Form Without the Power?

Matthew 16:13-20

January 8, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Sermon Study Guide

I was in third grade when I got my first pair of glasses. As best as I can remember, my teacher, Mrs. Mercer, noticed me squinting at the chalkboard and suggested to my parents that we have my eyes checked. We did that, and the doctor said I needed glasses. It was amazing how much better things looked when my vision was corrected, but I have to tell you: to this day I dread going to the eye doctor. When they put that big machine in front of your face and switch the lenses around…you know what I’m talking about. Is this one better, or this one? A or B? 3 or 4? I keep thinking, “What if I get it wrong? I’ll be stuck with these glasses (or, today, contacts) for a year or so! What if I completely screw up my vision?” Does anyone else ever feel that way or is it just me? To me, vision is so very important—so much so that I asked my doctor a number of years ago about switching to a different kind of contacts. The doctor said, “Well, you could, but if you’re picky about how you see, you won’t like the other kind.” So I’m still wearing the same type of contacts I began with all those years ago. Vision matters, and if I don’t have some form of corrective lenses in my eyes, I can’t see a thing, even if it’s right in front of my face.

A lot of folks are like that when it comes to vision for their lives as well. But that’s understandable because to have that sort of vision, we all need corrective lenses. The world in constantly trying to give us one vision while Jesus wants to give us a higher vision. The world tells us that what is most important is money, fame, success, a more important job, power and influence over people. And the world says that if you’re not getting what you think you ought to get, or if you’re not “happy” in this very moment, you should trade everything in—even your family if need be—to get what you want. Don’t wait, and don’t worry about who you hurt. Take care of yourself. That’s one vision of how life should be, one idea of what we should spend our lives doing or pursuing. That’s the world’s way. The question we should be asking as Christians, as followers of Jesus, is whether or not that is the vision he calls us to pursue. Is that a vision Jesus leads us toward, or is there a better, higher, more purpose-filled life he calls us to?

A similar choice faced the twelve disciples as they found themselves at a place called Caesarea Philippi in northern Israel. I believe Jesus chose this place intentionally, to lay out a clear choice of visions before the disciples. The location was chosen on purpose. They didn’t happen to stumble into this place; it is 25 miles, or a good two-day walk, from the Sea of Galilee to Caesarea Philippi (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 150; Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 6). Plus, it’s not generally a place where any good Jew would be found. That’s not to say it didn’t have religious overtones; it did. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find a place more religious than Caesarea Philippi. It was the religious shopping mall of the first century; nearly any option you wanted was available in this place. If you wanted to worship Ba’al, the ancient Syrian god, you had fourteen different options in the neighborhood. Fourteen temples dedicated to Ba’al in a place that wasn’t even a real city. No one lived here; it was an administrative center in Jesus’ day (cf. Archaeological Study Bible, pg. 1589). And yet, it had also developed into a destination for worshippers of Ba’al. But if that wasn’t to your liking, you could worship other gods in this place. It was said that Pan, the Greek god of nature, was born here in a deep cavern at the base of a high hill. For a time, the place was even named after him: Panias. The legends of the Greek gods were alive and well in Caesarea Philippi. It was also where the Jordan River began. The Jordan had played a huge role in Hebrew history, so for anyone who was a devout Jew, the ancient faith of the Hebrews could also be honored here. And, of course, as the name of the city gives away, worship of Caesar was prominent here. There was a huge white marble temple built by Herod the Great to honor the divinity of the Roman emperor. It was a temple that could be seen for miles away, and it reminded anyone who approached of the might and power of Rome (cf. Barclay 134).

When I was in Caesarea Philippi in 2012, I was overwhelmed with the number of temples—ruins, now—right next to each other. One after another. Religion was big business in this place. Options were everything. Sound familiar to anyone? And yet in this place where they may have prided themselves in their tolerance of each other, in their vast array of worship options, Jesus comes with a singular question, though he “warms up” the disciples first with a public opinion question. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (16:13). And the disciples respond with the latest Gallup Poll results: “Some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, some say Jeremiah…” In other words, no one is really sure. The people, the crowds were divided over Jesus’ identity. But it’s not just “them, out there.” These disciples, these twelve men who have spent the most time with him, these former fishermen and tax collectors and zealots and others who left family and occupation behind to follow Jesus, are just as divided and just as confused. I think that’s part of why Jesus chose this place to ask his question. Not only are they away from the crowds who surrounded Jesus in Galilee, they are also away from everything familiar. This was a place Jesus could ask his question with nothing around to prevent the disciples from giving an honest answer. No Pharisees listening in, no temple authorities watching. Just Jesus and the twelve. And so, after listening to the opinion polls (which don’t really matter), Jesus asks the question he really wants an answer to: “Who do you say I am?” (16:15). And he’s met with dead silence.

