"Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize... I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others... I'd like somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr... tried to love somebody... I want you to be able to say on that day that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say on that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked... and visit those in prison. I want you to say on that day that I tried to love and serve humanity. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave behind a committed life."
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Don't you want to do that? We all have a need to serve. I believe we as a Church need to step up to a new level of enabling one another to serve. Not simply installing these officers today and trusting that they, together with our fine staff will serve. Rather leaders are called to enable all to serve. And in serving we will discover significance. We will leave behind a committed life.
III. The Perfect Church Is Full of Imperfect People Who Seek God Extravagantly
All this extravagant celebrating and serving finally leads me to say, The perfect church is full of imperfect people who seek God extravagantly. This is why we are here. We are on a spiritual quest. Friends this old church has been doing Christ's work in Bowling Green since 1819, not simply to be another club that parties or another service group that does good. We have been doing these things because they express our search for God. All human beings have a need for God, for a personal relationship with God. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, came down from heaven to live among us and show us how. The Holy Spirit lifts us up to heaven and engrafts us into the risen Christ. These are the two hands God the Father uses to embrace us, Christ coming down to meet us, the Spirit lifting us to where God the Father is.
The Perfect Church appears when these three attributes converge: extravagant celebration, extravagant service. and extravagant seeking after God. Sometimes Country Music, with its honesty about the storms of life, says it best. Like these words by Trisha Yearwood.
"Everything in moderation.
That's the way it's always been.
Never gotten out of control,
Never hangin' it out,
Always reelin' it in.
I've had enough of playin' it safe,
Somebody draw the line
So I can blow right past.
I need to rock the boat,
I need to speak my mind.
Just this once let it all unwind.
I've got to set this spirit free
That's hiding here inside.
I feel like a bird in a cage,
It's time for me to fly.
I believe it is time for this great church to fly, and manifest Christ's glory. Ordination-Installation Day is all about giving hands and feet to our beliefs so we can get into action extravagantly. Riding out every storm that comes, and equipping God's people to do God's work, beginning right here and going to the ends of the earth.
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1. Eugene H. Peterson in his forward to Philip Yancey's Church: Why Bother?, p.7.
2. Jn. 1;43.
3. Jn. 2:11.
4. Jn. 10:10.
5. Frederick Nietzsche, quoted in Yancey, ibid., p.20.