Proper 19

After a Sunday morning church service, a new couple struck up a conversation with one of the church regulars. The parishioner had noticed the wife in church for several weeks and she had mentioned that she and her husband wanted to join the church. The long-time church member had not met the husband before, and he asked what church he would be transferring from.
            After a pause, he replied, “I’d be transferring from the Country View Golf Club.”

            An old cartoon from the pen of Joe McKeever shows a lakefront shop named Anglin’ Sam’s that rents rowboats labeled “Little Green Chapels.” Out front, Anglin’ Sam himself is holding one of his green rowboats upright, with its stern resting on the ground and its bow pointed toward the sky. In that position, the boat does look a bit like the arch of a chapel, and Sam is explaining to a potential customer that the boats are “for those who prefer to do their worshiping on the lake.”

            The cartoon, of course, is a potshot at the explanations people sometimes give for spending Sunday morning fishing, golfing, attending a sporting event, or going to comic con instead of attending church. The heart of that argument is “I don’t need to go to church because I can worship God by myself.” (Translation: “Who needs to get up, get dressed, drive in, be harangued and then be asked to pay for the experience?”)

            Clergy typically respond to such explanations as if they are excuses or rationalizations. We point out, for example, that while it’s true you can worship God alone, most people who make that argument don’t actually spend their alone time worshiping. When they’re walking on a golf course, boating on the bay or lazing home in bed, chances are pretty good they aren’t thinking about God at all. And even if they are, we preachers protest, it isn’t quite the same.

            We clergy like to remind the absentees that these other activities place fewer demands on them than does coming to church. No one will pass any offering plates among Sunday morning golfers. No one will bother Sunday morning joggers with pesky questions about how they’ll address the world’s hunger problem. And no one will tell Sunday morning fishermen that they must repent and believe the gospel.

            Back in 1756, there was a chaplain who accompanied a volunteer militia led by Benjamin Franklin. To defend the Pennsylvania colony against Indian attacks, Franklin led his recruits in the building of a fort in the Blue Mountain region. Once established inside the walls, the chaplain — “a zealous Presbyterian,” as Franklin called him in his autobiography — complained that few of the men were showing up for his worship services.

            Franklin, ever the practical man, solved that problem by putting the chaplain in charge of the daily ration of rum. Franklin told the preacher, “It is, perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were only to distribute it out after prayers, you would have them all about you.”

            The chaplain accepted that duty, and Franklin reports that thereafter, “Never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended.”

            Such an incident reminds us that survival or growth of any particular outpost of the church — apart from greater spiritual concerns — shouldn’t be the primary goal of attendance and other involvement in congregational life.

            It’s better to remember that we all benefit from participation in church life. Community rocks! A faith community provides instruction, support, feedback and accountability. It brings order to our lives. Attending worship is an important way of putting the events of our lives in helpful perspective.

            There’s an old story about a longtime church member who had always attended regularly but then suddenly stopped coming. After a few weeks, the pastor decided he’d better make a visit. He went to the man’s home and found him alone, sitting in front of a blazing fire. The parishioner invited the pastor in and directed him to a comfortable chair near the fire.

            After an initial greeting, the two sat in silence, watching the roaring fire dance over the logs. Then the pastor took the fire tongs and picked up a brightly burning ember, which he then placed to one side of the hearth by itself. That lone ember’s flame began to flicker and eventually died. Soon it was a cold, gray coal, with no life or warmth whatsoever.

            Later, the pastor picked up that coal with the tongs and placed it back into the middle of the fire. Within seconds, it began to glow with light and warmth, ignited by the flames around it.

            As the pastor rose to leave, the parishioner said, “Thank you for that sermon, Pastor. I’ll be back in church next Sunday.”

            Who knows if that incident ever really happened, but the truth it presents is plain enough: Our individual faith gives off more light and warmth when kindred believers support it.

            So, we do church because it satisfies our need for community — and a faith community at that. The Good Shepherd wants us with the flock, not apart from it. And maybe the best place to see that is from a text not usually thought of as referring to church attendance: Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep in today’s Gospel. The shepherd has 100 sheep, but when one wanders off, the shepherd leaves the 99 (presumably somewhere safe), and searches for the lost one until he finds it. And when he does, he brings it back to the flock and then asks his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him.

            According to the text, Jesus told this parable in response to some Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling because Jesus was welcoming known sinners to listen to him. In fact, he was even eating with them. So, in the parable, the shepherd can be viewed as a stand-in for Jesus. And what does he do when the sheep wanders off? He tracks it down and brings it back to the flock.
            While finding the sheep was of some benefit to the shepherd, it was of even more benefit to the sheep, which, had it stayed apart from the flock, probably would’ve become a mutton-chop dinner for a wolf or lion.

            Can we draw from this parable something of God’s perspective on our church attendance? Perhaps the main reason to be present in the flock that is the church is simply because that’s the place to which the Divine Shepherd brings wandering sheep.  

            And maybe that’s the point. Although we can enumerate benefits to our faith from being in church, the main reason for being here isn’t for the benefits but simply because it’s where God wants us to be. Yes, shepherds do go out after strays, but most of the work shepherds do with sheep is while they’re in the flock, and most congregational flocks are nourishing locations where God can work with us.

            It’s enough to notice that when we wander off and Jesus comes looking for us, he will likely push us toward a flock, toward a community, toward a place of safety, sustenance and nurture.

            And when we get there, there will be joy in heaven. “Just so, I tell you,” said Jesus, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  

            A church signboard in northern Minnesota sums it up quite well: “Sure, you can worship God with a fishing pole in your hand, but when was the last time a walleye told you, ‘Your sins are forgiven’?”