A picture of Springfield church from the Simpsons cartoon with a wayside pulpit stating 'Thou Shalt Turn Off Thy Cell Phone'

CH..CH – Glad that UR in it

There are many ways to sort us all out according to our likes and dislikes – we could ask for a show of hands for people who like Strictly Come Dancing or the Great British Bake Off, we could find out how many of us regard autumn as our favourite season or maybe spring – but today I wonder if any of you share my secret love for corny messages found on the notice boards outside churches. I know the creators of the Simpsons cartoon are with me on this one – close observers of this cartoon over the years will have seen many strange notices outside the First Church of Springfield. The one I put on today’s order of service, announcing that free wifi is available during the sermon, was quite restrained and indeed it’s true here too – you can get free wifi here at Essex Church as well as in Springfield – and all the way through the service not just during the sermons. Just ask us for the password sometime.  Close your ears if you find yourself cringing at the efforts churches make to gain the attention of passers-by – but here are some of the notices I’ve enjoyed over the years: ‘Choose the bread of life or you are toast’; ‘there are some questions that cannot be answered by Google’; ‘Down in the mouth? Come in for a faith lift.’ But a favourite that a friend remembered seeing from a childhood bus journey reads ‘CH (gap) CH – means nothing until UR in it’. How satisfyingly corny is that?

When we ask the question ‘what’s a church?’ one answer for some of us is going to be – ‘a place I come to but at times feel a bit embarrassed about’. We live in a country where church going is no longer part of our prevailing culture. To belong to a church and to attend a church regularly is rare here in Britain – look around at one another, pat yourselves on the back – we are not normal, not one of us! It’s not normal to come to church, yet another way to define church is as an institution, part of the establishment. Sociologists consider all human societies to demonstrate five social institutions – family, economy, government, education and religion. These institutions govern societal norms, a society’s ways of doing things. From a sociologists’ point of view, all societies will have structures within which life’s big questions are asked and answered – be that churches or mosques or temples or shamanic systems of elders and soothsayers. These institutions often inter-connect with one another – and here in Britain we have a much studied interweaving of church and state, with 26 Church of England bishops sitting in the House of Lords for example.

We could also describe a church as an organization – a gathering of people for specific purposes. As such, a church can be formed anywhere – the early Christian communities for example had no defined buildings in which they met – but rather met in people’s homes or in public or hidden spaces. But if you ask young children what is a church they are much more likely to say that a church is a building – especially a church with a spire pointing upwards. I wonder if this is because of that childhood rhyme complete with finger movements. Can you remember the rhyme and its movements?

Here is the church

Here is the steeple

Open the doors

Here are the people.

I had to search on You Tube for a demonstration of this rhyme and found a funny excerpt from an old comedy show called The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, where the nursery teacher kept putting her fingers the wrong way so when she opened the doors, she’d find the church empty and shout ‘heck, where is everybody, the church is empty!’

It’s easy to slip into thinking that a church is a building or a national organization but in truth a church is made of people and without people a church will not exist. A better version of that rhyme might be

Here is a building

On top there’s a steeple

Open the doors

The church is the people

So if we accept that a church is made of people then it might help next to think of some of the ways that people relate with one another in life. This is going to be a list of things that a church is not – at least according to me.

A church is not a social club. People may find their social lives enhanced by being part of a church, people who meet in a church may end up doing sociable things together – but if that becomes the main purpose – for people to have a good time together – then you may start to find yourself dealing with problems that social groups have – in-crowds and those who feel excluded from them. A busy social calendar may easily mask what is surely a church’s key purpose – to help people deepen and strengthen their relationship with God, with spirit – and, most importantly, to reach out into a world filled with people yearning for healing and wholeness.

Churches are places of healing – of that I am convinced, but we are not hospitals or therapy centres. Our world is filled with people who are wounded – physically, emotionally, spiritually – because all of us are wounded in one way or another – and our doors must be open to those who are in pain – yet we must be realistic about the difference we can make and our focus cannot be solely upon our own problems. Church can remind us that we are tiny aspects of an immense universe – we are both highly significant and totally insignificant.

A church is not a dating agency, though I know couples who have met each other in church and lived happily ever after. A church is not a retail opportunity though here at Essex Church we will do our best to sell you a mug before you leave us on a Sunday morning. And for those of you listening from far afield to one of our podcasts – please don’t feel left out at this point as all our merchandise can be ordered online. Kensington Unitarians are renowned for good music but our services are not a concert, nor a lecture series, nor a one hour fix that allows us to live thoughtlessly for the rest of the week. I can’t remember who first made the point that going to church no more makes you a good human being than going to a garage makes you a car.

In next week’s service we are going to be considering church as offering a potentially radical alternative to our prevailing culture in British society but today I want to take a more psychological route and suggest that church is a place where all the usual stuff of our lives will bubble to the surface if we stick around long enough. Just like all the other places we get to interact with other people – in families and local neighbourhoods, in schools and places of work, in friendships and groups – in any gathering of people we get to explore what it means to be human. The Unitarian Universalist theologian James Luther Adams wrote that “church is a place where you get to practice what it means to be human.”

Here in this community, in this gathering of people that constitutes our church of Kensington Unitarians, if you stick around long enough you’ll get to experience much of what makes up human existence. Emotions will go all over the place, just like emotions always do. We’ll have to exercise our self-control at times, we’ll need to put other people before ourselves from time to time, our long held and much cherished truths will get challenged when we reveal them to others. Our toes will be trodden on from time to time and we will feel let down, disappointed, bored and annoyed. ‘This place is sanctuary’ we heard at the start of today’s service – we work hard to make this a safe space – but a safe space, a sanctuary for everyone. And if we listen to other people carefully we’ll perhaps start to understand their realities and sense the precious nature of their hopes and dreams along with their vulnerabilities, their doubts and fears. These are the potential blessings of community – an opportunity for deep sharing, one with another.

We might consider each other as a great resource to be explored and used for the good of all. Just as we share our church building with many other groups so we can share ourselves generously with one another; part of a liberal religious tradition that can hopefully empower us, strengthened by our pride in those who have gone before us – yet not weighed down unnecessarily by traditions no longer relevant in the 21st century.

Here we are – a gathering of people exploring what it means to be human – and I would encourage us all to join in – to participate in this strange thing called church – where we come to celebrate both the beauty and the absurdity of our world – – I really am glad that UR in it.

Rev. Sarah Tinker

Sermon – 12th October 2014