Sermon by Herman Kauffman
Wakarusa COB
September 17, 2000

Counting the Cost

Luke 14:25, 27-30

 

The disciples of Jesus were on Journey. It was much more than a Journey to Jerusalem, though they did not yet fully understand that. The crowd that followed Jesus believed in happy endings, ie. "they all lived happily ever after." But Christian discipleship is not a fairy-tale, it is rather a way of life that involves making choices, changes, and sacrifices along life's journey.

So Jesus turns to the fairy-tale crowd looking for happy endings and lays out for them the choices, changes, and sacrifices that will be required of them if they continue the Journey with Jesus: He says to them ... unless you are willing to shoulder a cross ... unless you are willing to develop a building plan ... unless you are willing to count the cost .... And the challenge Jesus placed before his followers then is the same challenge he gave to our ancestors of faith and the same challenge he places before this congregation today.

For who among you, intending to build a church, would not first sit down with an architect to design the building and with a banker to arrange for financing. Would you not seek financial commitments from among the members to determine whether the resources are sufficient to build? Otherwise, the building may never amount to more than a cement block foundation with no walls.

But let me tell you a story. It is a story I suspect most of you know and many of you could tell better than I. It is a story of a new beginning that happened nearly 300 years ago in a small village of southern Germany. It is a story that deserves to be retold again and again because it is a story of our faith heritage. It is a story that marks the beginning of the Church of the Brethren.

In 1708, Alexander Mack, his wife, and six others, entered into intensive and prolonged prayer and study to determine what was involved in full obedience to Christ and the New Testament. (1) They lived in a time and place where your church and your beliefs were determined by where you lived. Live in one community and you were Catholic, another Lutheran, still another Reformed. Alexander Mack was baptized in the Reform Church but further study of the scriptures led him and others to question the status quo and ask what obedience to Christ meant for them. And one of the issues their study of the scriptures led them to question was infant baptism vs. adult baptism or rebaptism.

One of the strong influences for Alexander Mack was a pietist by the name of Hochmann. Mack wrote to Hochmann in prison to seek his advice on being rebaptized as an adult. In his reply letter, Hochmann wrote that he believed that nothing but the cross and misery would result from rebaptism. He understood that it would result in opposition and persecution from the state churches. He warned Mack and his group to "carefully count the cost" before being rebaptized.

Count the cost they did, and in the late summer of 1708 these first brothers and sisters determined that for them to be fully obedient to Christ meant being rebaptized. It was symbolic of their total commitment to Jesus Christ and his church.

They were not the first nor the last Christians faced with Counting the Cost of obedience to Jesus Christ and the church. But, nevertheless, they are forerunners to those of us gathered here today as the Wakarusa Church of the Brethren. It seems almost ironic that they also lived in a small village and were themselves a small group - only eight. That is considerably less than the number of us gathered today to reflect on our future as a congregation, and what it means for us today to be a faithful and effective church for Jesus Christ.

In his book Small Churches are the Right Size, David Ray tells the story about the duck hunter who mail-ordered a fully trained retriever pup. After picking the dog up at the airport, the hunter stopped at a roadside pond to test the dog. He threw a stick across the pond and commanded, "Fetch!" The pup leaped for the water, ran across the water to the stick, picked it up, and ran back across the water. Astounded, the hunter repeatedly threw the stick, and the dog repeatedly retrieved it in the same unorthodox fashion.

Wanting to show off his remarkable dog, the hunter took his partner, George, out the next morning for a demonstration. With a knowing smile, the hunter three a stick, gave the command, and the dog ran across the water and retrieved the stick. The hunter glanced proudly at George, who returned a noncommittal look. The stick was again thrown and retrieved, but still there was no response from George. Suppressing disappointment and irritation, the hunter demanded, "What do you think of my new dog?" After a long, disinterested pause, George answered, "Dog can't swim very well, can he?"

Ray goes on to make the point that the small church, while it may not swim like other larger churches, is certainly able to get the job done. Ray suggests in his book that while size is a convenient yardstick for measuring stature and performance, it can also confuse quantity with quality, popularity with authenticity. Ray suggests that God calls the church not to be big but to be faithful and effective ... and he sets out to demonstrate that small churches are the right size - the right size for being faithful and effective churches.

In a follow up book The Small Church Book, Ray writes: "I have two fundamental convictions about small churches. First, they are the right size to be all that God calls a church to be. ... Second, they are a different breed of church. A small church is as different from a large church as a Pekingese is from a Saint Bernard. They look, feel, think, and act differently. While Ray admits that small churches have their problems, he suggests that many of the problems stem from attempting to be something they are not - big churches.

Carl Dudley has this to say about the small church (Making the Small Church Effective, p. 176): "In a big world, the small church has remained intimate. In a fast world, the small church has been steady. In an expensive world, the small church has remained plain. In a complex world, the small church has remained simple. In a rational world, the small church has kept feelings. In a mobile world, the small church has been an anchor. In an anonymous world, the small church calls us by name."

