"Sunday Brunch"
Text: Matthew 7:21-29
The Reverend Joanna M. Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, GA
June 1, 2008

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house,
but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. Matthew 7:25

A few months ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a column by a young Atlanta mom. She had decided to end what she called "a long stint of lazy Sunday brunching" and to search for a church where she, her husband, and baby could connect with God in the environment of a faith community. She writes, "I decided it was time to trade in my Sunday-best pair of jeans, flip-flops, and omelettes for church clothes and potluck." After a while, they found a church they liked, and she and her husband decided it was time to have a conversation with the pastor about membership. She asked the pastor, "What is the absolute minimum I have to believe in order to join?" He listed "just three items and looked at them expectantly, seemingly thrilled to let them know just how easy it would be." Kate Carter ends her column this way: "I am happy with a serving of Matthew, Mark and Corinthians, rather than sweet potato pancakes at the Highland Bakery on Sunday morning."

I recount the contents of Kate Carter's column, not to criticize her or anyone who chooses brunch over the Beatitudes as their Sunday morning fare. I don't want to criticize pastors who open the church doors wide and want to meet people where they are. What I'm concerned with is the distance between the Gospel as it was taught and lived out by Jesus and where most people are today in terms of understanding the demands of discipleship.

Today's reading from Matthew reminds us that Jesus is not only a welcoming, affirming, and loving Savior; he is also a challenging Savior. (1) The Christian faith began as a movement born out of his sacrifice and continued only because people responded to his call to take up their cross and to follow him. Will Willimon, the insightful church leader writes, "The Church of Jesus Christ rests not on the mushy sand of fuzzy affirmation, but on the rock, on the demands of a righteous, holy God who meets us in Jesus and in Jesus' teaching."

The Sermon on the Mount, a collection of Jesus' teachings, comes to its conclusion with the words that I read as our Gospel lesson today. Interestingly, the first thing Jesus says in this passage has nothing to do with the non-committed brunch bunch, or with mildly-committed followers of Christ. No, his first words here are words that are addressed to people in the inner circle of commitment who have missed what it means to follow him. Yes, they have prophesied; yes, they have demonstrated exceptional spiritual power, but they have not lived their faith. He says it plainly: Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom. Only the one who does the will of my Father. Clearly, it matters in an eternal sense what you and I do when we are not at church. We can show up every time the doors open here. We can recite creeds and name all the apostles. But if we fail to live out there in a way that reflects the teachings of Christ and the life that he modeled, we will be heading in entirely the wrong direction. If we forget the Golden Rule and treat other people like dirt under our feet, if we pay no heed to the sufferings of people in the world, if we care nothing for justice, according to Jesus, the words we will hear in the end, when we cross to the other side will be: I never knew you. Go away from me. Strong words. Tough love on the part of our Savior.

In his excellent book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus Peter Gomes makes the point that the Gospel is offensive and that it always overturns the status quo, which is never good news for anyone who does not wish to be disturbed. Gomes maintains that "the times in which Jesus did his preaching and teaching were remarkably similar to our own. Then, as now, there was a lively enterprise of religion, but beneath the surface of conformity ran deep rivers of disappointment, frustration, and fear."

The church must stand against the priorities of popular culture and demonstrate a different and higher way. Who, after all, needs a church that does nothing but parrot the conventional wisdom? There is no salvation in conventional wisdom. The world then and now desperately needs a community of faith that is not afraid to name that alternative reality that Jesus introduced and that we call the Kingdom of God.

Jesus challenges us not to be conformed to this world, but to live fully and bravely in this world, transformed by the power and the meaning of his Gospel. You remember how a few years ago everyone was wearing the What Would Jesus Do bracelets? The problem with wondering what Jesus would do is that it really doesn't get us very far, since none of us can be Jesus. There was only one of him, but we can bear witness to his purpose. We can proclaim his good news, and we certainly can emulate his love.

