Aspen Hill Christian Church

Dr. Robert Chance

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”

The first words of the English novelist Julian Barnes’s memoir, Nothing to Be Frightened Of, should haunt every Christian who had found new life in Christ and who finds meaning and place, substance and strength in the church.

Barnes is an atheist. But his work isn’t some overblown criticism or sophomoric rejection of of religion or God, nor is it the usual indictment of the place of religion in the world. It is more of a lament. It is a cry that is sad more so than it is defiant.
Barnes notes the personal transistion in his own life. In his 20’s he described himself as an atheist. But, in his 50’s and 60’s he now calls himself an agnostic. The reason he says, is that he is now more aware of his own ignorance and more mindful of his own dying.

He observes, “God might be dead, but Death is well alive.” He introduces us to his grandparents and parents and to their manner of living as their manner of dying. He writes that “however much you escape your parents in life, they are likely to reclaim you in death,” which rings true in my own experience. My dad’s birthday was this last Monday, the 12th and I found myself thinking of him, maybe more than I did on some of his birthdays while he was yet alive. It troubled me and left me with a cold feeling as well as it warmed me. I kept remembering meeting with an 8o something year old woman who was talking to me about her father issues. My God, I silently wondered, as I sought to help her with her struggles rather than be blown apart by the fear of still thinking so much about my own parents. I wondered if we ever stop working through and with our parents and I realized the answer was, “sure we do – on the day we ourselves die”.

Barnes makes three points in his book.

1. First, he does not believe that our lives have a narrative form. In his view when we die we die: end of story. We are, he believes, simply a mass of cells that will disintegrate into nothingness.

2. Second, he laments the loss of a religious culture that once seemed animated by a larger story of God’s creation, redemption and promised consummation of the world. He finds himself being drawn to great religious art and missing a sense of purpose and belief.

3. Third, Barnes looks for intellectural coherence in narratives that seem disconnected from the religious dispositions toward life. He walks into churches occasionally to get a sense of “what Englishness once was,” but for him the practice of Christianity is a relic of the past.

I. Is Barnes really a metaphor for my neighbors, my friends, my fellow soldiers, even some of my colleague in the ministry who no longer believe in God or find meaning in the church? He is just one of many who are hungry and thirsty and for whom I have not shared the bread of life with?

For me, as man of faith, as a man who once was a boy desperately looking for something more in life and having found it in Christian life through the church Barnes plight seems like a call to duty, a friend to be made, a word to share.

For me, as a pastor who has had to beg people all my adult life to share what they claim is the most meaningful and deeply significant aspect of their life – their very faith in God a sad and disquieting reminder of how badly we fail.

Have we so kept the good news to ourselves that people like Barnes haven’t heard or don’t know the joy and heart, the life and the meaning that believing in Christ and being a part of Christian community brings?

Do we stand so tall and stout in our silence and our failure to reach out and tell others – just like Barnes that our silence is deafening?

Do we hoard the greatest treasure we could ever share, as if opening the chest and letting others some of the rewards that life in God bring would somehow impoverish us?

Are we so bound up in our own lives and little worlds in the church that people like Barnes – and there are dozens, hundreds, thousands, countless just like him deep faith in God as a relic of the past?

These are the questions we need to ask of ourselves and of each other.

These are the challenges we need to take seriously.

There are the invitations we need to pick up and act in response to.

More than a dozen years ago Robert Jenson wrote an essay titled “How the World Lost Its Story”, in which he described modernity as a process living off the heritage of the Christian narrative without having the resources need to renew that narrative.
In short, my good friends, are we in the church guilty of keeping the good news to ourselves?

Are we in the Christian community all too happy to have it be a “gated community”?

Are we the “silent generation” when it comes to telling others about the new life we have found in Christ?

Are our friends hungry for something more and we guilty of keeping the greatest something more life could offer to ourselves? The answer should not come glibly and it should haunt every one of us.

II. The Biblical narrative tells a different story than the one I have just postulated.

In the Gospel of John we find the story of how quickly the story of Jesus spread among brothers and men of faith in Jesus’ time.

In the Gospels we find time after time, example after example, story after story of one person experiencing the love of Christ firsthand and quickly, bravely, against all odds, at all cost running to tell the people they knew and loved the most in their own lives.