Ray suggests that the small church has often tried to be what we are not and forgotten to be what we are. He quotes Loren Mead of the Alban Institute (see New Possibilities for Small Churches by Douglas Walrath, p. 87) who reminds us that although the small church ...

"...is not always beautiful, it is enough. It is enough for keeping on. It is enough for faithfulness. It takes only two or three, Jesus said. Most small churches have at least a dozen or two. Small is enough for holding lives and families together and for making a contribution to a community. It is enough for breaking bread and sharing (the cup), for wrestling with the scriptures, for calling one another to new life. It is enough for praying, for following Jesus. What else do we need?"

Today is a beginning point for the Wakarusa Church of the Brethren. The beginning of a decision of how we can be the most effective and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ and what impact that will have for the future of the Church of the Brethren in this place. You may decide to: (1) Close this church and turn the property and resources over to the district; (2) You may decide to seek renewal for this congregation through a time of prayer and study and personal involvement; or (3) You may elect to do nothing at all (for now).

I often hear some of the following reasons for closing a church: (1) We are too small or too old; (2) We cannot afford to continue the church much longer; (3) We lack leadership needed to be an effective church; (4) We are just too tired of fighting a losing battle and closing the church seems the easier way to go.

Let me respond by saying what I've said before: (1) There is no church too small to be an effective witness for Jesus Christ in its community. I know of congregations of 4 or 5 persons who are making an effective witness in their community and find their worship time together to be meaningful. (2) The issue of money is more a reflection of how we are a church rather than if we are a church. To be a church has nothing to do with a church building or paid leadership. (3) If we have a mission, a vision, a purpose ... then we have a church; the issue becomes how we are going to be the church.

As we move now to a time of discussion, I would like to hear your response to these questions:

What other ways of being the church might you be open to considering:

What are your wildest dreams for being the church?

Closing Story: The Messiah Walks Among You
(Adapted from "The Rabbi's Gift" by Francis Dorff in
Storytelling: Imagination and Faith by William J. Bausch, pp. 138-140)

Once upon a time in another place and time, there was a very famous Country Church which had fallen on hard times. Formerly its building was filled every Sunday morning with joyful worshipers and throughout the week persons came to study and pray together and often on Wednesday afternoons the sounds of children playing filled the surrounding countryside. But now the building was quiet throughout the week and only a few of the old faithful members still came on Sunday morning for worship, and even they worshiped God with heavy hearts.

Near the country church was a big woods in which an old rabbi from the nearby city maintained an old cabin. He would come there from time to time to retreat from the city, to fast and to pray. No one from the church ever spoke to him, but whenever he appeared, the word spread throughout the rural community: "The rabbi walks in the woods." And whenever he appeared, persons in the community seemed to feel strengthened by his prayerful presence among them.

One day the church's part-time pastor decided to visit the rabbi and to open his heart to him. So, after the morning worship, he set out through the woods. As he approached the cabin, the pastor saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms outstretched in welcome. It was as if he had been waiting there for some time. The two embraced like long-lost brothers. Then they stepped back and just stood there smiling at one another.

After a while the rabbi motioned the pastor to enter. In the middle of the room was a wooden table with the Scriptures open on it. They sat for a moment in the presence of the Book and then the rabbi began to cry. The pastor could not contain himself. He covered his face with his hands and he, too, began to cry.

After the tears had ceased to flow and all was quiet again, the rabbi lifted his head, "You and your church are serving God with heavy hearts." And the pastor asked, "Do you have any word from God for us?" The rabbi shook his head and the pastor rose to leave. As he reached the door of the cabin, the rabbi said, "Wait! There is one thing you should know: The Messiah is among you." For a moment there was only silence in the cabin, and then the rabbi said, "Now you must go."

The pastor left without a word and without ever looking back.

The next Sunday when the little country church met again, the pastor told them of his visit with "the rabbi who walks in the woods." And then he told them what the rabbi had said: "The Messiah walks among you."

Nothing more was said that morning but as people returned to their homes they began to wonder: "What could this mean? Who could it be? Is Brother Howard the Messiah? Or perhaps Sister Betty? Or could it be Brother Earl? Is it I? Am I the Messiah? What could this mean?"

They were all deeply puzzled by the rabbi's words but it was never mentioned again. But the strangest thing began to happen in that little country church. Whenever the members of the church came together, they began to treat other with a very special reverence. There was a gentle, wholehearted, human quality about them which was hard to describe but easy to notice. They began to live their lives as if they had discovered something new and exciting. They began to pray for each other again and to study the Scriptures and to perform acts of kindness throughout their whole community.

Occasional visitors to the country church felt themselves deeply moved by the spirit of caring they felt and often told others, "It was as if Christ himself were present there." Before long, people were coming to the old country church from near and far to be nourished by the spirit that was present in that place.

Today that old country church is again filled every Sunday morning with joyful worshipers and throughout the week persons come to study and pray together and often on Wednesday afternoons you can hear the sounds of children playing filled the surrounding countryside. And though the old rabbi has long since passed away, some say "the spirit of the old rabbi still walks in the woods."

1. Emmert F. Bittinger, Heritage and Promise, Brethren Press, p.32