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February 20, 2005
Going In. Going Out.
Psalm 121
Some of us are "mountain" people; and some of us are "beach" people. Myself, I love the mountains, and prefer them far more than the seashore. "The hills are alive with the sound of music." Julie Andrews clear soprano expresses a common exhilaration with the snow-capped majesty of wondrous high places. Little wonder, then, that we should resonate with the opening words of Psalm 121: "I lift up my eyes to the hills…." But, of course.
The opening words of Psalm 121 are more ambiguous. The hills the psalmist has in mind are those of Jerusalem, especially Mt. Zion, the place of the temple. Other hills and mountains aren't so deserving of praise. Help doesn't come from those hills. The high places were where scenes of idolatry were played out, with the religion and spirituality that grow up around worshiping other than the Lord. Help comes from the Lord. The hills weren't where you found the Lord. Those who lift their eyes to the hills are looking for the Lord in all the wrong places.
Reminds me of Johnny Lee's song,
"Looking for Love":I've spent a lifetime lookin' for you.
Single bars and good time lovers were never true.
Playin' the fools game hoping to win.
And telling those sweet lies and
losing again!
I was
looking for love in all the wrong places.
Looking for love in too many faces.
Searching their eyes, looking for traces
of what I'm dreaming of.
The hills are where people go looking for traces of what they're dreaming of, and not necessarily what the Lord has in mind for them. What the Lord has in mind for us is what helps. The Lord is in his temple; let all the earth keep silence. The temple is where ancient Israel gathered to meet the Lord. The Lord has promised to be present among God's people. Where two or more are gathered in my name, proclaimed Jesus, he is present with them. The Lord draws people to himself, not unlike a magnet.
"Magnet for ministry" is what Psalm 121 made me think of. Especially, when the Psalmist says: "The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." We go in to be blessed. We come out to be a blessing.
Your Session has proclaimed First Presbyterian Church to be a "magnet for ministry." "Magnet for ministry" is an idea similar to that of "magnet schools." "Magnet schools," as I recall, were set up as one of the ways of breaking down segregation, of opening up the society by gathering students of similar interests, giving students and their parents choices among schools and approaches to schooling and ways of learning. Opening up society, drawing together people with shared commitments, fostering a variety of gifts, encouraging people to use their gifts—all these are worthy impulses in the ministry of this congregation
.
Magnets are immensely powerful and useful. A compass helps us get out bearings. A church may point people to lift up their eyes to the one in whom help is to be found. Jesus calls us to follow him. He sets the direction. A church that is a magnet for ministry calls people to follow Christ. A church may be a "magnet for ministry" by drawing people into faithful patterns of living.
Believe me: among the trials of moving to a new community is finding your way to places you need to go — grocery stores, banks, Post Office, restaurants, churches. Of course, we didn't have that much trouble picking a church! But you get the point. Finding your way is crucial. When we're new in the faith, we rely upon those who have a sense of direction in their own lives to help us find our way.
One of the things we'd like to do: draw new people into our community of faith. There's more to be done in Christ's service than we can accomplish by ourselves. We need all the help we can get. Help comes from the Lord. The Lord will call to our side people to serve with us. First Presbyterian Church will to be a "magnet for ministry" we are reliable guides for those who are new in the faith and for those who are new to our community of faith. To share the faith, we must know the faith. We know the faith through worship and prayer, study and reflection, friendship and fellowship.
What people are we apt to attract? Not long after I got here one of our members, while taking care of business in the office, observed that "magnets" only draw a certain kind of metal: iron. No gold. No silver. No lead. Just iron. One school of thought would have try to draw in only those who are "our kind of people." By that they mean people of a certain social and cultural profile. Another school of thought is that we don't have it within us to be drawn to God. God's gift of faith is what attracts us to God. God gives us what it takes for us to be drawn to Godself. However different people may be those drawn to the Lord are alike in this: They have received the gift of faith.
Our folk wisdom has it that we're attracted to others in two different, apparently contradictory, ways: "Birds of a feather flock together" and "Opposites attract." Which is it? Could it be both, and at the same time?
