Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-6, 11-16
A word or two of explanation to start with. You’ve heard Debbie and John report on the Christian Education retreat that was held a week ago Saturday. The retreat itself was an effort to be more intentional about our Christian education program, to gather some of the thoughts and wisdom and energy of people in the congregation to bring to bear on how we can strengthen our Christian education program and on what we want it to be.
Part of the discussion (as you heard) was centered on creating a culture of Christian education in much the same way that we have created a culture of being concerned with matters of justice. It was suggested that it would be hard for anyone to sit through very many worship services at Sojourners, or maybe hard to sit through even one worship service at Sojourners, and not be aware that making the world a more just and a more loving and a just plain better place is one of the things, one of the important things, that we are about here at Sojourners. It was also suggested that the same is not true of Christian education, that although of course people are generally aware that there is a Sunday school program and nursery care, and perhaps that there are adult groups that gather during the week, that these things do not receive the same kind of attention and emphasis and acknowledgment as our justice orientation does. Sunday school does get mentioned every week but usually just a brief announcement that “we’ll be leaving soon”. So, the thought was that we ought to work to make it clear that Christian education is as central to the life of the church as justice concerns are, and one thing to do would be to make Christian education concerns more explicitly a part of my preaching, which I said I would be glad to do starting this Sunday, when I would preach a sermon on a theme related to Christian education, even though when I said that I didn’t know what such a sermon would look like. That’s how this sermon came to be.
And the first thing that it occurs to me to say is that it is gratifying that at least a few people think that the social justice orientation of Sojourners is firmly in place and apparent to even a casual observer. This is not something I take for granted. It is not something that can be allowed to be taken for granted. And it is true that I try to say often, in as many different ways as I can think of, that our justice concerns need to be not just something we do but very much a part of who we are. It needs to be in our blood as it were. It needs to be embedded in our life, and so it’s gratifying that at least some of us perceive that that is in fact the case.
It is, of course, not so gratifying that Christian education is not perceived that way, meaning, I think, that although we obviously do a number of things that would fall under the broad heading of Christian education, that it is not so much felt to be part of who we are. It’s not so much in our blood. It’s just something we do and sometimes struggle to do at that. Christian education gets identified as Sunday School and Sunday School is something that is primarily the concern of parents with young children and a few very special people who take an interest in young people. It’s one of the things churches do, and one of the things we do, but not so much a deeply ingrained part of who we are. However, if that is true—and I think it’s a fair description—I’m going to suggest this morning that it’s important to work toward changing that situation not only for the benefit of this area of life over here that we refer to as Christian education but also for the benefit of the social justice dimension of the church and for the good of every other aspect of the Sojourners community. Let me try to explain why I say this.
I see us here at Sojourners as being engaged in an effort to build up not just another Christian church to add to the list of Christian churches around Charlottesville but a particular kind of Christian church. Someone recently who was interested in making contact with churches made a list of 85 that were in the immediate vicinity of Charlottesville. I dare say that if we thought we were here so there would be 85 Christian churches instead of 84, or so that the UCC would have a representative among those 85, I for one would not be much interested. Although I care about the United Church of Christ and am proud to be part of it, I am not here in order to promote the interests of the United Church of Christ. I am here, as I say, to be part of building a particular kind of Christian church. It’s not that Sojourners is unique in what it stands for or is trying to become. It’s not important that we be different from the other 84 churches, just to be different. It is important to me that we stand for something specific, that we have a vision of what it means to be a Christian community different from generic brand notions of what it may mean to be a church.
Now of course we all may have a different take on what that vision is that describes and defines Sojourners. We’ll certainly all have a different way of expressing it. I’ll have a different way of expressing it on some other day than I will today. But I’m not going to be deterred by that. I’m going to take at least a stab at saying some few things that I think are part of that vision of who we are and who we aspire to be.
We are a church that has at its heart, I hope and trust, a seeking after God. Or at least we aspire to be such a church. Maybe many other churches see themselves that way too, though I suspect many would not say that. Some may prefer to think that the church is about praising God, or proclaiming God, or giving yourself to God. But this is the way I see who we are.
Our particular way of doing that at Sojourners involves allowing for a very wide latitude in the way people go about seeking God. It means allowing space in this community of God’s people for people who have a daily personal experience of God but who know we are never done with our seeking…
…and for people who don’t know how to talk about God,
…and for people who find some of the traditional language about God misleading or offensive,
…and for people who at this point in their lives don’t feel too kindly toward God,
…and for people who aren’t so sure they believe in God or know what it means to believe in God.
One of the U.C.C. advertising slogans is “Wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” I’ll paraphrase that: “Wherever you are on your journey of faith, there is a place for you here, and there is something we have to offer you in your journey, and there is something you have to offer us, however your seeking after God is going these days.”
