Epiphany 5

For $17,000, you can have a new Nissan Versa sedan. Or a lovely Gothic church.

Take your pick.

It’s hard to believe, but for the price of a car, you can now buy yourself a fully loaded, 47 foot high place of worship. It’s got Gothic arches, space for 60 and even some stained-glass-style windows.

All for 17K, which sounds like a deal, or even a steal.

But full disclosure here: the church is a balloon.

The world’s first inflatable church came about in England back in 2003, and its creator hoped that it would “breathe new life into Christianity.” The church was designed to fit in the back of a truck so that it could be hauled to village squares or open fields and set up for impromptu services.

Time was when churches were the centers of community life, but “sadly, that’s not the case anymore,” laments the innovator behind the inflatable church. “This is one way to reverse that trend, make the church more accessible and put it back where it belongs.”

Today the church is available through the good people of Innovations Xtreme, who also offer the inflatable pub and the inflatable nightclub. Walk through the gray Gothic archway of the inflatable church, and you find yourself in a worship space that looks like a cross between a monastery and a moon-bounce. Once you get adjusted to the puffy plastic walls, you can easily imagine taking part in a service of worship there. The stained-glass windows are really quite attractive.

Just be sure to leave any sharp objects at home.

Jesus was of the same mind-set when he launched his ministry beside the lake of Gennesaret. He wasn’t interested in stacking stones to build a cathedral. Instead, he looked for ways to take his message into the very heart of where people were living and playing and working, and he spoke from whatever platform he could find.

Would he have preached from the roof of a Nissan Versa? Sure, if there happened to be a car dealer in Capernaum. As it turned out, Jesus saw two boats at the shore of the lake, and so he hopped into Simon’s vessel and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat (Luke 5:1-3).

Jesus created a sanctuary at sea. A worship center on the water. He placed a pulpit in the center of the people so that the word could be heard.

So why are we stuck with a sedentary church today?

We all have a natural human hunger for stability in our lives, so it makes sense that our church has a solid foundation and a set of sturdy walls, plus an unchanging phone number and an address that hasn’t shifted since the cornerstone was first put in place in 1904. It’s a beautiful building indeed, a place we all cherish and appreciate.

The opposite of an inflatable church is, perhaps, the $190 million, 12-story, earthquake-proof Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, aka COLA. It’s got an upscale gift shop, complete with its very own house chardonnay. It has an ATM and a parking garage. It’s got a mausoleum below it that contains 4,746 columbarium niches, along with 1,270 crypts for full body interments.  The private crypts sell for as high as $3 million apiece. That’s sort of like selling sky boxes at the Ray Jay, except that there’s no food and beverage service and you never get to leave your box!

The church needs to recover its tradition of pilgrimage and journey. From the tabernacle in the wilderness, to the great Wesleyan revivals of the 18th century when preachers went into pit and pub with the good news, to the Billy Graham crusades, the church finds that it thrives when it is on the move.

Should we be operating out of the trunk of a Nissan Versa? Or off the deck of a fishing boat? Or from a flatbed truck hauling an inflatable church? Father Michael Elfred, the roving rector from Tadworth, Surrey, England, and creator of the original inflatable church, reminds us that in the Old Testament, God’s people worshiped in a tent. “God is on the move,” he insists, “And tells us not to be sidetracked by our buildings.”

The Lord is on the move – always on the move. That’s the story of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.

Our mission is to go out, not just wait for people to come in. We’re to meet folks where they live and work and play. Jesus invites us to “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (v. 4). Do we have the gumption to walk with God into an uncertain future, knowing that God is always ahead of us, and that God is always on the move?

Now we don’t actually have to worship each week in a big balloon in order to pass the inflatability test. After all, polyvinyl pews can pop and air-filled arches can sag. But there is still tremendous value in thinking about being a church that is apostolic and on the move with God.

Our focus should be on inflatability, not stability.

To be inflatable is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. After all, in the Hebrew Bible, there is only one single word for the concepts of wind and breath and Spirit – ruach. To be inflatable is to be easily transportable, and able to move quickly and efficiently to wherever God wants us to be. When the Lord is on the move, we don’t want to be left behind.

Inflatability is seen most clearly in our actions when we leave this building and go out into the world. After all, we’ve come to this place feeling deflated by the frustrations of the week, and maybe even punctured by sharp words and destructive, damaging actions.

As we worship God together, we find ourselves being repaired and re-inflated, filled once again with the powerful and inspiring wind-breath-Spirit of God. Like the first apostles, we may toil all night by ourselves and catch nothing, but when we open our hearts to Jesus, we find that our nets are filled so full that they are in danger of breaking (vv. 4-7).

When Jesus called, the future disciples “left everything and followed him” (v.11). They abandoned their rootedness and began instead a journey that would lead to their ultimate eternal destination. So here we go, floating out into the world as a sign of God’s love for all people. “Do not be afraid,” said Jesus to his very first inflatable followers; “From now on you will be catching people” (v. 10). The best way to attract people to God is to be light and flexible and full of the Spirit, and the most effective way to draw people to Jesus is to do your best to love them as profoundly as Jesus loves them.

There was a woman in a hospital in Washington, DC, who kept hearing the chaplain tell her how much God loved her. She heard him say this again and again, over and over, every time he dropped by her room for a visit. Finally, she said to the chaplain, “Please, stop telling me how much God loves me. First, you love me. Then I’ll know that God loves me.”

That’s the technique of a Christ-follower who values inflatability over solidity, and flexibility over stability.

How has your fishing been lately?