1 Corinthians 12:14-23, 27; 13:1-3
I often think of my sermon on the Sunday of the annual meeting as a sort of “State of the Church” address. It’s a time to reflect on both the year past and the year ahead – to say “here’s where we are, and here is where we are going.”
This January, the state of the church has been impacted by a bit of conflict. The conflict arose because a letter was circulated that was critical of how the session is responding to the increased numbers of guests who come to Eliot on Sunday mornings but do not participate in worship. Conflicts, while frightening, can often be a time for real growth. If we will not hide from them, they offer us the opportunity to examine and claim our core values, or to recognize where we have drifted from those values. As a church, we examine our conflicts in the light of Scripture and look for the evidence of the Holy Spirit. To that end, your elders have spent the last three weeks listening to individuals and groups within the congregation. They have been hearing about people’s experiences, concerns, joys, and hopes vis-à-vis our Sunday guests.
Let me give a little bit of background. Last winter, we began to have more people come inside the church building around 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning. Many of these folks were coming from the Lowell Transitional Living Center, our local homeless shelter. Those who sleep at the shelter are not allowed to stay inside during the day. On our busiest mornings last winter, we had as many as 22 guests gathering in the area around the kitchen to get warm, drink coffee, and charge their phones. The number got smaller in the warmer months, but we have seen it swell again this winter.
Overall, the session has heard that you are happy for Eliot to be known as a safe, warm, welcoming place. You want to be a church whose doors are open to our neighbors in need. Some see that we have an opportunity to minister to our Sunday morning guests. You also hope for a day when no one will be homeless, or hungry, or impoverished, or struggling with mental illness or addiction.
But as we have welcomed more and more guests on Sunday mornings, there have also been some specific areas of concern that raise deeper questions about who we are as a congregation and how we understand our ministry. The session identified five themes that capture both the concerns and the opportunities for growth:
1. Worship Life
We agree that when we gather here on Sunday mornings, our chief purpose is to worship God and to be equipped for ministry in the week ahead. Worship is a central aspect of our life together. Many of our Sunday morning guests, however, do not join in the worship life of our community. Instead they remain downstairs to sleep, rest, or fellowship with one another. If worship is indeed the priority on Sunday mornings, should we be doing more to invite, encourage, and support our guests to join the worship service? Are we doing enough to make sure newcomers from any non-Presbyterian background understand what is happening in worship? And what should we do about those who simply do not want to join us in the sanctuary?
The session also noted that among the members of the congregation there are some who routinely come very late to worship, sometimes arriving when one-third or one-half of the service is already over. There are many reasons why people come late. We should show grace and be thankful for those who must come late. I do not think we’re going to start handing out tardy slips. But if worship is indeed the priority on Sunday mornings, should we all be doing more to arrive on time, be fully present, and participate in every part of the service? Are we giving our very best worship to God? Can we do more to make sure the various languages and cultures of Eliot are able to engage in our worship service?
2. Relationship Building
There are many metaphors for the church. Our reading from first Corinthians references the church as a body where every member – from the eye to the arm to the pinky toe – is valuable and has something to contribute. Another important metaphor for the church is household, the family of God. As with a body, a household has many members each with its own role but none is more important or more valuable that the others.
Every household has expectations, both spoken and unspoken, about how members relate to another. In the South, where I am from, children are taught to answer their mother with “Yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am.” You might come from a so-called “traditional” household where the man of the house is the principal earner and the woman cares for the home and the children. There might be expectations around what kind of discipline is appropriate for children or how adult children care for their aging parents. Sometimes we don’t even realize what our household code is until have a roommate or get married and find ourselves living with someone with different expectations, right?
The same is true for the church. We have not always specified what we expect from one another. When newcomers enter, they make us more aware of those expectations. As more new folks come inside our building on Sunday mornings, we find ourselves asking how they fit into this family. We know that Jesus, in his ministry, cast a wide net inviting into his family many who
did not fit into other groups. We sense that we are called to build a Christ-centered community that includes these newcomers. We hear the Holy Spirit challenging us to embrace our guests until they are not guests anymore.
The session wants to gain clarity on the “household code” for Eliot Church. We sense that it has to do with things like how we greet people on the sidewalk in front of church and in the sanctuary. It has to do with who gets to eat at our communal meals. It has to do with learning one another’s names. It includes how we act when we see someone from church out in the community. It includes how we resolve conflicts. It includes how we ask one another for help and how we say yes or no with respect and kindness.