Opposites attract. Think of people you know who are friends or married to one another. They very often seem to have opposite temperaments. One may be talkative while the other is quiet. One may be quite curious about many things while the other is content to focus on just one or two things. One may like to be on the go while the other likes to stay at home. You get the idea. Opposites do seem to attract.
On the other hand, "birds of a feather" do seem to flock together. Just look at our congregation. We may think we're "very diverse." Look again. Did someone say "white?" Did someone say "educated?" Did someone say "pretty well-off?" You see what I mean. Even the "opposites" who were attracted to one another share very a very basic profile.
So what's all this about "likes" and "opposites" got to do with being a magnet for ministry, with the Lord keeping our coming and our going? When I was a boy my parent gave me toy magnets, figurines with magnets as their base. From playing with them, I learned magnets have poles. When I brought one of the magnets near one end of the other, they'd snap together. When I brought it close to the opposite end, the other moved away.
We do want to draw people into our congregation. Will we likely continue to draw people pretty much like ourselves? In the course of becoming friends we will discover some differences. We need to be asking: what do we want for the people who are drawn into our fellowship?
Someone came up with the idea of using a door, a real door, throughout Lent. It's to remind us that we're on a threshold. We're on a threshold of ministry. We're on the threshold of regaining the Sanctuary and allied space. What a glorious day it will be when people from all over come through those Grant Wood doors on 5th Street. But you know, everyone who comes through those doors will be going out them. What do we hope happens for people who come through those doors? Will they be the same people as when they came in? The same Lord to draws all people to himself, also sends us out to minister in his name. Can we hope that whoever comes here will have their lives transformed so that as they go out those doors, they are people prepared, equipped, called to serve Christ? How do we equip them?
Consider another use of magnetic media: in computers. The "hard drive" is where all the programs are that make the computer do useful things. All the information I develop using the computer—sermons, newsletters, financial information, photos, images—all manner of things get stored there. My first computer had but 64 kilobytes of memory and didn't even have a hard drive; everything was on a floppy disk. The computer I use in my office has 12,000 times more memory than the first; the hard drive will hold 40 gigabytes, or about forty-billion bytes-and that's considered a pretty small hard drive. The capacity of computers has increased remarkably.
A church that magnet for ministry is one in which the capacity for ministry continues to grow. We grow in our capacity to receive others. Not just in numbers. But also in diversity. What we all have in common is following Jesus Christ. We gather to worship in Christ's name. We are dispersed into the world to serve in Christ's name. Hold to Christ. And for all the rest: hang loose. We grow in our capacity for ministry as we seek to deepen our faith, our trust in God, in our ability to stand with one another. And God is faithful and will help us be steadfast, and will not let our foot be moved.
We grow in our capacity for ministry as we enlarge our hope. Not just hope for ourselves, but hope for our community, our nation, our world. Our hope is in the one who made us and the heaven and the earth, in the one who will keep us from all evil, who will keep our life. I don't think that means the Lord will keep evil from befalling us, so much as that the Lord's work is to deliver us from evil, to keep us from being instruments of evil. The Lord's work with us is that we should seek to discern the Lord's work and do it: to stand against what is evil and seek justice. Years ago in Central America I learned from Elsa Tamez that In scripture the ideas of poverty and oppression go together. The poor are the oppressed. I am heartened by your witness in ministering the the poor through the Sunday Evening Meals Program, by housing the food bank, by providing transportation aid, through your Thrift Store, and other ways.
We grow in our capacity for ministry as we enlarge our love of neighbors. It may be true that we are more apt to attract one sort of person than another: white, educated, well-off; rather than people of color, less well-educated, and less well-off or even poor. A long-standing acronym in computing is GIGO: Garbage in. Garbage out. That is, you only get out of a computer what you put into it. We'll know we've grown in our capacity to love when we see evidence of it in our midst.
Magnets have many useful purposes. Compasses give us direction. Other magnets help us gather and store useful programs and data. These are but two. We'll find many other images to help us fulfill the vision of being a congregation that is a "magnet for ministry." We will do that as we are drawn to follow Christ, as we offer guidance to others in serving Christ, and as we grow in our capacity to minister in Christ's name.
"The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore"—that we may be blessed in our coming in and blessings to others in our going out.
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First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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