March 1, 2015
Second Sunday in Lent
Rev. Amy Welin:
In every ending, there are new beginnings. I read a fascinating online article this week about the state of the church. The author, Carey Nieuwhof, sees the end of church as we have known it. “Regular” attendance is not weekly. Committee structure is disintegrating. The markers of membership are changing. Still, the next generation of Christians is beginning new things as communities that follow Jesus. Nieuwhof concludes that parishes which focus on their mission – what we do with and for God – will thrive, while churches that obsess about their structure – the way we have done things in the past – will almost certainly die. The article was sobering and hopeful at the same time.
In every ending, there are new beginnings. T.S. Eliot evoked this image this many times in his poetic reflection on life. At lest one ending is quite obvious today for us at St John’s, as we celebrate the gift of thirty six years of music ministry by Bob Havery and bid him godspeed as he moves on. It is literally the end of an age. We want to make a good end, so we will be ready for the new beginning.
There are bound to be a few tears and many expressions of gratitude. We are not quite to the place of a new beginning, but we will get there.
Endings that mark beginnings are a biblical truth. When one chapter of our life with God comes to an end, another begins. In order to attain the new beginning, God demands that we let go of the old.
God promises the heritage of many offspring to Abram and Sarai, an elderly and childless couple in the Chaldean city of Ur (southern Iraq). Their son, their new beginning, will be born in another year, and God says that he will be the father to a multitude of nations. In order to fulfill their part of the Covenant, Abram and his wife had to change their names and travel to Canaan, with their entire household. This would have been a journey on foot of more than 800 miles: roughly the same as walking from Waterbury to Greenville, South Carolina. Everything changes for them.
Through the birth of Ishmael and later of Isaac, Abraham and Sarah became the ancestors of millions. All members of the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) share the same ancestry.
In order to attain the new beginning, we must let go of the old.
Jesus promises a new beginning through his own death. Christians have become so used to hearing about the death of Jesus that we forget how shocking Jesus’ words in today’s gospel passage must have been to his disciples. Consider how rarely our own leaders acknowledge their mortality or even their powerlessness. Yet the Messiah (whom Peter has identified as Jesus in the verses just before this passage) teaches his followers that he must be rejected, suffer, die, and rise again. The new life of resurrection comes through the cross. This was a new teaching, and it was unwelcome.
Conventional wisdom encourages us to seek to be prosperous, strong, successful and influential. We teach our children how to succeed. That was the conventional wisdom’s expectation about the messiah that Peter articulates – in another gospel his words are Heaven forbid that rejection and death should befall you! In modern parlance, Peter is saying Don’t be that guy who talks about the down side. This is not a good strategy. Jesus clearly rejects this thinking. Jesus has other priorities. The ways of God are not like our ways, Jesus came to serve, not to be served, and Jesus invites us to follow him and his ways. Deny your self interest and take up the cross.
In order to attain the new beginning, we must let go of the old.
The letting go necessitates both acknowledging what we used to have and passing through a sense of loss and grief, before we get to the resurrection and new life. The journey to Canaan was not easy for Abraham and Sarah. The journey to the day of resurrection was not easy for Jesus and his disciples. Moving into a new place – physically or spiritually – is never easy. It will not be easy for us. And it is going to happen.
The cross we share with Christ is the burden we bear for our love. In the context of parish life, what we have cherished is passing away. Beloved staff retire. Elderly members die. Committees quit functioning. In order to flourish, we need to love Christ more than we have loved our structures. If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me. It is really interesting that in the Greek of the original gospel, the you is plural while the cross is singular – we get to do this work as a group not only as individuals. Our new beginning derives from being part of a group.
To make an end is to make a beginning.
We mark the end of one musical era and the beginning of the next.
We mark the end of one way of being church and the beginning of a new way.
We may or we may not be ready for either.
The end is where we start from.