Texts:
1 Corinthians 3:5–9, Psalm 78:1–7, and John 1:19–34
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father
and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
I should probably begin this morning
with a confession.
I almost never preach the same sermon twice.
Even when the Bible readings come around again,
the world has changed,
the congregation has changed,
and I have changed.
So I ordinarily begin again.
But on my first Sunday
with a new congregation,
I make an exception.
And I should assure you—
it is not because I have already run out of things to say.
Many years ago,
near the beginning of my ministry,
my father-in-law told me about a sermon
he would preach whenever he began serving
a new congregation.
Over the years,
I borrowed it,
adapted it,
added to it,
and made it my own.
I keep returning to it
because it contains some wisdom
about how a pastor and a congregation
begin learning to live together.
And now, as we begin this season of ministry
at Bethel and Immanuel,
I want to share it with you.
The sermon has three words in its title:
Pining,
paranormal,
and planters.
And before we finish,
I will add a fourth.
The first word is pining.
Every congregation
has some pining for the past.
Every congregation.
There is usually some memory
of a time when the Sunday school was full,
the choir was larger,
the youth group filled the church basement,
or everybody knew everybody else.
There are pastors people still remember,
traditions that meant something,
and beloved people
who once sat in familiar places.
In the congregation my father-in-law served,
there had once been an orphanage
just outside of town.
Every Sunday,
the orphanage brought about sixty children
to worship.
Can you imagine what sixty children
would add to the life of a congregation?
The voices.
The movement.
The energy.
The noise.
The occasional minor catastrophe
during the children’s sermon.
By the time my father-in-law arrived,
the orphanage had closed.
But people remembered.
They remembered what the church had felt like
when those sixty children came through the doors.
And they grieved that it wasn’t like that anymore.
There is nothing wrong with that grief.
Our psalm this morning tells us
to remember the stories we have received
from those who came before us.
“We will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord.”
The past matters.
The people who built and sustained
Bethel and Immanuel matter.
The worship, service, friendships,
celebrations, and sorrows
that have shaped these congregations matter.
I want to hear those stories.
I want to learn what you treasure
and what you miss.
But there is a difference
between remembering the past faithfully
and expecting the past to return.
My father-in-law could not reopen the orphanage.
He could not travel through the countryside
and round up another sixty children
to make the congregation feel
the way it once had.
And I cannot make Bethel or Immanuel
exactly what either congregation was
in some earlier decade.
Neither can you.
But together,
we can remember.
Together,
we can give thanks.
And together,
we can ask a forward-looking question:
What might God be doing among us now?
The psalm does not tell us
to hand down our stories
so that the next generation
can reproduce the past.
It says we tell the stories
so that the next generation
might set its hope in God.
Not its hope in a particular pastor.
Not its hope in a particular program.
Not even its hope in the way
things used to be.
Its hope in God.
The second word is paranormal.
I admit that “paranormal” may not be
the perfect word.
But I needed another P.
By paranormal, I mean ghosts.
And every congregation has its ghosts.
I don’t mean that I expect
to hear mysterious footsteps in the hallway
when I am here alone.
At least I hope not.
I mean the people and events
that are no longer physically present
but still have an influence
on the congregation today.
Years ago,
when I was serving a congregation
in Strawberry Point, Iowa,
there were two such ghosts.
If we were in that church,
I could point to where one family sat
and then point across the sanctuary
to where another family sat.
I could always sense tension
between those two families
and among some of their friends.
But I could never quite understand why.
It wasn’t until the final month
of my five years there
that someone finally told me the story.
Two people who were no longer there
had experienced a serious conflict.
The conflict had happened years earlier,
but its effects were still sitting
on opposite sides of the sanctuary.
Once I knew the story,
so many things made sense.
I would have been better equipped
to serve that congregation
if someone had helped me understand it sooner.
I don’t need to know
every disagreement that has ever happened here.
We do not need to conduct
a complete archaeological excavation
of congregational history.
But I will need your help.
If there are people, events,
joys, wounds, or traditions from the past
that still shape our life today,
help me understand them.
