Interim Minister and President Steve Sterner’s Sermon from the 207th Annual Meeting

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Sovereign Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Well, here we are, it’s about ten minutes of 5:00, everything was over except the workshops a few hours ago and you’re still here.  That makes you the righteous remnant!  And I’m delighted that you have chosen to end this time together around God’s table, and with the blessing of our call to serve our Sovereign Jesus Christ. 

A number of years ago when I was a little bit younger, there was a popular service announcement on television that came on right before the 10:00 o’clock news in the evenings, particularly on Saturdays, and it asked the question, “It is 10:00 o’clock; do you know where your children are?”  My father thought that was best answered by me, sitting beside him. 

Well here it is, June of 2006, not quite 5:00 o’clock; do we know where our churches are?  Well, of course we know where our churches are; we go to them all the time, (although I’ve been told some of you not as often as you should.)  I’ve traveled a lot throughout the last fifteen months, and because of Willie’s great wisdom about church location and Mapquest directions, I’ve been to every church on time.  I’ve never gotten lost getting to any of our churches.  Sometimes, however, going home I had difficulty.  I found it harder to read the directions in reverse.  When my wife was along, it was no problem getting directions because I had to; but when she wasn’t along you know the story.  I did see parts of the Berkshires I’m sure tourists have not seen in many decades. 

As I thought about that I remembered a story that Anne Lamott tells in Traveling Mercies - it’s a wonderful book.  And in this story, Lamott is describing an episode where there’s a young child lost in a big city.  And a policeman finds her and decides to put her in the cruiser and drive her around the place where he found her hoping that she will identify a landmark near her home.  They drive for some time until finally she says, “Stop!  That’s my church.  You can let me out.  I can always get  home from here.”

The point, says Lamott, is that our churches need to be the places from which everyone who finds them can find their way home.  And by home, she doesn’t mean just back to their normal residence.  She means to that place where we are connected to and transformed by the power and the presence of God.  So here it is, June of 2006.  We know where our churches are, but can we get home from there?

Part of our dilemma, particularly here in Massachusetts, is that the location of many of our churches is a source of some disorientation.  A large number of our congregations are at or near the center of the communities which they serve.  But in truth, in most of those communities the church is no longer the center of the culture or even the thoughts of the population.  And in some places in Massachusetts there is even a little glimmer of anti-church bias that’s cropping up now and again.  For many of us, especially for clergy, this paradox at being geographically at the center of our communities but culturally increasingly marginalized has caused an undue focus on the location of our churches- and I’m not just talking about our geographical location, but our location in terms of where we fit into the society or the politics of our communities or the cultural ethos in which we live or the theological spectrum or the economic grid or how big or small our churches are.  What is their location in terms of demography?  That has become something of our focus.  We want to get our churches located.  But even with that, although we remain the largest protestant denomination in Massachusetts, because our churches are not located at the heart of our culture, that makes little difference to more and more people. 

So some believe that what we need to do is to try to get our location back.  To some, this is a signal for us that the church has lost its way and we need to recover some past belief or some past power or some past theology or some past position on that economic, political, social or theological spectrum to locate our churches again.  But that’s not the question.  For our task is not to find the location of our church, but rather to make sure that when people find our churches they can get home from there.

No matter where we’re located, if it’s on the town green or in the back country of the Berkshires, whether it’s in an urban center or a rural setting, whether it’s in the South or North or East or West or Central, whether it’s liberal or conservative, the question always is the same:  Can people who find our churches get home from there?

I’m struck by the number of times in the scriptures when changes in location are connected to a renewing or changing of vocation.  In the Great Covenant at Shechem that represented a portion of our Joshua text today or that our text represents a portion of, the people of Israel are standing before Joshua as they are preparing for a new location, to be in that land of promise that their ancestors had sought for generations, through freedom and bondage and wilderness wandering.  And as they stand on the threshold of that new location, Joshua reminds them it is their vocation that is the most important thing.  Choose which god you will listen to.  Select the god that’s calling you, Joshua invites them. 

Many interpreters believe this story was remembered only after Israel had moved into the Promised Land and been seduced by the gods already in that new location.  Because when location becomes our central identifying factor, no matter whether it’s geography or theology or size or class, we have lost our way. 

It was easy for Israel in the comfort of the abundance of the Promised Land to forget that it was the exodus-delivering, commandment-offering God that had brought them there.  But after they had lived in the Promised Land long enough, they started to think that they had earned their right to be there.  And they knew their location, but they couldn’t get home from there. 

When our location as churches becomes the focus of our identity, we are in danger of being seduced by that location, and quickly move into forgetting the God who’d called us into existence, the God who blessed us with places we worship and live and proclaim God’s Good News.

The United Church of Christ phrase, “No matter where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here” should include, “and when you get here, you can always find your way home.” 

In some ways the story of Jesus’ temptation is Jesus’ own personal covenant at Shechem.  As he is about to change his location from the One baptized by John to the One proclaiming the Gospel, his first order of business is to listen and to get clear about his vocation.  To listen to Yahweh, rather than Satan.

Now I know that location is an important context for us to consider.  People have to be able to find our churches.  But most of them are easy to find.  But here on June 10, 2006, our task is not so much to know where our churches are; it’s to get our vocation right.  And that vocation is to be the place where communities are formed that engage in radical welcome, evangelical hospitality, life-transforming, God-encountering, Spirit-delivering worship, and disciples so empowered by the Good News of the just and loving God that no community remains untouched from that transforming power.  No matter where our churches are, can those who find them get home from there?  Amen.