You may have heard the one about a man who was home as flood waters started to come. A neighbor came by and offered him a ride to higher ground. The man replied “No, thank you. God will take care of me.” The flood waters continued to rise until they were at the first floor window. A rescuer came by in a boat and offered to take the man to safety. “No, thank you. God will take care of me.” A while later, the flood waters had reached the second floor window. A helicopter came by and offered to take the man to safety. “No, thank you.” He replied. “God will take care of me.” A little bit later, the man found himself standing on his roof. Another helicopter came by offering to take him to safety. “No, thank you, God will take care of me.” he replied. Shortly after that, the man found himself standing at the pearly gates. “What happened?” the man asked St. Peter. “I thought God would take care of me.” St. Peter responded “God sent you a vehicle, a boat and two helicopters. You turned them all down.”
The man in our fictitious story had a particular way he expected God to help him. And it wasn’t people showing up with various ways to get him away from the flood. Sometimes we have the same thought, we expect God’s presence in a certain way and miss the ways in which God is present.
You called me here to help you revitalize your church. And in the nearly 3 years that I have been here, you have resisted attempts to guide you through what we need to do to get there. You don’t want meetings outside of worship to work through these discussions. You don’t want them in worship either. Attempts to get you to engage with the community have resulted in tepid at best involvement. The Indiana-Kentucky conference has given us a coach to help guide us through the process. While the board has been receptive to his expertise, the congregation has been less so . You seem to want someone to do this for you. And the reality is, the only way for the church to be revitalized is for the congregation to get all into the endeavor.Â
Our scripture for today is Luke’s account of Jesus calling the first disciples to his ministry. A large crowd is gathering on the shore wanting to hear Jesus’s teaching. Jesus deems it best to get in a boat, row offshore a little ways and teach the crowd from there. He spots fishermen putting away their boats, nets and other equipment following a night of unsuccessful fishing. Jesus goes over, sits down in the boat and tells Simon to take him out onto the sea a little ways. Simon is tired and probably frustrated after fishing all night and catching nothing. He is resistant to Jesus’ idea but Jesus talks him into it. Now remember, Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law just a few verses back so these two have met before. Simon already knows there is something different, something special about Jesus.
After Jesus is done with his teaching, he tells Simon to row out farther on the sea and drop his fishing nets. Again, Simon resists, he spent all night fishing and caught nothing. You might remember when we spent Lent last year looking at Simon how often he challenged and resisted Jesus but ultimately always acquiesced to Jesus’s request. Simon and his crew dropped the nets over the side of the boat and caught so many fish they had to call another boat out to help them haul it to shore. Â
We resist the unknown. It is part of human nature. But when we resist the unknown we may lose opportunities to get what we want. We may miss God’s guidance because we were looking for something else. We may miss God’s guidance because we don’t understand what we are being asked to do and we don’t ask questions, we just resist.
You all have resisted discerning your core values as a congregation. Some of you have asked others but not me what core values are and why we need to discern them. Core values are the fundamental beliefs and principles that guide a person or organization’s actions and decision-making, representing the most important priorities and shaping how they interact with the world. Our core values are the foundation of our church, who we are and what we do. To make good decisions about our church, we need our core values to guide us. Whichever direction the church is heading, our core values will be a big part of the decisions we will make. Without them, we are adrift with no guidance system.
In our scripture today, there is another important phrase Luke shares with us which often gets overlooked in this passage. Luke tells us those fishermen, those first disciples of Jesus, “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” After resisting taking Jesus offshore to teach, once they came ashore, those men left everything and followed him. They left their boats, their nets, and any other equipment they had. Those boats, nets, etc. were essential to their livelihood. They had an investment in those things. They had just hauled in a lot of fish which they could sell to support themselves, their families and keep their business going, But Luke says they left all of that and followed Jesus. They were that sure about Jesus.
No one is asking you to leave everything and follow Jesus. But the church needs you to pay more attention to it in order for it to return to health. Like anything else, the church requires us to tend to it in order to survive. Not tend to it in ways that keeps the buildings clean, in good repair and operating. But tending to the spiritual side of the church.
Many of you have gardens of some sort. Flower gardens, vegetable gardens, etc. Those gardens require attention in order to produce the flowers, vegetables and whatever. You don’t just plant and leave it alone expecting everything to grow as it should. You water it, weed it, fertilize it and whatever else it needs to produce the beautiful gardens you have.
The church is the same way. We have to attend to it to keep it healthy and strong. Karl Vaters, an expert in helping small churches thrive, recently posted the reminder of what a church needs to be healthy. He wrote “Churches should try to honor God through worship, strengthen relationships through fellowship, go deeper through discipleship, help the needy through acts of kindness, and reach the community through evangelism.” How are we doing on those five things? How are you helping us do those things?
No one is asking you to leave everything and spend all your time tending to the church. But when you look at those five things, how, where and when can you spend time with those?Â
Last week, we talked about the Culture of Distraction. I had in and then took out this congregation’s distraction of giving various reasons for not being able to help with something the church is doing or simply show up when needed. Where can you make time to tend to the church?
The future of St. John’s UCC Penntown depends on how the congregation answers those questions. I can guide you in whichever way you want to go. The conference can guide you in whichever way you want to go. The choice, the decision is up to the congregation.
There are two questions in your bulletin for you to reflect on. Let’s take a few moments to do that. But take more time during the week to reflect more deeply on these questions as well as the questions I have asked.Â
Starting this week, a written copy of the sermon will be posted on the church website. They can be found on the Spiritual Growth page. If you have any questions or want to talk, let me know.