I remember the story some years ago about an art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It was an exhibit of the paintings of Henri Matisse. One day, a lady who had come to see the exhibit noticed that one of Matisse's paintings had been hung upside down. She approached the guard and spoke to him saying, "Excuse me sir, but that painting is hanging upside down." The guard assured her that it was not. She insisted that it was. She showed him the picture in a booklet about the exhibit that showed the painting hanging the right way. He told her that the booklet was probably printed upside down. Finally, the curator of the museum was summoned, and indeed the picture was hung upside down. It was a painting of a sailboat on the water with a reflection of the sailboat in the water. The reflection was painted so perfectly. It was hard to tell whether one was looking at the boat, or at the reflection of the boat. (2)

These challenging words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount are here to remind us that our own lives and our values can reflect, ought to reflect, must reflect, the life and wisdom of Jesus, who loves us too much to allow us to drown in an ocean of self-absorption and indifference. We who call ourselves the people of God have a special responsibility. I think that is what is meant by the fact that we will be the first to be judged, rather than those out there who never heard the Gospel. The question I am asked more than any other is what happens to people, who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, after they die. Jesus wants us to think a lot more about what is going to happen to us. If we say "Lord, Lord," but if it makes no difference in our lives; if we want only God's acceptance, but never God's transforming power; if we want Christ's grace, but are unwilling to be his disciple and take on all that entails, then we will have lost our way.

Jesus tells the story of the wise man who built his house on a solid foundation, and when the floods came and the rains fell, the house did not fall. So it is with a life that is built upon the truth of God, the life whose tap root goes deep down into the Gospel and draws its nourishment from there, finds there the strength to break away from the crowd and to do the right thing, no matter what other people are doing.

It's amazing to me how some of the things we learn when we are young can provide such a strong foundation for our lives as adults. When I spoke with Bill Mounts several weeks ago, I asked him what had influenced his ministry across the years. He said, "Well, I guess it's this. The church of my childhood taught me two things that I have never forgotten. One, that God is love. And two, that Jesus went about doing good."

The wise build their lives on values that last and are not afraid to respond to the demands of a Savior who never asks of us anymore than he asked of himself.

Right now in America, millions of people are being drawn to what is called "the prosperity gospel". Actually, the teachings of the movement include more than financial success. They are about how every single area of our lives will be better if we become Christians. But the first thing we must do, according to this philosophy, is to rid our minds of negative thinking. The lead prophet for this movement is a pastor from Texas named Joel Osteen, who says, "Start believing good things will come your way, and they will." Rev. Osteen pastors a 30,000 member church. He preaches to millions each week on television. (3) Like Jesus, Reverend Osteen delivers an if-then message, but there the similarity ends. Joel Osteen says if you choose to be happy, you will be happy. Jesus says if you choose to come my way, your life will not be easy. But God will give you the strength to endure, and you will find joy, a deep joy, beyond all description.

I've never been to the home of the Lakewood Community Church in Houston, which is the former arena of the Houston Rockets. But I have been to another church in Texas, the only church in Texas in which I have ever preached. I was there 20 years ago. There was nothing grand about the church. . .I take that back. There was something very grand about this church. It had a great heart. The Rio Grande River marks the border there between Texas and Mexico. Many women, mothers-to-be, would risk their lives and their babies' lives to swim across the Rio Grande River in the dark of night, so that they could be on American soil when their babies were born, and so that their babies would be American citizens. In that congregation, there were some people, some members who were all the way to the right on the issue of immigration. There were others on the opposite end of the political spectrum. But all of them knew it was the right thing to do to help the mothers and the babies with shelter, food, and healthcare, which they and other parishes in the town provided. They put into practice Jesus' teaching that you should treat your neighbors with as much kindness as you yourself want to be treated. Do you see how the Gospel gives us a different approach to life?

I think that nice young woman who lives in Atlanta and who has decided to give up brunch for church is moving in the right direction. I hope that her pastor and her new congregation will help her understand that the life of faith really does ask something of us. But, oh, the reward of living for something, someone, other than oneself.

It's hard not to be worried about yourself these days with the gyrations of the stock market, the shrinking of the job market, the plunge of the real estate market. Our horizons seem no longer to be limitless. I truly don't know how to make it through challenging times like this without a faith-based perspective, without something substantial to hold on to. I commend to you the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has held up across the ages and will hold you up, no matter the strength of the forces against you. If our society is to find its way again, it will not be because we have listened to me-first preachers, but because we have remembered to follow the one who said, "Those of you who try to save your lives will lose them. Those who are willing to give up everything for me are the ones who will gain everything."

We're going to have a meal this morning in church - a simple fellowship meal of bread and wine. Brunch, you can take or leave, but this is the only meal that connects us with all that is lasting and true. May Christ's body and may his blood be at work in you, transforming who you are and directing what you will do for the glory of God. Amen.

(1) Pulpit Resource, April, May, June 2008.
(2) As told by Dr. Joseph B. Mullin in a sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church, Greensboro, NC.
(3) Willimon.