Sunday, July 19, 2015 | 8:00 a.m.

Church without Walls

Matt Helms
Minister for Children and Families, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 89:1–8
2 Samuel 7:1–14a
Mark 6:30–34, 53–56

If the church today is unrecognizable as a place of healing, then we need to reflect on what our mission and purpose in the world are and how we communicate the good news of God’s healing grace in this time and place.

Karen Marie Yust
Feasting on the Word

Some of you may know my wife and I moved into our first house recently. These past few months we’ve been meeting a lot of new neighbors while we’re out doing yard work and other things in the neighborhood. It’s a very friendly and chatty community, which has been great, and oftentimes the first question we get after sharing our names is about what we do for a living.

Telling someone that you’re a pastor can have a strange effect on people, sometimes leading to apologies about how they don’t attend church as often as they’d like or suddenly being very careful about what else they share with me lest I stand there in judgment. But most times I get asked the question, “What church do you work at?” When I say, “Fourth Presbyterian Church, down in the city,” I’m usually met with a blank stare, until I say, “It’s the church right across the street from the Hancock building on Michigan Avenue, the one with the courtyard.” People’s eyes light up, and the individuals respond, “Oh, I know that church! It’s beautiful. I love the architecture, and that fountain is great.” I agree with them, and the conversation then typically continues on in other directions.

Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences to this, as well, when the topic of church comes up amongst your friends and your acquaintances. Fourth Church is, after all, incredibly unique for its position on Michigan Avenue, and being able to reference well-known landmarks like the Hancock building and our fountain and courtyard provides a great touch point for those who might be unfamiliar with the church. But a recent story that I heard at our church’s Session retreat in June gave me pause, and I’ve been wrestling with the way that I typically describe Fourth Church ever since.

Our Session retreat was led by Jan Edmiston, the Chicago Presbytery’s Associate Executive Presbyter, who has spent a great deal of time working with churches in thinking about their future by drawing inspiration from their past. In her talk, she relayed a sadly all-too-true story of a congregation that she used to work with. After spending time with the leaders of that congregation, she asked everyone to go around the circle and to share something about their church community and life that they loved. The first person she called on thought for a few moments and replied, “I just love the stained-glass windows here. They are so beautiful.” The next person up shot her a look and said, “That’s exactly what I was going to say! I love the windows here.” And as Jan went around the circle, it became clear that “the windows” was the near-unanimous answer amongst the leadership for what they loved about the church.

Now, there were many different ways that Jan could have approached working with that congregation about how limiting it was to have the windows be the centerpiece of their church life, but the way she did it was very clever, even though it had some serious teeth, as well. A little while after the leaders of the church had shared their deep love of the windows, Jan was supposed to lead a short Bible study component. But when she read the passage out loud to the group, rather than read the words “God” or “the Lord,” she instead substituted “the windows.” “Make a joyful noise to ‘the windows,’ all the earth. Worship ‘the windows’ with gladness; come into their presence with singing.”

I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see and hear the reaction in the room after she was done reading, but after hearing that story, I’ve been forced to confront the ways in which I often speak about the church that I hold so dear. We don’t have a “window” problem at our church, I don’t think; there is so much that we as a congregation are proud of and should be proud of, from our Tutoring and other Chicago Lights programs, to our mission trips, fellowship groups, our welcoming of children and their families, and on and on down the list. So I’ve been struggling: why, when I’m asked about my church, do I typically only list its location across from the Hancock building and talk about our beautiful courtyard? Aren’t we so much more than just the location of our building?

In our first lesson from 2 Samuel this morning, we read of a fascinating oracle that the prophet Nathan delivers to the newly appointed King David. During the time period known as the United Monarchy—which took place roughly 1,000 years before Jesus’ birth—Saul, David, and later Solomon would unite the two separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah into one, and Jerusalem would take on both political and religious significance when it was established as the capital of these two united kingdoms. There was a desire in Jerusalem to build a permanent house of worship for God, rather than continue to use the portable tent and tabernacle that represented God’s presence with the people. But in Nathan’s curious oracle today we hear hesitation expressed, even as God promises that David’s offspring would indeed build a permanent house of worship. In verse 5, God says:

Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: I took you from the pasture, following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went.

