Marks of Vitality: Seeing the More

Intro

Good morning. Each week, we affirm that God has called us together as one body to worship, to fellowship, and to proclaim the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do this through the way we extend Loving Welcome to all who enter, in the handshakes and hugs, the friendly faces and conversations about life. We do this through our Joyful Practice, through prayer and song, through reflection upon God’s word and extending the reconciling word of Peace. We do this work of being the gathered body of Christ even as we go out, into the world offering Compassionate Service to all who we call neighbor, to the least of these, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the struggling. We proclaim God’s kingdom come when we do these things.

And sometimes, we take for granted what God is up to around us, don’t we? I know that after coming to church pretty much every week of my life for 37 years, some of it becomes rote repetition. Not because I’ve lost faith, but because I’ve come to expect certain things when we gather and so they sparkle a little less sometimes.

As we journey together, how do we pay attention to the mighty work that God is doing among us, here? How do we not turn off our sense of wonder and awe? How do we, like the disciples who we will hear about in our second scripture reading in just a moment, find ourselves surprised at the transfigured, changed, revealed Christ, who is showing us more than we could every ask for or imagine — how do we see the more and celebrate the wonder of God’s presence among us all the more deeply and wholly?

Vitality

And how do we see the more in the face of all that seems to be crumbling around us? You don’t have to search far to find the news reporting on the declining church in America and the erosion of the values of the Kingdom of God that can be salt and light in the world, but increasingly aren’t.

For a number of years, the church has looked for metrics, measurable stats, concepts that would help measure its health. We’ve looked at how many people show up on Sundays. We’ve examined growth and response in financial giving. How many new members joined your congregation this year, how many baptisms did you have, how many weddings and funerals?

While these statistics are interesting, they don’t always speak well to the overall health of a church.

Things that do though, often, are more subtle, more personal. Do we care about each other’s needs in our church? Do we make sure everyone has a place to grow in their faith? Do we practice the faith in a way that invites people to encounter the Spirit’s presence? These are harder questions to answer, but speak to depth and strength in our gathered body.

Practice-faith

In graduate school, I spent a good part of a 2 years researching and writing on the topic of spiritual formation, specifically asking how the practices our faith shape us unto the way of God. The overwhelming take away from this study was that when we pray, fast, live the Sabbath, read the Scriptures, serve the poor, and live our lives in tune with the changing seasons of God’s world, we are changed and oriented unto God’s way. We start to see the more!

This week, we are launching into a two-year process that the Presbyterian Church calls the Vital Congregations Initiative. We are among 16 churches in the Northwest Coast Presbytery participating in this work, work that will encourage us to ask the question: how vital, vibrant, alive, awake is our life together?

We’ll celebrate the great things God is already doing in us. We’ll experiment with new possibilities for how to grow in our awareness of God’s calling for our community. We’ll seek to acknowledge the places where we need help to strengthen and deepen our commitment to this calling.

Peter, James, and John, the three disciples who Jesus invited into his most intimate circle of trust, were overcome by the awe and wonder of Jesus revealed in his glory alongside the paragons of the Jewish faith, Moses and Elijah. This revealing woke them up to the more. As you hear this text read, consider how we might be invited to go beyond what is rote and expected to a greater depth of health, vitality, and action together. What must be transfigured among us, what must be revealed, for us to filled anew with this awe and wonder ourselves?

The New Revised Standard Version The Transfiguration

17 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Seeing the More

The high mountain was a place of expectation for God to reveal Godself. The hearers of this word and the disciples who experienced it themselves would have thought of Moses on Mount Sinai, receiving the Law from God as the Israelites passed through the wilderness. They would have been reminded of Elijah on Mount Herob, hearing God’s still, small voice, delivering him and calling him as the prophet to the people of God. And this mountain experience is the final in the Trinity of God’s revealing action, this time with God’s own beloved, the Christ, revealed for who he truly is to these trusted disciples.

Listen to Moses, from whom the Law is taught. Listen to Elijah, from whom prophetic truth is spoken. And listen to Jesus, who says do not be afraid, the one who will undo the power of death itself.

As I said before, it can be so easy as time goes on to lose sight of the “more” going on around us. Day after day, we pray, we show up, we do our part, but to what end?

I’ll speak for myself — I need to be reminded to the wonder of God frequently. I need to be shaken awake. I need practices that will spark the awe.

Like the diamond that I showed our children earlier, I need to see the light of Christ refracted through it in a new way. I need to turn the prism to see something new, wondrous, hope-filled.

This is what we are being invited to in this process of examining our congregation’s vitality. It’s not necessarily to find a new way, but it may very well be a helpful reminder of what God is already doing in us, an opportunity to be strengthened.

The initiative will walk us through 7 Marks of Vital Congregations. These are studied and tested ways that we move beyond simple numerical metrics to ask questions about our well-rounded health. For the season of Lent, I will be preaching each week on one mark, giving us a change to explore each mark and how it impacts our life together.

Today, as we launch out into this initiative, you are invited to start participating already. In the narthex, you’ll notice a big color display that shows each of the 7 marks with beautifully colored prints that illustrate their meaning. We have coloring books printed that give descriptions of each mark and allow you a chance to color and reflect on each mark and consider it for yourself and for our church.

We will also be hosting a weekly Bible Study on Wednesday evenings, soup and study, where we’ll study the Scriptures associated with each of these marks. I hope you’ll join in with that.

Finally, we have printed up a Daily Prayer card that walks us through a Seven-Day Cycle of Prayer based on the Marks of Vital Congregations. You can grab one of these as you leave. I would encourage you to make this a part of your Lenten devotional practice this year. Put the card on your refrigerator or set it by your favorite chair, where you read each day. Maybe as you drink your morning coffee or tea, you can use this as a prayer practice, asking that God would open you up to seeing the more as it is at work among us here, through each of these vital marks.

Entering Lent

This week, we enter into the season of Lent, the 40 days of preparation leading up to Holy Week, the observance of Good Friday, and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday on Easter. As we enter this season of repentance, fasting, prayer, and self-examination, we also enter the season of “vitality” where we can begin to examine our collective call to repentance and change. We are invited to do all of this work together, through our Bible studies on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, through our gathered worship here each week, through the intentional prayer and examination of the marks of vitality that guide our church into greater health and flourishing for the Glory fo God.

The Lenten journey is not easy, but it is good. It means we have to let go, take up a different kind of burden…one that will form us more completely into a people awake and aware of the wonders of God all around us.

This morning, I will close with the 4 verses from that precede our Transfiguration text today.

The New Revised Standard Version The Cross and Self-Denial

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

27 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”