February 22, 2009 Sermon

Order in the Church
I Corinthians 14:26-33

I was sitting at the desk, doing our income taxes with the television on in the background. An ad appeared for a law firm specializing in representing victims of mesothelioma, a form of cancer often caused by exposure to asbestos. What I am about to say is in no way meant as a joke at those victims' expense. But when they showed testimonials from clients, one woman said (and I am not making this up), “They were more than lawyers, they were human beings.”

This week, we ministered to a group usually treated as less than human beings: the homeless. Young and old, male and female, they started appearing in our parking lot each afternoon by two- or three-thirty. Safe Harbor policy did not allow us to open our doors until six. Folks from three local churches then fed them supper, visited with those wanting company, provided supervised, gender-separate sleeping quarters, fed them a hot breakfast and then sent them out the door for the day. I wondered where they went. Others had wondered the same. When I asked they had the answer: the library, larger stores, a few agencies that serve various community needs, and for a couple of them, their vehicles. On the days with the worst weather I felt guilty walking past them, waiting on our sidewalk, as I freely entered the warmth of our buildings. One morning we sent them out into 35 mile-per-hour winds and horizontal snow.

But loosening the closed-door policy would have created more problems than it solved. Liability laws lurk behind these policies. As distasteful as it feels, we must do our best to protect the church and her members. Each guest was checked in according to a careful procedure aimed at preventing drugs and alcohol from entering our building. And the volunteers are scheduled. We dared not allow our guests in until enough volunteers arrived to provide adequate coverage. In fact, the Safe Harbor program has a three-ring binder full of policies. Those who know me know that I do not like rules. I always want to know why a given rule exists. Does it make sense? Does it serve a purpose? I prefer flexibility. I enjoy improvisation. But years of church experience have taught me that in the church, the Body of Christ, we need certain rules. The potential for damage done by too loose an approach is just as great in the church as it is in a program that houses the homeless.

Near the end of the first letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul makes a theological case for why the church needs rules. He sums up that case in the last verse we read: “For God is a God not of disorder, but of peace.” The context for these words is worship. The specific question deals with a worship practice foreign to most Presbyterians: speaking in tongues. The New Testament documents instances of speaking in tongues and clearly labels it as a spiritual gift. That is, the Holy Spirit causes it to happen among the people of God. Scholars argue over what, exactly, “speaking in tongues” involves. I am persuaded it means the God-given ability to communicate in foreign languages. In Acts two we read of how Peter and the other disciples found themselves able to preach about Jesus to the people of Jerusalem, who spoke many and diverse languages. In fact, the text tells us those people heard the disciples speaking in their native tongues.

Years ago we took the youth group at another church to several different Christian churches so they could experience various forms of worship. We attended mass at the St. Louis Cathedral, and an Assembly of God church. At that service I witnessed the first instance of speaking in tongues I can remember. The worship leader suddenly began vocalizing in no recognizable way. It made me uncomfortable, though I quickly recognized what was happening.

At the time I served one of the fifty largest Presbyterian congregations in the nation. Every second of our worship services was carefully planned. The choir and worship leaders entered the sanctuary from two rooms across the sanctuary's front wall from each other. We synchronized our entrance with a bell. We sat in assigned seats. The organist timed his pieces and submitted the numbers to the planning team each Thursday in advance of the service. Though the senior pastor preached without notes, he stood motionless in the center of the platform. He wanted to move around. The worship committee elders wanted him in the pulpit. Letting him stand still in the middle was a horrifying compromise to a few of them.

So here I was taking the children of that regimented church to a service where the worship leader just blurted out unrecognizable sounds. Here I was in one of the most ordered congregations in one of the most ordered denominations (Presbyterianism), visiting a what felt to us like a disordered congregation from a disordered denomination (the Assemblies of God). You can bet the youth group discussion later that evening was lively. It was a great teaching moment. We tried to teach those youth that God’s Holy Spirit blows where it will. God’s power is beyond our control and our understanding. Yet the New Testament gives us clear guidance for how to order the church and we must follow that guidance.

“Let all things be done for edification,” the Apostle Paul writes at the opening of this passage. Edification means teaching, or building up. (It comes from the same root as edifice, or building.) Paul means that we must make certain that worship builds up the Body of Christ. Some congregations can incorporate speaking in tongues into their worship in a way that edifies. Assemblies of God churches serve as a good example. Others cannot. We Presbyterians fit this category. The point is not whether speaking in tongues is for real. (Though the scriptures actually define speaking in tongues—and give strict rules for it—that are widely misunderstood and/or ignored in churches that speak in tongues.) No, the point is that whatever happens in worship must build up the Body of Christ. To me, this implies rather strongly that God has called together various kinds of churches in order to permit various kinds of people to worship in ways that help them draw nearer to Jesus Christ.  

One of the great divides in Christianity lies between those who prefer highly-structured worship and those who prefer a more wide-open service. In seminary they called it the “Order vs. Ardor” debate. “Order” describes those who like structure, rules, predictability. “Ardor” describes those who like spontaneity and emotionalism. But I ask, why not order and ardor? Why not present a worship service that uses structure and rules to provide space for the Holy Spirit to work? Why not leave room for the unexpected within the framework given by the New Testament? The Apostle Paul did not try to squelch speaking in tongues, he tried to regulate it. As if we could stop the Holy Spirit! Were somebody to break out in tongues right here and right now it would surprise us all—including me. But are we not Christian enough to receive the gift? Are we not able in the Spirit of the peace of Christ to ask for an interpretation of the message, as prescribed by Paul?

When I reached this point in the writing of this sermon I felt led to consider the moments of worship that have moved me most deeply. Here is a sampling:

On a mission trip during my high school years, our Presbyterian group visited a monastery far out in the high desert. The Roman Catholic brothers gave us a tour of their gardens and their buildings. Then they invited us to worship with them. We entered their small, circular sanctuary. The thick adobe walls made it cool and dark inside even in the blistering heat of mid-day. Our pastor had prepared us for this. He had told us that we might be asked to mass, but that we would not be permitted to receive the bread and the cup. But when that moment came in the service, the monk leading it explicitly included us, handing the “host”, or wafer, to the girl from our group sitting next to him. Then he handed her the cup. She took a sip and gagged. It was wine, you see. We used grape juice. Now to the brothers that was not actually wine. They believed it had been transubstantiated, or physically changed into the very blood of Christ. But nobody gave the slightest indication of dismay at her faux pas. By the time the cup came to me I realized what was happening. I have Roman Catholic relatives. I understood how amazing it was to be included in the mass. That wine tasted for me like a taste of the love of Christ.

Performing the baptisms of my children gave me times of incredibly moving worship. Both sacraments happened in that highly-choreographed church I described earlier. All four grandparents stood surrounding us in the moment. What an unbelievable moment of grace!

Often as I have played the guitar or beat the drum as part of our Praise Team I have looked at my fellow team members. I have felt the presence of God while watching my daughter sing or Jill Justin closing her eyes and obviously entering into the spiritual realm of Christ through the music.

The point of worship is to give a gift to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit gifts different people in different ways. Why, therefore, should we think that only one way to worship honors God? Let each church seek to do its level best to follow the rules for worship as outlined in the New Testament. But let each church in the Body of Christ order worship as it seems best in that place so as to encourage heartfelt, powerful praise of Jesus. Let us have order AND ardor.