9/16/56

Scripture: Luke 4: 14-21.

Two weeks ago, on Labor Sunday, our community was filled with concern that a strike had appeared over lack of agreement between two of the labor unions and the management of our leading industry. Now, the news that agreement has reached the point where the strike is ended and labor to be resumed, brings a sense of relief to everyone in Wisconsin Rapids. We can not but express great satisfaction that this matter was conducted without any incident of violence; that it was done under the provision of the laws governing such procedure; that meetings of representatives at the bargaining table apparently continued in an atmosphere of search for agreement with the assistance of Federal mediation; and that an understanding was reached through the use of orderly process and procedure.

Not only those most directly affected by the strike vote, but others in the industry, and all of us in the community, may well rejoice that the strike is concluded, after having been conducted in orderly fashion, with a minimum of bitterness and a continuing disposition to search for solution. I have been moved to make this comment, because of the reference made to the situation in the sermon which I preached at the Union Service of two weeks ago, and because so many of us have lifted up our concern about this in prayer during this past fortnight. Now we give thanks in sober rejoicing.

Now let us give our thought to the theme for today, as we have gathered together here in the weekly hour of worship.

[These words are a preface for the sermon as used in 1977, replacing all of the words above.

This is a time of celebration. Last Sunday we of the United Church of Christ celebrated the 20th anniversary of the establishment of our United Church. I was one of the voting delegates of the Wisconsin Congregational Conference who joined with delegates of the Evangelical and Reformed Church synods in establishing, and proclaiming, the United Church of Christ. Some of you remember Mr. Henry Baldwin, of Wisconsin Rapids, who was another of the Congregational delegates to that convening session in Cleveland. Since that time, we have had 20 years of experience in trying to become and to be the United, and Uniting, Church of Christ. I was the last moderator of the old Congregational Conference in Wisconsin when, in 1962, we became the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Last year, we in the United States of America celebrated the 200th year of the establishment of our nation. And tomorrow on July 4th, we celebrate yet another of our country’s birthdays. It is well that we do so. We see our flag, and by it are reminded of the freedom that our spiritual forebears cared enough to fight for, and to preserve. Let us keep and zealously guard our heritage in order that our children and their children shall know that freedom as we have known it. Now, on this Sunday before our national holiday, I want to think about and celebrate something that I think is important to us, and our communities, and our nation and the world. I refer to the matter of our church connection -- our worship together -- our participation in the “family of Christ.”]

Some years ago, the question was often put to clergymen, and to active laymen as well: “But can’t you be a Christian without attending church?” The question is perhaps asked by fewer folk today; for America has had a boom in church attendance. Old churches have had their “faces lifted” in plant improvement. New churches have been going up. Attendance at worship has increased. Membership enrollment has grown.

Well, can’t you be a Christian without attending church every Sunday? Of course the answer is, at least theoretically, “yes.” Haven’t you and I known persons whose attitude and acts show a remarkable amount of Christian spirit, yet who never, or at least seldom, brighten the door of a church? A few of them are senior citizens unable to get out; some are invalids, or shut-ins, to whom the Lord of the church comes in inspiring ways. Many of them continue as active members of the church visible and invisible; still under pastoral care, still in the family of church folk who lift their prayer and their trust to the Almighty Father.

But when you and I are physically able to get around most days, can any one of us be as good a Christian without regular week-by-week participation in the worship of God? Can a golfer be as good if he plays nine holes only on Easter and Christmas? Does a pianist even approach an accomplished performance without regular practice on that instrument? Does one’s business prosper with only occasional attention to how it is going?

It has become a quip to say, “See you in church” in a curious kind of farewell, as one might say “So long,” “Goodbye now,” or “Take it Easy!”

A radio program carried this verse, credited to a small boy (you may have heard it):

Whenever I go past a church

I always stop and visit,

So that when at last I’m carried in

The Lord won’t say, “Who is it?”

Well, that is one good reason for going to church. But there are much better reasons! Why should it have been the custom of Jesus to go into the Synagogue on the Sabbath? [Luke 4: 16]. Why does the Psalmist say with such joyful assurance, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’” [Psalm 122: 1]. Is it perhaps that attendance at worship has satisfied the need he expresses elsewhere saying, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”? [Psalm 42: 2]. But why should you go to church when you may practice the Christian way, and live by the Christian faith, in your own home on both weekdays and Sunday?

(1) For one thing, real life is a meeting, on the highest levels -- the levels of aspiration and prayer. A 19th century artist, William Morris, said that fellowship is heaven; and lack of fellowship is hell. Of course some say that they are not impressed with any warmth of fellowship or friendship when they have attended church. We are sorry when that happens. If we appear to act like polar bears, our spiritual air conditioning should surely be reversed. And we do constantly try to be friendly pastors and people. But I hardly think that a cool reception by the manager or ushers of the theater could keep me away from a movie I really wanted to attend.

I recall, with some glow of appreciation, the feeling of warm fellowship in the singing of hymns, and joining the responses, at services of worship in the little church near our family vacation spot. And this was my experience even though I did not know a great many of the other vacationers, nor was I known by them. Under the unity of the minister’s guiding in sermon and prayer, we all worshipped together, and knew our “togetherness.” And it was good.

(2) And then again, we hear in church, through Scriptures and sermon and sacrament, God’s word to us. Of course the sermon is not God’s word. But hearing what is said in sincerity, meditating on the Scripture reading, waiting in prayer, opens our lives to the word of God. It comes to us in a stirring of conscience, or an opening of some new facet of understanding. Most of us do not experience the word of God to us in quite the same way or in any other circumstance, as we do when we receive it at worship in the church.

