Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

First Peter 3:8-16

January 21, 2007

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called - that you might inherit a blessing. For "Those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit; let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.

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In the winter of 1986, while I was still in seminary, I attended a week-long workshop on Ministry in the Small Church, which was led by the Rev. David Ray. I had recently become the student pastor of two small churches, and I wanted to know everything I could about how best to serve them. At the time, David was leading a small church of his own, in Shrewsbury, Vermont. That was where he held the workshop. David is one of those rare people who felt specially called to small church ministry. By the time I met him he had already served a couple of them, had written a book about it, and had become something of a small church guru. As it happens, he is now serving the small Congregational Church of Bristol, Maine - practically right next door - as well as being the Associate Minister for Small Church Development for the Maine Conference. He's also a part of my minister's group and a good friend.

While I was at David's workshop I had an interesting experience that ended up being very influential for me. We had spent the whole week talking about the challenges and dynamics of small churches, worship in the small church, small church administration, small church programs, on and on. The week ended with Sunday morning worship in David's church, where we all got a chance to share some of what we had been learning with his congregation. Then, right after the service as I got up to leave, two older members of the congregation walked by me. I overheard one say to the other, "Small Church, Small Church, I've had about all I can stand of Small Church!"

It's no reflection on David. I greatly enjoyed his course and found it very useful. But of all the lessons I learned that week, this one overheard comment made the most lasting impression. I left Shrewsbury feeling very clear that it was not a good idea to become too wrapped up in any one message or agenda, and ever since then, I've worked hard to make variety the spice of my message. What I'd like to share with you this morning, is that it is sometimes possible to learn a lesson too well. Variety, simply for the sake of variety, probably shouldn't be my one driving concern. When it is, what I end up doing on Sunday morning becomes little more than entertainment. Even at the risk of repeating ourselves, we need to function out of a more faithful guiding principle.

I'm sure this old Small Church Workshop story is on my mind because we've been talking so much about Progressive Christianity lately. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of you were beginning to feel that you've had just about all you can stand of it. First of all, I want to reassure any of you who might be feeling that way that I do still value variety. The last thing I want to do up here on Sunday morning is bore you or send you away grumbling under your breath. However, the point I've been trying to make throughout this whole series, is that we need to have a touchstone. We need to have some core understandings about who we are and what we stand for. And the reason we need that is because our beloved Congregational Church has always been long on freedom and short on commonality.

By design, we are not doctrinal, we are not creedal, we are not dogmatic. We do not swear allegiance to any higher human authority within our United Church of Christ denomination. Next week's meeting of this congregation is as high as our authority goes, short of God of course. We value freedom. We encourage our people to think for themselves. We respect the "local autonomy" of our congregations as well as the individual autonomy of our individuals. And I love it! I've always responded well to this spiritual and intellectual freedom. I feel like my church treats me like an adult, with a right to have my own ideas and opinions about the faith. These are all, to my mind, very good things.

The problem though, comes when someone walks through our front door and wants to know what it is we all believe. What do we do then? Peter was right when he said that we need to always be ready to [give] an accounting for the hope that is in us. But what exactly is that hope? I've had several people in my churches over the years say to me, "What I love about this church is that you can believe anything you want." My friends, as true as that may be from a certain perspective, it is certainly not enough to build a congregation on. We simply can not be the church that believes… whatever. And the truth is, we aren't. We do have common values. We do have common beliefs. We do have a shared vision. It is simply that our values, vision and beliefs have not been well articulated. They have not been put into the form of a statement that we can all affirm, celebrate and be inspired by.

That is the reason I've taken so much time with the eight points of Progressive Christianity. These eight points express the faith in a way that I find exciting. They give voice to those values which we typically share, but which have too often gone unspoken among us. They offer us, not a creed or a dogma, but a framework for understanding that is, I believe, very much in keeping with who we already are. Listen again. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who approach God through the life and teachings of Jesus, but who also respect people who approach God in other ways. We extravagantly welcome to a shared communion all who wish to be a part of our community without distinctions of race, sex, class, nationality or sexual orientation. We know that how we behave toward others is the fullest expression of our faith. We find more grace in the search for truth than in dogmatic certainty. We strive for peace and justice among all people, and we recognize that being true followers of Jesus requires a costly love. These are, in a nutshell, the eight points we've been talking about since last September. We've had some wonderful discussions together as the series went along, and I'm grateful to all of you for "participating in the conversation," as I invited you to do.

This morning I want you to know, if you hadn't figured it out already, that I do consider myself a progressive Christian. For me, the eight points describe a Christianity that I can live with. I've been wrestling with our Christian faith most of my life, certainly all of my professional life. I've come to realize that there are ways of understanding the faith that are very common, but that I simply cannot affirm. If being a Christian means that I have to believe that Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, not to mention atheists, were all going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus, I can not be a Christian. If being a Christian means I have to believe that gay and lesbian people, living gay and lesbian lives, are rejected by God, I can not be a Christian. If being a Christian means I must believe that every word in the Bible is literally true, that the apocalypse is just around the corner and my job is to help make it happen and that most of humanity is going to be left behind, I can not be a Christian. In short, for me what it comes down to is this. Either I am a progressive Christian, or I am no Christian at all.

But that's me. I'd encourage you not to forget that we are Congregationalists. Regardless of what I may personally believe, as your pastor I have no authority, and as your friend I have no desire, to impose any of this on any of you. It took me a long time to sort out my own progressive faith. Perhaps you got there way ahead of me, but if not, I would hardly assume you will necessarily get there any faster than I did, if in fact you ever get there at all. In the journey of faith, it would be wrong to believe that we are all supposed to be in any one place.

The question is, are we in sufficiently similar places to be able to embrace a progressive understanding of who we are? Up to this point, progressive Christianity in our church has been a wonderful and refreshing intellectual exercise. But is it going to be possible for us to move beyond talking about it and actually begin doing something about it. I've asked this question of a number of people, and they always want to know what I have in mind. Well that's fair. Let me tell you. I would love to see "a progressive Christian community" in big block letters on our sign out front. I would love to see a full page ad in the local papers with our name displayed proudly above a listing of the eight points. I would love to see our whole congregation walking around town with buttons on their shirts saying, "Ask me about Progressive Christianity!" I would love to see the Goodyear blimp flying around above our steeple with an arrow pointing us out as Camden's First Progressive Church!! … Are you with me so far?

Seriously though, I'm not sure exactly how to do it. This is all new territory for me. But if it is possible for us as a congregation to embrace the ideas of progressive Christianity, without their becoming a divisive issue within the church, if being progressive can be a good thing for us, helping us to understand and celebrate and share the Christian faith as we have come to know it, if these things are possible then what we need to figure out together is how to go about "Takin' it to the Street." In Progressive Christianity I've discovered a faith I can live with, a Christian faith I'm not ashamed to talk about in public. For my part, I want the world to know that within the Christian faith, there is an alternative.

Amen.