It’s a dramatic picture. Here stands a homeless, penniless Galilean carpenter turned rabbi, surrounded by twelve very ordinary men. There are people back in Jerusalem plotting to get rid of him, to label him as a heretic and a threat to Rome. He’s brought these men to a place littered with pagan and Roman religions, temples and houses of worship to things and persons that offended Jewish sensibilities. Here, of all places, this carpenter turned rabbi asks his twelve friends who they believe him to be, and he expects an answer. He’s never been this direct before. “It’s as if Jesus deliberately set himself against the background of the world’s religions in all their history and their splendour, and demanded to be compared to them and to have the verdict given in his favour” (Barclay 135). Who do you say I am?

We face the same sort of choice today. We certainly have all sorts of houses of worship in our culture, even in our city, and you could stand in the middle of Terre Haute or Vigo County and consider all the choices. But, there are other gods that call for our attention these days, so much so that sometimes we don’t even pay attention to the so-called “religious options.” What are the “pagan temples” Jesus would stand in front of today as he asks this question? He might stand in front of Wal-Mart or Meijer or Best Buy any other retail establishment. They represent our attempt to satisfy our desires with more stuff, more things. They represent the god of consumerism, a god who is alive and well today. We’ll realize the extent to which we worship that god this month as our credit card bills begin to arrive from the spending (or overspending) we did at Christmas. We worship the god of consumerism when buy more stuff, thinking it will make us happy. I know this god well; I get that little rush of excitement when I go home and find a box from Amazon or Apple or Cokesbury on my front porch. I like stuff as much as the next person. But I also know, and so do you, that “stuff” cannot satisfy us for long. When our kids are little, we watch as we buy them expensive toys and they prefer to play with the box instead. We do the same thing; we’re entranced by the shiny new thing for a short time, and then we’re off to the next thing. We worship the god of consumerism. Or we might worship at the altar of the political god, the hope that the next leader will give us what we want or what we think we need. The source of the division in our country, in our culture, is not so much political as it is religious—both sides think their way is the only right way and if we can just get “the right people” elected, all will be well. And if our person isn’t elected—Lord help the ones who defeated us! In an age of social media and online rants, we as a people can be vicious in our retaliation toward “the other side.” The author Jacques Ellul called this the “political illusion,” the belief that politics can save us. But let’s call it what it is: a god. Some worship at the altar of politics.

Since I’ve already ventured this far, let me suggest a couple of other gods that just might cause a few feet to be stepped on! Some also today choose to worship at the altar of sports, getting more excited and energized by a particular team or player than we do about Jesus. We grow more concerned over player trades than we do about the fact that people are going to hell outside our four walls. And as long as I’m already in trouble, we’ll spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars on tickets to games that last a few hours but grumble about putting a few dollars in the offering plate for God’s eternal mission. Related to that, then, it seems that the overwhelmingly favorite god of our day is money and wealth. We worship at this altar when we work endless hours to the detriment of our family so that we can provide for our family. We worship at this altar when we, like the rich farmer in Jesus’ parable, store up our fortunes for ourselves rather than for the sake of others (cf. Luke 12:13-21). We worship at this altar when we hoard and fear the future rather than trust in the God who has promised to never leave nor forsake us. And, dare I say, we worship at this altar when we believe that the answer to our city’s financial struggles is to bring in a casino that will somehow magically provide more revenue.

We worship at the altar of money, or sports, politics, or stuff, and let me quickly say that there’s nothing inherently anything wrong with any of these things. It’s when they become objects of worship, often without our even realizing it, that problems begin in our spiritual lives. It’s when we make a choice for Caesarea Philippi over the Son of the living God. And it is, in reality, a problem of priority. What—or who—is most important to us, in our lives? Jesus stands in front of all these gods and asks us, “Who do you say I am?”

John Wesley, the founder and first leader of the Methodist movement, was near the end of his life as he looked back at all that God had done and the ways God had used him to point people toward Jesus. A few years before he died, he wrote a small pamphlet explaining Methodism to the larger public, and he began with these rather prophetic words: “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out” (John Wesley, Thoughts Upon Methodism, August 4, 1786). Wesley knew that everything God had done in the midst of the Methodist Revival could be undone if we failed to focus on what is most important, that we would begin to exist as a people who have “the form of religion without the power.” That wasn’t just a danger in the late 1700’s; it continues to be a danger in each and every generation. Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?” In the midst of the gods of the culture, who do we say he is? And how will we live so that we do not end up with only the form of religion, lacking power?