Now let me be as clear and as strong as I know how to be on this. This I understand to be our way of being Christian. This is our way of being Christian. This is not some watered down version of Christianity. This is not a vision of a community that is “sort of” Christian, but sort of not. This is not a way of saying that God doesn’t matter, that you can believe in God or not, we don’t care, ‘cause God isn’t really at the center of our life anyway. It’s not any of that. This is our way of being Christian. Others may not agree or recognize it as Christian. But it is very much Christian in my view and a very much needed way of being church.
It recognizes that our seeking after God includes—is not separate from but includes—being angry with God, feeling abandoned by God, feeling uncertain about God, includes disbelief and non-belief, and includes all sorts of complex thoughts and feelings, that it’s not all just about believing, though it most certainly is about that too. This way of being Christian treats with great respect our various struggles with God and the ways we persevere in seeking God whatever our struggles. This way of being Christian says that in our seeking of God there needs to be a place both for honest questioning and for authentic believing, and that they depend on each other. It recognizes that in the story of our relationship to God, no point is a settled point, neither those times when we feel especially close to God, nor those times we may feel especially distant. To allow for people at Sojourners to be in all sorts of places with regard to their relationship to God is not simply a concession to reality. It is a way of being Christian.
So that’s one way of trying to describe the particular kind of Christian community we are trying to be. There are others of course, though I realize that I won’t be able to talk about them even as much as the “seeking God” piece. There is justice seeking too—already mentioned—especially matters having to do with race and sexual orientation and identity, which in different official ways we have embraced as being of central to concern to our whole community, not something to be referred to a social action committee. And again, in doing so, we have said that this is what we are all together about, not something some few of us might be interested in and that’s ok if that’s what toots your horn, but something that is central to the whole Christian enterprise. Seeking God. Seeking just and loving relationships among God’s people. And doing both of those things in ways that are not just standard or safe. Our way of being Christian.
Our way of being Christian includes some other things as well. I’ll just mention a few that occur to me, then I’m going to stop for today. This will get way too long otherwise. There are clearly other things to be said about what our way of being Christian is, the particular kind of Christian community we are trying to be. They might have to do with inclusivity, or with being clear that Christianity is not the only pathway to God or means of salvation, or with a particular approach to the Bible, but those or any others you might propose to include as central to our way of being Christian, would require that we spend some time with them, and as I say I don’t want to go on and on.
But I do need to stop and ask: What does all this have to do with Christian education? And my answer is: Everything. Because Christian Education is not about giving our children something to do during worship. It is not about churchifying our children so that they will grow up and become good church members themselves. It is not about teachers and curriculum and lesson plans, though we need all those things. It is about trying to build here at Sojourners a particular kind of Christian community—all of us together, all ages. It is about trying to raise up people who will not close off the part of themselves that is seeking God, who will honor that in themselves and in others, who will seek justice, who will not look down on other people’s faith or lack thereof, who will rejoice in the diversity of God’s people and will see God in all of them, who will be Biblically literate but who will not use the Bible in unloving ways, and who will be independent-minded enough to decide what Christianity will be for them or even to decide that it is not for them. And of course we know that our children are not the only ones who need to be raised up in this way. Ideally, we are all building each other up in all these ways.
And it is all of a piece. We don’t attend to the spiritual dimensions of being Christian, and then at another time and another place do the educational piece, and at still another time and place spend some time on social justice. If seeking God is seen as something different from doing justice, if it is not part of a Sunday school class or an adult study group, if doing justice is not built in to our Christian education program, and if Christian education is not built in to our doing of justice, if we think we can do justice without knowing anything, if we think we have no spiritual growing to do in the process of doing justice, if we think all we need to do justice is to be concerned and well-meaning and have progressive opinions, if we think we can do justice without Christian education, or vice versa, if we split all these things apart, play them off against each other, pretend that they are somehow separate from each other, then we are not building the kind of Christian community I think and hope we are trying to build.
In the end what I want for our children is not different from what I want for our adults—that they be part of an effort to create a specific kind of Christian community, not only that this be a pleasant gathering place for like-minded people, not only that we are helping them to grow up to be Christian individuals, but that they are a part of and have a growing understanding, along with all the rest of us, of what kind of Christian community we are trying together to build.
I have focused this morning on the ways we seek after God and what I have said has implications for what ought to characterize our Christian education program. It needs to be a safe place for children to seek God and to have that part of their humanity recognized, just as it needs to be a safe place for all of us to seek God and to have that part of our humanity recognized. But of course that is just the beginning, just one of the things we need to talk about if we are going to talk about Christian education, which as I have been trying to say, is nothing less that talking about what kind of community we are trying to be.
I don’t know. This may sound pretty theoretical compared to the down-to-earth, concrete needs of a Christian education program. But I do believe that Christian education needs to be brought more into our consciousness at Sojourners, not only because our children are important and they are our children (it does take a village), but also because becoming the kind of Christian village I believe we want to become depends on it. Amen.
jim Bundy
February 19, 2006