Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Losing Our First Love? - February 6, 2008

Losing Our First Love?

Ash Wednesday

Revelation 2:1-7

February 6, 2008

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

On Monday evening the Church Council and the staff will spend a whole evening on special retreat as we do every year.  At the congregational Annual Meeting back in October we were asked to focus part or our retreat on the issue of evangelism.  More specifically, we have been asked to consider why more people do not join, why those who ARE members are participating less and less in everything from worship to youth activities to Lucia dinners.  So that is what we are going to be discussing.

This is a growing concern among almost all churches that are not mega churches.  Many congregations are thinking that the problem is that they have to do a better job of offering what people want - programs that help them fell better in their day to day live;  Sunday services that are fun and entertaining, youth activities that are fun and fun and fun.

I am convinced that the problem is something else.  These days I believe that many people who call themselves Christians and why "go" to church do so for the wrong reason.  Many go to church for what if offers THEM.  That is why most parents with kids fall away after their last one is confirmed, and why very few parents expect their kids to worship after they have gotten the confirmation certificate.  That is why almost nobody will ever choose worship on Sunday if there is ever anything else that interests THEM more.

I am convinced that as long as we expect this church to compete with our cabins, our never ending weekend vacations, our kids' sports activities, our kids' jobs, things that take away huge numbers of us for weeks at a time, and mega churches that offer star-studded entertainment, our numbers are going to drop and drop and drop until what remains is only those who refuse to make their church compete on the same basis as all the other turn-on's of this culture.  And you know what?  I'll be OK with that.  Jesus allowed people to walk away all the time if they were there for the wrong reasons.

In the Book of Revelation, the Risen Jesus appeared in a dream to the last living apostle, a very old man named John.  In this dream Jesus evaluated seven churches and asked John to make sure that these letters got to each of the seven churches.  In a nutshell, Jesus never measured a church by how well it was entertaining its members.

Tonight we begin a seven week journey to the Cross with Jesus Christ, who said that if it is HIM we want to follow, then we are going to have to pick up our CROSS and follow Him.  Quite frankly, I am not sure that if people really heard THAT message, they would WANT to come on board - unless somehow they got the idea that they were coming on board a cruise ship...which is exactly what I think many church goers expect this to be.

Tonight we begin with what Jesus had to say about the church in Ephesus.  That city had survived every war and plague and invader from 6,000 B.C. on - four thousand years before Abraham!  Used to have one of the Seven Wonders of the World:  now just a lone pillar remains.  The apostle Paul spent two years there and wrote First Corinthians from Ephesus.  Remember when Jesus was dying on the Cross and He told His beloved disciple to take care of Mary?  Well, that is where John and Mary lived and where they both died.  The entrance to Mary's house can still be walked through, about three miles from there.  In the days of Jesus, Ephesus was the largest city in the known world, about the size of Minneapolis.  By the time the Crusaders showed up eleven hundred years later it was about the size of the immediate neighborhood around this building.  Nobody lives there anymore.  How the mighty do fall.

The risen Jesus had a lot of good things to say about that church in Ephesus.  "I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.  I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.  You have persevered and have endured hardships for My name, and have not grown weary. ...you have this in your favor:  You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate."  Many scholars think that he was referring to a group of so-called modern thinkers in the church who were trying to get the church in line with the lifestyles and the morals of the very progressive and wealthy society around them.  Jesus thanked them for opposing such false leaders.

One of my hopes is that this congregation could be able to stand against false teachers within our larger church who advocate acceptance of modern perversions like homosexual activity and abortion on demand and euthanasia.  But I have to fear nasty retribution for even saying this.

The church in Ephesus however got high marks for doing exactly this.  That was the GOOD news.  Now for the bad news.  Jesus continued, "Yet I hold this against you:  You have forsaken your first love.  Remember the height from which you have fallen!  Repent and do the things you did at first.  If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."

Result:  today you can't even FIND a lampstand in Ephesus.

They had forgotten their first love.  The Bible here does not tell us precisely what Jesus meant by referring to their "first love".  But again, scholars whom I trust say something which I think strikes way, way too close to home.  They say, "Paul had once commended the church at Ephesus for its love for God...but many of the founders had died, and many of the second generation believers has lost their zeal for God.  They were a busy church - the members did much to benefit themselves and their community - but they were acting out of the wrong motives."  (Life Application Bible commentary on Revelation 2:4)

When I look at the history book of this congregation and how its immigrant founders built the church before many of them even built their own homes, and how even into the fifties members gave to the church so faithfully even while they could afford to live only in the basements of houses we now see across the street, and when I compare all that to the distracted busy-ness that leaves us begging for regular worshipers and coffee servers and Altar Guild members, and contributors, and Lucia volunteers and choir members, and youth involvement, I sometimes have to wonder if our congregation might be named something other than Christ Lutheran in the Bible.

Last thing Jesus said was not to defend ourselves, but, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."  Amen...may THAT be so!