You are on page 1of 7

John 7:37-52

The Heart of the City


Sermon preached September 13, 2015
Before scripture
Ive preached in a lot of different pulpits over the years. Ive decided this one is my
favorite. I feel comfortable, at peace up here. I think thats because weve connected and
you stay awake during my sermons, that you seem to appreciate the preaching of the
word. And Im grateful for all this.
And this also helps me be able to open my heart to you this morning. So, what Im going
to be doing is sharing my hopes and dreams for this church Ive come to love. And in
one sense, thats all that they are. MY hopes and dreams. But Ive thought and prayed a
lot about this. You ever heard that saying, stop worrying about what people think about
you - because they hardly ever think about you. Well, I think about you, about us, all the
time. And my heart and mind are kind of on fire with what I want to share today.
BUT - for this to really be Gods vision, it has to catch fire with you all. And you may
have thoughts and dreams that are closer to Gods will for us than what I share here. And
so beginning today, you will be asked, repeatedly, what you see God calling this church to
do and to be.. Ok, enough preamble. On to Gods word:
Scripture
Opening
A few years ago, at a recent high-profile event in Washington D.C., a dinner guest
mistook Four-star Army General Peter Chiarelli for one of the waiters. Chiarelli, the No.
2-ranking general in the U.S. Army hierarchy, was in full dress uniform. Apparently, the
guest, who only saw his striped pants, assumed he was a waiter and asked him to get her a
glass of wine. Rather than take offense, in good humor Chiarelli dutifully went off, found
the wine, and poured her a glass. The guest was mortified once she got a good look at his
uniform. She apologized profusely, but Chiarelli took it in stride and invited her to his
family's home for dinner.
That story gets at a core truth in our scripture reading. Now I love you all, but you look
pretty ordinary. Theres a few of you who stand out in a crowd - Don Wissner, six foot
four with that full head of white hair; but most of us, me included, we look like ordinary
human beings.
But there is more here this morning than meets the eye. In those of you who trust Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior, the presence of God himself dwells. You may look ordinary,
1

but you are incognito, the presence, the love, the goodness of God.
Time to do some theology
The core doctrine of Christianity is that God became a real human being in Jesus Christ.
As a baby, nursed at his mothers breast, as a toddler, tripped and skinned his knees, as a
teenager, had pimples, as a man who worked with his hands, hit his thumb with the
hammer, got tired at the end of the day. Flesh and blood, like you and me.
Why? God became one of us, so we could become children of God; could know God,
could be born anew and saved from our brokenness - but for still one more reason - so
God become incarnate in us, too.
Like the Christmas hymn - cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
Be born in us. Gods love became flesh so it can come near to us, touch us and
then - flow out of us.
And finally, Im to our scripture today, where Jesus says, Out of the believers heart
shall flow rivers of living water.
Heart. Living waters. Those two ideas have captured my imagination. Part of it is your
doing - your mission statement - Sharing the living waters of Jesus Christ with all who
thirst. Living water that heals us, that satisfies our thirst to know God. And combined
with this scripture - out of the believers heart...that is filled with the presence of God, the
love of God - Gods heart, so to speak..
And I keep having this image, this idea coming to mind - that Central Presbyterian is to
be the heart of the city - Gods heart for the city - Gods heart enfleshed in us - and out of
our hearts, our life together, flow streams of living water.
Gods heart - incarnate right here on the square in the county seat of Franklin County.
Just as Jesus became a human in a particular time and place, so God dwells in this
particular time and place through us.
The heart of the city. Right outside our doors, is a beautiful fountain - water gushing and
flowing - and for us - the heart of the city - I see flowing three streams of living water.
First Stream - Come and Drink
Imagine this. A family moves into Franklin County. They want to look for a church
home. But how? Well, word of mouth is pretty reliable. They start asking - their
hairdresser and barber, their real estate agent, their neighbors, what would be some
churches they should visit? And they keep hearing from different people, you should
2

