Pull Up a Chair

I hope today finds you in good spirits and good company. Who's doing good this morning? Great, great. I agree, it's a good day. And who here is among good company? Awesome, I think I am too.

Speaking of Good Company. Let's talk a little about what good company is. When I hear the word "company" I instantly think of a comedy sketch by Sebastian Maniscalco. This sketch is now 14 years old, which is pretty ironic, because it reflects on a time 20 years prior to that. So if you've done the math, that's 34 years ago. Anyway, if you're unfamiliar with it, he talks about how we react differently now when the door bell rings than we used to 20 - I mean 34 - years ago. In actuality, it's more like 40 years ago. Or more. So, let's picture it - the doorbell rings, Dad sits up, pauses Cheers or Night Court (or Mom pauses the newest Dynasty) - WAIT wait, scratch that - no one can PAUSE tv back then! That wasn't even a thing yet! So mom or dad turned the TV down, and they eagerly approach the door to see who it is. Kids are sliding in their socks across avocado green linoleum to see who can get there first. The door is flung open without a care, they see unexpected neighbors, or coworkers, or a school family, maybe cousins - it doesn't even matter who it is! Hugs are shared, mom pulls out the Entemems that's saved just for "company." Dad puts on the percolator for some fresh coffee. They pat the couch and welcome their guests. It's a spontaneous occasion and it's met with joy!

Today? Today, not so much. In the sketch, Sebastian tells a hilarious tale of modern families dodging under the table, pulling a sword from under the couch while the kids army crawl out of the living room to safety when the doorbell rings. And he's not to far off.

Let's be real. Here's what happens now:

"You expecting Amazon?"
"I'm not expecting anything."
"Well who is it then?"
"How am I supposed to know!"

Meanwhile, the dog is barking and charging the door, the cat has run for this hills. The kids looks up from their toys with anxiety written all over their faces. We reach for our phone to check our ring camera. And if you don't have one of those, we look though the little peep hole in the door. Is someone still out front? We release the door lock ,and the deadbolt, and the chain lock, and barely stick our face out the door. Our knee is blocking our barking dog from body slamming whoever is out there. Our kids have left the living room and now peer around the corner. Whichever spouse didn't open the door is poised and ready to be backup if needed against the unwanted sales person, or signature gatherer, or to inspect whatever package was just deposited onto our doorstep.

It is NOT a joyous occasion when the door bell rings unexpectedly. It's met with alarm. Suspicion. And our guard goes up.

Sometimes, these reactions aren't limited to our household, but they extend to our church household as well.

So let's talked about belonging in the church world, how we handle unexpected visitors, and how WE can be "good company."

So, once again, welcome! Pull up a chair, and let's get into it.

If you have your Bible or your favorite Bible app handy, go to Luke chapter 14, starting at verse 16. This is the Parable of the Great Banquet, a story told by Jesus to a religious leader and his guests during a Sabbath meal.

Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.
At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'
"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'
"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'
"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'
"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'
"'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'
"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.
I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'"Luke 14:16-24

Hold on to this story. We will be returning to it.

Let's talk a little about church, and how we all came to it.

Show of hands if you were raised in the church. Either from infancy or a young age - you didn't have much say in it.

How about youth group? Someone invited you while you were in middle or high school?

How 'bout college?

Anyone here marry into church life?

How about you found yourself at a crossroads in life and decided to investigate Christianity.

However we arrived here, at some point we made the choice to STAY.

If we're being honest, at the end of the day, there are a lot churches to choose from. Look outside our doors and you can easily see 2 more you could walk to. Josh even did a whole video message on this back in 2020. Churches all within a stones throw of each other. So why are you HERE?

Hopefully - and almost certainly initially - the reason is that you felt the love of God expressed through the people around you. Friendly faces, warm smiles, invitations and welcomes. It's like the family we never knew we had or needed. And we settle in.

But after a while something happens. The newness fades. Routine settles in. We know who to expect, which seats being to whom, perhaps which seat is OURS. When to lift our hands, went say amen. When to nod. And all of a sudden we are comfortable. We know the routine, we understand the patterns, we know what to expect. New people come, some stay. We sometimes don't even notice the ones who usually seem a lot like us. What was their name? But we certainly notice when someone DIFFERENT turns up…

In 2013, Dr. Andrew Whitten and Dr. Erica van de Waal conducted a field experiment on a group of wild vervet monkeys in South Africa. The researchers paced two boxes of corn out for the monkeys. One box contained dyed pink corn, and the other contained corn dyed blue. For two of the monkey groups, the scientists soaked the blue corn in a highly bitter solution made form aloe leaves to make it taste terrible. For two other groups, they did the opposite, soaking the pink corn in the bitter solution.

