When I was in seventh grade the
baseball team I played on lost the championship game. I was disappointed in the
loss, but after summer vacation my energies would be refocused on
football. I’d put away the baseball glove and pick up the football. The
football was usually where the basketball was. I liked to keep them together
because once football was over, basketball would begin.
I was never much of a basketball
player but it’s what boys in small-town Iowa did. Most boys went from playing
football to basketball or wrestling to running on the track team to baseball.
Each year this cycle would repeat itself. Just when I was tired of getting
tackled by Kara’s over-grown cousin named Moose, it was basketball season.
Parts of my body were able to recuperate while I focused on dribbling, passing
and shooting. Did I mention I wasn’t that good of a basketball player? I sat on
the bench a lot. By the time track season arrived I had enough of sitting on
the bench. I was ready to run. No more basketball drills, plays and trying to
work with ball-hogging teammates. On the track it was just me putting one foot in front of
the other as fast as my legs could go. And when I had had enough of running around the track that caused my stomach to ache and my chest to heave, it was baseball
season.
Growing up in a small Midwestern
town my classmates and I could not be one-sport athletes. The team's success
required that we participate in every sport. With each new season different
muscles and skills were utilized. Not that I neglected my arms during track,
but they were used differently than in baseball or other sports. I needed my
legs in baseball but not like how I used them in track. Paul wrote to the
Corinthians, “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a
slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a
Jew…to those under the law I became as one under the law…to those outside the
law I became as one outside the law so that I might win those outside the law”
(I Corinthians 9:19-21). Paul emphasized certain aspects of his life and became what he needed to further the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The church of Jesus Christ requires us to be more than a “one season,” “one sport” body. The challenges and
issues confronting us today require that the church be versatile and willing to
participate in different endeavors emphasizing certain aspects of the gospel. The brokenness and the effects of
sin in the world is pervasive. A few weeks ago someone unfamiliar with Ponds
asked me if we were a gay church. They had heard we are an open and affirming
congregation of LGBTQ persons. I replied we were not anymore a gay church than
a food pantry church, a housing church, a worshiping church, a loving church,
a praying church, a meals-on-wheels church, an after-school program church. I
then looked him in the eye, and in one of those rare moments when the right
words came to mind, I added, “We are the church of Jesus Christ.” Like Paul
said, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save
some” (1 Cor. 9:22b).
Being the church of Jesus Christ
calls us into different seasons of ministry requiring us to utilize different parts of the body to emphasize a particular aspect of the gospel. Paul had to remind the Corinthians
that regardless of their differences, they were all members of one body. “If
one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all
rejoice together with it (1 Cor. 12:26). It was personal stories of a few Ponds’
members who were suffering that led the congregation to listen to them and listen to scripture.
Together a faithful and affirming response to those in the LGBTQ community and
within the church was developed. How timely! As issues related to the LGBTQ community take center stage in society we as a church know that we will respond with love, openness and affirmation.
Other personal stories were shared that
nudged the congregation to do something significant for people who were
struggling to keep their head above water (financially speaking) and a roof
over the head. The church entered a season of hospitality that took on the
shape of Sabbath House. The work of listening didn’t stop there. People’s
personal stories brought the church into a season of working with Middle School
students in the context of an after-school program called the Ponds Youth
Center. Listening to our neighbors led the church to establish a food pantry. It
has been in the context of community and in loving relationships that active,
empathetic listening has taken place leading the church to engage in particular
seasons of mission.
Being the church of Jesus Christ
means we have to be an all-around “athlete” of faith ready to put into action
whatever “muscles” and gifts are necessary in that season of need to which we are called. Not that we stop being an open, affirming, worshiping, praying, loving, serving, discipling, middle school after-school program, food pantry, housing, ride-giving church. Being the church means that we are prepared for whatever the next season brings us. Will it be issues of race,
immigration, drug and alcohol abuse, environmental concerns, religious liberty?
The freedom is that the church doesn’t have to come up with an answer. What the
church must do is be in relationship with our neighbors, listening to their
personal stories and ready to respond as the church of Jesus Christ, a
church for all seasons!
