Someone asked for my notes on my sermon. I am posting them here; let me know if they are helpful. I can keep posting in the future if it is.
- One of the great ironies of the modern Christian church is that one of the most influential Christian writers was a man who never held a job, was held up to constant ridicule in the local press, broke off an engagement and broke his fiancé's heart because he didn't think he could overcome his melancholy, who died almost penniless and on his deathbed refused communion from a local pastor.
- He was by all accounts an odd man, and yet he became one of the central influences for some of the greatest Christian thinkers, writers and saints of the 20th century including Barth, Tillich, Balthasar, Bonhoeffer, Merton, Percy, O'Conner; I could go on.
- His name was Soren Kierkegaard, a Dane, and he was convinced that Christianity had lost its way.
- In 1835, when he was 22, he experienced a series of crises. His studies were not going well, partly due to his gregarious nature: he loved good wine and good company, and three of his sisters, two brothers and his mother all died in rapid succession. He felt as his father did, that a curse had been laid upon him. And he started questioning, what was his purpose here on earth. What was he supposed to do.
- He writes, "What I really need, is to get clear what I must do, not what I must know. What matters is to find a purpose; to see what really is God's will. The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me."
- The answer comes to him he writes when he was sitting in the famous Fredericksberg gardens in Copenhagen. He was sitting smoking his cigar, when he went out. He lit again and started thinking about all of the famous people in the world from scientists and businessmen who tried to make things easier for humanity. He reflected that after everything in the world has been made easy, there will be one last want: for things to be difficult. So he decided that it was his task to make difficulties for people, to make difficulties everywhere.
- And the difficulty that he really focused on was reminding Danish society about what it meant to be Christian.
- Now that might seem odd because in fact everyone in Copenhagen was a Christian, a member of the state Lutheran church, and had been for generations and generations.
- But the problem as Kierkegaard came to see it was that Danish society had made being a Christian far too easy.
- In the ancient church to be a Christian was a matter of tremendous consequence forcing one to be socially outcast and perhaps killed; in the Danish church one was just born a Christian without any fuss. In the ancient church being a Christian meant being radically transformed in every aspect of your life by the power of the Holy Spirit; in the Danish church it meant attending services on Sunday. In the ancient church being a Christian meant being convicted of your essential sinfulness and being aware of the need for radical forgiveness; in the Danish church it meant being respectable. In the ancient church to be a Christian was a matter of discipleship, of self-sacrifice and giving, being a follower of Jesus; in the Danish church it didn't mean much at all, it was just the state religion. Everyone was a member.
- In short, the Danish church had forgotten its purpose. And so Kierkegaard went to war with the state religion.
- It did not go well for him, but he continued on until the end, because for Kierkegaard there was a simple truth that just could not be ignored, to be a Christian meant to come face to face with the tremendous awesomeness and majesty of a God whose power and presence shakes mountains and creates worlds, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom our tiny minds can't even begin to comprehend or grasp or get around, and who out of a depth of love that should astound us, gave all of that up to come to us as a man, Jesus from the town of Nazareth.
- He saw that this is not a truth to assent to, but a truth to fall on our knees in front of. This is a truth that changes everything, that is so beautiful and so healing and so unbelievable wonderful that we can only give everything we are and have in gratitude to God. Anything less than this is not Christianity.
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- Why do I tell this story? Because I think Kierkegaard's insight helps us to understand the true depth and beauty of the Gospel story this morning.
- Tell the story. metamorphasis
- The story is important for several reasons
- Affirmation of who Jesus is
- Church Fathers: preview of what is to come: the transfiguration of all things
- Reminder that this is the purpose of all of it: of Jesus, the Bible, the Church, us, our worship; all of it is about what God is doing in the world
- and we have the honour and joy to be a part of it.
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- I can't tell you how important this is to me as a Christian and as a priest. I am convinced of Kierkegaard's essential point that we have to keep the purpose and truth of the Gospel always before us, and when we do everything else will fall into place.
- I see an essential part of my job here at St. Thomas is to help us articulate what our purpose is a crisp concise vision. Our particular purpose here in Sherwood Park at this time, 2013, with these people gathered here today who come from so many stories, backgrounds, struggles, ministries and joys and whom God has gathered together to work for the kingdom. This crisp concise vision is so important.
- From the business world Patrick Lencioni hammers this point again and again: Healthy organization minimizes confusion by clarifying…
- Why the organization exists
- Which behavioural values are fundamental
- What specific business it is in
- Clarity creates power like nothing else can.
- And from Rick Warren in his very helpful book on church growth: "I discovered in my research was that growing, healthy churches have a clear-cut identity. They understand their reason for being; they are precise in their purpose. They know exactly what God has called them to do. They know what their business is, and they know what is not of their business. Does your church have a clear-cut identity?"
- What does this look like?
- AGM vision
- WONDER-ing about the purpose of the church bible study
- Mission of the church intro course
- Epilogue
- In Prayer this week: the parable of the farmer
- God gives the growth, but we can make the soil good
- That is our job; God will show us his plan, but while we wait, let us prepare our selves by clearing away things that divide us, praying and studying about what his purpose is, and above all to hope.
- As Kierkegaard tells us, " If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!”
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