Scripture: 1Corinthians 12:4-11, 27-31
We are entering a period today where even more than has already been the case we will be focusing a lot on ourselves—our plans, our needs, our finances, our life as a congregation in general. What with passing a budget, electing officers, getting ourselves organized for a new year, moving ourselves into a new building, making the decisions and doing the work connected with that, and the very major item of a capital campaign, there is just a lot in our internal life to be concerned with. This will be the case for a good part of the next month or so, not just in meetings and activities here and there but in worship as well. I fully support all these activities. I know we need to focus on these things right now. But I also need to tell you that this prospect, of focusing on ourselves, makes me very uncomfortable.
Churches don’t exist for themselves. I know the argument that people can’t do anything for anybody else if they don’t take care of themselves, and likewise that churches can’t engage in any kind of mission for others if they aren’t in good institutional shape, and so churches, like individuals, need to take care of themselves. It would be hard not to be aware of that argument because churches use it all the time. Our own institutional needs come first. The stronger we are as a church, the more good we can do. And I recognize that there is truth in all this, but it also makes me very uncomfortable nevertheless.
Churches for the most part have better things to talk about than church life. Jesus, so far as I can determine, had very little to say about institutionalized religion, though he is known to have spent at least a little time in synagogues. And if I find myself talking a lot about Sojourners in my preaching, which I do sometimes, then I have to ask myself if I am not losing my way in my preaching. Of course there are lots of things to talk about as far as the church goes, and of course I will feel the need to talk about the church sometimes, but when church people talk about the themselves, bad things can, and often do, happen. They happen in a way that you don’t always notice them happening, but they happen. In trying to gain ourselves, we can all too easily lose ourselves. I say all this in the hope that recognizing the danger will make it less likely to happen, because I am going to do it anyway—talk about Sojourners, that is—a little bit today (we have lots to do) and more in the weeks ahead.
What I have to say today—and maybe this will be true of what I have to say in the coming weeks as well—but what I have to say today is in the spirit of a testimonial. It’s our annual meeting day and some words of appreciation for our congregational life seem appropriate, so I want to say just a few things in a personal vein that testify to why Sojourners has been and is important to me.
I happened to be talking to a clergy colleague the other night. We had both arrived early for a meeting we were going to and had a few moments to talk about things other than the immediate business at hand, or the weather, or other things we might have used to pass the time. He made the comment to me that although he had been a minister for many years, had made his living and lived his life in the church, that he didn’t really feel at home in the church, didn’t feel like he belonged, and the longer he ministered and the older he got, the less he felt like he belonged. Maybe some people would feel like that was an unusual thing for a minister to say…I suspect it’s not.
I knew what he was talking about. It was that feeling that brought me to Sojourners, or I should say it was that feeling that brought me to the point of looking for a church which ended up with my coming here. I have described this process to many of you individually and in groups and in sermons, I’m sure, before now, but I feel a need to say it again at this point in our life.
Before coming to Sojourners, I had been in the ministry thirty years and I had served churches that did good things and where I cared about the people, but I had not in thirty years felt like I had belonged in the church. I wanted to. I started to look for a church where I could feel at home and where I could be myself more fully and that represented some of the things that were important to me in my idea of what a church should be.
I wanted a church, for instance, that had at least some minimal degree of racial diversity. But I also knew that wasn’t all. Racial diversity is one thing, and it’s measurable, and I pretty much knew what I was getting in coming to Sojourners, and it was important to me, as I know it has been to others. Being committed to racial justice is something else, and it’s not so measurable, and I didn’t know for sure what I would find at Sojourners. I can’t stand here and tell you that I have found a church that is fully committed to racial justice. What I have found is a church where racial justice is at least in the vocabulary, where our level of commitment is something we know we need to struggle with together, where it is not something incidental to the Christian life but has been officially designated as a leading or central concern—and where I think we know that we are very far from being able to claim a full and deep commitment to racial justice. I testify to, and I give thanks for, what I have found at Sojourners that has helped me to feel like I belonged here in a way I have not in other places. But what I am grateful for is something that confronts us with an ongoing challenge, not something that is cause for self-congratulation.
I was also looking for a church that was open and affirming. Again that is something that is specific. A church either is or isn’t open and affirming. That’s an official designation that you apply for and receive as a U.C.C. church. But being open and affirming is one thing, and being diverse in having people of different sexual orientations and identities is something else, and being committed to seeking just treatment for sexual minorities in the church and in society is still something else. Again I can’t stand here and tell you that I have found a congregation whose commitment to justice for lgbt people is 100%, but what I have found is a church where justice for sexual minorities is mentionable, where we have taken some action (though it is never enough) and where our level of commitment is something we know we need to struggle with together—and where I think we know that we are very far from being able to claim that we are a perfect example of where Christians need to be. So again, though I can testify to what I have found at Sojourners that has helped me to feel like I belonged here, what I can testify to is something that confronts us with an ongoing challenge, not something that is cause for self-congratulation.
I was looking for a church with theological diversity, and by that I do not mean just a place where people had some different understandings of the details of Christian belief, but where it is not a given what it means to be a Christian, or even whether it is necessary to be a Christian. Sojourners is a Christian church and Christian churches do tend to assume that it’s a good thing to be a Christian, sometimes that it’s a necessary thing to be a Christian, and quite often they assume certain things that go along with that about what is involved in being a Christian. For a Christian church not to take any of that for granted it seems to me is a good thing. At the least it makes us question ourselves and it helps us to better understandings of ourselves and it makes our faith more honest and personal. I was looking for such a place, and I can testify that I am grateful to have found it in Sojourners, though again this is much less a cause for self-congratulation than it is a cause to be challenged to continued openness in matters of faith identity.
This is my testimony for today, brief as it is. I have two points that I want to make that are based in this personal testimony about why Sojourners has been important to me. The first I have already said, in fact said it three times. The things that have brought each of us here, whatever they are, the things that we value about Sojourners and that help us each to feel like we belong here, that we have a home here, whatever these things are for each of us, these are not things we can afford to be patting ourselves on the back about. These are less realities we should be proud of than directions we are heading in together, and if we think we have these qualities, we will lose them, but if we are challenged by our commitments to justice and exploring faith with open minds and hearts, then those commitments will continue to define who we are and who we hope to be.
Secondly, being welcoming is not simply a matter of smiling, and being friendly, and being nice, though those are all good things. But as we move into a new year and move to a new place, our welcome will be extended best as we continue to pursue those commitments that are most important to us. I was welcomed here and for the first time in a long time felt at home in a church, because of those commitments. I am sure that has been true for many of you as well. May it be true for those Sojourners yet to come. Amen.
Jim Bundy
January 23, 2005