We do it by, as I once heard a Bishop say, keeping the main thing the main thing. Power comes from a compelling vision given by the Holy Spirit. In other words, we seek to live guided by God’s vision for us, and to do that, we have to allow our natural vision to be corrected or refocused by the Holy Spirit. Like Peter, we need to keep our focus on Jesus, especially in our own Caesarea Philippi where we are surrounded by so many options for worship. We want to be able to cry out with our heart, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16) and then follow that Messiah wherever he is leading us. When we do taht, we become the “church” Jesus said he would build on Peter’s confession, the congregation that is unstoppable, a congregation that not even hell itself can stand against (16:18; Card 151). Last year at this time, I laid out several goals for Mount Pleasant as we move toward 2020; five-year goals at that time, four-year goals now. These are meant to be priorities for us as we seek to help the community around us see the one who is the Son of the living God. So it’s important to ask, now a year later, how are we doing? What have we accomplished and what is yet to be accomplished as we follow Jesus, as we pursue God’s vision for us? Let’s take some time this morning, in the midst of all the options for worship we have, to consider how we have done and where we are going.

The first and primary goal we have is to reach at least 100 new people for Jesus, helping them take the first step on the journey of faith. This is, admittedly, a hard goal to measure as we don’t really have a format or vehicle for reporting this. But, even though I don’t have a firm number, I do know of several folks who have come to know Jesus in the last year through the ministry of this church, some of you sitting here, and this summer we did celebrate the baptism of sixteen folks who publicly professed their faith in Jesus for the first time. But, folks, this is the heart of who we are and what we should be about—sharing the good news and helping people come to know Jesus. The last command Jesus gave us was to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8), to share the good news in every way we can. One of the “four areas of focus” for the United Methodist Church in these days is “creating new and renewed congregations,” and that renewal begins as we invite people to follow Jesus. Pastor Mike Slaughter asks a penetrating question when he says, “When did Jesus’ pioneers become Christian settlers, enclosed in our four walls, comfortable, and complacent?” One report indicates that as much as one-third of our 32,228 United Methodist Churches are dying or dead—welcoming no one new into the kingdom of God (Slaughter, The Passionate Church, pg. 75). I don’t want us to be in that number; we must be in the two-thirds where we take our mission seriously: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. What will we do in the coming year to reach new people for Jesus?

That goal directly ties into our second goal, to grow our worship attendance by at least 20%. From where we started, that would mean that our average worship attendance by 2020 would be at least 433. Now, this is a quantifiable goal; we do track this and can measure it easily. I can tell you that in 2016, we started the year strong. In the first three months of the year, our worship attendance was at 403, a little over a 10% increase from the prior year. We ended the year, however, averaging 381, which represents about a 5% increase overall. So there are questions we have to ask. First, is worship participation important to those of us who call this church our home? Is gathering in God’s presence important enough that it takes precedence over the other gods in the culture? And if it’s important, what will it take for us to invite someone to join us? Not folks who are already part of other churches; that’s just shifting people around in the kingdom. I’m talking about inviting people who do not have a church home, who aren’t yet following Jesus. When was the last time you invited someone like that to come with you to worship? If you are like most, it’s once every 38 years. That’s what the statistics say about United Methodists; we invite someone to come to church with us once every 38 years (whether we need to or not I guess)! The West District has set a goal this year that every single person in every single church will invite at least 1 person to join them in worship. That’s a low goal, but do you realize what that means if we took that seriously? Twenty percent would be far too low a goal; we could increase worship attendance by 100%! We exist to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, and that begins in our own personal worlds as we invite people to get connected.

The third goal I shared with you last year was to develop an effective method of connecting people to small groups. To be honest, we’re still working on this one, though we’ve started some new small groups this past year and we’ve seen an increase in the number of folks participating in LifeGroups—especially when we did the study of the life of Paul this last fall. But we still have a lot of work to do in this area.