After four to six months, the researchers laid out both colors of corn again. But this time, neither box was treated with aloe, meaning both options tasted perfectly fine.

The researches watched as newborn infant monkeys who had never seen the colored corn before exclusively copied their mother's color choice, never tasting the other options. "Okay, sure." You may say. "That's what babies do. They learn from their moms. Nothing new." Oh don't be so fast..

The key breakthrough came when adult males naturally migrated into new groups during the mating season. Males who left a "pink-eating" group and entered a "blue-eating" group voluntarily abandoned their personal preference to eat the color the LOCAL monkeys were eating.

The researchers concluded that this switch was purely driven by social conformity - a desire to copy the majority.

And an unspoken desire in some churches and among some church folk.

A common theme you may hear across Christiandom - online pastors - social media - Christian radio - televangelists - you name it - is the need for UNITY. But somehow, their version of unity always looks like everyone thinking exactly like them. Let's be honest - that's not unity, that's UNIFORMITY. Or, in other words, CONFORMITY. That's all of us eating the blue corn because the monkeys around us eat the blue corn.

Somehow, along the way, the casual chatter after a church service on Sunday morning can look more like an HOA meeting of a gated community and less like a diverse body of believers coming together to worship. "Sally's lawn needs trimming. Who is going to notify her?" "Doug's Christmas lights are still up and it's 3 days past the allowed time frame. He needs to be told to get those down immediately." "Betty has some crazy pink flamingo on her lawn! We can't have that" "Bruce's trash cans sat out an extra day, can someone please remind him to take them in earlier?" "The Johnson's just painted their front door! And it isn't an approved color" I don't need to spell out the parallels. You already know them… (Anyone remember the story Josh has told about volunteering to serve communion at his former church, but he was denied because he was wearing an Aloha shirt and not a sports coat?)

Church, it's all too easy to lose the plot and twist Unity in Christ into Uniformity in Church.

To summarize some thoughts by Reverend Joseph Yoo of Mosaic Episcopal Church:

Unity is rooted in love. Conformity is rooted in control. Unity can can make space for differences, conformity makes sure differences disappear. Unity says lets go on a journey together, conformity says fall in line. Unity is curious, conformity is defensive. And catch this - Unity says WE DON'T HAVE TO AGREE to BELONG, but conformity says if you DON'T agree, you don't belong. Unity embraces questions, conformity enforces answers.

Unity in Christ should look like a picture of the Kingdom of God. A spiritual bond that connects all believers in Jesus. People from different races, backgrounds, cultures, statuses, classes, and lifestyles all becoming one family, rooted in a shared faith that the goodness of God has overcome evil through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's it!

Let's get back to The Parable of the Great Banquet in the Gospel of Luke.

So what happens here? An important man is throwing a great banquet. It's a party, and he's spread the word. He does't have Partiful or Evite, so when it's it's time to feast, he has his servants go out and remind everyone who's been invited. And suddenly they are full of excuses. "I, uh, purchased some fields, gotta go check 'em out. Now." "I bought a team of oxen and need to put them through the paces." And the oldest line in the book: "Sorry, I just got married." (What? His wife doesn't want to eat???)

The man is of course beyond annoyed to hear this and tells his servants to go out to the streets and into the countryside and bring in an unexpected crowd. The Message translation says it this way: "bring all the misfits and homeless and down-and-out."

After filling the house, the host declares that none of the original guests will get even a single bite.

Jesus tells this story to flip the script on the religious leaders and paint an accurate picture of the kingdom of heaven. One they certainly didn't expect to hear. If we connect the dots to the Lords prayer, you'll be familiar that Jesus tells us to pray "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Shortly after in Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells his disciples to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…"

So what are we to do? It sounds to me that we are to seek to bring the Kingdom of God here to earth. Now. While we are living! And if the banquet feast is our model, it sounds to me like we should throw open the doors to the people who don't look like they belong in church, and tell them to pull up a chair.