Ultimately, this is not work that the session can do by adopting a policy or enforcing a rule. It must be the work of the whole congregation. The session is clear that if we want to honor the ministry of Jesus, we cannot have two sets of codes – one for members of the church and one for our Sunday morning guests. Like worship, how we build relationships across our differences is a key aspect of our life together.
3. Safety
When we gather to worship and build community, it is the session’s deep hope that everyone will be safe. It’s difficult to name all the things that the session and I would like to protect you from: gun violence, sexual violence, robbery, kidnaping, theft, assault, racism . . . the flu. The session is actively considering how we can make sure every child and adult who comes inside this building is as safe as possible, whether a member or a guest. We are working on what measures should be taken when someone threatens another’s safety, either directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally.
We also want to be mindful of not projecting our fears onto newcomers simply because they are new or somehow different. (We see that enough in the news, don’t we?) Sometimes we need to examine and fact-check our fears. We want to be careful to name and correct inappropriate behaviors, not to condemn people. We also want to grow in our love for our neighbors, even if that makes us uncomfortable, because “perfect love casts out fear.” The one thing the session is not trying to protect you from is feeling uncomfortable if that discomfort can lead us to be a more Christ-like community.
4. Care for Church Property
We all agree that we must be good stewards of our physical resources, and we feel frustrated when the church grounds are unkempt. Our church building sees a lot of traffic during the week; over 125 people eat dinner here five nights each week. There are people who spend time on our property during the day, especially since the city has discouraged people from “loitering” in public parks. Extra traffic creates extra trash. St. Paul’s Kitchen is a good partner in trying to keep the church property clean and in working order. In many instances, our Sunday morning guests have been willing to pick up trash and help keep the grounds clean. But it will take work from all of us.
I think some are also concerned about the kind of litter around the church building. Nip bottles, cigarette butts, and discarded syringes are especially concerning and raise questions about the activities being carried out on the premises. We have a clear no-alcohol policy at the church, but it is difficult to police what happens outside when no one is here. We have not had a policy about tobacco or marijuana use, but the session is reflecting on that. We have already begun asking that people not smoke at the entrance to the building to minimize second-hand smoke exposure. Of course, we do not want to support the use of illegal drugs. Some of our neighbors have died because of accidental overdoses. We see a need for more treatment options and more support for those trying to get clean.
5. Neighborhood Issues
The concerns about the church property point us well beyond what happens at Eliot on Sunday mornings or even at St. Paul’s during the week. We know that some of the challenges we face are neighborhood-wide. Eliot has been committed to this area of Lowell and to ministering to the people who live here. We don’t wish our homeless neighbors would go somewhere else; but we do wish they had a safe place to live. We don’t wish that our neighbors struggling with substance abuse would go abuse substances in another area; we wish they could get the treatment and support they need to stay sober or clean. We don’t want our unemployed neighbors to be unemployed on another street; we hope they can find meaningful, good paying work. You get the idea.
We won’t solve these challenges simply by what we do on Sunday mornings or how we welcome our guests. They will require us to connect with our other neighbors on the street and get involved in city affairs. It turns out we have a new city councilor who is a member of this church and another one whose office is next door! We have this big building that we could use to organize and host a neighborhood meeting. You have a pastor who really loves seeking better policies for people living on the edge. There is a growing sense that we not only need to address community issues, but we have resources to do so.
These five focus areas: worship, relationship building, safety, property, and neighborhood issues are not answers in and of themselves. In each category there are challenges that still need to be addressed. But they do help us define how we want to live out our call to be a Christian community. There is no question that we are glad to welcome people on Sunday mornings, even if they first come for the coffee and the heat. We are sure that worship is a key aspect of our life together, and we want more people to be included in our worship life. We know we can have deeper, more authentic, and more Christ-like relationships among the members of the church and with newcomers of every background, if we will push beyond our comfort zones. We know that attending to safety and caring for are property are important but must be done with love. We want to be part of making more abundant life possible for our neighbors.
These are the values we will stand on as we continue to face conflicts and challenges that arise with our congregation. They are values that remind us the church is more than an institution with policies and procedures. We are a community of people seeking to worship God, follow Jesus and minister to our neighbors. We may do it imperfectly, but if the love of Christ will be our guide, we can overcome our challenges and build a little slice of the kingdom of God right here at 273 Summer Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. I am grateful to be your partner in this work, and I look forward to what God will do in you and through you in the year ahead.