2023.08.27 | Building on the Rock
“Building on the Rock”
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Senior Minister & Executive Director
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
August 27, 2023
Matthew/Mateo 16:13-20
Today’s gospel reading invites readers to explore two questions: who do we say that Jesus is, and what exactly is the Church? Jesus prompts the disciples to answer both.
Jesus and his first followers have wandered to the northeastern edge of their homeland, to Caesarea Philippi, an Ancient Roman city situated about 25 miles north of Capernaum, near the modern borders of Israel and Syria.
The city was primarily inhabited by Gentiles. The residents were dedicated to the Roman Emperor Caesar, as the city’s title suggests, and although there is archeological evidence that a synagogue existed there, the residents of Caesarea Philippi, were mostly Greeks who worshiped Pan, the Greek god of nature.
In borderlands like these, tradition and reputation do not necessarily follow a person, and the beliefs and practices of other peoples and places blend and bleed. So it is not surprising that Jesus was not particularly well known or that he and his followers might lose their sense of self and their cohesion as a community.
For a reality check, Jesus asked more than a rhetorical question: “Who do you say that I am?” And, he asked it of the people who should have known the answer and been able to answer it the quickest. Yet, the first person to speak was hesitant to make a firm claim. Instead of offering a direct answer, this unnamed follower said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (v. 14)
Yes, but Jesus asked, “...who do you say that I am?” (v. 15)
Only one person, Simon Peter, was clear and brave enough to step up and say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (v. 16)
Bless your heart, Jesus says, I will build my church on, you, Peter, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys to the kingdom (vs. 17-20).
II
So Jesus, according to Peter (and Matthew), is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. But what exactly is the Church, and what is it built on?
Some define the Church as the followers of Jesus.
Some think that the Church is a building like the one we’re sitting in today.
Some understand Church to be a moving spiritual experience as in, “We sure did have some Church today.”
Others view our food pantry as the Church, because for them Church is a verb, and sharing food, diapers, and other essential products is what Jesus would do.
Some others consider the Church to be the one triumphant and eternal institution that was born on Pentecost, and that has survived two millennia and will endure until the end of time.
And, still others define Church in a much narrower sense, as in their particular faith group that believes and/or behaves in a particular way. You know--the one, true Church way.
With all of these many and varied answers, who’s right and who’s wrong.
Answer: no one and everyone. They are all partly wrong and partly right, because no one picks up on the fact that what makes a church the Church isn’t a people, a building, a feeling, a verb, an institution, or conformity to a doctrine and/or set of behaviors. It’s all of these--plus faith.
III
For many people Church is a building--a pile of bricks. Some of the great edifices of the Northern Hemispheres come to mind: the Sistine Chapel, Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame de Paris, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, or simply my family’s place of worship.
The importance of physical worship spaces has been downgraded over the course of my lifetime, as questions have rightly been raised about what is the best use of Church resources: the upkeep of great cathedrals and their accouterments, the provision of basic necessities for the poor, or a balance of the two.
As a result of such theological ruminations, groups such as the Church of Our Savior in Washington, DC gave up its original meeting place, divided into smaller groups, and continued to mutate into multiple missional groups in sizes 2-15 over the last several decades. Each group now meets in a member’s home, or in other small venues around our nation’s capital. Participants commit to personal prayer and devotion, and a unique mission.
Knowing that some agree that the Church isn’t a pile of bricks, I will complicate your thinking. Imagine telling one or more of the following congregations that a physical go-to-meeting place doesn’t matter or make a Church:
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that was blown up by white supremacists on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, and five children were killed.
The First Congregational Church UCC in Barneveld, Wisconsin that was wiped off the map by an F5 tornado on June 8, 1984.
The Waiola Church in Lahaina, which some in the UCC refer to as “the Mother Church” on Maui that burned to the ground on August 15, 2023 in the wild fires.
Mention of each and all of these Churches is a reminder that place matters. But that is not all; because if place was all that mattered, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, First Congregational Church UCC in Barneveld, and the Waiola Church in Lahaina would have been wiped out by the bombing, the tornado, and the fire--but they were not. Why? Because they had people. And the people gathered. And they refused to be done in by physical losses. They rebuilt and moved on.
