July 10, 2005 Sermon

NLCC V: Quality
I Corinthians 12:27-13:3

Had things gone differently we would never have heard of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Let me explain.Ê At the turn of the 20th century men in Europe and America raced to invent the first flying machine.Ê The rules were clear: the machine had to fly under its own power, with a living human being piloting it.Ê It had to turn both left and right in a controlled fashion.Ê And it had to stay in the air for a minimum of thirty seconds.Ê

Samuel Langley was the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.Ê This meant he controlled that mighty organization and, with congressional approval, its budget.Ê He came from a well-to-do Boston family and graduated from Harvard.Ê He lived half of each year in Europe .Ê He counted Alexander Graham Bell among his friends. ÊÊÊÊÊ

But Langley was no idle rich playboy.Ê He made himself an expert in the new science of astronomy and put it to practical use.Ê He convinced the railroads to operate on astronomical time.Ê This meant that all the trains ran on the same time, rather than on wildly different local times.Ê He made the first accurate drawings of sun spots and correctly guessed that they erupted at the magnetic poles of the sun.Ê And he grew obsessed with the challenge of inventing the first flying machine.

Langley designed a massive machine with a steam engine for power.Ê He meant to overcome gravity with brute forceÑand money.Ê He constantly badgered congress for funding (and got it).Ê He devised a powerful catapult to launch his ÒaerodromeÓ and mounted it on the roof of a houseboat anchored in the Potomac River .Ê An early, unmanned, ship took to the air and flew two circles before crashing.Ê But no pilot managed to get an aerodrome up and under control.Ê One man died trying when his machine crashed into a crowd of spectators.

Wilbur and Orville Wright took a different approach.Ê They used what they had learned repairing bicycles and the new-fangled automobiles.Ê They spent untold hours studying birds in flight.Ê They wrote (to the Smithsonian Institute!) to ask for copies of everything ever written in English about flight.Ê Their studies paid off.Ê They constructed light, flexible machines with sophisticated controls and an engine with less power than a lawn mowerÕs.Ê A simple ramp on a sand dune launched it.Ê On December 17th, 1903 , at Kitty Hawk , North Carolina , Orville Wright flew it about 120 feet.Ê The brothers took turns the rest of the day, making four more flights, each of which met the test for first manned flight.

Back home in Dayton , Ohio for Christmas, Wilbur Wright figured up the total he and his brother had spent on the project.Ê It added up to a little under $1,000.Ê (According to the U.S. Bureau of Standards this would compute to about $40,000 today.)Ê Langley Õs failed attempt cost an official amount of nearly $70,000 (or about $3,000,000 today).Ê This includes only the money Langley received from congress; he and friends like Graham Bell contributed a great deal more.Ê

The Northern Lakes Community Church operates a lot like the Wright brothers.Ê We move forward on (please forgive me) a wing and a prayer.Ê We spend money slowly.Ê We rely on ingenuity, patience and creativity.Ê I can only pray that we would also, like the Wright Brothers, insist on doing work of the highest possible quality.

But how does a church measure quality?Ê The answer appears in the passage we just read from I Corinthians.Ê The Apostle Paul wrote these words to a young church working its way through growing pains.Ê After spending several chapters dealing with church problems like how to celebrate communion and how to find good leaders, he turns to one of his favorite topics.Ê ÒNow you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it,Ó he writes.Ê He adds a list of roles people can play in the church: apostle, prophet, teacher, healer, speaker, administrator and more.Ê Each person has a part to play.Ê Each person acts as part of the body.

This remains true today.Ê At Northern Lakes Church we see a wide variety of people serving as parts of the Body of Christ.Ê But Paul takes this image to the highest level.Ê ÒLet me show you a still more excellent way,Ó he adds.Ê That way?Ê Love.Ê The love of Christ.Ê The perfect, sacrificial, unconditional love of Jesus.Ê The church measures quality as working as the Body of Christ with the love of Christ.Ê

At Northern Lakes Church we print our mission statement in every bulletin and newsletter.Ê Its final words read, ÒWe pray that all we do willÉbe of the highest possible quality.ÓÊ By this we mean that we pray we will do good work, that we will work as parts of the Body of Christ, and that our work will have the quality of ChristÕs love.

We have created a wonderful youth program, meaningful worship services, and miracle of miracles, a building.Ê Sometimes it seems like we have done it all with duct tape and bubblegum.Ê Yet we hope to do even more.Ê We have already started several adult fellowship groups.Ê We plan to start more.Ê We plan to create a program that helps all members and friends to find the places where they fit into the Body of Christ.Ê (Until now we have let people find their own way.)Ê We plan to build an addition onto our building.Ê

None of this will matter if we lose our focus on acting as the Body of Christ with the highest possible quality.Ê None of this will matter if we lose our determination to reflect that quality that sets Christians apart: the love of Christ.Ê He died on the cross out of love for all who believe in him.Ê Remember that when you receive communion in a few moments.Ê The love of Christ is the highest possible quality.Ê Let this church live it.