I once served two churches in a rural county in Virginia. The two churches got along OK, but only if they didn't get together too often. And they had the most confusing and complicated worship schedule I've ever known: One church worshiped at 11:00 on the first and third Sundays of the month and at 9:30 on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month. The other church had the reverse schedule. On 5th Sundays, they took turns worshiping at 11:00. When I arrived, they had been doing this for many years and so they were surprised when I told them I didn't think their schedule was in anybody's best interest. (In fact, I had been told by numerous people that they did not attend worship at either of these churches simply because they could not keep the complicated schedule straight.) So, after much consternation and wrangling, the two churches settled on a new schedule. One church worshiped at 10:00 o'clock every Sunday and the other church worshiped at 11:15 every Sunday. It wasn't an ideal compromise, but it was a big improvement. Yet, some people never forgave me for instigating this change, in spite of the fact that both churches grew numerically as a result.
Sometimes we just can't see what is really going on with us, because we are just too close to it. So we tend to resent anybody who points out that our habits are less than perfect. And actually changing these habits proves far more difficult than we even imagine. This is true of us as individuals and as groups.
The church has spent 2,000 years listening to Jesus tell us, and we Methodists are in our third century of listening to John Wesley tell us, that there is, to borrow Wesley's phrase, no holiness but social holiness, and yet we still have not changed our ways sufficient to make Jesus' words, mission and spirit, and Wesley's words, mission and spirit, our own.
Jesus made it clear that he came to bring good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. This message was not well received in his hometown church and ultimately got him crucified. This message will get pretty much anybody crucified, in one form or another.
John Wesley's was not the luxurious and comfortable life of an Oxford-educated priest who preached, lectured and eventually founded a popular new denomination. His efforts at calling the venerable Church of England to repentance and social holiness mostly just brought him ridicule, scorn and the eventual heave ho from his church. The Methodist Church happened by default, and in the midst of real turmoil.
Johnston McMaster goes on to explain that "Wesley once claimed that there was no holiness but social holiness. The original context of the saying was in relation to the necessity for Christian fellowship. Wesley was countering a privatized notion of Christian faith . . . It is within Christian community that holiness of life is to be realized. Today social holiness needs to be extended beyond [the church]. It is within the socio-economic and political community that holiness of life is to be realized." (Johnston McMaster, 2002)
But Wesley's views still engender mostly trouble. In what has to be high on the list of religious ironies, preaching social holiness in most United Methodist churches is guaranteed to raise the ire of many.
Modern Methodists give to the poor, and a handful of us go on mission trips to the poor, but mostly we keep as much distance as possible between us and the poor. We don't think we need the poor. We don't think we can relate to the poor, and we don't want the poor. The poor aren't here, because they aren't invited.
We do not see the profound differences between Jesus' purposes and our purposes. We do not see that if we reject the people Jesus loves, and the people God sent Jesus to serve, we also reject Jesus.
Before coming here, I served a beautiful, stone and stained glass, high-steeple church on a prominent corner in the heart of a city. For generations that church had been known for its power and influence, both within the city and within our denomination. But, like many downtown churches, things had changed. The congregation was mostly elderly and just steps from the beautiful church sat neighborhoods in the midst of gut wrenching transition filled with poor, captive, blind and oppressed people of all kinds.
During my time at this church two people who lived in a nearby homeless shelter joined and became active members. I'll never forget the Church Council meeting at which one of them stood up to speak during a discussion of what the church needed to do in order to revitalize and become more faithful.
She said, "I want you to know how difficult it is for somebody like me to come to a church like this. You need to know how hard it is for somebody like me to walk up the beautiful slate steps of your church, walk through the beautiful carved wooden doors, and ask for a bulletin from one of your well-dressed ushers. You need to know how much courage is needed to take those few steps when everything and everybody is telling you, in many silent ways, that you are different, that you don't fit in, and that you don't belong here."
"You need to know this," she said, "because once I found the courage to take those few steps, and come inside, and be with you, I learned that you are good people, that you care about me and others like me, and that you would welcome me. But everything that I saw, and everything that you showed me before I made it all the way inside told me something different. If you could make some changes in these things, and other things like them, many more people like me would come, and they need to come, and you need them to come."
When she finished speaking, she sat down and looked around at everyone with tears in her eyes. And everyone sat in silence, looking at their shoes. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of silence, someone thanked her for her words and the meeting went on as if she had never spoken.
Sometimes we just can't see what is really going on with us, because we are just too close to it. So we tend to resent anybody who points out that our habits are less than perfect. And actually changing these habits proves far more difficult than we can even imagine. This is true of us as individuals and as groups. The social holiness of Jesus and Wesley threatens the schedules, and challenges the habits, that we have kept for so long, and to which we have become devoted.
To a person described only as a "gentlewoman" member of a Methodist society Wesley once wrote:
"Do not confine your conversation to gentle and elegant people. I should like this as well as you do. But I cannot discover a precedent for it in the life of our Lord, or any of his Apostles. My dear friend, let you and I walk as he walked . . . I want you to converse more, abundantly more, with the poorest of the people, who, if they have not taste, have souls, which you may forward on their way to heaven. And they have (many of them) faith, and the love of God in a larger measure than any persons I know. Creep in among these, in spite of dirt, and a hundred disgusting circumstances; and thus put off the gentlewoman." (February 7, 1776)
I don't know exactly what Christ and Wesley expect us to do. I don't know how exactly we are to accomplish the tasks of heaven in a world so averse to such attitudes and such conduct, but I know we are called to do it whether it's easy, or obvious, or comfortable.
When Christ and his poor, his captives, his blind, and his oppressed become the center of who and what we are, both as individuals and as a church, then Christ will be the center of who and what we are. Until then, we are the poor, the captive and the blind, and we desperately need the risen Christ to come to us.
