I Corinthians 12: 1-11; II Corinthians 12: 9, 10

The last two messages and today are turning into an unplanned miniseries.  Two weeks ago we talkedabout whether it would be possible for the Church to be a place where people do not make each other feel guilty.  I suggested we move from the idea of GAF (GAF, as in mistake) to CAF (as in caffeinated).  GAF stands for guilt, anxiety and fear which becomes an obstacle to our spiritual life and CAF stands for calling, accountability and forgiveness.  In other words, we should try to accept forgiveness and give forgiveness, we should be accountable for the commitments we make in the church and we should listen for what our calling is.

Last week we talked about “doing” and “being” in the Christian life.  We saw that  often we are so busy doing things that we forget to “be.”  We lose the ability to stop and reflect and meditate and pray and really be present with God and also with people.  Today I want to try to bring these topics together and ask the question:” How can we as a church focus less on “doing” and more on “being?”

Friends, as you know, there is always a lot to do in the church. There is coffee hour to prepare, there are buildings to upkeep, there are finances to handle and funds to raise.  There are newsletters to get out into the mail. There are annual reports to put together.  There is so much doing to do  that it could be easy to forget what we are DOING it all for.  In other words the doing of the church can become an end in itself.  That means that the church could just be another community organization to keep going, like ACC and JACL etc.  That can get overwhelming and old.  So maybe we should ask the question:” what is the church all about?  In this month’s chapel chimes I am asking you to give me and the session input in the form of one thing you would want the church to do and to leave the input on my desk (door is always open), in my box (anonymously if you like) or e-mail it to me.  Today I am asking the question:”If there was one thing we would want this church to be, what would that be?”

I just talked about the crisis today’s Church is facing in American society.   Roger Johnson and Anthony Robinson call it “the dark night if the Church. “ It is named after an old Saint’s words who wrote about his “dark night of the soul.” It was an experience of God or rather the absence of an experience of God.   St. John of the Cross believed he had this dark night because God initiated it as a way of making him realize his fundamental relationship with God.  Owens and Robinson want to apply this belief to the Church.  This would mean that the crisis the Church finds itself in is a crisis God initiates.  Here are several ways in which the difficulties of the Church, the darkness as a whole of the Western Church are really positive: First, the darkness the Church experiences is not evil or a punishment, it is obscurity.  It does not mean the Church is dead, it’s just confused.  Second, in the midst of this obscurity. God is doing something. God is bringing detachment.  We are being detached from the comforting and consoling thought that our congregation will always be here and this is happening to teach us something.  One other thing we can be detached from is fame.  “Fame,” you may say, “fame?!”

Talking about fame. I didn’t see much of the College football championship game several days ago, but I did get how important this championship was to the state of Alabama, a state with no professional football team, no professional baseball team, no professional basketball, a team in the Deep South known for its troubled civil rights history.  Universities in this state have now won I believe four championships in recent years.  The current quarterback at Alabama has won two in a row.  Now I bet he is really famous in Alabama. On top of it the TV commentators were salivating over the looks of his girlfriend, a former Miss Alabama.  I tell you that quarterback would be king if Alabama were a monarchy.  You can’t be more important than that in that state. In that small corner of the world, he wields the ultimate fame.

But the church, does the church want fame? Yes, do a certain degree it does. It wants to be proud  of it s buildings, the size of it Sunday school, the reputation of its preachers. But in today’s Church, this is happening less and less. People talk more about the past than the future. “Do you remember when we did this and this…” Owens and Robinson are saying:” detach yourself from all that.”  They even say:” Perhaps God is helping our dreams of fame to die.”  “Do “less,” be” more, they say.  In this “being” way of thinking, what we learn to is to create a safe space where people can come for worship, to let go of OUR agendas and to truly be there for people.  This is both challenging and liberating.  It is challenging because we feel naked without programs, but liberating because we can expect to hear from God where we are headed.  Our being with God and people will lead to our doing for people in the name of God. Our Spirit will lead to our programs. Thanks be to God.