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YOU CALL THIS A CHURCH?*

JOHN 20:19-31

This is one pitiful group. Just look at them. You call this a church? For long, painstaking chapters in John's Gospel, Jesus has been preparing His disciples for His departure.

He has gone over, then over again, His commandments to love one another, to be bold, to trust Him, to be the branches to His vine, to feed on the bread of life, to be ready to follow at all costs.

But it's like they weren't listening. Just look at them, cowering like frightened rabbits behind closed doors. Some disciples they are. Some First Church Jerusalem.

They were supposed to be the ones walking confidently out into to the world, announcing the Easter triumph of God. But look at them hunkered down, cowering, hoping that nobody in town will know they are there. You call this a church?

Oh, on the one hand I guess we can understand their reaction. After all, the last week didn't exactly pan out like they hoped it would. They signed on for a revolution, and instead they got thrown on their backs.

And now, just hours after the discovery of the empty tomb, they are hoping just to fade into the woodwork. It's not that they didn't know. The announcement has been made. "I have seen the Lord!" Mary told them.

But even that good news didn't launch them into their mission. They are a pathetic bunch on this first Easter evening. Why, this could hardly be called a church at all. They have no sanctuary, no pulpit, no choir, no plan, no mission, no conviction, no nothing. You call this a church?

We've come a long way, haven't we? Or have we? We talk about revival and reaching people for Christ, but overall the statistics tell us that the church in America is declining.

By the time we reach 2010 there will a much smaller percentage of Americans who claim to be Christians than there are today. We are closing churches faster than we are planting new ones.

The attendance of most churches is either in plateau or decline. A few are growing, but even most of those are growing due to transfer growth.

We're called to be a people who engage our world with the effective communication of the gospel. But let's look at the facts.

The world around us is changing at an unprecedented pace. In the marketplace, what worked 10 years ago is obsolete. Cultural analysts estimate that our culture reinvents itself every 3 to 5 years.

In other words, the attributes of our society--language, customs, dress, style, dominant leisure pursuits, relational emphases, values, and so forth--are being substantially reshaped and reconfigured every few years.

However, at the same time, most American churches are holding fast to programs and goals established years ago. We tend to respond to systemic changes in the culture with cosmetic changes in the way we do church--changes that have virtually no impact.

You might say, "But we hear stories all the time of hundreds of people being reached for Christ." Well, consider this: in studies conducted just this year, it was found that a majority (over 50 percent) of the people who made first-time decisions for Christ were no longer connected to a Christian church within just eight weeks of that decision.

We are called as the Church of Jesus to break down racial and national barriers, but Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour in American life, even 30 years after Martin Luther King made that observation.

The church is called to care for the least of all people and to be known by the quality of its love and compassion. Yet poverty is prospering in America and throughout the world. In the typical American church, for every dollar spent on compassionate ministry at least five dollars are spent on buildings and maintenance.

Sunday School was originally conceived as a way not only to teach people the truths of scripture but also to teach them how to read so they could learn from the Bible themselves. Education was a major component of the church's work.

But today, half of all adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they cannot read and write at an eighth grade level. Consequently, most adults cannot understand the language of the King James Version of the Bible, which is still the most widely used version in this country.

While America has become the land of the niche market and the home of the specialist, churches are placing excessive demands upon pastors, the ministry generalists. Protestant pastors work an average of 65 hours per week, juggling 16 major dimensions of activity. Burnout is now commonplace. The average pastoral career today (in total, not just at each church) only lasts 15 years before they can't take it anymore and do something else.

So, you call this a church? You see, I think it could be the easiest thing in the world today for us to get a little down on these disciples for being so fearful and ineffective.

But could it be that this picture of the earliest Christians, hiding behind locked doors, afraid of the big, bad world and what it might do to them; is it possible that this is a picture of today's church?

The power of Almighty God has been unleashed on the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The mission of announcing the victory to the world has been given, and yet so often we are found hiding out behind locked doors.

But that's the not the whole story, because in spite of fear and locked doors, the risen Christ finds His way in. And He says to these disciples, and to us, "Peace be with you!"

Isn't that amazing? I mean, what would you say to a group of people that you had poured your whole life into, trying to get them ready for a mission, only to find them sitting on their hands?

I think I'd want to say something like, "What are you doing? Why aren't you out there getting on with the task? What's wrong with you people?"

But did you notice that Jesus does not rebuke them because of the fear that has paralyzed them and driven them into hiding? In fact, they are not even given a pep talk and told to get out there and get busy.

Instead, Jesus gives them the only the thing that can change this pitiful group of followers into a real church. He breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit.

