Back to Basics: Our Purpose Is Clear

Why? Why? Why? There is a sign at the children’s museum in St. Louis, the Magic House, that says that the average 4 year-old child asks 437 questions a day. When our kids were little and we visited, I took a picture and texted it to our parents, their grandparents with the comment, “Aren’t you glad your grandchildren are above average!” Why do children ask so many questions? To drive us crazy? To point out all that we don’t know? I don’t think so. They have found themselves in a world that they don’t know about and if they are going to live in this world, they need to understand some things. And so our children ask, “Why is the sky blue?” and when we answer that sunlight is all colors, and as the light enters the earth’s atmosphere, and is refracted by the gases and particles, and the light is scattered and blue is scattered more than the other colors because it travels in shorter, smaller waves, our children take that in and ask, “But why do we call it blue?”

We just finished our journey with Moses and the Israelites through the desert through 40 years of liminal time, the threshold time as they journeyed from slavery in Egypt to a new life in the Promised Land. But our journey in this liminal time of pandemic and disruption continues. As weeks turned into months, we heard projections of a peak in the viral spread…and those projections kept getting pushed farther and farther out. We mentally prepared for a second wave in the fall and winter, even as the first wave never ebbed. We can argue about rates and spread and counts and testing, but the reality is that there is a virus and it is changing our lives. Work is different. School is different. Grocery shopping is different. Church is different.

Some churches are getting back to normal. Some things are adjusting. Worship on Wednesdays is such a joy – people in their masks, sitting in their lawn chairs, distanced, standing as we proclaim the Apostles’ Creed together, hearing the community pray the Lord’s Prayer, taking Communion – together. It is the together part that means so much. Community, people standing distanced before and after service, visiting, connecting, catching up. Yet, I find myself wondering how to continue when the weather turns cold. I am already exploring creative ideas for Christmas Eve. And in the midst of “How” questions, it is easy to get lost in the struggle to reproduce what we have always done, as closely as possible. And perhaps the better question right now than “HOW?” is “WHY?” Not why do we do things the way we do them? Not “Why is the sky blue?” questions answered with explanations of refraction, but “Why do we call it blue?” questions. Why do we do what we do?

In this passage from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, the answer is simple, basic, because we are transformed. We could get into a lot of explanation about how we have many gifts and all are essential, the contribution of each member is what allows the body to function. We could get into a discussion of God’s grace and the renewing of our minds. There are a lot of “Why is the sky blue,?” refraction-type questions. But what about the more basic questions.

The first title I had for this series of sermons was “Why Church?” Why? Why are you tuned in now? As we continue to not be able to gather, as we postpone service and mission, as we struggle to connect over Zoom, as we wonder how to offer Sunday School to young children, how and when to return to the Sanctuary, we have to first wrestle with Why? Why have we always done things the way we have done them, and when we can’t do them that way anymore, “What is the core mission of the church?”

The core mission of the church is, according to Paul, “to offer ourselves as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, that is our worship, to not be conformed to the world, but transformed by the will of God.” Sacrifices were common – all religions in the ancient Near East offered sacrifices in worship – but Paul says the kind of sacrifice God wants is not a sacrifice of an animal that you burn in worship – but the adventure of sacrificing yourself, still living, in your everyday lives – that is worship – not an action that happens at a particular time in a particular way, but a sacrifice for God. But it’s not an individual offering; it is a communal offering. Paul says the church, though many, is one body in Christ, and the many members offer their gifts to the whole.

And again, I found myself at “Why Church?” When we can’t gather? What are the essential purposes of Farmington Presbyterian? And the Six Great Ends of the Church came to mind. Written in 1910 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America, one of the denominations that was folded into the PC(USA), these 6 ends, these 6 purposes of the church are our core. They are our “Why?” They guide the church in what God calls us to be and do – and they aren’t on the level explaining why the sky is blue with refraction; they are back to basics. These are the 3 R’s: the reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic of church life. The six purposes tell us who we are to be – even in the midst of pandemic.

Dr. Joseph Small wrote that “The great ends of the church offers a needed corrective, a comprehensive check-up that provides us with a faithful way to examine our life together.” Over the next six weeks, we will study what each of the purposes of the church is, and how we live it out in the Farmington family now.

Why church? When we get back to basics, it is for the preservation of the truth, the maintenance of divine worship. The church is about integrity and praise. Why church? For the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God, the promotion of social righteousness. The church is about right relationships. Why Church? For the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind, and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world. The church is about transforming lives and the world. These 6 purposes encompass who we are to be.

How do we preserve the truth? In the midst of postmodern relativism, what does it mean to preserve the truth? In the midst of social distancing and not singing together, how do we maintain divine worship? How do we shelter, nurture, and provide for the spiritual fellowship of the children of God when we can’t hug or share meals together? How do we promote social righteousness as we struggle to make sense of who is protesting and marching and who is rioting? How do we proclaim the gospel for the salvation of humankind when we are wearing masks at the grocery and have very little interaction with people outside our immediate families? How do we exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven to the world?

Why are these questions so critical? As we seek to move into a “new normal”, it is only as we get back to basics and build upon their foundation that we will be transformed to be Christ’s body in the world. Amen.