y"wHal DOES IT COST TO BELONG TO YOUR CHURCH?" John M. Buchanan

{ 'ufe inl oo 23-2s Bethany Presbyterian Church
/ November 4, 1973 Lafayette, Indiana

/ What does it cost to belong to your church? | Has anyone ever asked you that question?

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“—' People have put tim question to me in various forms: sometimes circuitously, ("What is

your policy on giving to the Church, Reverend?| How much does the Church expect us to
contribute? "}JAnd sometimes it comes directly: ("What's this going to cost me?" )
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The people who ask the question in that direct, no-nonsense manner are always

prospective members, and they betray immediately their lack of experience with the

institétional church.\ They have not yet learned that minimal ecclesiastical etiquette
dictates against calling a spade a spade, as it were - in many areas but particularly
when it comes to money. \ They have not yet learned the sacred vocabulary of "Stewardship"

that collection of pious euphemisms with which the church triumphant gets down on its

knees every autumn to beg the flock to cough up enough momey so that the fuel bill can be
patd.| When people ask so brazenly,\"What's this going to cost?" they betray immediately

their ignorance about the way the church salves its own conscience with some fancy

theological footwork:| namely, the idea that the Holy Spirit fosters spiritual growth and

that if we manage to make it easy enough for a man get inside the fold, God will, in

tuwf, bring him to the point of meaningful sacrificial giving.

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In any case, whenever someone is so bold as to ask me directly,| "What's it cost to
belong to your church?" | I'm momentarily stopped in my tracks.\ And I do what I expect
you would do - or have done:\I hem and haw a pit:\1 rephrase the question in more

palatable terms of the annual budget, and pledge techniques.\ In so many words I say that

the church will gratefully receive whatever yau think you can afford, which is simply
another way of saying that there is no cost at ai1.\ The troubbe is, that is profoundly

untrue and worse - it is directly contrary to what we know about the Gospel of Jesus

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Christ.

Take our New Testament Lesson this morning, for instance desu. i¢ you will pardon
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the disrespectful analogy, had three prospective members.\ He was on his way to Jerusalem.

The price he would pay for his commitment was becoming clearer by the minute.\ He knew
what was waiting for him in the Capital city and he had made his decision to push on

regardless.

It is in this context, then, that we watch in amazement as he deals with the three

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NWHAT DOES IT COST TO BELONG TO YOUR CHURCH?" al a NOVEMBER 4, 1973

PROSPECTS. The first man was a volunteer:\ Matthew's account of the incident indicates that

the man was a4 scribe, an ecclesiastical lawyer, whose job it was to copy and interpret the

Mosaic Taw. \te volunteered ‘\te wanted to join. \ caught. up in the spiritof the moment he said,
\ will follow you wherever you go.t\and Jesus told pin, [Foxes have holes, and birds of

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the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to_lay his fiead.!\ That is, Jesus moderated

that man's spontaneous enthusasiasm by laying out before him the cost.| Men need the sustaining

comfort of a home, and in all integrity - at that moment in time as he walked toward Jerusaleum,

Jesus could not promise even that.\ To follow him at that moment meant to pay a rather dear
price. |

The second prospect was calted. | Jesus found him in the crowd | tooked him in the face

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and with that characteristic bluntness said, "Follow me". \ The man was not unwilling but he
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had business to attend to first| ("Let me go first and bury my father. " [In fact, there was a

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clear moral and Tegal Sek smperative involved here \ A son was responsible for théSnecessary duty.
And Jesus said, "weve the dead to bury the dead: as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of

God."

A third man stepped forward, perhaps having overheard what transpired between Jesus and

the other two. | te, too ,was wilting \ He to too, was moved by this brave and Lonely man walking

into the jaws of danger. | "I'll come along, Lord - in a minute, gust as soon as I say good -
aa i family - I'll be thre - wait for me?"\And Jesus said, \"No one who sets his hand to
the prougir and keeps looking b ek is fit for the Kingdom of God. "

What's going on here? \ Three prospects - no members: Jesus was either terribly impractical,

untutored in the fine art of member regruitnents|or he was callous to the understandable human

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needs of these three men:\or else hems at this point - and remember that the stakes verre

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getting higher with every step het kook in the direction of Jerusalem - teaching something very

fundamental and essential about Christian Faith.\ 1 yelieve it is the latter. \1 believe Jesus

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was defining faith as follaing, and following as a radical obedience to him in a particular

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situation that would prove to be very costly.

