The Old Lady and the Prayer Shawl

Church matters because it is the only way we can understand this crazy thing called faith.

Note: The following is adapted from a sermon I wrote back in 2014.

Why does church matter? Why is it that we come to this building every Sunday morning and spend a few hours there? Why do people not only give their money but also give their time to this community? What makes the church so special? Do we need church?

This question about the church is something that has been on my mind for the last few months, but it has kicked into overdrive in the last few weeks following a rash of shootings where the victim was basically at the wrong place at the wrong time. The most well-known is the shooting of Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old African American who went to the wrong house to pick up his siblings and ended up shot twice by an 84-year-old white man.

It’s easy to look at events like this and immediately say what many of my friends say: “The problem is guns. We need more laws restricting guns.” I’m not against laws that might make sure certain people don’t have guns or can have guns taken away if they are proven to be a threat, but guns are a symptom of a bigger problem and that’s the loss of community.

There are a lot of reasons for that loss of community, but the result is a society that doesn’t trust one another and a loss of trust leads to despair. One of the hallmarks of this age is this sense of despair in society and it has consequences. Angus Deaton and Anne Case, two economists who are husband and wife came up with a phrase to describe what has been going on, especially among working-class Americans: depths of despair. In their 2015 paper, they noted that working-class white men and women “without four-year college degrees were dying of suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related liver disease — what Case and Deaton termed “deaths of despair” — at unprecedented rates. In 2017 alone, there were 158,000 deaths of despair in the US.”

We’ve lost trust in our society and entered in a time of despair. Institutions like the church, but also civic organizations were places that in some cases formed people to become better people. Michigan State University professor Brianna Wolfe quotes Alexis de Tocqueville in his work Democracy in America by talking about how organizations are the glue that makes us trust each other. Quoting Tocqueville Wolfe writes:

Tocqueville argued that interactions in formal governmental settings like local government or township meetings or those of more informal settings like civic associations such as temperance societies, festival committees, or houses of worship, and activities like parties and book sales, were foundational to fostering what he referred to in the French as “les liens” translated as the bonds of affection that link individuals to one another in a society and give them feelings of duty and obligation toward one another. He even thought children practice the art of association in the schoolyard (302). He noted that in a democratic society civil associations are so important that they will pop up to solve even momentary problems. In one example he wrote, “An obstruction occurs on the public road; the way is interrupted; traffic stops; the neighbors soon get together as a deliberative body; out of this improvised assembly will come an executive power that will remedy the difficulty” (303)…He thought without associations, “all citizens are independent and weak…so they all fall into impotence if they do not learn to help each other freely” (898).

I’m the pastor of a small mainline Protestant congregation that has faced decline for decades. Mainline Protestant denominations like mine have also faced decline for decades. We see our membership and budgets shrink in size and some of us have started to think that maybe our churches have outlived their usefulness.

It’s not a surprise that I tend to think the local congregation still matters and it matters for a lot of reasons: both spiritual and social. Churches are vital to the spiritual health of our world. It is a way to fight the evils of despair and hatred with the help of God.

The second chapter of Acts is one of the best-known in Scripture. The chapter begins with Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit comes down on the disciples of Jesus. Peter gets the courage to tell the story of Jesus which led to 3000 persons joining the disciples in this new thing called the church.

Toward the end of the chapter, we see this passage, one of my favorites. Starting with verse 42 we read:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

This passage is one of community and it is in many ways it is the definition of what church is all about. No, the message here is not to necessarily sell everything and live in a commune somewhere. But it does tell you what church should be. The church is a place where we learn together on what it means to be Christians through Sunday School and Bible Studies. The church is a place where we break bread and engage in fellowship or potluck. A church is a place where we don’t see our possessions as just for us, but they are to be used for God’s service. It is a place where we help those in our community who need help.

Church matters because it is the only way we can understand this crazy thing called faith. We can’t do this on our own, no matter what the sirens in our society tell us about extreme individualism. Church is a place where we support one another. It is a place where we learn from each other and help each other in our belief in Jesus. It tells us that we are not the center of the universe, but we are called to be sent out and work in Christ's name to bring healing and wholeness to this world.

When I started at another congregation as Associate Pastor in 2008, I came in contact with Dorothy, a woman who was then in her 80s. She wasn’t able to get to church on a regular basis anymore, but she did come to the Thursday meeting Handcrafters, a group of women who come together to make various crafts. Dorothy was leading an effort to make prayer shawls for people. She wanted to get the shawls delivered to persons who needed a gentle touch in their lives. It was an effort, but we were able to get the Elders involved in delivering the shawls. But these women all in their 80s and 90s, made caps for the homeless and every new baby got a prayer shawl as well.

What I learned from Dorothy is that you might retire from work, but you don’t retire from doing God’s mission. And I learned that mission isn’t a solitary activity. Mission is a time when the community comes together to do something to the glory of God.

Dorothy made a prayer shawl for me that still have to this day. Even though she died several years ago, her love lives on in that prayer shawl.

Dorothy is the opposite of the 84-year-old man that shot Ralph Yarl. He lived a solitary life where the only thing that kept him company was cable news. For Dorothy, the church gave her meaning and that also helped her to be generous towards others because she encountered others who taught her of a God of love that was active in the life of others in the church.

This is why church matters. We are not a holy version of the Rotary Club. We are people who gather together to learn from each other about Jesus and is sent into the world to announce God’s kingdom.

I had forgotten that Dorothy had given me a shawl of my own. I was looking in the closet one day and saw the bag the shawl was in. With her recent passing in my mind, I took it with me to church. It’s a reminder to me of a saint who taught me that being a disciple has no age limit.

What does church mean to you?