The Fine Art of Going Home from Church

I wonder if Jesus would have preferred worshiping with a small family-style congregation or in a majestic and awesome gothic cathedral. Do you think he would have liked our relatively structured and formal Episcopal worship? Or might he have enjoyed the more freewheeling Pentecostal style of worship? Would he have been an 8:00’er or would he have come to the 9:30 "family" service? What style of music would he have felt was most appropriate to accompany and enhance worship? Would he have liked Rite 1 or Rite 2? If Jesus had been synagogue shopping, how would he have chosen which synagogue to join? What criteria, what priorities would he have used to evaluate a worship service? In a sense I’m joking, but these are not altogether idle questions. Surely, as Christians, we seek to be true to Christ, to value what he valued. It may not be possible to directly translate 1^st century Jewish worship to 21^st century Episcopal worship, but we might still look to Holy Scripture to provide general guidance. Think about those stories from the gospels that recount Jesus’ experiences at worship in the synagogue… What did he seek? What did he value? Bring to mind those descriptions of Jesus attending worship services…

If you are having trouble remembering those particular gospel stories, it is because they are not there. The gospels say virtually nothing about the specific experiences of Jesus attending worship. We may be quite certain he did. At several points, the gospel writers do tell us that it was Jesus’ custom to attend synagogue on the Sabbath as he traveled about. Just before the passage we heard from Mark’s gospel this morning, Mark has told us that Jesus was in the synagogue as he passed through Nazareth, where he taught as "one with authority". This was last Sunday’s gospel.

So Jesus attended worship regularly (even when he was traveling!) And teaching is highlighted as a significant part of the synagogue experience. That’s about all we know. The full richness of the gospel record… the proclamation of the Good News made known through Jesus Christ… doesn't mention any details about Jesus attending church.

But listen again to the beginning of this morning’s gospel story. "As soon as he left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon…. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with fever." Fever was no small thing those days. "[Jesus] came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her." The story is about what happened right after Jesus left the synagogue. That’s the story the gospel writer tells us. Jesus was at the synagogue. That’s important. Then something happened just after Jesus was at worship. That’s important, too.

I found a marvelous commentary on this passage in an old version of the Interpreter’s Bible given to me by a retired priest. It’s by someone named Halford E. Luccock. He writes: "Here then [is a picture]. Jesus going from the synagogue into the house suggests the fine art of going home from church, of carrying the truth proclaimed in the house of worship out into the life around. That is what Jesus did. In the synagogue his word was with power. Then he went into the house [of Simon], into a place of need, and brought the power of God into saving contact with the need of people. All too often we go to church, but do not follow that by going from the synagogue to the house, to bring the power of God, proclaimed and felt in worship, to the service of human need. All too often, people, as they go out, leave the truth behind in the sanctuary, like hymnbooks which are stamped ‘Not to be taken from the church.’"

In this morning’s gospel passage from Mark, Jesus presents an example of the "fine art of going home from church." What a wonderful phrase. The fine art of going home from church. It is a fine art indeed. And it is the essence, the essential core, of the Christian life. Note that this is a different endeavor, for example, than going home from work. And it’s definitely not the same thing as just being home… We’re not talking about being at home, comfortably at home on a Sunday morning, even if it is the only time you can really relax with a cup of coffee and the Sunday paper. This is the fine art of going home from church.

If we are to practice the fine art of going home from church, first we must attend church. And not just attend. We must participate. Engage and offer ourselves in worship. I do not think that God has a preference for one style of worship over another, or that God understands any particular dialect or language any better than any other. What matters is that we receive God’s truth and feel God’s power. We do not come to this house of worship so that we may hear stories about God’s truth and power and thereby feel that we have fulfilled our religious obligation. We come to engage in worship so that we may receive God’s power. We do know that when Jesus attended the synagogue, he taught. And teaching must be a part of what happens here. Teaching that conveys, passes on, the truth and authority of God’s Word. In Sunday School classes and in sacrament, God’s truth and power are given to us. Here, in this place, we receive God’s truth and power. That’s why the fine art of going home from church must begin here, in church.

But it does not, it cannot, end here in church. We must carry God’s truth and power from church to wherever our paths may lead us.

Biblical scholars remind us again and again that the gospels are not histories, and they are not biographies. The gospel stories do not tell us the history of life in first century Palestine in any sort of comprehensive or chronological way. Nor do they recount or explore, as a biography might, the milestones that shaped Jesus into the person he was to become. They do not trace his growth and development as a minister. In a way, we might almost say that the gospels aren’t even really about Jesus’ life at all. The gospels are all about God. They are about God’s power. The gospels are a compilation of events in which God’s power, through Jesus, was active in the world.

If you had the chance to write your personal history, your life’s story, what would you include? Mine, the history at least, would be shaped by geography and by diplomas. What state was I living in (among many) when I finished each particular piece of my education (among many pieces)? That’s my history. Or what if you were asked to write your spiritual autobiography? People of faith are often encouraged to reflect upon the shape of their spiritual lives. Spiritual autobiographies tend to include stories about personal experiences that an individual has had in church or in prayer. The focus is on me and how I have felt God’s touch.

But what if you or I were asked to write the gospel story of our lives? What if we were to try to catalogue those events in which we have been the vessels by which God’s power and truth are conveyed to others in the world? That is the story we should be writing with our lives. If we are to live Christian lives of any meaning or significance, the gospel story is the only life story that really matters—the story of how and when we have brought God’s power to those who need it.

Think about what you know about the lives of the saints. Any saint will do. St. John, the Evangelist. Any of the other saints in our windows. St. Augustine, who brought Christianity to the British Isles. St. Patrick, the teacher. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, translator of God’s Word for the Chinese. Or some American saints whom you may not know so well. Jonathon Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian from Boston who died in 1965 from a shotgun blast as he sought to protect a young black girl in Selma, Alabama. Constance and her companions, Episcopal nuns and priests who ministered to the sick and dying in Memphis, Tennessee, during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. Think about the stories of these saints’ lives. The stories we remember and tell are gospel stories, aren’t they? Stories of how these Christians brought God’s truth and God’s love and God’s power to others. They are stories of people who knew the fine art of going home from church.

Without a doubt, each and every one of these saints was part of a faith community. They attended worship, knew communion with God in prayer and sacrament. They studied God’s word, received its truth, through the teaching and fellowship of other Christians. But we do not remember these saints because they were faithful members of church communities. We remember them because they took Christ from church to the world. Jonathon Daniels would never have become involved in the civil rights effort if he had not had a powerful conversion experience at the altar of Church of the Advent in Boston one Easter Day, or if he had not (as he writes) studied the faith articulated in the creeds and been taught the words of the Magnificat from Holy Scripture. Life's gospel stories begin in church, in the worship and teaching of faith communities. But they continue in the world. We remember Jonathon Daniels as a saint because he took God’s power and truth from church to Selma.  Constance and her companions were nurtured and empowered by the faith life of their religious community, but they are saints because they took God's love and care from the community to the sick and dying in the streets of Memphis.

The fine art of going from church to home, of carrying the truth and power made known here to those out there who need it. That is what Jesus did. That is what the saints did. That is what we are to do. Our gospel stories may not be as grand as Jesus’ or the stained glass saints who surround us here. But all of us in our daily lives are surrounded, too, by people in physical and spiritual need, by people who need God. It is our Christian calling to bring the power and truth of God into saving contact with people’s need. To bring God’s presence, made known to us, made real in us, in worship and study here, to the service of human need out there. The fine art, the gospel art of going home from church.  Amen.