Sermon for Saturday Night Alive service.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

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Biltmore estates is the largest privately owned residence. It has 250 rooms and is six stories tall. Much like our Olmstead Manor, there is a bowling alley inside the house. At Biltmore there are also multiple swimming pools, hundreds of acres of pristinely landscaped gardens, and more bathrooms than anyone could ever need. A tour of the house can take several hours, and very few people have ever been in every room. I doubt that any of the owners of the house have ever been in every room.

We hear the promise of a mansion in heaven -a Father’s house with many dwelling places- and our minds probably wander to the Rockefellers or the Roosevelts. I’ve found myself lost in many single-family dwellings while visiting friends. You know those McMansions largely characterized by a lack of character; with more bathrooms than people it seems they always manage to fill up with clutter faster than friends or good memories.

The image of a heavenly mansion awaiting our arrival conjures up notions of wealth and extravagance – but this was not the desired effect of Jesus when he spoke these words or of the writer of this Gospel.

Jesus promises: “I am going to prepare a place for you.”

This is wedding talk. These words held the same meaning for the Jewish people as an engagement ring or a young man getting down on one knee would for us. This would be like saying, “I’ve reserved the church and the banquet hall for a certain Saturday in July.” In Jewish culture, when a couple became engaged the man returned to his father’s house and began constructing an attached dwelling place for his new family to live.

We as the church are the bride of Christ. This is the image used throughout the Bible to describe our corporate relationship with God. As individuals we are friends, brothers, servants, sheep, and any number of analogies to describe our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. As a body - as the Church - it seems that we keep coming back to the same analogy.

The Church is the bride of Christ.

Jesus performs his first miracle at a wedding banquet. Throughout his three years of ministry he references again and again images of a wedding, the wedding party, and married life.

The whole world watched as Kate Middleton became Princess William. We laughed at silly hats, stodgy English clergy, and the trees in the cathedral. The royal family spent millions of dollars on a wedding event for the world to watch. But at the core of all the pomp and circumstance stand two young adults with a tremendous amount of pressure to make things work. After the wedding, those two ordinary people have to go home and talk about the weather for the next fifty years.

Marriage continues beyond the honeymoon. Even as a single person, I can say that good marriages take work. As the bride of Christ, we're no trophy wife. We've got our work cut out for us. As the Bride of Christ it is our responsibility to go into the world and to do all the good we can.

Recently a German Pastor in the United Methodist Church made international headlines. After winning $180,000 on the German version of "Who wants to be a millionair" he gave away $160,000 of it to a family in need.

Rev. Alfred Mignon said, "It is not common for some people to share their belongings, but for Christians, this is a matter of course.”


As Christians we must be known for our generosity.

For many political couples, the wife is the public face. while the husband is the one running for office, her face is the one that charms the hearts of voters. While I won't get into politics - Where would the husbands of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, or Laura Bush be without their graceful wives as their public image? Jesus makes a bizarre promise - "You'll do even greater things." - But in the analogy of the church as the bride of Christ, this makes sense. As we always say, behind every great man, there's a great wife. We have our work cut out for ourselves. If we are the public face of God - we've got to watch what we're doing.

When Chelsea Clinton got married, the wedding was performed by a Jewish Rabbi and a United Methodist pastor. Jon Stewart, a comedian, joked that Methodists were the "University of Phoenix of religions." Just check the box and send a check and you can be a member.

What are we as Methodists known for? What do people say about us? What is our repuations? Is our reputation fitting of the Bride of Christ? In Arsenic and Old Lace, there's this great line where the older ladies see a homeless man. The one says to the other, "He's really quite handsome for a Methodist." As the United Methodist church has aged we have become more middle-class, more mainline, and more acceptable. We have lost our edge, our connection to the poor, and our distinct heritage as Methodists.