The fourth goal was to develop new leaders for our church and for the United Methodist Church, specifically targeting those who are under 50 years old. This is an emphasis of the whole church, one of those four areas of focus, “developing principled Christian leaders.” The reason, you may remember, for focusing on younger leaders is that our United Methodist Church is graying. The average age of our members is 57, and the average age of our clergy is somewhere around 60. The Lewis Center for Church Leadership recently released a study that indicated the biggest group of our clergy are preparing for retirement, and there is not really a large group coming behind to replace them. The same is true in our churches. One of our speakers at Leadership Institute last fall, Haydn Shaw, pointed out that because we are living longer, we have more generations alive in the church at the same time than ever before—five, to be specific. And as those of us who are older have held onto leadership longer, we’ve failed to “train up” the next generation. This year, our Leadership Council took a bold step and voted to go to a model known as accountable leadership, which incorporates the various committees into a single board. This has two immediate impacts. First of all, it will make communication a lot more efficient and second, it will free a lot of folks up to do ministry rather than sitting in meetings. As our Nominations Team worked on staffing the Leadership Council, one of our members set the tone from the beginning when he suggested we take this goal seriously and invite people to serve who were ready but hadn’t had the chance yet. This morning, we were able to dedicate these new leaders and I am excited to see what God does through them. So we’re moving forward with this goal in new, daring and sometimes frightening ways!

Another goal that hasn’t quite gotten off the ground is the fifth one: developing congregational care teams who will expand the ministry of your pastors. We already have, of course, wonderful folks who visit our shut-ins every week and bring them communion on the weeks we have it here. That’s a vital and important ministry. But there are other areas of care where we can continue to grow. One way we took a step in that direction this past year was with our Longest Night Service, focused on those who have experienced loss or just have a difficult time getting through the holiday seasons. It was a gentle, quiet time of prayer and reflection, ministering to a full chapel! We’ll continue to move in those sorts of directions this year.

Number six is one we do fairly well: engage in intentional, short-term missions to places both domestic and international. Last year, we sent a group to Costa Rica and we also hosted a hometown mission week, and in just a few months Deb Williams will be leading a group to Haiti. Later, in the summer, Jess will be taking a group to Guatemala, and there are other possibilities as well. I want to encourage—or challenge—every one of us to, as our abilities allow, consider taking part in one of these trips, whether local or international, at least once every five years. You will find your world turned upside down when you go to serve others in a setting in which you are not quite comfortable. I’ve found that to be true as a day camp in the inner city of Chicago, building a church for a Native American congregation in Oklahoma, and serving at a Navajo school in Arizona, among other places. You go there to be a blessing but you will find that you are blessed as well—sometimes more than the blessing you give out! Serving is at the heart of the Gospel, for Jesus, on his last night with the disciples, called them to be people who wash feet, who do the dirty tasks no one else wants to do, who serve without expectation of reward (cf. John 13:14; Luke 17:7-10).

And now—I know I’m running out of time—so I need to move onto the last goal, and you’re probably glad I don’t have a lot of time to talk about it: increase our overall giving by 20% over the next five years, meeting our budgets annually and supporting mission projects around the world. The final numbers aren’t in yet for 2016, but based on what we were seeing near the end of last year, we had a good year financially, enough that bills were paid and obligations taken care of. It was a decent year, but not an “out of the park” year. This year, our budget has a 5% increase, and many of those expenses (such as utilities and insurance) we can’t control. This is a goal that entirely rests on each one of us as we decide what we are called to give to God for the ministry of this church. And, in the words of Forrest Gump, that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

All of these goals, our vision, seek to help us fulfill the mission: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. It’s all about our answer to Jesus’ question: who do you say he is? If he is who he says he is, who Peter confesses him to be in this morning’s passage, then isn’t he worth giving our all to follow him? Jesus says to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church” (16:18), and he has. The church is built on that confession, on the conviction that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and it continues to be built on that firm foundation. It’s that confession that corrects our vision and gives us direction for all that we do and all that we are.

In 2010, I got to visit the hillside town of Assisi in Italy, where St. Francis was from. Francis was the son of a wealthy merchant who was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. But one day, while praying, Francis heard Jesus say to him, “Francis, repair my church.” When he sold some of his father’s goods to be able to do begin work on repairing a physical church building, his father was angry with him. That rift in their relationship caused Francis to turn his back on his father’s wealth and devote himself to a life of poverty and service. And while Francis did rebuild a little chapel in the valley with his own two hands, he soon came to understand that Jesus did not mean for him to rebuild a church building, but to rebuild the universal church, to remind them of their purpose and what they believed, to once again (using Wesley’s words) become a church with power, Holy Spirit power. And Francis’ ministry did just that in many ways. John Wesley’s ministry did the same thing. Any time the church is build on the firm conviction that Jesus is the Savior, that it is him we must follow and none else, the church stands strong. That’s the vision that must compel us, must shape us, must define us as a people. So here’s the question for this new year: on what will we build this church? Let’s pray.