I believe he was laying the foundation for that position earlier when he told his

disciples: |'If a man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and

follow me. | For whoever would save his life will lose it:and whoever bdses his life for my

sake, he will save it."| (Luke 9:23-24)

"WHAT DOES IT COST TQ BELONG TO YOUR CHURCH" -3- NOVEMBER XX,4, 1973

"What does it cost to belong?" \The answer Jesus consistantly 9 gave as vee

everything you have: | you must tose your life, figuratively speaking, ier there are occasion

when that will happen literallly."

Now, there is a considerable gap between that and the modus operandi of the institutiaonatl

church; this one or any one ‘\ Part of the reason, as | intimated in my introduction, is political

or pragmatic. ‘\ The church ts an institution with a building 4 and program to maintain, a profes-

sional staff to pay, and it is therefore completely and finally dependent on the voluntary

contributions of its members if it is to survive.\ Therefore it it is not prudent to make belonging

to the church so demanding that people will not join. \ Put as plainly as I know how, it may feel

better theologically to recruit one soul who will give $25.00 per week: but practical] y_the

institution functions better with 10 souls giving $5.00 per week. whe WON came do wieralen oer aabidl,

But that's just part of the reason \ The other part is_ honesty Biblical - or at least it

Starts out that it way. \ Last Wednesda ay was the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. \ on
October 31, 1517, an Augustinian Monk by the name of Martin Luther marched up to the Castle

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Church in Wittenburg, Germany and nailed a list of theses on the door.\ Running through those

99 statements was the theology of Grace as Luther had rediscovered it in the New Testaments a
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theclogy which, in his estimation, was contradicted totally by the practice of his own

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Roman Church. \Fo be precise, Luther was captivated by the Gospel which told him that in Jesus

Christ ist God has given his love to mankind freely,with no strings attached; ;\that God's love

for a man does not depend on the goodness of that man, nor is it possible for the man to cause

God go Tove him more by doing good works. | The name for it is ’Grace ," and Luther preceived that
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the venerable institution of the church had been moving in the opposite direction for
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centuries .\ God' 5 love had been shackled by the church and the cleray God's grace had

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been expropriated by the Church, and was distributed to men in exchange for theer conforming
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to the rules and rituals of the church.\ Thus the life ef a Christian became the process by

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which a man literally earned God's love by doing what the Church told him to do:\ attending Mass ,
making pilgrimmages, going to confession, doing enance\ The last straw for Luther was the
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sale of indulgences: \issued by the pope, sold throughout the Holy Roman Enpire:| the purchase

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of which earned a man a certain amount of righteousness - which in turn lessened the amount
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of time to be spent in pergatory. \You could buy one for your relatives - a kind of posthugmous

gift certificate:| for yourself - a spiritual savings account.

WHAT DOES IT COST TO BELONG TO YOUR CHURCH?" ~4- . NOVEMBER 4, 1973

In any case, the sale of indulgences typified the theology of the church which Luther
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correctly identified as the opposite of the Good News of the Gospel. \ so the Reformation happeneg

philsosphically dependent on grace as the heart of the gospel | Over in Geneva, Switzerland, an

exiled French scholar by the name of John Calvin worked it out gationally in a mammouth and

brilliant theological work under the title “The Institutes of the Christian Religion", in

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which he said over and over again that God_comes to man, God saves man, God awakens faith in man.

God's primary characteristic is his grace - his unmerited and totally free love.

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And so Protestants dig their heels in a little bit anytime they hear something that sounds

Tike the Church attaching conditions to God's love. And what Protestants notorously forget is

that the Reformers themselves had already paid dearly as they were working out the theology

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of grace,\ Luther &xcommuni cated by his church and branded as a_criminal.\ Calvin was an exile
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fom his native jand and also a criminal. | It would have been totally alite&to these men to sug-

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gest that faith is not costly. \ The grace of God has_no price tag, \but Christtan discipleship

does. \Jesus had been candid about the cost, and these man had been paying for it daily.
Thus, we are correct when we refuse to see giving money to ‘the church, or doing anthing, as
the way we earn God's love.\ But weare wrong, absolutely wrong, when we push that_theology
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beyond the breaking point and conclude that Christian disciplsehip costs nothing.| There is no

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price tag on the love of God:\it has already been paid: \the crucifixion of God's own son took

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care of that.\ But there most certainly is a price tag on Christian faith, if that faith is a
matter of following Jesus Christ.

