Acts 10:44-48; I John 5:1-6; John 15: 9-17
The Reverend Paul DeLain Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, May 17, 2009

At our recent Clergy Retreat we were pleased to welcome the religious scholar Phyllis Tickle. She presented to us her new book, The Great Emergence. This book is the culmination of decades of research on western Christianity. Mrs. Tickle has taken all of that research and put into a book that is readable for all of us. Certainly too much to go into in one sermon. But I just want to highlight one concept for you.

Now despite our anxiety, it isn’t that modern western Christianity is disappearing; it is changing. There is emerging a new way of being Church. This isn’t about “young people” only. It is a cultural phenomena that transcends age.

One of the most intriguing concepts of this change goes like this: As the church we’ve been operating out of a certain paradigm as we draw in new members. First, you believe then you enter the institution and learn how to behave within it, that is you learn how the liturgy and governance operate, then when you have past the tests of believing and behaving you get to belong. The paradigm, then, simply stated is: Believe, Behave, Belong.

Now emerges a new paradigm. It goes like this: First, you belong. You are welcomed in no matter what you believe or know. And in our world today there are many, many people that have been raised with no religion at all. No longer can we assume that folks know what we are doing or praying before they arrive. So we welcome in the stranger with no strings attached. Then they sit with us and learn our behaviors. It is after being welcomed, then learning how to behave that the newcomer can decide if they believe. So the new paradigm goes like this: Belong, Behave, Believe.

This new paradigm is very upsetting for us because it has huge implications. It means that all are welcome to the altar for the Blessed Sacrament, even before they are baptized. It means that all are fully included before we know exactly what they believe. Our way of operating over these years is being interrupted. I believe that God relishes interrupting our ways of seeing.
I must tell you that following the new paradigm has born much fruit at St. George’s lately. We have had 11 baptisms of all ages and 11 confirmations/receptions of adults since last October. I can tell you a few things. First, these folks were all brought here through relationships. Not one of them was attracted to St. George’s through advertisements. The outreach which brought them here was friendship and personal witness. Secondly, most of them were receiving communion at this altar before they were baptized. It was the receiving of Holy Eucharist, the belonging, that led them to their baptism and confirmation. By being welcomed to belong, by being tutored in how we behave they were drawn to the believing.

We are not living in  the culture of the 1950’s anymore. Church membership is no longer a cultural assumption. If our age is comparable to any time in Church history it is to the ancient Church. The first five hundred years of the Church was all about how to incorporate what we would now call the “un-churched.”

We read in the Book of Acts, “And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.” From its inception as a human institution the Church has always had its class of Gentiles. St.s Peter and James wrestled with how to welcome in believers who were not devout and circumcised Jews first. That is the bulk of the story from the Book of Acts. The Church has had to continue to overcome it’s ways of seeing to expand the body. We had to overcome our moral teaching about race and gender. That overcoming has been and continues to be painful. We forget that the institution of human slavery, the “mixing of races” and “women speaking in Church” were moral issues based on Biblical interpretation. Today we struggle with the morality of sexual identity based on Biblical interpretation. And now we have this even newer, fresher struggle of how to welcome in those who have been hurt or bored to death by the institutional Church.

Does the Church today have the integrity and courage to stand in the face of deeply held beliefs as to allow for more people to come and know Jesus as the Christ? Do we have the fortitude of St. Peter who went and ate unclean food with the unclean Gentile Cornelius? God commanded Peter to do so. Do we have the courage to be transformed by the blinding light of the Gospel as Saul was on the Road to Damascus. Saul had to let go of all of his “morality” and “rules” based in Biblical interpretation and start over. The Lord Christ commanded him to rethink his persecution of the Church. And as an outsider, the one on the fringes, it was St. Paul who expanded the reach of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

Who are the Gentiles now? Is it the un-churched person in the back pew struggling to follow the service, unsure whether they are welcome to encounter Christ in the Blessed Sacrament with us?

Jesus tells us, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” Jesus is calling us to love as he loved. He is calling us to do what he did. Jesus welcomed people first and then taught them about the kingdom and then they believed.

Bishop Jelinek gave me an assignment after he confirmed and received our 11 adults. He said to me, “Really listen to those folks. Something amazing is going on with them.” I have seen that on Wednesday nights when we gather for catechesis. The Holy Spirit is moving strongly in this place and it has everything to do with those of you who have been here for years. There is a strong prayer life among you; the quality of study and prayer among you is amazing. Keep it up. Keep engaging each other especially the outsiders. Keep feeding each other with physical food and spiritual food. Keep inviting others to this altar even if you get frustrated with what seems to be a lack of response. All things happen in God’s time.

Keep asking yourselves what St. Peter asked aloud, “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”