visit Central Presbyterian. Hmm, they think, this church seems to have a reputation.
So they check out the church website and Facebook page. They like what they see, its all
up to date and full of pictures. So Sunday morning they get up and get dressed and
theyre pretty nervous, theyre from Wisconsin, dont know a soul around here. But they
know how to get here and where to park from the directions on the website, they park in
the lot off Black Ave and walk in the back doors which are clearly marked as a church
entrance rather than the blank doors they are now, theres someone standing there who
smiles and welcomes them, takes them to a guest reception area in the lobby, gives them
a welcome bag - geez, nice stuff in there, coffee and a stainless steel travel mug and info
about the church - lets say they have kids and its second service - so the greeter
introduces them to another church member who takes them up to the third floor and helps
them get the children settled, then escorts them back down to the sanctuary and an usher
shows them a good place to sit and people come up and greet them warmly but not
overbearingly, other people look over and smile at them, the service touches them, they
hear great music and some good news that heartens and challenges them, after the service
somebody invites them down for coffee and snacks in Friendship Hall so they get their
children and the person who invited them introduces them to more people and they
connect with someone who lives in their new neighborhood, and then someone else
invites them to the annual pancake supper and variety show, says Ill come pick you up
and we can sit together. And they keep coming and their kids plug in and make friends
and the parents - hey, theres a book club, or a neighborhood group, or there are supper
club groups - lots of connection points that are designed to include new people - and they
find here at Central the deepest experience of Christian community theyve ever
experienced.
And no matter what the person looks like - single, married, divorced; red or yellow, black
and white, piercings, tattoos, dressed in a suit or dressed by Goodwill...they are all
welcomed and through us sense the reality of Gods love enfleshed.
Thats an example of someone coming to us, on our turf. But there are lots of people who
wont do that for their first contact with a church, too intimidating. So we have to go to
them.
So, what if we started a discussion group that met at the Roy Pitz brewery theology on tap, wed call it - talk about the big issues - is there a God, why is
there pain and suffering, what is the meaning of life - do it in a setting that is
comfortable for other people
Or maybe a womens group that meets at Panera - and other people overhear and
the group members see them listening in and invite them to join them...and
through that, someone who is spiritually seeking eventually comes to faith in
Christ.

And over time, we get a reputation as the most loving place in town. And why do we do
this? Because people are lost, lonely and hurting and want a place to belong.
Its like Douglas Coupland wrote in his great book Life After God,:
Now heres my secret, and I tell it to you with an openness or heart, that I doubt I
will ever achieve again. So I pray, that you are in a quiet room, as you hear these
words. My secret is that I need God,-- that I am sick, and can no longer make it
alone, I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of
giving; to help me be kind, because I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help
me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.1
Stream Two - Dive Deeper into the Living Waters
Heres a truism - God loves us as we are but loves us too much to leave us there.
I realized something obvious a couple of weeks ago. Almost all the good stuff God does
in us, comes through other people. Like, if youre sick and hurting, someone coming to
pray with you, read scripture with you, be the presence of Christ with you. And the same
principle is true for our growth as followers of Christ - most of it, happens in community
with one another.
In my own life - I was decisively shaped as a Christ-follower by Inter-Varsity Christian
Fellowship in college - I was a brand-new Christian and more mature Christians came
alongside me, befriended me, taught me, encouraged me. I wouldnt be standing up here
today if it werent for them.
But heres our challenge. We are doing virtually nothing to help adults grow in our
relationship with Jesus Christ. We have no organized ministry for adult Christian
Education. None, zip, nada. The children, the youth - they do. Adults - weve got three
Sunday school classes, one Womens Group and periodic Wednesday night gatherings.
And thats it. No small groups. No mens group. No young adult group. And no
oversight, help or guidance for the groups and classes that do exist.
And what is really troubling - say someone comes to Christ among us and is baptized what do we have to help them grow that makes sense for a new believer? Just about
nothing. And for the rest of us - who are not in one of those classes or the womens group
- what do you do in community with others to grow?
This following Jesus thing is hard, challenging - and the Bible can be mysterious, weird,
alien - we take lessons to learn how to play better golf or tennis...we learn how to sew or
crochet from a grandparent or in a sewing group...we get better at cooking by reading
cookbooks, taking classes - nothing worth doing comes easily or automatically - and
neither does growing in Christ.
4

