Sunday, April 6, 2008

Sermon: "Collapse of a Colony"

Scripture: Acts 2: 36-41

Reverend Larry M. Gerber

The huge redwood trees of California amaze mankind. They are the largest living things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and over 2,500 years old. One would think that trees so large must have a tremendous root system that reaches down hundreds of feet into the earth. But not so! The redwoods have a very shallow root system. If one was to get down on his knees and examine the redwoods' root system, he would find that all the roots intertwine. They are locked to each other. When the storms come, the winds blow, and the lightning flashes, the redwoods still stand. They are not alone, for all the trees support and protect each other. Each tree is important to all the other trees in the grove.

A healthy church has a similar support system with parishioners linked together against the storms of time.  But, we are seeing churches across America with declining membership and closing after years of effective and faithful ministry. It's just that they're eventually overwhelmed by forces beyond their control. That's simply a weakening of the system, erosion of the roots or in another analogy, it is a colony collapse, with no disorder involved whatsoever. The churches that are on a downhill slide can be assimilated to the current honey bee disorder.

"David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes recently and found half of his 100 million bees missing."

So begins a story in The New York Times last year. Bradshaw, 50, is missing his bees. He says he has never seen anything like it. "Box after box after box are just empty. There's nobody home."

And that's a huge problem.

Across America, honeybees are disappearing without a trace. And it's a cause for huge concern.

Change David Bradshaw, the beekeeper, to Rev. David Bradshaw, pastor: "Rev. Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a pastor, but he got the shock of his career when he looked at his church last year and found half of his church members are missing."

Of course that is not a true story, but you can see where this is going. The disappearance of the bees is related to a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which beehives suddenly die off. And if you think of a church, or the church as a colony, a community, it's fair to ask the question as to why we're experiencing colony collapse across America.

CCD -- of the bee variety -- occurs in widespread areas and involves many hives -- which is what is happening in our country now -- it creates problems not only for people whose livelihood depends on harvesting honey, but also for farmers who rely on the bees to pollinate their crops. And that, of course, means it could soon impact us, the consumers of those crops and related products. 

CCD is cause for concern for beekeepers and for the balance of nature.

Which brings us back to the church. Christians across America are disappearing without a trace as well.

While there is no single reason that explains the drop in the number of disciples of Jesus Christ, in some cases it is related to Colony Collapse Disorder, in which local congregations die off for no apparent reason.

While every church closing could be described as a colony collapse, not every church closing is a collapse disorder. Just like people, congregations have life spans, and there's no shame in recognizing that the time has come for a church to close or merge when demographics, lack of economic opportunity, the non-availability of jobs or similar factors in the neighborhood of the church drain a congregation of attendees.

Many churches that close do so quite worthily after years of effective and faithful ministry. It's just that they're eventually overwhelmed by forces beyond their control. That's simply a colony collapse, with no disorder involved.

Consider the picture of the early church that Luke gives us in today's reading. He reports the reaction of the crowd on the Day of Pentecost to Peter's sermon. As Peter concluded, the crowd, which had been "cut to the heart" by his words, cried out, asking, "What should we do?" Peter told them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus so that their sins could be forgiven and they could receive the Holy Spirit.

Those things -- repentance, forgiveness, baptism by water and by the Holy Spirit -- are what we might call the "entry level" things that a church must mediate to be the church in any meaningful sense of the word. If we are not offering Christ and calling people to repent and follow him, then we really are not the church. The people on that day understood what Peter was saying and a great many of them accepted Christ on the spot and were immediately baptized, which must have kept Jesus' disciples very busy.

That started the church.

However, if we continue reading to the end of the chapter, we find Luke's account of significant developments among those early converts that go beyond the entry-level things, developments that strengthened the church. He says the believers began to pool their resources, thus caring for all of their number; they also began to spend their time in worship, learning, fellowship, the breaking of bread with glad and generous hearts and prayer. And one result of all of this is that they had "the goodwill of all the people," meaning that everyone, even those who had not themselves embraced Christianity, saw the colony of Christians as a bright spot in the community.

So it would seem that if we wanted to point to a church today that should not collapse, it would be one where people are clearly and creatively called to Christ, where there is strong worship, fellowship, caring for one another, common goals in mission and ministry, an active prayer life among the membership, and where the church is held in high regard by the larger community.

That is exciting, because I serve a church that is doing just that! We offer strong worship experiences, we have great fellowship opportunities, common mission goals, active prayer life, and we are recognized as such in the community. We are not in CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder.)

We are more like the mighty redwoods that have stood strong through the tests of time because of the intermingling and networking of their roots. Jesus developed the roots of the church when he chose 12 disciples of differing backgrounds and individual roots. He took the individual roots and linked them together, embracing against the storms of the world. 

Being a follower of Jesus Christ is at its best when the individual followers link with others of like mind and form a colony of believers that share each others strengths and commitment, rooted in Christ.

The writer of Hebrews told the Christians of his day to not neglect to meet together, but to assemble as believers to encourage one another (Hebrews 10:25). And he was right. Church isn't like school where you attend for a while until you receive your degree in discipleship and then graduate. The church has no alumni association.

This church honored Franklin Greene a few years ago with the title "Emeritus", recognizing him for his many years of faithful service. He asked to have that title removed because Emeritus means that you have done your work and now you are through. Reverend Greene is a prime example of the need to continue to be part of a faith colony for both what we receive and what we contribute. Just as no idle bee makes honey, no idle worshipper makes a church.

We need to take individual responsibility for the health of our faith. We do that through such private activities as prayer and Bible reading and almsgiving and the like, but we also do it by making sure we connect regularly with a body of believers through corporate worship, fellowship, Bible study, and prayer.

While the church has a prime responsibility to help us in our life of faith, we as individual Christians always have a prime responsibility to our church to help it be a place where the things Peter outlined -- the preaching of repentance, baptism, seeking the Holy Spirit -- happen. The church, with our help, should also ensure that the practices of the early converts -- worship, fellowship, caring for one another, common goals in mission and ministry, an active prayer life among the membership, and a thorough Christian education are carried out. We should keep showing up and helping out.

One great way of networking is by receiving Holy Communion. We take the wafer and hold it until everyone in the room has one in their hand, and then we eat together. We do the same with the cup. Together we form a colony of united disciples. Taking Holy Communion together is a witness to our strength as a colony of Christians linked together, making disciples for Christ.