A man who knows a great deal in his own scientific field was heard to say of his church, “I came here to find a beam in darkness.” You can find it, and on the beam, travel toward meaningful life.

(3) And then, there is another reason. We need the church, and participation in its worship, because there is actual healing in exposing ourselves to the dynamic spiritual energies generated in worship.

It was during World War II when many people had such unrelenting long hours of duty, that a nurse, on 24-hour duty at a base hospital, was heard to say, “I’ll simply cave in if I don’t go to church.”

Of course you may say, now and then, that you haven’t been comforted overmuch in going to church. In fact you may have been disturbed and made to feel depressed over your sinfulness and guilt. Well, sometimes the therapy to which we submit ourselves involves unpleasant tests, surgery, and the like. Perhaps in some ways we may have to feel worse before we feel better. But always there is, in church worship, ultimate healing of the deep hurts that are inflicted upon us by our own stupidity, stubbornness and failure; by the thoughtlessness or unkindness of others; by the ills and accidents of life here upon the earth.

In one of George Elliot’s novels, a humble worker is asked why, after working a long six-day week, she gets up early and goes to church in her town. She answers her employer by saying: “Well you see, ma’am, Saturday night finds me all knocked down like ninepins in a bowling alley, and going to church sets me up again!” You see, church attendance is a marvelous “setting-up exercise” for a lot of people -- not just for flabby souls, or for those who refuse to grow up, but for those who want to “stay in condition” as well. And, of course, the Divine Physician is there with “singular medicine for sick souls” and with healing for those who are bruised in life’s traffic.

(4) Perhaps we are getting closer to more important reasons for going to church. Now of course no one church has a monopoly on salvation. And in the controversy over whether a given fellowship is “The” church or not, most of us here will argue that no church has an exclusive track to healing or heaven. But it was one of the early church fathers who said “Outside the church there is no salvation.” For us, this may suggest that outside the fellowship, outside the community where Christ is known and loved and served, there can be little or no communion with Christ, and therefore no salvation. Two lines of an old catechism put it this way: The question: “May men be joined with Christ, and not with his saints?” The answer: “No, nor yet with the saints, if not with Christ.”

You can not be on the way to happy, integrated, useful life, dedicated to the Highest, if you are living in isolation from our Maker, Redeemer and Friend. One of Jesus’ most important teachings on worship was this: “Where two or three are met together in my name, there an I in the midst of them.” [Matthew 18: 20]. And he is in the midst of those who worship in his name. He never breaks his promise!

In the days of his mortal life, Jesus went, as his custom was, to the synagogue. It was a regular and rewarding practice of his. He was surprised that his parents, on the occasion of his lingering long when a child in the temple at Jerusalem, did not know that he must be thus about his Father’s business. [Luke 2: 49]. He valued it! How much more must we!

These, then, are some of the reasons for us to go to church regularly and to invite our friends and neighbors not belonging elsewhere to come to church with us. There is healing and refilling and renewing and strength in it!

A British statesman was asked why, after a very crowded week, and a tight schedule, he got up every Sunday and went to his church. “Because I love England,” he said. Well, a higher patriotism makes many start going for that reason. We love America. We know that if she is to prosper spiritually and materially she must be blessed of God with health and justice, with peace and true well-being. And this blessing comes only if Americans seek to find, and to perform, God’s will. That will is best discerned in the divine worship of the Christian fellowship; in the teaching of high religion.

Don’t stay away from church because some of us appear to you to be hypocritical, or even because someone has offended you. The church is a company of sinners, both penitent sinners and forgiven sinners. You belong in that company, don’t you? And because the church is the hope of all of us sinners it is greater than any member or minister; greater than any deacon or singer or usher or trustee. According to Scripture, there is no one completely righteous, no, not one. But, in the church, we can hope to be redeemed; indeed are redeemed by the blood and passion, the concern and the compassion and the mercy and the judgment of our Christ!

He is here who can forgive us and renew us. He can send us away with and abundance that overflows in imparting His spirit, His truth, His joy to others.

Engraved on the floor of an old church where the famous John Wesley first preached are these lines:

Enter this door

As if the floor

Within were gold;

And every wall

Of jewels all

Of wealth untold;

As if a choir

In robes of fire

Were singing here;

No shout nor rush

But hush

For God is here!

It was in a church (it happened to be one other than that of his own denomination) that Wesley was strangely warmed and satisfyingly filled with the spirit that made him the truly great force which he became for the rest of his life, in the service of God and of his fellowmen.

[On the offering envelopes which most of us have used today to bring our gifts to God through this church, are these lines. Some of you have read them thoughtfully and said: “This is my church. I choose to come here. No one forces me, and no one forbids me. Of all the churches in the community or county, this is my church. Therefore, I shall belong to this church. And by belonging I mean that I share in its inspiration, its joys, its triumphs, its great work, and its burdens. I will give myself, and my money, to make sure that my church flourishes and that its light is shed abroad.”

So it all adds up to this: if you want to be counted among the Christians-in-the-making, you can do so best out of the experience of worshipping God in his church. And this, not just when you feel like it upon an occasional Sunday morning, but with the regularity which builds any worthwhile achievement. For Christian worship is a gladly-offered sacrifice to God in the name and in the spirit of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

And so, you see me in church. And I count, as do all the other worshippers count, on seeing you in church. It lifts and strengthens every one of us to see you here on Sunday. “God bless us every one!” [Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Story.”]

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, September 16, 1956.

Babcock [WI] Congregational Church, July 3, 1977.

Nekoosa [WI] United Church of Christ, July 3, 1977.