Necessary Change

Mark 9:2-8

A man visited his friend who had just started as pastor of a church and realized that the acoustics for worship would be much improved if the piano was moved from the left side of the pulpit to the right. He suggested this but the pastor had talked with the elders and realized they were very resistant to change. A year later the man came back to visit his friend and was surprised to see the piano on the right side of the sanctuary. “How did you get the piano moved? I though the congregation resisted change.” The pastor told his friend that he started out moving the piano 15 centimeters the first Sunday and then continued each week to move the piano a bit more to the right. After a year the piano was on the other side and no one had objected.

We have not had that luxury; our change has been more immediate.

We find ourselves in a strange environment this morning. There is no balcony. There is no high ceiling. We do not have pews. This does not look like a church.

But what does a church look like?

I am certain that the building we have been meeting in does not look very much like the church building you were used to when you came to Morocco. The order of service has most likely not been what you were used to. The style of preaching has most likely been different. Some are used to having communion every Sunday and praying the Lord’s Prayer. Some are used to a service where the worship seems much more spontaneous, without a printed program. Having the songs projected on a screen probably feels a lot more familiar to many of you and new and strange to others. Meeting in this room may feel a lot more familiar to some of you than where we have been meeting.

So whatever a church looks like, it is not one kind of church that we have in mind. Our view of what a church looks like varies depending on the church we came from and with approximately twenty-five countries and forty different denominations among us, that will be quite varied.

On the bulletin cover there are five pictures and the caption asks, “Can you find the church?” Four of the pictures are of church buildings and one is of some followers of Jesus worshipping together. We know the answer to this question; it is the people who make up the church but we often are confused about that.

When Jesus was teaching about church discipline, he said: (Matthew 18:20)
For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

Many of us were taught this as children: (using our hands) Here is the church; here is the steeple; open the doors and there are the people. We who are gathered here this morning are the church and around the world, wherever followers of Jesus are gathered, that is where the church is. Some meet in buildings, others meet outdoors in the forest, others meet in houses. The church where Annie and I first began dating met in the gymnasium of a school.

Wherever we meet, we get used to that and then resist changing. Think about the first Sunday you came to RIC. Where did you sit? My guess is that where you sat that first Sunday is where you sat every Sunday thereafter, unless a group of people came and took your spot. We are creatures of habit. We create familiarity as much as we can. Look at where you are sitting this morning. For as long as we meet at Assemblee Chretienne you will probably feel the compulsion to sit in the same place.

When we attended Westerly Road Church in Princeton, where Tracy was one of the pastors, I made a point of sitting in a different section of the church each Sunday because I did not want to give in to this compulsion. But it required each week that I take the time to think where I had sat the previous week and consciously choose a new seat.

It takes effort to change, but is change necessary? Why try to change? Is change good for us?

There are variations of this quote floating on the internet: The only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions.

This quote suggests that not to change is to die. It suggests that change is necessary and good for us. I thought about this some time ago and think I might have talked about it in a sermon. How would the church be different if our average lifespan doubled. Instead of living to be 80 years old, we lived to be 160 years old and sometimes 200 years old.

I am convinced that if this was the case, the church would not have grown as it has. Our human nature resists change and we try to keep things as they are. When Annie’s grandfather was in his 90s and we visited him in his nursing home, he talked about a time when he was young when he had led the change in the liturgy of the Lutheran Church in the US. The older people in the congregation resisted this change and he, as one of the young leaders in the church, led the successful battle to move along with the change. Then in his 80s there was another suggested change to the Lutheran liturgy and this time he was one of those opposed to the change.

This is how we are. As we age, we hold on to the music, the Bible translation, the church patterns of our younger years. It takes effort to adapt as we age.

Fortunately, for the growth of the church, we move into our 70s and 80s and begin to die and the younger generation takes leadership of the church and moves it into new ways of worship and evangelism. If we lived to be160 or 200, we would be able to resist that change for a much longer time and the church would suffer in the process.

So what should we do? Should we seek change so we can be more effective as followers of Jesus? I think there are some who do that; seek change for the sake of change, and that can be destructive. Sometimes change is just change and not better. How can we make change beneficial?

