the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”  “When you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto me.” 

            The Social Gospel is imperative to our life as a Christian, but it is rooted and grounded in a personal walk with Jesus Christ.  It is always a tragedy, when in our own denomination, you will have those who try to emphasize the Evangelical Gospel over the Social Gospel or vice versa.  We’re a church that tries to bring these two things together.

            Now, the next point may be a little troubling to some.  We are a church that is both liberal and conservative … not “either/or”, but “both/and”.  Now, I’m not using these as political terms.  By “liberal”, I mean “being open”.  It means being willing to embrace new ways of thinking and seeing.  Isn’t this what God’s Holy Spirit does in us?  It opens us to seeing things in a new way?  If we’re not open to gaining new insights … if we’re not open to new ideas … if our arms are like this (crossed) and not like this (open), then we’re stuck.  This is what conservatism is without liberalism.  It is unchanging and unwilling to embrace an approach to the Gospel that will meet the needs of a changing world. 

So, in this sense, being liberal is good thing, so long as we hold it in tension with being conservative.  So, we are also conservative … that is we understand that there are certain things that we need to conserve.  There are certain things that are important, that serve as our moorings and our anchor.  There are fundamental beliefs that make us who we are.  So, we might ask questions about them, but in the end, we understand that this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

If we are liberal, without being conservative, we are drifting and anchorless.  So, we need to be both liberal (open-minded) and conservative (holding on to our fundamental beliefs).

It is interesting that those early Methodists believed in both traditional and contemporary worship.  They went to church on Sunday mornings in the great cathedrals and worshiped with the great liturgies of the church.  But then, they’d gather for their Methodist preaching services and they’d sing hymns that were contemporary music for their day. 

I’ve had people say to me, “You know I just can’t tolerate the thought of having drums and electric guitars in the church.”  Which is always interesting, because centuries ago there were those who said, “I just can’t tolerate having pipe organs in the church.”  In fact, they called it an instrument of the devil.  All of the great Wesley hymns that we cherish today as part of our traditional worship were “contemporary songs” when they were first written.  Charles Wesley went out to the taverns to listen to the kind of music people were singing in his day and he wrote Christian words to that kind of music.  The great hymn, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” was an English tavern tune that Charles Wesley put religious words to.

Part of our strength in the church, is that we are not an “either/or” kind of church.  We bring together “both/and”.  We have a love for the tradition of the church, where there is depth and meat, and we have a willingness to embrace new ways of worshipping.  We believe that the Gospel message must never change, but the means by which we communicate the Gospel message to a changing world we must always be open-minded about.

I appreciate that we are also a church that emphasizes both free will and the sovereignty of God.  I find it very difficult to understand how one can look at the sovereignty of God apart from free will in a world where children are raped and abused.  Standing beside a teenage girl who has been raped and beaten, I cannot fathom a God, who in his sovereignty determines that this sort of thing should happen.

But I do believe that God is sovereign.  And in his sovereignty, God has given us free will.  And sometimes, we make choices that are evil and contrary to God’s will.  This makes sense to me. 

While in college, one of our classmates was tragically killed in a car accident.  And as we all went through that time of grief, I heard some interesting ways that people tried to explain why this had happened. 

One person said that they were certain that he must have been sleeping with his girlfriend and that’s why this had happened.  And I’m thinking, that if this is God’s punishment for sleeping with your girlfriend, then there would be about 50% of the world’s population that wouldn’t be here today, according to the statistics.

One person said, “God just loved him so much, that he wanted him in heaven with him.”  Now, I’m thinking that God is with us all the time, right?  And surely, if with the Lord “a day is like a thousand years”, God could wait these measly 70 or 80 years we have here on earth before he takes us to heaven.

I went to the service, and one of the preachers thought he had it figured out.  He said, “God took this young man, so that somebody here in this service could meet Jesus and give their life to Jesus.”  Now, I’m sure that this boy would have liked for somebody to give their life to Jesus at that service.  But to take this young man of 20 years old, so that somebody could meet Jesus at the funeral?  That doesn’t seem like a very effective form of evangelism to me. 

I did some hard thinking about all this and I simply could not accept that line of thinking.  Studying the scriptures, I just couldn’t accept that this is how God works in our world.  Sometimes accidents happen in life.  It’s not that God causes them to happen … but God can take the evil that happens in our world and he can bend it, and use it for good.  God doesn’t make it happen.  Often choices are involved.  God knows what will happen and “all things do work together for good, for those who trust in God.”  And somehow that made sense and brought me peace.  This is what we believe as United Methodists.

As United Methodists, we also hold together both grace and holiness.  “Grace” … “believing in God’s unmerited love” … that God is not waiting to throw us into Hell, but rather, God is like a father is to his children, longing for the best in our lives.  God isn’t waiting to punish us or hurt us, but instead, God loves us and is longing to forgive us.  We believe that God’s grace abounds towards us and that God’s unconditional love is what transforms our hearts and lives.

But, at the same time, God has a desire that we become “holy” as God is holy.   That we become “sanctified” … that’s our Methodist term for it … that we are called to grow more each day into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

Now, if you have grace without holiness, you’ve got “cheap grace”.  If you have holiness without grace, you’ve got “legalism” … a bunch of rules and regulations.  So, we believe that we must emphasize “both/and”, not “either/or”.

And finally, we seek to hold together the Head, the Heart, and the Hands. 

We are a thinking people, not afraid to question and to use the mind that God gave us in matters of faith.  We believe in the experience of “the heart strangely warmed” … that our faith is more than just a matter of knowing, but it is also an assurance experienced in one’s heart. 

But it is not enough to just “know it” with our heads.  And it is not enough just to “feel it” in our hearts.  We believe that our faith must be given expression through the work of our hands.  “As you do unto the least of these,” says Jesus, “you do it unto me.”

Now, it is hard to hold these things together, but this is our strength.  We are people of the “via media”.  And I am absolutely persuaded that people of the 21st century are hungry for a Gospel of the “both/and”, not the “either/or”.  I believe that we have an approach to the Gospel that will reach the un-churched and nominally religious of our day, if only we will remember who we are and have a heart for them.  I believe that people want a faith that has intellectual integrity, but one that we can feel and discover passion in our walk with God, and one that challenges us to serve God with our hands in the real world. 

All of which leads us to our scripture lesson for this morning.  The Church in Ephesus was formed in 50 AD by the Apostle Paul.  Paul was at this church longer than he was at any other.  In 2 years and 3 months he laid a great foundation.  In the Book of Acts, it says that more miracles were performed there through Paul than anywhere else.  So, these people had a depth of faith and an experience of God that was profound.

            But now, 45 years later, after the Apostle Paul is dead and gone, this church has lost its way.  It's not that they haven't been doing good things.  The letter from the Angel in the Book of Revelation says, “You've done a lot of good things!  I'm so proud that you've remained steadfast and persevered ... that you have cast out those who are evil and false teachers.  You’ve done a lot of good things, but I have this one thing against you,” the angel says, “that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

That’s the question I believe is before us today.  As we consider the United Methodist Church … as we consider the community we know here as First United Methodist Church, and as we examine our own lives, “Have we abandoned the love we had at first?”  Are we living in the past or are we embracing the call of God we have today?  Again, I am persuaded that if we remember who we are and we renew our passion for Christ and the world that he calls us to serve, the best years of this church and our United Methodist Church are ahead of us and not behind us. 

So, let us commit ourselves the heritage of who we are and who God is calling us to be.