"Out of the Foundery in London, Wesley organized a number of ministries to serve the poor. He charged the Methodists not to wait for the poor to come to them, rather they were to seek out the poor. Wesley longed for a church that exhibited "charity in all forms". He led his coworkers to beg for funds for the poor, provide soup kitchens, collect clothing and blankets, gather coal for heating, set up medical clinics, form literacy classes, open lending libraries, visit prisoners and their families, tutor children, organize Sunday schools, set up employment services, provide loan funds and establish homes for orphans, unwed mothers and the aged."

As the Bride of Christ - and as members of the Methodist movement - we are charged to go out and to change the world. Knowing that we can do insurmountable good, and knowing that God will give us all good things if only we ask - I charge the question: What should we be asking for? What ministries will we ask God to provide for? How can we as Christians serve the working poor, the disabled, and the disenfranchised.

In our church calendar, two distinct events are celebrated this weekend. We celebrate "Heritage Sunday" and "Save a Life Sunday." For Heritage Sunday we look to the past and celebrate the good that our church has accomplished, for Save a Life Sunday we look to the future and see the good that our church can still accomplish. We claim our heritage and expand upon it.

Dear friends, it's time for us to reclaim our heritage. It is time for us to stand up and to take our rightful place as part of the bride of Christ. It's time for us to engage in serious ministry with the poor in our community and around the world. Tonight we will take up a special offering for Imagine No Malaria, perhaps this week you will also offer up some time to God to think and pray about ways for you and our congregation to be in ministry to, with, and for the poor in our community.

I'm not opposed to using business and marketing language when discussing the church. At licensing school we had to learn the mantra that "You have to run the church like a business. But, the church is not a business."

In contemporary circles, many discussions focus on growing our churches. Some people don't believe this is important. I tend not to have too much time for them. The rest of us seem to fall into two groups. One group insists that we just have to pray more. I hope they do.

The other group tends toward changing methods and practices which are ineffective.

Ineffective churches bother me for one reason. It takes just as much time, energy, and resources to run an ineffective church as it does to run an effective one. Usually more. My mentor has often said that if he was in such a position, he would close down half the churches in America: and not necessarily the smallest half!

A common theme has been to focus on improving the product. Church's that focus on this goal tend to work hard to improve their Sunday morning worship services. Something about this paradigm has bothered me for years.

Those who distrust business jargon would contest that Jesus is the product, but - that's not quite right. Jesus isn't a commodity. We don't buy or sell him. We can't focus on making Jesus better.

But, we have been working hard to produce the wrong product. The product that we produce is disciples. As churches we create disciples. While we have worship services, youth ministries, education programs, etc.: these are not the product we create.

The Hershey's corporation has probably spent millions of dollars on the complicated machinery it takes to produce Hershey's kisses. But, other than an occasional tour or 30-minute special, we never see the machinery. On a daily basis, we see the product and not the machinery required to produce the product. What if you had to tour the factory every time you wanted a delicious chocolate kiss?

You probably wouldn't be eating too many chocolate kisses. And yet, week after week, we attempt to expose pre-Christians to the machinery and not the product.

Perhaps it is time to turn that idea upside down. Maybe we need to hide the machinery and show off the product. Maybe we need to stop pushing worship attendance and begin pushing our disciples out into the world. And not to do "ministry." But, just to be out in the world.

What would it take to move our churches toward the goal of producing BETTER disciples. Not more of them, but qualitatively better Christians.

Would we need to scrap the Sunday worship service? Would we need to individualise Christian education? Would our structure need to change to allow for one-on-one discipling instead of weekly lecturing? Would burn-out be as common or as severe?


The mission statement of the United Methodist Church (with just a touch of business jargon) is "to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." The commission was to make disciples. Church as we know it is almost entirely absent in the Bible.

Our focus must again move toward producing disciples. Not members, not worshippers, not attendees; but disciples. Unless our machinery is creating people willing to go anywhere and do anything in the pursuit of Jesus Christ and the transformation of the world - it is time to replace the machinery.

Looking around ... I'm going to vote that it's time to replace some machinery.