When I thought about preaching this morning, the text that came to my mind is the account of Jesus and his three closest disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus had a summit meeting with Elijah and Moses. In this account there are four lessons that I think will be helpful to us, that will lead us into change that is good and necessary for us.

Mark 9:2–8
After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3 His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
7 Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

The first lesson is this: Jesus leads us into wonderful spiritual experiences.

Why did Jesus take Peter, James and John with him when he climbed up the mountain? Other times in the Gospels we read that Jesus went off alone but not this time. This time he wanted Peter, James and John to be with him.

When I was in business I most often traveled alone and when I had some free time, I went to museums or local scenes of interest. And when I was sitting at a pig auction in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, or sitting in a warm pool in the evening mist of San Jose, Costa Rica, or eating delicious salmon on the Pacific coast of the state of Washington, I wished that Annie and Elizabeth and Caitlin could be with me. I wanted them to experience the wonderful and interesting things I saw. There were times each of them traveled with me, but not nearly enough. I always regretted that they were not with me.

Why? Because I needed someone to carry extra baggage? No. I wanted them with me because I loved them and wanted them to experience what I was experiencing. I wanted them to share my experience with me.

Jesus knew what was going to happen and he wanted Peter, James and John, his three closest disciples, to be with him and experience with him the wonders of this heavenly summit meeting.

When we are called out by God into adventure and new experiences, it is because God wants us to have the delight of new spiritual experiences – and these are not found in a rut, doing the same thing we have always been doing in the same way we have always done it.

The wonderful picture of this for me comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit. This scene takes place outside the snug, comfortable home of Bilbo Baggins where Bilbo is relaxing and smoking his pipe. Gandalf, the wizard, comes to invite him to an adventure.
“Very pretty ” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

“I should think so — in these parts  We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things  Make you late for dinner  I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring.

Bilbo Baggins proceeded to set out on this adventure, had nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable experiences that made him late for dinner and even caused him to miss his dinner. But he came back a wiser hobbit, stronger in character, and with a greater understanding of life.

Because Jesus loves us and wants us to grow and develop stronger faith, he is always leading us into new spiritual experiences.

Jesus taught: (Luke 5:37–39)
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

Jesus is always bringing new wine and we must set out with him in the change he sets before us so we can adapt and accept the new wine he is bringing.

But notice that Jesus understood our resistance to change. In the next verse he added:
39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

He might have said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Human nature has not changed over the centuries. People in the time of Jesus resisted change just as we do. We like how it used to be, how it is, but Jesus invites us out into adventure and new experiences, what will be, and that is where life is to be found.

The second lesson is something I already mentioned at the beginning of the sermon so I don’t need to spend much time on it: Wherever we meet to experience Jesus, that is where the church is.

Peter, James and John experienced the transfiguration of Jesus into his heavenly glory and saw him speaking with Moses and Elijah and in the incredible wonder of that moment Peter said he wanted to build three buildings, to make this spot a church.

What Peter was told was that he did not need to build three buildings to make this a church, it was already a church because Peter, James and John were there with Jesus. It is always the church when we gather to meet with Jesus.

The third lesson is that we experience Jesus when we focus on him, listen to him.

If you are shooting a gun or bow and arrow, it is easiest to hit the target when it is standing still. Far more difficult is to hit a target when it is moving.

Jesus is a moving target. When you want to be with Jesus, you cannot count on him doing the same thing twice. Look at the ways in which he healed people who were blind. One time he touched their eyes and they could see. Another time he spit on their eyes. Another time he spit on the ground, made mud from the dirt and put that on the eyes. Another time he simply spoke without touching.

If you wanted to follow Jesus to learn how to heal people who were blind you would be confused. He looked, had compassion and then acted but his actions did not follow patterns.

We prefer a target that does not move. We want to come in, sit in the same seat we sat in the previous week, have a service that is familiar to us, sing songs we know, hear a sermon in the style we are used to. We want to control our experiences. But following Jesus means we will be stretched out of our comfortable understandings into new experiences we cannot control.

I have had this experience several times. We had friends over and had a wonderful evening, almost magical. So at some later date I invited the same friends, had the same food, trying to recreate that evening and it just did not work.

This has happened to me at RIC when I have led worship and a song we sang or a prayer that we prayed was exceptional with such a strong sense of the presence of God. I tried another time to sing that song or pray that prayer but this time it fell flat.

