A couple of people suggested to me that I should circulate last Sunday's sermon, "Institutional Religion: A Precious Gift," in The Announcer. Unfortunately, I do not have it written out. I hope a brief synopsis will do.

I admit that the thrust of the sermon is amazingly out of step with public opinion. Polls indicate that even though the vast majority of people believe in God, most regard institutional religion with its rituals and structures to be at best optional. The general opinion seems to be: "I'm all for God, but the demise of institutional religion would be no great loss."

While I will be the first to admit that institutional religion has its faults, such blanket judgments of institutional religion are astoundingly superficial and short sighted.

The text for Sunday's sermon was Exodus 12:1-14 wherein is described the institution of Passover. I think it notable that while God was accomplishing His remarkable salvation of the Hebrew slaves, He should take time to institute a religious ritual that they should observe "generation after generation as a rule for all time." Why?

Peter Berger, the sociologist, has said it well: "...religious experience would remain a highly fugitive phenomenon if it were not preserved in an institution; only the institutionalization of religion allows its transmission from one generation to another... Without religious institutions even the experiences of the greatest prophets or mystics would be lost when they disappeared from the earth."

Without institutional religion we would have never even heard of Moses and the burning bush, or Jesus and his cross. Think how much poorer we would be then. Institutional religion is a precious gift. Cherish it.

©C. David Hess

In Sunday School we read last week in the Book of Acts how the early Christians sold their possessions and distributed "the money among all according to what each one needed." A while later we read, "there was a quarrel." The Greek-speaking Jews were of the opinion "that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of funds."

This was the first negative thing that Acts describes happening in the early church. What a disappointment it must have been! Their idyllic community (of which the world remarked, "Behold, how they love one another!") fell victim to pettiness just like every other human community. The truth is, the church has always been something of a disappointment, particularly to those within her (no exclusion of males intended). This often results in a futile search for a real church.

William Willimon, a United Methodist minister, writes: "In a way, I have always had trouble finding the church... I have images of what church ought to look like, not necessarily a building with a steeple, but a group of people who are committed, long- suffering, courageous in witness, and bonded together in love. I keep looking for that church. Every few years the bishop sends me to a new church. Things begin well enough; I think 'At last the bishop has sent me to a real church.' Then, only a few months into that pastorate, I wake up to the harsh truth--the bishop has once again sent me to the wrong church. This church doesn't look like the real church at all. It is only a crude imitation, a sham. I keep looking and hoping. Where is the church?"

Willimon relates that lay people experience the same disappointment. New arrivals at his church at first think they have found the real church, but then, as they get to know the church, disappointment sets in. They leave and, again, go in search of the church.

The truth is--the ideal Christian community we all long for does not yet exist. It is in the process of becoming. A while ago there was a popular t-shirt which read, "Please be patient-- God is not finished with me yet." The same also can be said of the church.

©C. David Hess