Voices of the Modern Church, Part I

“Voices of the Modern Church, Part I” was preached at Sunnyside Presbyterian Church on Sunday, July 22, 2018. Inspirations for this sermon include creative preaching, Sunnyside Presbyterian Church, Broadway United Methodist Church, Princeton Forum on Youth Ministry, Montreat, Engaging Young Adults research team, The Rev. Dr. Victoria White, and the workings of the Holy Spirit. You can listen to an audio recording of this sermon here.

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2 Samuel 7:1-14

1 Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” 3 Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”

4 But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: 5 Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 6 I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. 7 Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” 8 Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; 9 and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

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We’re going to do things a little differently today. We will hear the Psalm, our second scripture reading, reading toward the end of the sermon. This is okay as it tells the same covenant that was established with David as found 2 Samuel. But before we start the sermon, I’d like to us to begin with a word of prayer.

Holy Spirit, come and dwell in us. Place Jesus Christ in us so that he is the cornerstone holding us together and making us a sacred place where steadfast love and faithfulness will meet and righteousness and peace will come together. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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On April 24-27, I attended the Princeton Forum on Youth Ministry as a continuing education project with over a 100 different youth pastors, youth ministers, and youth leaders. The theme was “Youth Ministry in a Visual Age.” There, as explained through one of the descriptions of a seminar, we considered “what can bear the image of God through art and art making. We [used] new ways of seeing, informed by Scripture, to consider how we move youth toward living lives marked by the image of Christ.”

On June 10-16, our senior high youth headed to Montreat, North Carolina for a national Presbyterian youth conference. The theme was “Lift Every Voice.” Montreat noted, “Lifting every voice requires supporting those who have been silenced, listening to their stories, creating spaces for others’ voices to rise, and, sometimes, summoning the courage to find and raise one’s own voice. Voices are a gift from God imparted to each person.”

Then here, within our own congregation, we received an update at the end of spring from our Engaging Young Adults research and grant team. Project leader and Elder Chip Rotolo wrote a page on what young adults in the surrounding area are looking for in a church. Hear an excerpt of his update regarding worship: “We think our worship should invoke awe, majesty, and surprise, stirring people to encounter God. We want to think about how emotion, our bodies, and our senses are reached in worship. We can bring more sights, sounds, movements, objects, and colors into worship, similar to how Jesus taught through ordinary materials.”

There’s a connecting theme here. I wrote about it in our June Visitor letter. The church longs for our senses to be utilized. If we’re going to listen, we want our listening to be challenged in new ways and we want our listening to be accompanied by seeing and speaking and feeling and smelling and tasting.

After hearing this theme again and again, we as Sunnysiders knew maybe this summer we would experiment a little. We started with the prayer loom. The worship committee and our own Pam Boudreau put together a prayer loom for our prayers to be visible before us. I remember the first Sunday in June; the loom looked rather empty. In fact, it held three pieces of fabric, all three which were tied by Pam or myself. But by the second week, it held more than ten. And it grew the third week. And the fourth and so on. Look at it now. It is full of our prayers because we saw that there’s something sacred in feeling the prayer in our hands, tying it to the wire, and then visibly seeing them before us all summer. I am thankful for that opportunity of worship.

But I gather with some of us who also wanted to experiment with how sermons were delivered here at Sunnyside. Now I love the way sermons are preached at Sunnyside. No matter if it is Jamie, Susan, myself, or Don; we tend to deliver a traditional sermon. Step one, name a problem in the scripture passage. Step two, name the solution to that problem found in that scripture passage. Step three, name a problem in the world related to the problem found in scripture. Step four, name that same solution found in scripture and apply it to today’s problem. They make GREAT sermons. They are concrete. They are linear. They, on most Sundays, give a straight-forward takeaway for us all to apply to our lives. No joke, there’s an entire book on this.

Well today is not that kind of sermon. The next three sermons are not those kind of sermons. I asked Jamie back in June if I could lead a mini sermon-series, and his answer was, “Susan and I both are on vacation. You can do whatever you want.” Ha, I’m kidding. It was a little more professional than that, but he did encourage me to try something new. So here we are. Trying something new together.

The next three sermons will be abstract, open to interpretation. Let the Spirit move inside and around you. Whatever you take away from the sermon, then Amen to that! Sometimes all we need from worship is to be divinely inspired.

Now the explanation behind the title of the series, “Voices of the Modern Church.” Over the next three weeks, you will be hearing the voice of God through the voices of our own Sunnysiders. Sometimes directly from their lips, or from an activity they were asked to participate in, such as what you will hear and see today. This idea is directly inspired by a church in Indianapolis: Broadway United Methodist Church. Broadway UMC features a section of worship called, “Lesson of the Contemporary Church.” This section, which takes place directly in the middle of the scripture readings and the sermon that day, lifts up members in their church and in their surrounding community by empowering them to share their testimony, their work, their life, their mission; anything that comes to mind. They do this to show that human stories are a part of God’s story, and that their voice is a part of God’s voice. In the Presbyterian Church, we believe that the Word of God is the Word read from scripture and the Word interpreted through preaching. How beautiful is it that Broadway UMC believes that the Word of God is also found in the Word of their people.

So today we do that. We will hear the Word of God through the Word of our people. These are the Voices of the Modern Church.

This is similar to how God spoke to King David. The Word of God was given through the words of the people.

In 2 Samuel, God establishes a covenant with King David, but God doesn’t speak to David directly. No, God speaks to the prophet Nathan, and it is about how God’s people will finally have a place of their own. God says to Nathan that God has fulfilled every promise God made with God’s people and with David, and since that is done, God will give them another promise. God will give them a home for them all to find rest, a home to worship. Kind of sounds like the church, right? It is. God established a kingdom here on earth, a community for God’s people to be together, a home for all to feel safe and protected and loved. The Word of God was found in Nathan. Not just King David. The Word of God was found through God’s people.