What if - it became part of our life together that everyone is helped to find a group, a
class, where they can find friends who will journey through life with them, help them
learn the Bible, learn what it means to follow the Lord? What if we had an organized
ministry for this, with different levels of groups and classes - like Jesus 101, 201, etc,?
Can you imagine what it would do for us - if everyone was meeting on some kind of
regular basis with other friends in Christ to grow together, pray together, do ministry
together, share life together? It would revolutionize this church.
Third stream. I see the living water rushing out from here in a great powerful stream into
our community and world.
What might that look like? Let me get into what I see by asking a question. How many
churches are there in Franklin County? One. The church of Jesus Christ is ONE church,
with many different expressions. Presbyterian. Methodist. Mennonite. Episcopalian.
Baptist. Brethren. AME. Black churches. Hispanic churches. Haitian churches. Old
churches in historic sanctuaries. New churches meeting in school multipurpose rooms and
setting up chairs every Sunday. One church, many expressions.
And man, are there a lot of churches in our community. And a lot of Christ-followers
too. And you would think, with all these churches and all these Christians, our
community would look a lot like the Kingdom of God.
Problem is, Gods people and Gods churches are fragmented, disconnected and
disorganized. Its amazing to me that there is another Presbyterian church a few blocks up
Philadelphia Avenue - and we do precisely nothing together. There is no connection
whatsoever between us. Another symptom of our disconnection - none of us churches
really know what ministry the others are doing. Maybe somebody comes to Central and
needs temporary housing - there could be another church that has that ministry, but we
dont know about it.
But...something new is emerging. Last Fall several of us called a meeting of leaders from
Chambersburg churches. We talked about a vision of all our churches becoming ONE
church and collaborating in ministry. As we talked, people shared what their churches
were doing and we were all amazed at the great ministry going on that nobody outside
those churches knew about. And we agreed, weve got to start working together.
Some of us from that group meet twice a month to pray for our community. Recently we
were talking about this vision of one church, collaborating in ministry and someone said,
We need something, someone central to pull this all together... And she stopped and
looked at me. Central? Central...Presbyterian.
What if we were to be the center of an effort to pull the churches in our community
together and find out what each other is doing and publish and maintain some kind of
internet presence that lists every ministry so if someone comes needing temporary
5

housing we know who can help them; or if a family with an autistic child is seeking a
church home that can handle the challenges of autistic children we know what
congregation can do that.
And then - what if we meet together and figure out where the holes are - theres a need
for an early-morning Bible study downtown - instead of three churches competing with
one another to offer one, we decide, ok, Falling Springs, you do that; or theres a need to
help struggling families learn how to budget and spend wisely - ok, St. John AME, you
do that. And we keep pushing out to the churches the information of which church is
doing what ministries. Why, we could even pool our resources, money and people.
And its beginning to happen. For instance, the Zion UCC church down the street has
realized that a lot of poor folk want to work but cant because they cant afford a car and
insurance and there is very little public transportation - but there are all these entry-level
jobs in the distribution centers along I-81 - what if we created some kind of transportation
network? Would get people working, give them a leg up, help move families out of
poverty. But Zion UCC cant do it on their own so weve got to come together as one
church and pool our resources to make it happen.
Its beginning to happen. This amazing Diaper Depot ministry - its growing and were
helping a lot of people but its becoming more than we can handle on our own. We know
that if its going to continue to grow and help more people it has to grow beyond Central.
So were beginning to reach out to other churches and we partner together to do it.
Maybe the future is that we are the heart of the city by being the center point of a
movement where all these different churches become ONE church united in ministry,
ONE church working together, ONE church together sharing the compassion of Christ
with the hurting, the poor, the broken. And maybe, our community starts to look so much
like the world as God intends it to be, that
What we need to pull this off
Now like I said, these are just my ideas. Were going to be seeking Christs will for the
future of our church together. And for that to succeed, heres what we have to do.
Weve got to pray, passionately, daily, for God to speak to us and for us to have open
hearts and minds. You will be getting a daily devotional by email to guide you in this.
The devotional readings for the week are also printed and available at the back of the
sanctuary.
Weve got to stop this relentless uncontrolled busyness afflicting this church. I suggest,
no new ministries, no new initiatives, until we are clear about what God is calling us to be
and to do. Every week people share great new ideas with me that we could do. And there
are a thousand good things we could do. But now is not the season to be starting new
6

things. Now is the season to be still...and listen for God.


Weve got to be courageous - one of my great hopes for Central is that we focus down on
what God is calling us to be and to do - and let go of what is no longer Gods will for us.
Every ministry we do here is good. But not every ministry we do, is what God wants us
to do. A lot of ministries have life-spans - they come into being, they thrive, and then
their time is over. And thats ok. So were going to need to let some stuff go that was
Gods will for Central in the past but not part of Gods plans for the future. And instead
of saying, this is what I want, weve got to ask, what does Christ want?
Closing
A few days ago I was reminded of a song we sing during the first service. Its called God
of the City. The chorus is:
Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done in this city
Where glory shines for hearts alive
With praise for you and love for you in this city
Greater things have yet to come
Great things have still to be done here in this city.
Thats the way I see it. Now, well be asking, how do YOU see it? Amen.
Endnotes
1.Douglas Copeland, Life after God, p. 359. New York: Pocket Books, 1994.

You might also like