As Rachel Held Evans said in her book Searching for Sunday (which I highly, HIGHLY recommend), "This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more."

Which brings me to my final point: What does it mean to belong to a church?

Most evangelical churches follow this model: Believe, Behave, then Belong.

See this super long statement of faith? (Clip of josh as sheriff with the statement of faith) Do you agree to it? All of it? No questions? Okay. Next, you better figure out how to fit in. You may have to let go of something about yourself, some of your essence, to do so, but we are The Blessed Holy Bread of Life Neighborhood Community Church of God in Christ, and if you wanna be a part of our church, you gotta walk the walk and talk the talk. And voila, a cookie cutter evangelical Christian is born. He's got all the right answers. She's got all the right clothes. They think the right thoughts about all the right things. They blend in beautifully.

And I think this is an area where our mainline brothers and sisters (that would be the Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc) often do a better job.

Instead of belonging being the LAST step, they often make it the FIRST. Belong! Join us! Be a part of our community! You don't have to have it all figured out. Come along on a journey with us. Catch along, you'll get it. You are welcome to join NOW, just as you are. Instead of metrics like how many people prayed the sinners prayer measuring their success, they look at how their outreach programs are doing. How many meals they served, or who showed up that they didn't expect.

That banquet table? Those people didn't look like they belonged. They didn't fit in. They didn't rub shoulders with the right people. They didn't know all the Sunday school answers. Heck, they may not even know what Sunday School was. They were welcomed just as they were and given the feast. No strings attached. Because that's what Love does. Again and again, Jesus reminds us that faith is not an end in as of itself, it is meant to make us more compassionate, more merciful, more capable of loving God and loving people. Because people were never created for the church, the church was created to serve the people.

I'm not gonna mince words. Our church has seen a lot of upheaval the last few years. People have left. People I have LOVED have left. It stings every time. And, I hope I'm not being presumptuous, but from many accounts, it boils down to this: our church is starting to look a lot less homogenous. Apparently, "all the good people have left." But to that I would say there are a whole lotta new, GREAT people showing up! They may not look just like you. They may even think different than you. But they are here, and they either love Jesus or are exploring what it means to walk with Jesus. And at the end of the day, THAT is what matters. Unity in Christ isn't determined by how we vote, which news station we watch, the kind of music we listen to, if we prefer sports coats on a Sunday or weird patchwork jeans, if we breastfeed or give formula, if we send our kids to Christian school or public school or no school at all and teach them at home. It should't matter if we are covered in ink or have never even used a temporary tat at a kids birthday party. We can be a FAMILY with all sorts of differences. I'm GLAD our church body is looking more and more diverse and different each and every week. It allows us to challenge one another, to spur one another on to growth and learning and healthy contemplation. And it provides us more people to LOVE.

Yes, a church needs people in seats and money in the plate to survive. And it's easier for that to happen when we keep Grandma Sally or whoever's been here 25, or 35, or 55 years happy by not shaking up the status quo. But Jesus doesn't ask us how ensure the church survives, He asks us how are we ensuring the church SERVES. Those are not always the same thing. Sometimes, serving people requires us to loosen our grip on things we've grown comfortable with.

Last year our church body voted to change our statement of faith. It used to be long. Really long. It used to cover a lot of doctrine that even long time Christians hadn't really given a lot of thought too. People admitted to signing their name to things they didn't even fully understand. But after much prayer and consideration, our board of directors proposed and you all voted to make it much simpler. Our statement of faith is now simply the historical Apostle's Creed.

I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Christian Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

According to our church constitution, THIS is what it takes to belong "as a member" to SeaCoast Church. Nothing else. And if this creed is something you can say Amen to, I encourage you to officially join our church. Josh usually announces new members the first Sunday of the month after communion, but he can do it any week. I've got membership documents up here for anyone interested. Just come up after service and grab one. Some are at the door too.

And, if you can't quite say "amen" to that yet, but are on a journey figuring things out, I want to say that you are still a welcome part of our family - and that you belong here. Stick around. Join a life group. Get a meal with people, after church or at Supper Club. Burn some calories at Rev Well. Fire off your questions to Josh or strike up a conversation with, well, anyone, after church.

Go now in the grace of God, knowing that you are seen, known, and welcomed.

May you be found in a place where you can belong before you believe perfectly,
be loved before you have it all together,
and be welcomed before you have all the answers.