The Psalmist, another one of God’s people, writes this same promise. Line after line, God’s Word is given to David and to the people of God. Listen to the Word of God found in Psalm 89, verses 20 through 37:

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Psalm 89:20-37

20 I have found my servant David;

    with my holy oil I have anointed him;

21 my hand shall always remain with him;

    my arm also shall strengthen him.

22 The enemy shall not outwit him,

    the wicked shall not humble him.

23 I will crush his foes before him

    and strike down those who hate him.

24 My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him;

    and in my name his horn shall be exalted.

25 I will set his hand on the sea

    and his right hand on the rivers.

26 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father,

    my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’

27 I will make him the firstborn,

    the highest of the kings of the earth.

28 Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him,

    and my covenant with him will stand firm.

29 I will establish his line forever,

    and his throne as long as the heavens endure.

30 If his children forsake my law

    and do not walk according to my ordinances,

31 if they violate my statutes

    and do not keep my commandments,

32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod

    and their iniquity with scourges;

33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love,

    or be false to my faithfulness.

34 I will not violate my covenant,

    or alter the word that went forth from my lips.

35 Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness;

    I will not lie to David.

36 His line shall continue forever,

    and his throne endure before me like the sun.

37 It shall be established forever like the moon,

    an enduring witness in the skies.”        Selah

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The Word of God is given, established, promised, and kept forever.

This is still true today. The Word of God is given, established, promised, and kept forever.

The Rev. Dr. Victoria White, Managing Director of Grants at Duke Divinity School, first introduced me to the following activity. In it, she challenged youth leaders to write a “What if…” question on one side of a notecard. For example, a question might be, “What if we empowered our youth to lead worship?” We would then have to answer our own question with a “Then…” statement. “What if we empowered our youth to lead worship?” “Then worship would be imagined in new and creative ways.” However, the catch is, and this part is important, the catch is… before we answered our “What if…” question, all the notecards were collected by Dr. White, shuffled, and then randomly handed back out. Without looking at the “What if…” question on the one side of the new notecard in our hand, we were supposed to answer our own original question on the other side. Dr. White alluded that this is how the Spirit still speaks to us today.

I did the same thing with our youth and young adults. I asked them to think of the theme of “Voice.” They were to write a “What if…” question on one side of a notecard. The cards were then collected, shuffled, and randomly handed back to them. They then answered their own question with a “Then…” statement on the other side of the card they were given. They were asked to dream big, to hear God’s voice in both their question and answer. This exercise was the Spirit speaking to them. Today, as we hear these questions and answers together, the Spirit speaks to us.

Listen now for the Voices of the Modern Church.

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What if silenced voices were never silenced?           

Then I could hear God's voice to become more open to all voices.

What would happen if God ruled by committee?     

Then there would not be hatred or judgment; rather only tolerance and love.

What if we worshipped in a non-traditional location one Sunday? (i.e. not in a church)          

Then we would be building faith in our community and show that we are thinking outside of our Church.

What if I listened for God's voice through those around me?

Then the sanctuary would be flowing with colorful lights.

What if we looked for God's voice in acts of kindness?

Then I would gain an appreciation for others' opinions.

What if our voices were used to lift the silenced?

Then I be required to examine what I know verse what I think I know.

What if a youth was unable to take anything out of the conference?

Then God would need to choose God’s committee members wisely.

What if silenced voices were never silenced?           

Then I could hear God's voice to become more open to all voices.

What if we didn't have Jesus Christ in our lives?

Then I would not receive all the blessings that have been brought to me.

What if we all shared and discussed our beliefs without fear of judgment?      

Then we might interact with Christians (or non-Christians) outside of our church. Or experience the glory of God's creation in a new way.

What if the voice of God tells me to do something against what I thought I believed?

Then the world would be a good place, and people would do the right things.

What if we let our hearts open more to God, would we be able to listen to all voices?      

Then everyone will have the opportunity to speak and be heard, validated, and accepted.

What if we listened objectively and sought to understand?

Then no one would whine, and we would be at peace.

What if I stopped long enough to consider I might learn something from listening?

Then I can see how God was able to listen to his silenced people and understand them.

What if we hosted a community dinner?

Then the voices of strangers could be lifted.

What if I listened more than I talked?

Then I would be more well-rounded and more intelligent. I would also draw closer to others.

What if when each person sings, colors burst from their voices in the sanctuary?

Then it could be a fun talent show.

What if I listened to God's voice by volunteering?

Then we would be able to embrace our differences and achieve a common goal.

What if the church went and ministered to people in prisons?

Then we will hear different voices of the church.

What if Sunnyside hosted a mission trip opportunity for others to come and work in South Bend?

Then this would be a great way to turn lives around and spread the gospel. It could be a way of also giving people hope and faith to become a whole new soul.

What if the entire sermon was the children's sermon?

Then I can hear and see how God can speak through anyone and everyone.

What if those with voices step back so that the voiceless can be given the opportunity to speak?

Then the youth could speak to other members of their church to hear their thoughts.

What if we did a Psalmathon (different people reading the entire book of Psalm in one setting)?

Then sermons would be simple, creative, engaging, and full of cute surprises.

What if we let God's word nourish our souls?

Then the world would feel more welcoming/accepting.

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The Voices of the Modern Church. The Spirit speaks. The Word of God is given, established, promised, and kept forever. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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Image by Steven Slaubaugh