IV
Some of us have learned that the Church is a people by singing the lyrics of a children’s song when we attended Church School: “The Church is not a building, the Church is not a resting place, the Church is a people.” So we have come to believe that before a Church building exists or after it is demolished by a so-called “act of God,” it can exist, be built, and be rebuilt.
Some of us grew up with this finger play about the Church that goes like this: Here is the church, here is the steeple, open up the doors, and see all the people. So some of us know that a Church can be both a building and a people.
Yet God knows, there are Churches galore in the world--including Churches filled with people--but not every Church that calls itself a “Church” is a Church. Because not every Church is doing or saying what Jesus said or did. For some, the Church has become a hiding place from reality, a country club with member benefits, or a private fraternity with bouncers at the door.
Some Churches have property. Others have given it up. Some have people. Some not so much.
Take for example, the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which was featured in the August 19, 2023 issue of the NYT column, “Race Related.” Mother Zion is located at 140–148 West 137th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of NYC, and is the oldest Black church in New York State.
It is also one of the oldest African American churches to be built by a licensed architect of African American descent. The Church was part of the Underground Railroad, and counted among its members Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass.
The congregation and its houses of worship have moved or been moved several times as a result of growth, eminent domain (like Russell City), and changing neighborhood demographics. The current senior pastor, the Rev. Malcolm J. Byrd, has served the church since 2019, and has been preaching since he was age 14.
He believes, “Black people need more than a Sunday morning to sustain themselves. The church has to be a multifaceted place for them…”
Since joining the church in 2019, the NYT reported that Mr. Byrd has instituted several social programs, including health workshops. He’s developing a G.E.D. program and is exploring more creative ideas, like adding a coffee shop in the Church.
Maybe these growth strategies will work. Maybe they won’t. For Black churches to survive in Harlem, there will need to be more than gimmicks in place. There will have to be Black people living in Harlem.
Membership and worship attendance, you may have noticed, isn’t going any better in most historically white churches either, but for reasons other than gentrification. As a consequence, one can’t help but wonder what will become of our UCC Churches. Within the NCNC UCC, for example, we learned at Annual Gathering in June that our Conference lost 20 churches during the pandemic.
The secularization of America, much like Northern Europe, and in the Bay Area the high cost of living makes living in the Bay Area increasingly difficult for people who are raising young children. There has been an outmigration from the City of Hayward which grew more rapidly during the pandemic, such that class sizes have been shrinking in recent years. There are now 5K fewer children enrolled in the HUSD than when Stephanie and I moved to the Bay Area 21 years ago.
Fewer children in the school district doesn’t just lead to lower class sizes and necesítate school closures, those shifts affect our church school rosters as well. And, here’s the elephant in the living room: not everyone who lives in the Bay Area is Christian, or is even curious about Christianity--especially one that hails from the descendents of Northern Europeans--whose demographic groups are dwindling in this area.
Given these differences, you may not be surprised to learn that a clergy colleague of mine who is affiliated with the Episcopal church ventured recently that many Churches in the Bay Area have more potential for becoming affordable housing developments than houses of worship.
Two colleagues of mine in the Bay Area, Pastor Jake, who left First Pres Hayward a couple of years ago to found an affordable housing organization to do just that.
The Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon, who retired about the same time as Pastor Jake left First Pres, from the San Mateo Congregational Church UCC, works closely with Pastor Jake and other faith leaders to develop more affordable housing in the Bay Area. She’s spending her retirement identifying religious properties in our area that may be salvageable for affordable housing purposes; because she, like l, knows that some Churches are too far gone to save for congregational renewal–but they could still serve the mission of God by becoming housing for individuals and families who are living in the streets, in their cars, or in our local parks.
V
To be sure, the Church—however we understand it—is in the midst of great change. One historian has argued that Western Christianity hasn’t seen the kind of epic change that we are in the midst of now, since the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th Century.
How things turn out is yet to be determined. The Church may survive without buildings. It may survive migration processes. But it will not survive without a strong sense of mission, and members who are anchored in the faith, and acting out of a deep sense of calling—and that, friends, is why Jesus said, “on this rock I will build my Church.” And, he wasn’t talking about a pile of bricks, or bedrock. He was talking about faith!
The cornerstone of the Church always has and always will be the faith of Christ’s followers. Amen.