Personal Exploration as Missional Imperitive

Personal Exploration as Mission Imperitive: Luke 9: 18-20, Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 7:7-8

            Open book, read, study, take notes, go to class, learn what professional has to say, take notes, go home, study, prepare for test regurgitation, master test, pass class with great grades, go out into world, recite policies and procedures, live as a cog in a wheel, operate the mechanism, go home, be stereotypical, watch TV, laugh on command, live the life, get older, have kids, own pet, be a overprotect parent, send kid of college, helicopter kid, become old, be a grandparent, write a memoir, die of disease.  Stop paying taxes. The end.

            This is the life of most people.  It is in essence the same as everyone else.  And it rarely makes headlines or leaves its actors and actresses feeling better.  In fact, this is the reason why Socrates said “The unexplored life is not worth living”  And It is what Dr. Myles Monroe describes when he says. “The greatest tragedy is not death, but a life without purpose.”

            And crazy enough, this practical need, this call to personal exploration, to actually ask the deep questions and the call to a life as exploration is something the Bible speaks of pretty highly.  That is actually the beauty of the Church, at least if we were actually living it in our communities and our world….like if the Church were really Christian.

            Perhaps this seems a no-brainer to you, but what has happened in the Church is really the tragedy.  It’s what we call propaganda, which simply is the noun used to describe when someone draws a line in the sand, the party line, and from that identifies its members.  In politics, it’s the line on abortion of the free market economy.  In the Church, it’s the doctrine.   

            See, the most impressive things about Jesus was that he never seems to allow the disciples to remain stable, for there to be a simple solution.  Remember, John was told to feed sheep, and lambs, and sheep again.  Remember how many times Jesus asks people who he was, in an attempt to get them to think.  Remember how many times he says to think and to consider, to see if in new ways.  Jesus is asking for people to see it differently, to look at the world in different ways, to actually question even the very message of the Torah.  You say, the Torah says, but I say…

            What seems to have happened is not a polar opposite but a stranglehold upon the actualization of this.  Sure,  Joe, you can go away to college and have some plans, but don’t think that they are all right.  Remember the church pastors, the leaders, the elders, we are the ones who know best.  We want you to ask questions, but in the end, we don’t want you to ask too many questions, because you might get to a point where you are not allowed to talk about that, or well, that’s just the line in the sand.

           

           

            And that’s the reason we are here.  It’s the honest reason I like feedback on these sermons, we why we doing study groups, CD groups, why we spend time discussing all of these things.  Did I ever ask you to believe everything I say: no. Do I expect you to figure out your own thinking: yes.  In fact, I don’t think you all ask enough questions, are inquisitive enough to consider the possibilities.  You’ve not gotten that far yet, probably because you busy with other things. But  I’m not going to let you all sit in the void and forget to ask the serious questions.  you’ve got to explore.

            If the Church WERE Christian, it would care about those things.

            As a psychology major, I was introduced to this effect called group polarization. Groups of people, especially in binary situations, can be asked to divide based on core beliefs.  They then associate only with those people of similar beliefs, and will engage in a healthy debate on two sides of an argument.  Imagine pitting Wisconsin badger fans versus Minnesota Gopher fans.  After the discussion, the two groups tend to be more unbending in their views because they have been introduced to group dynamics that say who is in and who is outside their conformed group.  This is the way we create the church.  As MLK said famously in 1957 on the today show, the most segregated hour of the week is Sunday morning.  And let me tell you honestly, little has changed.

If the Church Were Christian, they would do something about that.

  So what shall we do about it.  We want to Ask, seek, knock.  We want to take the uniformity out of the church and instead bring in some changes and tension.  That’s right, we want to have people that don’t agree, people that don’t always get along, people that don’t always see eye to eye, and we want them to work together instead of simply avoiding each other.  That is called COMMUNION. 

            We want to be on solid soil but also never building up our McMansions and beliefs and evicting anyone who doesn’t like our architecture.  We want people to come and be a part of a community who don’t necessarily agree.  And we want to be in challenging and important debates where in the end, we might have to agree to disagree.  But that’s where Grace comes in.  Where the Holy Spirit works to provide us with something more than simply regurgitated doctrine and beliefs as our only way to get along.  We can coexist, even accept each other fully, but we can’t do that if all we want Is uniformity.

            If the Church Were Christian, and it can be, it would hear the words of Jesus and say, we shall knock, we shall seek, we shall say…you Torah says this, the Bible says this, but I say…

             

I guess that’s the summation of this entire sermon series, and in fact it’s the summation of the entire Christian tradition.  If the Church Were Christian, love would be more important than sex, the mission would be more important than the institution, community would be more important than doctrine, living in the here and now would be more important than for a future heaven, peace would be more important than power, grace would be more important than condemnation, reconciliation would be valued over judgment, and Jesus would truly be a model for living rather than an idol for worship. 

            And you know what, it’s all true, if we begin to make it so.  The Church can be, will be, is being Christian.  It’s remembering its roots, its core, and it’s allowing things like personal exploration to lead the way because through that action, the Church can move into the future. 

            Open Book, take notes, ASK Questions, seek the core, find the answers, but don’t settle for simple answers.  The Church is still Christian, and it’s still Christian because of you all.  So let us remember, there is hope… and that hope comes from each of us exploring and being witness to other’s exploration.  For only together can we truly keep this Church Christian in the way God intended.  Let it be so.