Jesus invites them to receive the gift of the Spirit and then compels them into the world with this commission, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21).

Have you ever really thought about that? What does Jesus mean, "As the Father has sent me"? How is our life as the church to mirror the way He was sent?

Well, it seems to me that this whole story today comes in the context of Jesus' passion. I know the immediate context is His resurrection, but for the last seven or eight chapters the focus has been on the Cross. That's where He was sent.

He was sent to suffer and die. He was sent to pour out His life in a seemingly (to the world's eyes) ridiculous and hopeless manner. Jesus was sent by the Father to die, to give His life, to be broken in body and in heart, to connect with lepers and prostitutes and rebels and misfits.

"As the Father has sent me." Could it be that what makes us the church is when we engage in that kind of Jesus ministry? And could it also be that much of what we do, calling it church, is nothing more than hiding behind locked doors?

We are not sent to build great buildings or offer slick programs or have 1,000 on Easter so we can say we had a big crowd. We are sent to pour out our lives for a broken and lost world. And the only way to accomplish that is to allow the risen Christ to breathe on us and through us the life-giving message of peace and forgiveness.

I guess the real question for us is still, "Are we willing to be that kind of church?" I sometimes hear people talk about being dissatisfied with their church. Do you know what I usually hear?

Well, they don't like this program or that ministry. They wish we sang more hymns and fewer choruses, or they wish we sang more choruses and fewer hymns. Or they don't like the personality of this pastor or that pastor.

Or they just aren't paid enough attention or somebody hurt their feelings or somebody talked about them behind their backs. Fill in the blank--it all boils down to a self-centered understanding of what it means to be part of the church.

"As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." What would that look like? Well, I think it would look an awful lot like a group of Neighborhood Ambassadors taking the risk of going into the streets to knock on a few doors and tell our neighbors that we do care about them.

I think it would look an awful lot like a group of teens giving up a trip to Disney World to go instead and spend 10 days in the hot Mexican sun building a house for a poor family and sharing the love of Jesus with them.

I think it would look an awful lot like embracing those who come to our church, who on the outside just don't seem to fit in--and not noticing the outward appearance, but seeing the heart, and welcoming them and loving them, even when they seem not to be very interested.

I think it would look an awful lot like welcoming the mentally disabled and going out of our way to help them feel that they belong here and we want them here.

I think it would look an awful lot like taking a plate of cookies to a new neighbor in the hopes that we can begin to build a friendship with them and maybe, just maybe, share our testimony with them.

I think it would look an awful lot like Dick McConnell or Janet Anderson or Esther Saner or scores of others that would give up an entire day to go and sit in the hospital with someone and just be there as a sign of the presence of Christ.

I think it would look an awful lot like Harry and Suzie, Vickie, Garth, Harold and Becky, Frank and Barb, and many others who would go into the prisons every week to bring the hope of the gospel to a pretty hopeless crowd.

I think it would look an awful lot like a group of friends not going away when a couple is separated or even divorced, but hanging in there with support and prayer and confrontation until forgiveness and reconciliation happens.

I think it would look an awful lot like a group of folks who gather here very Monday night for prayer before going out to knock on doors and let people know that we are so glad they came to our church and we want them to come back and we want them to know Jesus.

I think it would look an awful lot like a group of people who will give up every night for a whole week this summer to put on a Vacation Bible School so that maybe we'll get a chance to share Jesus with a child and a family.

I think it would look an awful lot like a community of believers that would rather accept people where they are and point them to Jesus than put on them impossible standards of behavior.

A group that would rather pray than gossip, that would rather build up than tear down, that would rather support than criticize, that would rather love than be suspicious, that would rather give than take, that would rather work it out than check out.

I think it would look an awful lot like the kingdom of God, where Jesus is first and people are learning to lay down their lives in order to bless others. Where forgiveness and grace reign instead of bitterness and legalism. Where love is the defining mark of relationships.

You call this a church? Yes, I would call that a church.

When the spirit of Jesus blows on us and moves us out from the safety of our little group into the world to lay down our lives in love, that is when we have a church.

Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." Folks, we are Easter people. We are people of resurrection and hope and eternal life. And do you know what that means? It means that we are not afraid to move out into the world and lay down our lives and give ourselves up because if we are truly in Christ, we have more life than we can even give away.

May I ask you, Christian friend, in what way are you laying down your life for the Kingdom? In what way are you pouring your life out for others?

If you are honest, is your life more about what you want and what you need or what you are being called to give as an ambassador of Christ Jesus?

"As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."

*Based on a sermon by William Willimon.