And this goes both ways.
I bring memories and habits
from the congregations I have served.
I bring ideas about what has worked before.
I will need to remember
that Bethel is Bethel,
Immanuel is Immanuel,
and neither is simply another version
of some congregation I served in the past.
You will need to teach me who you are.
And I will need to listen.
The third word is planters.
When my father-in-law first came
to the congregation in Andover,
he noticed a planter
beneath the church sign.
He had been a gardener all his life,
and as spring arrived,
he noticed that no one seemed
to be tending the planter.
So one Saturday,
with the very best of intentions,
he bought some flowers,
prepared the soil,
and filled the planter.
Then he arrived for worship
the next morning
and discovered that one particular woman
in the congregation
had always taken responsibility
for that planter.
She had a particular day each spring
when she filled it.
That day simply hadn’t arrived yet.
With the best of intentions,
the new pastor had already planted flowers
in somebody else’s planter.
There will probably be moments like that
in our life together.
I will mean well
and still get something wrong.
I will overlook something
that everyone else assumes I know.
I may plant flowers
in the wrong planter.
Hopefully not literally—
although it is too early
to rule that out completely.
Whenever people begin learning
how to serve together,
there is some stepping on toes.
There are misunderstandings.
There are moments when someone says,
“That isn’t how we do it here.”
In those moments,
we will need grace.
We will need to speak directly,
listen generously,
and assume that the other person
probably meant well.
And Paul gives us an even deeper reason
for humility.
When the Christians in Corinth
began attaching themselves
to their favorite leaders,
Paul asked:
“What then is Apollos?
What is Paul?”
His answer was simple:
Servants.
“I planted,
Apollos watered,
but God gave the growth.”
Some people planted the seeds
that became Bethel and Immanuel.
Others watered them.
Many faithful people
have tended this ministry
across the years.
I have now been given
a part to play.
So have you.
But God gives the growth.
I am not arriving
with a secret program in my briefcase
that will save the church.
That would have to be
a very large briefcase.
The church has never existed
because it had enough money,
enough members,
enough programs,
or the perfect pastor.
The church exists
because Christ is alive.
And that brings me
to the fourth P-word.
Pointing.
When the religious leaders asked John
who he was,
John began with a remarkably important confession:
“I am not the Messiah.”
That may be one of the best things
a pastor can say.
I am not the Messiah.
Your previous pastors were not the Messiah.
Your next pastor will not be the Messiah.
Bethel is not the Messiah.
Immanuel is not the Messiah.
None of us has been asked
to save the church.
That work belongs to Jesus.
John understood that his calling
was to point beyond himself.
When Jesus came toward him,
John declared:
“Here is the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.”
That is my deepest calling as your pastor:
to point to Jesus.
It is also your calling:
to point to Jesus.
And here is the good news:
Jesus is not waiting for us
somewhere in the distant future.
Jesus is already here.
He was present among you
before I arrived.
He has been present
in the water of baptism,
in bread and wine,
in words of forgiveness,
in prayers offered beside hospital beds,
in meals brought to grieving families,
and in generations of people
who have loved and served their neighbors.
Jesus is here
when our memories become gratitude.
Jesus is here
when old wounds receive grace.
Jesus is here
when we forgive one another
for planting in the wrong planter.
Jesus is here
when we stop asking who deserves the credit
and remember that God gives the growth.
There are people around us
who need to hear
that they are loved,
claimed,
forgiven,
and given new life in Christ.
We have been placed here
to point them toward that promise.
So, as we begin:
I want to hear your stories.
I want to learn who you are.
I ask for your grace
when I misunderstand or make mistakes.
And I promise to keep pointing
beyond myself
to Jesus.
Pining.
Paranormal.
Planters.
And pointing.
In a few moments,
the one to whom John pointed
will come among us again—
in bread and wine,
in mercy and promise.
Whenever that happens,
it is a holy moment indeed.
This is a holy moment.
And thanks be to God,
it is only the beginning.
Amen.
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