Sermon Title: "Why Go to Church? 3- Reaching Out"
Date: October 10, 2010
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Last month I began my fall sermon series on why we go to church.  The first reason was community.  The second reason was real people.  Today’s is reaching out.

Twenty years ago, I deduced that most of what we do here at this church falls into three broad—and sometimes overlapping—categories.  They are 1) worship, 2) education, and 3) mission.  We come here to worship God.  We expect some sort of Christian education, be it through the scripture lesson and sermon, Sunday School or Bible studies.  And then we are compelled to go beyond ourselves; to reach out in some sort of mission activity where we interact with or touch the lives of others through our charitable acts.

That is what a church, a congregation, is to do.  We are sent beyond the comfort of this place to reach out to the poor, the needy, the destitute, the ignored, the forgotten outside these walls, those who may not have had all the opportunities we’ve had.

I’ve calculated that of all our church’s mission outreach projects, two-thirds of them are held in the fall.  In recent years, they’ve started in July, when we collect toiletries for the families who come to C.A.R.E. Food Pantry.  They continue in October with last Sunday’s Neighbors in Need offering and Third World Hand Arts sale, an opportunity to help low-income artisans in the Third World to have a venue for selling their handiwork and make a living.  Later this month is the CROP Hunger Walk; 25% of its proceeds aid Long Beach hunger programs.  November brings the Alternative Christmas Market to aid Heifer Project, Church World Service and Habitat for Humanity.  Following that is our annual Thanksgiving Sunday food drive to benefit the clients of Woman to Woman and Centro Shalom.  In December we have the blessing of the blankets that have been handcrafted throughout the year, and our annual Christmas Families project to provide a great Christmas for a dozen Long Beach families.  Throughout all those months and all around the year, we continue to prepare and serve monthly meals at Christian Outreach in Action, donate women’s, men’s and children’s clothing to Woman to Woman and COA, and send monthly gifts of grocery scrip to COA, Centro Shalom, C.A.R.E. and Long Beach Rescue Mission.

One of the agencies I mentioned in passing was Habitat for Humanity, which we help through our Alternative Christmas Market and an annual donation by Bay Shore Friends.  However, as some of you know, there are other ways to help Habitat.  I’ve invited Chris Untiet, an AmeriCorps Volunteer in Service to America, our local Habitat affiliate’s Faith and Community Relations Coordinator, to share some updates on Habitat locally, and how you might choose to reach out to others.                       [Chris speaks, then sermon continues.]

Today’s letter from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah was delivered to the Jewish people in a difficult time in their lives, just as many Habitat families face difficult times.  The Jewish people were exiled in Babylon, a captivity that would stretch to seventy years.  Why did these people of the Southern Kingdom, Judah, survive their time of exile in Babylon, and eventually return to their homeland?  Of course, we can say it was the hand and will of God, but in human terms, we must also credit the prophet Jeremiah and his powerful words of inspiration and hope.  “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; … multiply there and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  (29:5-7)

We learn, for example, that their conditions in Babylon were not so bad.  Instead of being sold off into slavery, they were allowed to keep their families, their communities, their public gatherings and their worship services.  In other words, they could still be who they were, still experience themselves as a community, although they had to be creative and flexible without their temple, so “portable religious activities and public and private prayer became more important.”  (Gene Tucker)

We, who slept in comfortable beds last night in a house, apartment or condo sufficient for our needs, cannot easily relate to a lack of shelter.  When I hear of the conditions in which some of the Habitat families live—dozens of whom apply for just three homes currently being built here in Long Beach—one bedroom apartments for a family of six, converted garages with no water or sanitation, surely all of them deserve to have the opportunity to earn their own home, to pay their way, to be productive and well-cared for residents of our city.

If Jeremiah, some 2,600 hundred years ago, could urge the faithful to build houses, to seek the welfare of the city, then we in our day and age and city have an opportunity to assist in building houses, not for ourselves, but for those people who deserve to have a safe, secure, comfortable dwelling in which to raise their families, send them off to school, and make a worthwhile contribution to the future society.

Why go to church?  A very good reason is to learn of opportunities to reach out to others in Christ’s name.