Our tendency is to try to recreate what has worked in the past rather than step out into something new but that is what we have to do if we want to experience Jesus.

Peter was overcome by the wonder of the experience of Jesus in his heavenly glory and he wanted to lock this experience and put it in a building so he could come back to it whenever he wanted.
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

What did God think of this idea? Did he say, “Very good Peter. That’s a wonderful idea. Let me help you as I helped Noah with the ark and Solomon with the Temple. Let me give you the dimensions and then we can work on this together.”

No. What God said to Peter was this:
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

If you want further experiences like this, don’t build a building and try to freeze this moment in time, don’t try to recreate this moment, follow my son. Jesus does not do the same thing over and over again. His creativity keeps him moving and we need to move with him if we are to stay with him.

It is a highly ironic and very sad commentary that today on Mount Tabor in Israel, where it is believed Jesus met with Moses and Elijah, there is the Church of the Transfiguration. Undoubtedly, when people come to the Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, they pray to relive this experience that Peter, James and John had with Jesus, but God does not want us to put our trust and confidence in a building that holds on to the past. Buildings can inhibit our ability to listen to Jesus. People think their building is the church, the church becomes their focus and they lose touch with Jesus. This is the danger.

When Moses led Israel through the wilderness they were afflicted with poisonous snakes. Moses prayed for the people and God directed him to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole. Whenever someone was bit and looked up at the bronze snake, they were healed. You can see a picture of this in your bulletin.

There is no further mention of the bronze serpent until we read along in 2 Kings 18:4 and the reform of Hezekiah:
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

What God intended for good became, over time, an idol and the people put their focus on the bronze serpent rather than God. Just as Israel build a calf out of gold while Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, the people of Israel made this bronze serpent an idol and we today can make our church buildings or any other material thing our idol.

God cannot be contained and limited. God cannot be contained in a burning bush or a tabernacle or any building. Jesus is a moving target and we need to move with him if we are to experience him.

When the Holy Spirit calls us out into adventure, however we are called, we need to step out, keeping our focus on Jesus, listening to him. When we do this we will be led into change that is good and necessary for us. This kind of change will not be change for the sake of change. It will be change directed by God who loves us and wants us to grow in faith and character and to have the privilege of working with him as he builds his kingdom.

The fourth lesson is that the goal of change is always to be with Jesus.
Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

Isn’t that a wonderful verse? If you need to memorize a verse, memorize this one.
Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

There was no bronze serpent, no building, no denomination, no church politics, just Jesus.

Much has changed over the past three months. What we were used to has passed away and now we are left with uncertainty. With all the deportations some followers of Jesus have become fearful. Who will protect them? Who will protect the church in Morocco? A church building? No! Only Jesus can protect what he is building. If the gates of Hell will not prevail against the growth of the church, why are we so fearful?

Let all the idols that encourage us to put their faith in them pass away and let us be left alone with Jesus. He will protect us and lead us safely to him.

Where will you find peace and security in the midst of uncertainty? Your relationships with important people in this country? Your nationality? Don’t lean on and depend on what will pass away. Push those aside and lean on Jesus.

Change is necessary for our growth as Christians. I had a couple posters when I first became a follower of Jesus. One said, “Growth is the only evidence of life.” The second said, “Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks out his neck.”

We need to lean into change, to experience the new thing God is doing. Paul wrote to the Philippians (3:13–14)
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Straining forward, pressing on; this is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

We don’t seek change for the sake of change; we strain forward, keeping our focus on Jesus, keeping up with the new thing he is doing as he builds his church.

Our situation has changed. Now it is up to us to embrace it, pray and determine what next steps he wants us to take.

In the meantime, we are still the church. We have a new location but we are still Rabat International Church.

We have some for whom today is their last Sunday at RIC. They are moving from Morocco, maybe going back to what is more familiar, perhaps going to a new unfamiliarity.

I encourage you to keep your focus on Jesus, to make it your goal to be alone with Jesus as you navigate the changes before you.

For those of us who will be at RIC next week and the weeks that follow, we need to do the same. There may be more changes in the future and we too will be best served if we keep our focus on Jesus, put our trust and confidence in him and not in the temporal world.

Jesus will lead us into new spiritual adventures. Jesus will keep us safe. Jesus will be with us.