Following is the sermon I preached on the 1st Sunday of Christmas. It is a bit more topical that I prefer, but it tied the three sermons (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, 1st Sunday of Christmas) together well and began a conversation that will carry us well into the new year. It has created alot of discussion, some good and some not so good, but since people seem to be talking about it - and since it touches on some other online conversations I've had recently - I thought I'd post it.
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One of the questions I get asked quite often around here is, “why have so many of our children walked away from the church?” Closely related to that question is another one that it also very frequently asked, “what is it going to take to start getting our younger people back?” These are not easy questions. And there are no easy answers. But if I had to start to answer those questions, I would start with the incarnation – the birth of God in the person of Jesus, our Immanuel, God with us, fully God and fully human. The birth of Christ is where God’s answer to these questions of salvation begin, and so it is fitting that it is where our thinking about these questions of salvation begins.
I know that many of you were unable to attend one or both of our Christmas services this year for various reasons, and so what I’d like to do is pull together all that has been said, bring in our texts from today and begin thinking together about bringing faith and the community of faith back into the lives of those younger people who have either walked away, or who have never been a part.
On Christmas Eve we talked about the disturbing side of Christmas. The part where we have to choose. The story of salvation in Christ begins with a story of two kings. King Augustus and King Jesus. Both approach being King in very different ways. Augustus on a throne; Jesus in a manger. Augustus wielding power; Jesus serving in weakness. Augustus as the perfect representative of culture and country; Jesus as the perfect representative of God's love and God’s Kingdom. Christmas is so disturbing because now we are without excuse. We have to choose. We cannot hedge; we can serve only one master: which king will it be?
To be Christian then is to convert from being a follower of King Augustus, to being a follower of King Jesus. That conversion must bring about a transformation of our beliefs, of our behavior, and of our worldview. If any of the three fail to be transformed we will ultimately fail in our quest for holiness.
Yesterday morning we considered the idea of the word becoming flesh. When Jesus was born, the word became flesh. God’s nature became human. God’s deepest belief was put into action. Who God is was revealed by what Christ did. The word became flesh and there was a perfect consistency between what Christ taught and what Christ did. Words took on flesh. Jesus didn’t just tell us to heal the sick, he touched the lepers. Jesus didn’t just tell us to love the unlovable, he had dinner with the tax collectors and prostitutes. Jesus didn’t just tell us to feed the hungry, he fed the 5,000. Jesus didn’t just tell us to love our enemies, pray for those who harm us, and forgive those who do wrong to us. Hanging on the Cross, Jesus cried out, “Father forgive them!” Belief and behavior came into perfect alignment as the Word of God took on the flesh of humanity.
So why do so many young people walk away from the church, and what do we have to do to start reaching young people? Our words have to become flesh. Our seen behavior has to match our said belief. Young people have no tolerance for saying one thing and doing another. And no matter what experts say, young people know the basics of what the church ought to be about: loving instead of fighting; encouraging rather than gossiping, sacrifice rather than selfishness; praising instead of complaining; inclusiveness rather than prejudice. We could go on and on listing the things people know the church ought to be, but suffice it to say people know the church ought to be, and expect that it will be, a totally different place filled with totally different people.
But what have they found? Usually just more of the same old worldly stuff. I’ve spoken with several people who were raised in this church but don’t come any more. I make it a point to ask them why. You know what their number one answer is? “Those people don’t act any different than the people I work with who don’t claim to be Christians.” I’ve heard people tell me they don’t come because they are tired of all the gossip that goes on. I’ve heard people tell me they don’t come because they heard people talking about the way they looked or smelled. People have commented that if we loved as much as we complained maybe they would come. Young people are looking for transformation. They look to the people of the church, but too often we have let them down by not being transformed ourselves so that our beliefs are seen in our behavior. If we want to start getting the younger generations back, we are going to have to be transformed – sanctified – wholly, entirely, fully so that the Word of God becomes flesh in our lives and in our behavior, just as the Word of God became flesh in the baby born in the manger in Bethlehem.
On Christmas Eve we talked about the need for not only transformed belief and behavior, but for a transformed worldview – the way we look at and think about reality (life, the world, and ministry). This is where our text this morning comes into play. The author of Hebrews claims that “since the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”
When we look back across the history of the church, they see two predominant motives for living a Christian life: to glorify God, and for fear of death. In the early days of the church, lets say the first three hundred years, people converted to Christianity in order to glorify God. We know that fear of death was not a motive for them because it was converting to Christ that was often the cause of their death. Being Christian was illegal, and the penalty was often death. If they were in fear of death, as the author of Hebrews puts it, they would have not converted to Christ and would have not risked their life by being part of the church. They followed Christ in order to glorify God.
But in the fourth century something changed. Christianity became legal, and it even became the required religion of the empire. This began the motivation to convert from fear of death. During this period, to be a good citizen meant to be Christian, and to deny Christ was to deny the decree of the Emperor, the penalty of which was often death. Convert or die. This was also the period where the crusades occurred. Where the Christians sought to evangelize the pagans by giving them a choice: convert or die -- fear of death.
Over time, that ultimatum changed from a physical choice to a spiritual choice. The 19th and 20th century are marked by evangelism that forced people to choose between eternal life with God or eternal torture in hell. Same tactic of fear. Most of us here today became Christians because we were told that if we don’t come up to the altar and repent and give our hearts to Jesus we will surely die. We were so afraid of hell that we went up to the altar to buy our fire insurance. This conversion of fear became the norm in the church for many centuries and it became so ingrained in us that it effects the way we do everything. Evangelism became about concocting plans to back people into a corner and force them to make the choice to convert or burn. Discipleship became about how one makes sure they don't slip back into hell. Worship became just one more tool to get people saved – complete with extended altar calls and 42 verses of Just As I Am. Even the way we make decisions has largely been influenced by this worldview of fear. “If I do x or y or z will I go to heaven or hell?” This worldview of fear has just been normal for the church for most of 16 centuries.
But in the 20th century, something again changed. No one is sure yet what exactly changed, but people began walking away from this fear for various reasons (some which are good, others which are bad). Today, young people don’t operate out of a fear of death. They are every bit as spiritual as the generations who have gone before them. In many ways they are more spiritual. But they don’t buy into this theology of fear and they want nothing to do with those who do. They have been set free from the fear of death, and are looking for a place to understand God and to glorify him. The pendulum has swung from glorifying God, to fearing death, and now back to glorifying God.
So, I’ve been talking way too long and I really need to get to the point. The point is this: if we want to reach younger people, we need to be transformed. Not just in our beliefs and our behavior, but in the way we look at ministry together and the way we think about ministry together and the way we go about ministry together. We need to come to terms with the freedom from death Paul championed. We need to truly embrace the freedom from fear that we find in our reading this morning. We need to truly understand the truth of the Christmas story, that Christ came to earth as a baby so that “through his death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.” We need to be freed from our obsession with and our fear of death and hell.
And then we have to be re-invented to begin operating out of a default setting of glorifying God. How do we glorify God with our thoughts, with our words, with our actions? How do we worship God – not to get people saved but to glorify God? How do our discipleship ministries make fully devoted disciples of Christ whose lives glorify God? What does it mean for outreach and evangelism to be understood as both glorifying God and helping others glorify God. Being the Christians God created us to be, and being the church God is calling us to be, requires that we understand and embrace the simple truth of Christmas: God became human “so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”
Merry Christmas – you are FREE!
To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