John the Baptist is seen preaching and baptizing when he saw Jesus and proclaimed “look, the lamb of God”.

• Two disciples saw Jesus and followed him home.
• 1 of the 2 – Andrew went and told his brother, Peter the very next day. They were both fisherman and the excitement Andrew felt was electrifying.
• Jesus back to Galilee where he called another follower, a man named Phillip.
• Phillip hurried home to tell his brother Nathaniel.
• Nathaniel was not impressed but with went his brother to meet Jesus. Nathaniel said “can any good come out of Nazareth. Jesus was impressed with Nathaniel’s honesty and replied directly and honestly to him. Nathaniel wondered how Jesus even knew him and Jesus replies that he saw him under a fig tree before his brother even called to him.

The whole story is one person telling another and another telling another of this amazing life changing man called Jesus.

The whole story is a snowball of men telling other men about the most remarkable encounter in their lives tumbling down the mountainside.

The narrative of just how deeply people’s lives were touched by the Master and how once touched they couldn’t wait to go and tell and share their joy in Christ stands in stark and sad contrast to the way present day disciples keep the story to themselves, close the gate to the garden and bolt shut the experience of their hearts.

It’s as if we hesitate to spread the gospel because in so doing we might be spreading some virus that would infect people’s lives.

Humm… right we are! When we share the good news of Christ with our friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters we do indeed spread something that will never leave them the same.

III. My mission / your mission / our mission as people whose lives have been touched the Lord and who want others to know what we know, experience what we have experienced and share what we have known is to share the joy of just how much a genuine encounter with the Lord can change our lives and leave us new people, better people, people of a growing and infectious faith.

There is no way the Christian faith can be a relic of the past unless we leave it bottled up in the museum of the church.

There is no way we can keep the joy of Christ to ourselves unless we haven’t really encountered him for ourselves.

There is no way we can put a guard on the gate and not invite others into this wonderful community that is the most radical, life altering, amazing lifestyle community in the universe.

Because we have known the joy of the living God for ourselves we are compelled to a robust Christian experience of experiencing, sharing and experiencing, knowing and telling ever known to man.

How can we who have had our lives changed not share that gift of life with others?

A Christian life centered around vibrant worship, exciting outreach of activity, wonderful fellowship of Christian community simply shouldn’t be and can’t be not told, not shared not given to others.

The story of God’s creation, redemption and blessing of the whole of our life simply has to be shared.

You cannot feast at the table and not share the bread of life with a hungry world. No way; can’t be done.
You cannot drink of the cup of life and not wish to pass that cup on to the next person.

You cannot meet the Lord and not bring others to see him for themselves.

Phillip said to his brother Nathaniel, “come and see” and Nathaniel went and saw and came away a changed man. He was a changed man for the rest of his days and for that matter forever.

Every Sunday is meant to be a little Easter.

Every worship service is a fresh encounter with the living God.

Every church gathering is meant to be a call back to the table of life.

Every class a new opportunity to know the Lord better and to learn more and more about how he impacts our lives.

No doubt atheists will still remain, even after we all share this great news of life giving encounter with Jesus of Nazareth but they wouldn’t miss God as some relic of the past; they wouldn’t find God achingly absent in the hearts of those of us who have met Him and know Him.

• There would be communities and stories and practices for them to know.
• Their would calls to new life for them to experience.
• There would be the bread of life on their plates.

Closing…

We all have friends who are hungry for something more than the world has to offer.

We all have neighbors who long for the good news.

We all work with people who are looking for genuine community as the something more than the superficial and often cheap “Facebook community”.

We know someone to believe in.

We know the good news that will truly change who are, what we believe in and where we are going.
We have community that is beautiful.
We have an incredible story to share.

God is so much more than just an interesting concept.

The church is so much more significant than as a relic of the past.

Your mission is to go and share the one you have encountered who is the bread of life.

Your friends are hungering for something more than the fast food, empty calorie, white bread that the world makes available.

IF you’ve genuinely experienced the Bread of Life, the Cup of Deliverance What’s keeping you from telling others and bringing to see and to taste for themselves?

“The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip he said to him, ‘Follow Me’. Philip, like Andrew and Peter was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told, “We hae found the one Moses about in the Law, and whom the prophets also wrote –Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” John 1:43-45