“I have been with you wherever you went.” The dichotomy in this scene is fascinating, and it sounds as though there’s a concern being expressed that the people will come to view God as tied directly to a particular space rather than understanding God’s presence as moveable and outside the walls of a permanent structure. This is not to say that permanent structure is inherently bad. After all, God states that David’s son Solomon will be responsible for completing it. But it does leave a lingering question in our mind as to how God’s identity and work will be understood and experienced in this new era for the Israelite people, and these questions of God’s identity and work continue to present themselves in our second lesson from Mark’s Gospel today.

The two short story fragments that we read seem relatively minor on their surface, and the story that they frame—the feeding of the 5,000—seems like a far richer text for our lectionary to dive into. I confess I was confused when I first saw the recommended verses for the day; it’s easy to understand them as mere transitions as Jesus moves from place to place in his teaching. But there was a striking parallel when read in conjunction with the 2 Samuel passage: God and Jesus are with the people wherever they go. In our first scene—coming on the heels of Jesus sending the disciples out and the story of the death of John the Baptist that Joyce preached on last Sunday—we see Jesus and the disciples overwhelmed by the crowds even as the disciples attempt to withdraw. This is still very early on in Mark’s recounting of Jesus’ ministry, but already Jesus’ fame has begun to spread, and impromptu and itinerant congregations were springing up wherever Jesus went. In the second scene, one taking place on the other side of the lake as Jesus continues his preaching, teaching, and healing, a similar thing happens: Jesus and the disciples are overwhelmed by those who seek him out during his travels.

Although Jerusalem had become the center of religious life in Israel, it feels notable that Jesus barely spends any of his time within the city. Far from being associated with a particular place, Jesus is instead known by what he does and what his disciples do—becoming known by his healing ministry and his teaching and preaching ministry throughout the surrounding area. It’s a ministry without walls and barriers—certainly in Jesus’ interactions with those who were otherwise considered unclean or unapproachable, but also in his desire to be present in the community—meeting people where they were and inviting them to be more.

We as a congregation have been incredibly blessed by the beauty of this sanctuary and also the beauty of the new Gratz Center, but we are always striving to be known as more than just being a beautiful, anachronistic building on the Magnificent Mile. We have been invested in the lives of our neighbors in Cabrini-Green and partners with churches across the globe. We have educated hundreds or perhaps even thousands of children, and we have sought to be a healing presence in troubled areas by advocating against violence, racism, and other issues that have plagued our city.

This building gives us an incredible opportunity to live out our mission and calling, but I believe that we as a church will increasingly become known by what we are doing to heal and teach outside of these walls as much as we are within them. We as a congregation draw from an incredibly large area on Sunday mornings—we have members who routinely travel in from Evanston, Naperville, and Homewood-Flossmoor—and the possibilities for ministry in Chicago and the Chicagoland community are seemingly endless.

So what will we be known for? How can we each live into our identity of being a crucial part of Fourth Church in our community, of taking the good news outside of our walls in the same way that Jesus and the disciples did? It’s a challenging question, but it’s one that is framed with the words of our psalm from today: “I will sing of your steadfast love forever, O Lord. Your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.”

God’s love and grace will be with us no matter where we are, and God is as present in the city outside of the sanctuary as within it. In both our stories this morning—the one about Nathan warning David of the trappings of a fixed location and the other about Jesus’ itinerant ministry through the Galilean countryside—we see clearly that our building is not our identity as a church family. It is the way in which we share God’s already present love and grace.

Making that love and grace manifest in this city is perhaps our greatest task as we move into this second century of our shared life together on Michigan Avenue, and I cannot wait for us to collectively discover what we as a church will become known for. The next time I’m asked where I work, I’m going to be careful to say something like, “It’s the church on Michigan Avenue with a strong history of working to make a positive impact in the city, with fifty years of tutoring and providing social services and a century of welcoming in folks from all across the city no matter their age, race, or social status.” That may not help someone place the church on a map, but perhaps they just might want to become a part of it. Amen.