That's the diltemna of the church. \ We are commisstoned to.
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agnounce the very good news of

God's Tove: \and we are commissioned in the name of Jesus Christ. to call men_to discipleship,

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the very costly business of following hin.| Both at the same time.

In a pointed little book "Servants and Stewards" Arthur McCary quotes the fayorite hymn;

[rTake thou our selves dear Lord, heart, mind, and witt.| Through our surrenedered souls, they

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plan fulfii1.| We yield ourselves to thee, time talents, ai1.\ We hear and henceforth heed,

thy soverign call." | And then he goes on to speculate about the thoughts of a churchman, leaving

the sanctuary, having just sung that hymn:\ "Look God’, I didn't mean that Litterdty.| I can give

some praise if there's nothing more directly related to my interests that I must do.\ I can spend

an occassional hour in worship - from time to time, but it isn't always conveient:\ But God,

what I'm really looking for is bargain basement religion....I'd like to accept the unconditional

offer of Inve that T esa In Aacie Chetets Tim uil linn fa waneaiuea se mich ae ova ran ative Bait

WHAT DOES IT COST. TO BEONG 10 YOUR CHURCH?" “5 = . NOVEMBER 4, 1973

God, I just don't have time to match you r faithfulness with my own.\ I'm WX looking for

religion at a discount." .
You see, in the Final analysis, that's where it comes to rest.\ The church ends up selling
discount religion), In our dual anxiety not to make religion so_demanding that the church goes

broke, | and to remain faithful to the theology of grace, we end up telling peole that it doesn't
really natters|it doesn't cast a thing.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a phrase which is now famous, called it “chea grace."| "Cheap

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grace, he wrote, “is the preaching of forgiveness wothout requiring repentance \ baptism with

church discipline, \conmunion without confession.\ Cheap grace is grace without discipleship,

gracd without the cross, grace without Jesus Bhrist, living and incarnate." (The Cost of

Discipleship. P. 36)

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That is the final and realy irony. \ 1¢ we buy cheap religion - we get what WXMA# we pay

for, and we're no longer talking about money here=™We are now dealing with discipleship - the

happy, liberating, exhillerating knowledge that I am Toved_of God, and some of God's will for
his creation is being done through my life \ The Final irony is that zhap cheap grace ~- when we

allow it to characterize our church - and our churchmanship - is a little like cheating on a

test under the honor system.\ We may pass the test and never by caught, but we will have denied

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ourselves the deep satisfaction ofhaving done a job wet! oF having submitted to the discipline

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of learning and growng.

For several years after my ordination I was very taken with the theology of stewardship i.

{ used to think that Christian Discipleship for most of us really boiled down to making a

sacrifical pledge to the chruch. \ But after a decade of going through this ritual wery year,
saying al]_the words, using ali the right methods, and then realizing that for most of us we're

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talking about 2 or 3 or maybe 5 percent of our income, I'm becoming reluctant even to use the

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word "steardship" anymore. \ It may be the most misleading euphemism in all our repetore. | And so

I'm not going to do what I'm supposed to do at this point.\ I'm not going to ask you to pledge

generously, because ~- ance again ~ experience has taught me that most of you have already
decided what you are going to do.

What I am asking this morning is that you share some of my impatience with cheap grace

and discount religion:\ that you think seriously about thecall of Jesus Christ as it has come to
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you to be his disciple\ that you think seriously now, but beyond this hour, about his words:

WHAT DOES LTCOST TO BHONG TO YOUR CHURCH?" -6- NOVEMBER 4, 1973
| whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save itt thet you open a window in your life -
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a window that has been closed - through which may pass God's unending love for you\ ang your

response, your faith, your cisciptestt-\ AMEN

Father, forgive us for cheapening what is so costly to you. Open us to a fresh and new

realization ofyour love: and then stand with us, support us, as we follow - Jesus Christ

aur Lord. AMEN