How May We Help You?
by the Rev. Lee Woofenden
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
January 19, 1997
Readings:
Isaiah 30:19-26. Your Teacher will not hide
himself anymore
Mark 9:14-27. "I believe; help my unbelief!"
Divine Providence #259.3. The three central points of the church
The father of the child cried out,
"I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)
Last week we began an occasional
series of sermons on the spiritual aspects of becoming a church that welcomes
people and serves their spiritual needs. At the Church Committee meeting today
we will be discussing growth and outreach, so I would like to make it two
sermons in a row. Our Church Committee meeting is for discussing the practical
aspects of growth and outreach; here in our worship service, we are considering
the spiritual side of church growth.
As I mentioned last week, church
growth is not only a matter of implementing various programs and techniques
known to be successful for bringing new people into the church. Far more
important than these programs and techniques is our spiritual growth as
individual people and as a faith community. Only when we are growing within
ourselves and among ourselves--in our relationships with each other--can we have
genuine growth as a church.
Even if we are successful in bringing
in new people through various techniques and programs, this does not serve the
Lord or our community if we are not growing spiritually and helping
the new members of our church to grow spiritually as well. The Lord does not
need a church full of people just for the sake of having lots of people filling
the pews and making the hymn singing good and loud! No, the Lord wants a church
whose growth in numbers and strength is an expression of growth in the faith,
love, and service of the people who are filling the pews.
Another way of saying this is that the
Lord does not particularly need our prayers, praises, and hymn-singing. But the
Lord loves to receive these from us if they are an expression of
heartfelt love for the Lord and commitment to love and serve other people. We
can boil everything we do as a church down to a single goal: to bring people
closer to God so that all who are touched by this church may overcome what is
wrong and hurtful within them, and learn to love and serve others more and more
fully and deeply.
This goal is expressed in more
traditional Swedenborgian language in our denomination's statement of purpose. I
would like to quote part of that statement:
The General Convention exists to help
people be open to the Lord's presence and leading...
With the purpose of creation being a
heaven from the human race, we see the central purpose of the church as the
promotion of the process of regeneration. External forms such as buildings,
liturgies, and organizational structures are valid only insofar as they are
useful to this end. It is especially vital for an "organized religion"
that its life of piety be constantly grounded in a life of charity. (Journal
of the Swedenborgian Church, 1996, p. 174)
In other words, the reason we have
a church, with buildings, worship services, and Church Committees is to help
open people to the Lord's leading.
It is also to help people regenerate.
"Regeneration" is a fancy word for being reborn and growing to
spiritual maturity. This involves living each day from the faith and love that
we get from the Lord and the Bible. If we keep our minds focused on this as we
work together for growth in our church, then any growth we achieve will be real
and genuine growth, because it will be growth in numbers and in the
spirit of the Lord.
Last week, in our first sermon in this
series, we focused on the need to help people in healing their spiritual
sicknesses--healing the inner wounds that result either from our mistaken
choices or from the blows that life sometimes deals us whether we did anything
to deserve them or not. In today's reading from Mark, there was a man whose son
needed healing. The man appealed to the Lord for help. In responding to that cry
for help, the Lord attended not only to the healing that the man's son needed,
but also to the inner healing--the healing of faith--that the man himself
needed. The man cried out, "I believe; help my unbelief." This morning
I would like to consider some of the ways we as a church can help those who
believe, but want help in their unbelief.
Perhaps this calls to mind serving the
needs of people outside our church--people who do not have the wonderful
teachings that we enjoy. However, each one of us here today is also a person who
believes, but needs help in our unbelief. Each one of us has a need for healing
and strengthening in our faith. Each one of us has our times of doubt; our times
when we do not understand how God could allow certain things to happen; our
times when we are bewildered by nagging spiritual questions that we simply
cannot resolve for ourselves. The teachings of our church can not only help the
unbelief of the world; they can help our own belief. We will help the unbelief
of the world only if we are actively learning and growing in our own faith.
As we consider how we may help those
who come to our church seeking a spiritual home, then, let us consider the
cornerstones of our faith--the central points upon which our church is built.
These are the essence and the core of what we as a church have to offer to the
spiritual wayfarer who seeks shelter among us.
