Do we proclaim a God that is dead?

Before I begin, I ask the forgiveness of all of you who are Johnsons, I have used the Johnson family name in this post simply as a convenience for, as far as I know, not a single person referenced has ever been named Johnson. Given names have also been changed. Any similarity to your own worshipping space should cause you and your worshipping community to ponder what our Christ centered, resurrection proclamation is and how those who do not know our story as well as you do may receive the message of good news we make.

It was probably arrogance that prompted me to take one of my calls. Of course I felt called to be there. Of course I thought that we would be able to get along with one another. Yes, I knew that the terms of the call were tenuous. Yes, I thought that the Holy Spirit was leading me to that place, and I thought that I could help these two congregations. They were both experiencing decline, and I thought that I could help them turn that around.

Of course, I was wrong. Whenever God’s work becomes an “I” thing, it is no longer God’s work. I knew that. I believed it, but somehow I didn’t listen to myself or the many mentors and professors and authors I had worked with and read.

Eventually I came to my senses, but by that time all of the great ideas I had had had mostly failed.  So, one afternoon when I sort of knew that my time was short, as my eye sight was going but before it was gone, I went into one of the churches to scream at God, lick my wounds, and seek direction for the future.

This is an old church building by Midwestern standards and it has that wonderful smell that many of these old churches have. Do you know the smell? It is of years of burning wax candles, scented hand lotion worked into the covers and pages of hymnals, of perfume and aftershave, of plaster and carpeting, of dust and mustiness, of wood and metal polish. For me, it is the holy scent of God.

After my initial rantings to God, I started to feel a little foolish. After all God already knew my problems and my shortcomings. I didn’t really need to be explicit, did I? After some time, I started pacing around this very familiar space to calm down, thinking about next steps in walking with God’s people in faith.

I moved from space to space within the sanctuary noticing cracks and chips. Next I stood in front of the stained glass windows surrounding the worship space. I noticed the large windows of the Holy Family on the one side and the Ascension on the other. I thought about how the worshipping community was held in the embrace of these two windows of Christ’s vulnerable coming and his glorious, ascending resurrection promise. I thought of how the baptismal font was centered between the two and how our lives were lived in the tension between those windows in Baptismal hope.

I walked up to the windows that surrounded the altar, and I noticed the themes of the windows that moved from baptism to the cross on the altar and then life in the resurrection. It was amazing and spiritually satisfying until I noticed the panels and plaques on everything. So, I started walking through the church again, paying attention to the memorial signage. As I walked, I thought about many of the churches I have worshipped in, worked in, and served as pastor. I thought about the “edifice complex” that we have and about our need for self-aggrandizement.

At one of the windows I started to laugh. And, whenever I think about it today, I have to laugh again.

I was looking at the window of Jesus being baptized by John. Under every window was a beautiful stained glass memorial panel. This one read “In memory of the Johnson brothers.” At Jesus knocking at the door, it read, “In memory of John Johnson.” I laughed even harder. Under the boat on the sea, with Peter armpit deep in the waters with his hand raised to Jesus and a boat of disciples in the background, “In memory of the Johnson family.” It all became absurd. I knew what the pictures were, and yet, I was being told that these were not the images of Jesus’ life, but rather they were the Johnson family pictures. All the plaques and memorials I had seen throughout my life came flooding in on me and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

I remembered a piano I had to tune that had the plaque “Donated to the glory of God by Johanna Johnson.” It was a good piano in its day, but it was always difficult to tune and no longer held its tune very well. Yet, when the musicians of the congregation wanted to get rid of it, they couldn’t because there were still members of Johanna’s family in the church, and they might be offended. How relieved everybody was when the church had a fire and the piano was damaged beyond repair.

I remembered the baptismal font at a church I served that had a large sterling silver basin. Amid some beautiful scroll work at the bottom of the basin was this message: “In memory of Johannes Johnson.” It was small print until water was put in. Then the water magnified the letters to almost an inch high. I, of course, didn’t realize this until I was in the middle of a baptismal service one day. As I bent forward to baptize the baby, I clearly read the inscription and almost baptized the child in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and you’ve got to be kidding! Johannes Johnson?” I was so shocked that I almost dropped the baby.

