Download May 9 - "Say What", I Don`t Understand

FIRST LESSON: Gen. 11: 1-8
SECOND LESSON: I Cor. 9: 19-23
May 9, 2010
“Say What?”
Sermon © Lisa C. Farrell
Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am?”
And his disciples answered and said, “Some say you are John the Baptist
returned from the dead; others say Elias, or another of the old prophets.”
Jesus asked: “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered, “Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His
rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of
the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the
fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each
member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting
inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an
economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would
make the substance no longer simple.”
And Jesus answered saying, “What?”
Well we might not be that bad on a Sunday morning, but the fact is we
do use language that you won’t hear anywhere else, and for a person coming in
off the streets cold with no Church background, that can be a problem. We
speak a foreign language. It’s called Christianese.
Here
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are a few words of Christianese:
Repentance
Assurance
Atonement
Sacrament
Eucharist
Pastor
Elder
Deacon
Hymn
Exegesis
Hallelujah
Hosanna
Testimony
Witness
Preach
Liturgy
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Redemption
Redeem
Sin
Bless
Benediction
Outreach
Evangelize
Saved
Gospel
Epistle
Prophet
Pew
There’s even rhyming Christianese!
 Tribulation
 Expiation
 Propitiation
 Salvation
 Justification
 Sanctification
 Appropriation
And rhyming but not as common . . .
 Doxology
 Christology
 Typology
 Soteriology
 Ecclesiology
 Apocalyptic
 Synoptic
Then
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there’s the ones I have to handle at seminary . . .
Heuristic
Apophatic
Gnostic
Docetic
Eschatological
Dialectical
Dialogical
Ontological
Kenotic
Postmodern
Androcentric
Theodicy
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 Apostasy
 theophany
 Hermeneutics
 Parousia
 perichoresis
 Homoousion
 Kerygma
 Logos
 Praxis
 Concupiscence
I PROMISE not to inflict any of them on you on a Sunday morning. It’s bad
enough that I have to know what they mean.
Paul makes a startling statement in his letter to the Corinthians. He
freely admits that he doesn’t speak Christianese. And he does it on purpose!
When working with Jews, he lives and speaks like a Jew. When working with
Gentiles, he lives and speaks like a Gentile. He is weak with the weak and
strong with the strong. He “becomes all things to all men” for the sole purpose
of telling them about Jesus. Paul seems to go out of his way to be clearly
understood. We, on the other hand, have a tendency to live as if we were still
under the curse of Babel. We speak a language that fewer and fewer people
understand.
Once upon a time on the corner of Haverford and Manoa Roads there
existed a humble one-story structure. In the 1920’s it was the office and
storage area for the carpenters who built about 200 houses in the area. But in
October of 1929 the stock market crashed, and so did the housing market. The
humble structure went up for sale. It was bought by a man named John
Williams, a coal merchant who lived in the house across the street, now the
home of the Beth Hamedrosh Orthodox Jewish congregation. Williams
purchased the property for $17,500, and it was a pretty large chunk of land,
including what is now the parking lot and the library. He bought it for one
reason alone. There was no church in the area. He and the Philadelphia
Presbytery renovated the building, and it became Christ Church, a mission
congregation. The first service was held in the fall of 1931. Herbert Hoover was
president, and the Great Depression was in full swing. By 1932 the
congregation could still only afford a part-time pastor. The average Sunday
morning attendance was between 55-67. But the Church grew steadily. It had
a sense of mission. By 1936 they could afford a full time pastor, who they paid
$1800 a year plus living quarters. (Don’t even think about it, Session.) When
Christ Church merged with West Hope Church in 1948 and built the present
building there were 280 at the first service. On Easter of 1949 there were three
services with a total attendance of 1000 people. Does that blow your mind? It
does mine! In the 1950’s the membership of what is now the Penn Wynne
Presbyterian Church was 950. So what happened?
Two things happened. The first was a conflict with a minister that
resulted in half of the congregation leaving in 1962. A steady hemorrhage of
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members continued for a few years afterward. But at a deeper level, the Church
had forgotten it was the Church. Like many congregations, Penn Wynne had
become comfortable. As the congregation grew more insular it grew smaller,
and smaller and smaller. By 1993 the Presbytery wanted to close its doors, but
the remaining members fought tooth and nail for the right to call one more
minister to see if they could turn things around and stop the steady decline. In
1995 they called some crazy woman pastor. The membership on the rolls at the
time was 69, and some of them were dead.
Praise God, 1995 was a turning point. Since then we have steadily
increased, not decreased. And if everyone who had joined this church in the
past 14 ½ years I’ve been here were still here, we’d be up to at least 150
members, but it’s a transient world out there, and people don’t stay in one
place anymore.
Today, just as in 1932, our average attendance is between 55 and 67.
Our nation is in the middle of an economic crisis. We even have a John
Williams in the congregation! He’s from Liberia, and he’s never been a coal
merchant, but what the heck! We have come full circle. It’s time for us to
realize that we are once more the mission church on the corner of Haverford
and Manoa Roads. But this time the people outside of our doors have no idea
what we stand for, and most of the time no idea what we’re even saying. We
have neighbors, who apart from funerals and weddings, have never stepped
foot in a church. The environment is so alien to them it makes them very
uncomfortable. But according to some very interesting statistical information
from the Barna Foundation, 78% of these unchurched people would like to
have a conversation with a Christian about what they believe. That’s lot of
people out there who want to hear about God. And here’s the real irony. One of
the things that prevents Christians from sharing their faith is that they don’t
think they have the right words. For some perverse reason people are under the
impression that sharing faith means going up to a total stranger and telling
them they need to repent of their sins and that the expiation of their sins has
been achieved on the cross through the atoning blood of the savior resulting in
salvation, justification and sanctification. Excuse me?
What we really need to do is ditch the jargon, and be ourselves. And if we
want this church to grow, we are also going to have to be willing to let go of a
few of our comfortable ruts. Since there are people out there who have never
stepped foot in the door of a church their entire lives, how are we going to
make them feel at home? We’re not going to do it by using “insider” language
that makes them feel like outsiders. We’re not going to do it by demanding that
they change and we stay the same. We have to meet people half-way
As we go forward as a mission church I challenge all of us, myself
included, to work to break down the barriers and reach out in love. And that
probably means we’re going to have to learn to speak something other than
Christianese. Amen.
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