Swedenborg can be very wordy and
long-winded; but when it comes to the basics of our faith, he is wonderfully
brief and to the point. He says, "There are three central points in the
church: accepting that the Lord is divine, accepting the holiness of the Bible,
and living a life that is called kindness (or 'charity')." (Divine
Providence #259.3)
If you have ever thought the teachings
of the New Church were complicated, all you have to do is consider these three
simple points, and you will have the whole thing wrapped up in one package.
Accepting that the Lord, Jesus Christ, is divine--that the Lord is the creator
and sustainer of the universe; believing that the Bible is God's Word for us;
living a life of kindness and service to other people. This is what the entire
Bible and all thirty volumes of Swedenborg's works are all about! Believing in
Jesus, learning from the Bible, and living a good and useful life. Now you know
what to say to your friends when they ask what your church's beliefs are!
These three simple points also give us
a focus in all our efforts to reach out to people and serve their spiritual
needs. We live in a world that has a welter of differing beliefs and attitudes.
Within the Christian church itself, there are many different opinions about just
who the Lord is, just how the Bible is holy, and just what it means to live as a
Christian, or to be "saved." Some of these beliefs even contradict
each other.
Any church that considers itself
Christian would say that the Lord Jesus is in some way divine, but there is a
great deal of confusion about exactly how that is true. When it comes to
the Bible, some say it is holy because every word in it is literally true, while
others think parts of it--especially in the New Testament--represent the genuine
truth from God, while other parts--especially in the Old Testament--are no
longer relevant. As for the religious life, some say believing in Jesus is all
we need to be saved, and that the way we live has little bearing on our
salvation. Others recognize that the way we live also determines whether we are
"saved" or not, but they have trouble reconciling this with statements
in the New Testament that only those who believe in Jesus can be saved.
What our church offers that is unique
among Christian churches is a way to cut through all the confusion that has
grown thicker and thicker in Christianity throughout the many centuries since
the Lord's ministry on earth. We offer a form of Christian belief that is deeply
satisfying to our minds and hearts, and at the same time has a direct and
practical bearing on the way we live each day. When people come to us for help
in their unbelief--or when we need help in our own unbelief--we have a deep well
of spiritual teachings that can satisfy the thirsty soul.
Let us take a very brief look at these
teachings with which we may help both ourselves and the people of our community.
Our church's teachings about the Lord
Jesus Christ are satisfying to both the simplest and the profoundest seekers of
the Lord. We believe that when God could no longer reach us through prophets and
priests, God came to us directly in the person of Jesus Christ. The Lord was
born as a baby and grew up just as we do, facing all the struggles and
experiencing all the joys of human life on earth. Through that life, the Lord
taught us what genuine spiritual life is. The Lord showed us that it is through
loving each other and keeping the commandments of the Bible that we are saved
and become children of God.
Our church has an especially rich
treasure chest of teachings about the Bible--God's Word. Or I should say, our
teachings turn the Bible itself into a treasure chest of spiritual teachings.
For centuries that chest has been locked, and only the outside of the chest--the
literal meaning of the Bible--has been available to us. But through Swedenborg's
writings--through Swedenborg's explanation of correspondences--the Lord has
given us a key to the deeper, spiritual meanings within the Bible. We no longer
have to fret about whether ancient Jewish history can really be part of the Word
of God. We know that the history and everything else in the Bible tells the
spiritual history of our own inner growth as Christians. In the battles of the
Old Testament we can find help to face our own inner battles as we struggle
against our old self while building our new self.
We also know from our church's
teachings that our struggle to overcome our old self and build a new self does
not happen only inside of us. It happens in all of our daily life. Each time we
face a decision of whether to respond to another with patience or impatience,
with anger or an attempt and understanding; each time we make a choice to do for
another person what we would have them do for us, we are working out our
spiritual growth through the way we live. Faith alone not only fails to save
us--it is not even faith. If we say we believe something but do not act on it,
then we really do not believe it at all. But when we express our faith in an
active life of serving others and taking their feelings into account, then our
faith is real because it is a faith we live by--a faith we trust.
How may we help those who come to us?
We can start by constantly making our own faith a stronger part of our lives.
When we learn what our church teaches and put those teachings into practice, we
are already on the road to helping people who come our way. For then we have a
desire for their spiritual healing and growth in our hearts. Then we can offer
them the riches of our church with full conviction, because we ourselves have
experienced the church's deeply healing power.
Music: On a Distant Shore
© 1999 Bruce DeBoer
|