Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt 5:11-12)

In my life I pick up bits and pieces of information which swirl around in my head until they are lost or become parts of conversations or sermons or get saved to be swirled around with other bits and become something else. I have discovered long ago that this is the way my brain works.

Lately I have been thinking about all the changes in the church, Local, Diocesan, National and "the Church" in the big sense. The bits and pieces that have lined up next to that are the Presiding Bishop's Jesus Movement; all the press lately about the demise of the church and the rise of the "nones" and the "spiritual, but not religious"; our ministry at the HUB and (believe it or not) my preaching on the Holy Women Holy Men at our Wednesday services here at St John's, Stockton.

 

In thinking about the changes in the church, the sort of "change or die" (Rt Rev Spong's, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Harpers, 1998) scenario is growing. The urgency seems to be becoming somewhat of an emergency.

 

The Diocese of San Joaquin, due to the famous or infamous split, has been, in a way, forced to change. Forced to re-imagine itself both during this harrowing experience - you will recall the image of building a plane while flying- and also trying to imagine how the church in the valley will look going forward. Leadership has continually reminded us that no matter the outcome of litigation, the church here would never be the same- and that is a GOOD thing!

 

The Jesus Movement, both in the sense that our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry speaks of it and in a more general sense is the movement back to the teachings of Jesus, which were, in his time quite revolutionary. Jesus, I believe, was not trying to start a new religion, but return the faith to its basics: to restore or reconcile our relationship with God, to make our faith more authentic, to emphasize what God expects of us, and what we are to do in response to him/her. To bring us the New Commandment "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27)

 

Maybe all this talk about the demise of the church is merely the last gasps of a thing that was destined to die. Perhaps the so called "death of the church" really is the death of a church that had fallen too far away from the teachings of Jesus: a church often compromising its principles in order to conform to culture. A church that had bargained away its purpose for its bare survival. Perhaps this new thing being born from it, this new Jesus Movement will be the church of the future.

 

Though it may be easy to find fault with places where the church seems to need changes, where it seems she/he has lost its way, in her depths, the concepts of ministry in the world and her role in the progress of justice has continued. In the words of the ancient prophets, such as Amos, the church respects the voices of those who try and call her back. And, in the way she honors her Saints and Holy People, she reminds us that she holds up the lives of those who risk and fight and die for her truth. On July and August Wednesdays alone we have spoken of the lives of John Hus, Conrad Weiser, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Ross Tubman and Wm DuBois, reformers all.

Yes, the church will change. Too fast for some and not fast enough for others. But know this. Her change will be wrought by those of us who are her witnesses and who risk stepping out of comfort to do what we feel called to do in her name. Sometimes we will fail and sometimes we will rejoice, but we will continue to do what we are CALLED TO DO, and CALLED TO BE, for Jesus' sake.