One church had a wall filled with the names of charter members and those who had made major contributions (money) to support the ministry of the church. A couple of names were missed. The addition of those names later was not able to keep them in proper alphabetical order. It took hours of pastoral visits and pleadings to get forgiveness from some, and others never did come to worship again.

In one of the churches I served, a water fountain (bubbler) was given in memory of those who had died in war. A U.S. flag neatly folded in a beautifully crafted case and a plaque with the names hung above the fountain. When one of the children in the congregation heard that all of the people had died, she refused to drink from it because she was not going to be poisoned.

We want to give of what we have to the glory of God as we sing God’s praises, but we really want that book plate saying in the memory of one of our faithfully departed. Okay, I’m not really opposed to the book plate thing. When my family came to worship, my mother would open the hymnal cover to see who she was worshipping with that week. Sometimes the hymnal was one dedicated in my father’s name (he had died when I was quite young) and she would smile. But when the new hymnals are purchased, do we really need to be concerned that the families who gave those worn out books will be offended if we get rid of them? Do we really need to build a memory hall to include these old relics?

Although we are coming up on 500 years of Luther’s great reformation movement (Lutheran laughter is allowed here), Luther’s protest against relic collections seems to continue in our midst. We even cling to our old reliquary altars with the many drawers and cupboards which were designed to store the relics of the saints and mementos of Christ’s life, maybe even a sliver from the cross.

We say that we are a place of resurrection proclamation and then put the United States flag next to the pulpit or the cross. We claim that our hope is in Christ, that as we have died in Christ so shall we be raised up with Christ, and then we cover our caskets with the United States flag. Really!? Has the flag gained some salvific character I am unaware of?

These are just some of the ways we build museums to ourselves instead of places to celebrate and worship God’s activity in our lives. We give money for the beautification of the worship space knowing that material things wear out. Yet when they need to be replaced, people are offended. In the midst of all of this clamor for recognition we gather in memorial halls, at memorial tables, on memorial chairs, to study God’s inspired word with memorial book plates. We find our way into baptismal living using memorial fonts, hear God’s word from memorial pulpits, celebrate Eucharist at memorial altars draped with memorial paraments using memorial chalices and patens, being fed at memorial altar rails, in spaces protected by the United States flag. It often seems a miracle to me that Christ’s resurrection good news makes it out into the world at all.

I understand and I spiritually depend on, and yet I need to be reminded of, the fact that we worship in a holy space that transcends the boundaries of our lives and cosmos. That we stand on the shoulders of the faithful who have gone before. That we stand with the great cloud of saints worshipping each and every day, Sunday in particular. That we are not alone as individuals or individual congregations. That Christ is not our personal-property redeemer; Christ redeems us. Yes, we need all these reminders, but are the reminders we use helping us to engage the world around us or to run from it?

As I walked around the space that day, I was determined to ask the people of my congregation to tell me the stories of the Johnson family and then to ask them to tell me how those stories helped them speak of their faith today. When I lost my sight, it was determined that I had to leave my call and so those conversations never really got started. I sometimes wonder what would have come of those conversations.

As the liturgical year comes to an end, on the last Sunday before Christ the King Sunday, we will hear Luke’s words recording Jesus’ statements about the temple. We know from other sources that the temple was an architectural marvel, and from a distance it looked like it was floating above the city. One source I read claims that it looked like a cloud crowned by gold with such brilliance that it hurt the eyes to look at it when the sun was shining. No wonder it drew comment.

Yet Jesus was unimpressed. When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, [Jesus] said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another. All will be thrown down.”

With the destruction of the temple, where God’s people thought that God’s presence could be contained, possibly imprisoned, Jesus points to God’s activity in the world, not in an EDIFICE or even a complex of edifices. God’s presence in Christ’s body continues to be among us. We are the parts of Christ’s body, raised up IN Christ to love God and to love our neighbors. We are, in the words of Ephesians, “knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped” for the benefit of our relationship with God and one another. We are called with Malachi to be the messengers of God’s word, and in the words of Second Thessalonians to “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions [we are] taught.”

Oh yes, that stained glass window of John Johnson knocking at the door? I noticed that he was knocking to get out of the church, not in.