In my sermon last week, I spoke about the problem of people who call themselves ‘Christians’ but who don’t come to church, and I want to stress again today that by that, I don’t mean those who can’t come because of ill health or work and so on, but those who could come and don’t, whether those people have stopped coming to church and won’t come back or they simply don’t and won’t come at all. Today I want to talk a bit more about why people stop coming to church and won’t come back and why they won’t come to church at all because this is a problem, and a question that links very easily to this morning’s Gospel.
In last Sunday’s Gospel, we heard that when John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,
‘…Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him…’
and this morning, we hear Jesus speaking about John, and as he does so, he asks the people a question:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”
And I think we can ask a similar question of those who have stopped coming to church, and who won’t come to church today; ‘What do you come to church to see? What do you, or did you expect to find in church?’
I think that is a very pertinent question to ask because I’m sure that one of the great problems we have in getting people to come to church and to stay in the church is that so many don’t see or find what they expect to. But if people come to church looking for what they want, then in many cases, perhaps most cases, they’ve come to the wrong shop. The problem isn’t with what they see and find in the Church and in church, the problem is with what they want from the Church and from coming to church.
How often have we heard someone who used to come to church say that they stopped coming because they weren’t getting anything out of it? The usual response is to ask what they were putting into it, and the answer to that question, on the whole, is probably not very much – they were simply turning up and expecting to get something from it. But what is it they were expecting to get?
From the many conversations I’ve had with people like this, and with many other people in the Church over the years, I think the answer, and the problem, is that so many people come to church expecting nothing more than comfort and reassurance.
Not the comfort and reassurance that we can and do find when we come to church, the comfort and reassurance that comes from faith in Christ and trust in his promises, but the comfort and reassurance that comes from being told that they’re nice people, good people who lead good lives, that they’re a bit better than people who don’t come to church and so, by extension and implication, that they don’t need to do anything more or change anything about themselves and their lives to be right with God and assured of heaven.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean. I was once taken to task by a churchwarden because people had objected to something, or perhaps a few things I’d said, in my sermons. The problem wasn’t that people disagreed with what I was saying from the point of view of theology or faith, but because my sermons were ‘too pointed’, they were too challenging for people and made people feel uncomfortable. He said that people didn’t want to come to church to be challenged and go home feeling uncomfortable, they come to church to be told how good they are already so that they could go home feeling good about themselves and that that’s what I, as a priest, was there to do. He actually said that he thought I’d missed the point of what being a priest is all about!
People don’t want to be challenged; they want to be told how good they are so that they can feel good about themselves. Well, if that’s what people who come to church want, they’re not going to find it and so they’re not going to get anything out of coming to church. The Gospel is the most challenging thing we can ever read, let alone try to live out. The Gospel was so challenging to those to whom Jesus first proclaimed it, it made them feel so uncomfortable, that they nailed Jesus to a cross so that they didn’t have to hear any more. And if the Gospel is not proclaimed in church, if people don’t want to hear it because it’s too challenging and makes them feel uncomfortable because they don’t live it out well enough then, I’m afraid, that it’s they who’ve missed the point because the only people who won’t be challenged by the Gospel and who won’t feel uncomfortable about what they read and hear in the Gospel are those who’ve perfected their faith and who live out the Gospel to perfection. And how many people like that do we know? I know of only one, Jesus Christ himself.
It must be said that not everyone in that parish I’ve just spoken about felt the same way as that churchwarden and those who’d complained to him about my sermons. One person there once said to me that he came to church to be challenged; that he didn’t come to church because he thought he was perfect or because he thought it made him better than those who don’t go to church; he said he went to church because he knew he wasn’t perfect and that he wasn’t any better than anyone else and that he knew he needed help to be better.
And so he came to church because he knew that’s where he’d find the help he needed; my help, as a priest, and above all, God’s help. And that brings us to a second problem with what people expect to see and find in the Church and don’t.
To hear them speak, most people expect the Church to be full of perfect people who always live out their faith perfectly. But if that’s what people expect to see and find in the Church then, again, they’ve come to the wrong place. If you want to see perfection, go to an art gallery and look at statues. They’re perfectly formed and never do anything wrong, but that’s because they never do anything. If you want to see perfection in a human being, you can find that in church, but only in the Gospel, in the person of Jesus Christ. If you expect it in the people who make up the Church and come to church then you’re going to be disappointed.
We know that people in the Church argue and fall out. We know that these disagreements and arguments cause people to stop coming to church and they’re often given as the reason they won’t come back to church. We also know that those outside the church see these things and call us hypocrites because of them. They call us hypocrites because we don’t practice what we preach. But these things don’t necessarily make us hypocrites.
The word hypocrite is thought to stem from the Greek word for a stage actor, so a hypocrite is someone who is pretending to be something they’re not. We call ourselves Christians because we’re disciples of Jesus Christ, but we also confess that we’re sinners. So when we act in ways that aren’t in keeping with the Gospel, when we act in un-Christian ways, so long as we confess to doing that, we’re not being hypocrites, because we’re not pretending to be something we’re not. What it makes us is weak, flawed, but at least truthful, human beings. If we call ourselves Christians but act in un-Christian ways, so long as we own up to what we’ve done, what we’re really saying is that we are Christians, because we try to follow the teaching and example of Jesus Christ; but we’re not always as good at doing that as we could be and should be; we don’t always get things right; we make mistakes. What would, and does, make us hypocrites is if we say that we’re Christians whilst making no attempt to be Christians. We’re hypocrites if we say that we’re Christians and wilfully act in un-Christian ways; if we plot and scheme to deliberately carry out un-Christian deeds. And we’re hypocrites if we act in un-Christian ways and deny it because that is to deny our sinfulness and, as St John says in his first letter,
‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.’
But if we say we have no sin, who are we trying to deceive? Not only ourselves but others too, surely? So, if we can’t own up to our sins, our failures to live out the Gospel, we’re deceivers, we’re not really Christians but simply people pretending to be Christians; actors playing a part, hypocrites.
So what do people come to church to see? What do they expect to find? If they come to church looking for that burning truth that God calls us to live by, which we call the Gospel, then they will find that, and if they don’t, there’s something gone very, very wrong in that church. But if people come simply looking to find comfort and assurance from being told how good they are so that they can go home feeling happy about themselves and carry on living their lives in the same way they always have done, they won’t find that where the Gospel is proclaimed because the Gospel challenges everything the world says about goodness and what leads to happiness. Where people hear the Gospel proclaimed they will be challenged and they will often be made to feel uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable at times. And if people look at the Church and come to church expecting to find and see perfect people who are perfect examples of Christian discipleship, they won’t see or find that either, apart from in the pages of the Gospels. But neither will they see a Church or a building full of hypocrites. Only those who call themselves Christians and who make no attempt to be Christians are hypocrites and, in my experience, those who call themselves Christians but who won’t come to church, or won’t come back to church because of what they see as the hypocrisy of the people in the Church, could do a lot worse than take a good look in the mirror and call to mind these words of Jesus;
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
The Church is not full of perfect people but those who do come to church are, at least, willing to be challenged by the Gospel to be better than they are. They’re not afraid to be made to feel uncomfortable by their failures to live out the faith they profess, and hopefully they’re willing to see themselves as sinners in need of repentance and forgiveness as they try to become and be better. And if what I’ve said today has challenged you, good. If it’s made you feel uncomfortable in some ways, so be it, you know what to do about it. But I hope what I’ve said has also helped you and made you feel a bit better about yourselves because you and I, and all Christians are still sinners, but that doesn’t necessarily make us hypocrites.
Amen.
The Propers for Advent 3 can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 