The Meaning of Church Membership
a sermon on Genesis 4.1-9 & Luke 8.19-21
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
Have you been to a retail store and when you go to check out the clerk asks if you are a member of the store’s Saver’s Club, and if you are not would you like to be? Sometimes all you have to do is give them your personal information in exchange for a card with a bar code, so that they can track your spending habits. Other times they offer you a discount if you pay a yearly membership fee. Some stores, like Sam’s Club, are built around the concept of membership.
I have an American Express card, and they call me a member, although I have never met anyone from that company. At least they don’t make me go to meetings! When I shop online, more often than not I am greeted with the words, “Welcome, member!” Want to get in shape? You join a gym and become a member. Want a free ice cream cone on your birthday? Sign-up to be a member of the birthday club. Don’t get me wrong. I am in favor of free ice cream. But the word member has been badly abused lately. Let’s fact it, membership is not what it used to be. What does it mean? What does it mean to be a member of the church? That’s the topic of today’s sermon. Take heart! It is better than you think and worse than you fear. Better because the benefits go far beyond a discount. Worse (in a way) because the cost is greater than giving your name and address or paying a small fee. Of course, there is no comparison between the church and any other organization, especially not a marketing gimmick; and you really cannot reckon a cost because in the end, everything you lose turns out to be worth so little while what you gain turns out to be precious. But we will come to that.
Membership, it seems, means different things to different people. There was a time, maybe 50 years ago, when membership meant something. Membership was important, whether it was in the church or a civic club or a bowling team or friends of the library or whatever. Membership formed an important part of your identity. You didn’t just go to a certain church or organization, you were a member; and that said something definitive about you. Membership was understood to confer benefits and entail obligations. Among the benefits was the right to voice your opinion and help guide the direction of the organization. But with privilege came duty, and it was taken seriously. When the organization had a need, you gave and you served. For many people still church membership is like this. And that is not a bad thing. It does not go quite far enough unless you understand how church differs from other organizations, but it is better than the prevailing concept of membership today.
I think many young people are skeptical of the idea of membership because the concept has been so abused. You want me to be a member? What are you trying to get? What’s the catch? Membership has become a marketing ploy, and it has been effective because it taps into a need each of us feels at the root of our being. We want to belong. How many successful television shows are based on this theme? “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.” That’s from Cheers. How long did it run? What about the show Friends? “I’ll be there for you ’cause you’re there for me too.”
We want … we need … to belong—to be part of a community, to fit in. Ninety-five percent of adolescent anxiety comes down to wanting to fit in. And we do not lose that need as we grow older. It is a basic human need. God made us that way. God created us for community, and even the most introverted hermit needs other people.
Our culture offers us parodies of the belonging God intends for us. Television offers virtual belonging, where you feel as if the characters are your friends. Marketing companies know we want desperately to belong so that’s what they seem to offer us. The contemporary American has a wallet full of membership cards, but still lacks that sense of community, of belonging. Membership has lost its meaning, but we have not lost our need to belong.
What does church membership mean? I sure picked a couple of odd passages to answer this question, especially the one about Cain and Abel. What does that have to do with joining the church? More than you might suspect. I find two things in that passage that go right to the heart of what the church is and what it means to be a member. This sermon will follow my usual two-point outline. By the way, does anyone remember when sermons had three points instead of two? Must be inflation or something.
Anyway … the first insight this story gives us about church membership is the more obvious and comes right at the end. Cain has killed his brother. God speaks to him: “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain answers: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He soon learns to his dismay that God already knows where Abel is and what Cain has done. Too late he finds the answer to his question: Yes, you are your brother’s keeper.
The New Testament employs a colorful variety of ways to talk about the church. The most prominent is family. We shouldn’t be surprised because this way of describing the church goes back to Jesus himself. He taught his followers to call God “Father.” The passage I read from Luke, which seems a bit bland to us, was nothing short of shocking in his day. Family relationships and obligations were sacred. Your need for belonging, as well as all your physical and social needs, began and ended with your family. In that time and place, the family, not the individual, was the most basic building block of society. In that context Jesus’ words were powerful.
Likewise when he commanded people to leave their families to follow him. Or to neglect certain family obligations in order to follow him. He promised that those who left or lost family for his sake would gain it back a hundred fold. Jesus taught his friends to think of themselves as a family, and they did so. Early Christians developed the custom of calling one another brother and sister. Paul addresses his churches this way. It’s all over the New Testament: Those who belong to Jesus have God as their Father, and they are siblings in God’s family.
As you might suspect from dealings with your family, this is good and bad news. Good News: It offers the hope of belonging, caring, loving, and so on. Bad news: It means bearing one another’s burdens, loving difficult people, and that sort of thing. In a family you don’t get to ask, “What’s in it for me?” You just get to love and be loved.
OK, so the church is family, that’s nothing you haven’t heard before. What does it have to do with membership in a local congregation? So, our faith in Christ unites us with all who belong to him in every time and place. What about the local church? And what about membership? Isn’t that just putting your name on a roll?
Let me go at these questions backwards. There are many who become a part of a local church without officially joining. We have many such people here. Sometimes folks join after being part of a local church for a long time. I will tell you in a bit why I believe joining means more than signing your name to the roll, but I do acknowledge that people often have good reasons to wait or to become active but not officially join. I knew one man who was very active in his church but never officially joined because he was afraid they would ask him to be an elder. That, by the way, is not a good reason. That’s a reason worthy of Jonah. My purpose this morning is not to convince anyone to join. If that were my aim I would speak to each one privately. I simply want to preach about the meaning of membership for the sake of everyone, and let God deal with each of us as he will.
You are your brother’s keeper. Your faith in Christ, if you are a Christian, binds you to other believers in God’s family. All those who call upon the name of Jesus in every time and place are your brothers and sisters, and you are their keeper. Not you alone, but you bear responsibility for them. Immediately, however, you have a problem. You are part of the great, cosmic church universal simply by virtue of your relationship with Christ. But … you are neither cosmic nor universal. You are limited by space and time. Even with cell phones and email, you can only be in one place at a time. Because you are limited this way, there is only one way you can participate in the church universal, and that is by participating in the church local. When you were baptized, you were baptized into the universal church, but you were baptized by some congregation somewhere. The universal church doesn’t baptize, except through local churches. In fact, it doesn’t exist on earth except as local churches.
John Calvin was fond of describing how God makes accommodations for human weakness. The local church is one of these. Here are people you can know and care for. When you love them you are loving God. When you use the gifts that God has given you for ministry here, you are doing good that will endure in the kingdom of God. You are your brother’s keeper. You cannot do that in a cosmic, universal way; yet here are brothers and sisters you can keep, and who will keep you.
Think of the Internet. It spans the globe, but if you want access to it, you need hardware: a computer, a Palm Pilot, a cell phone—something with a screen and a keyboard. Can you be a citizen without a country? Can you be a soldier without an army? Can you play quarterback if you have no team? Can you be a Christian apart from the church? Yet the only way you can participate in the church is to participate in a church!
We all know that local congregations have faults and problems. That’s a consequence of having people. Get over that and don’t miss the power and potential of a good congregation. Think of Paul. With all that he wrote to churches trying to solve problems, you know he was under no illusion about the craziness, hypocrisy, and sinfulness of local congregations; yet he never forgot that these same congregations were God’s chosen instruments and channels of saving grace. It’s a situation so odd, God must be behind it. Take comfort, you’ll fit right in!
Now, I have spoken both of being part of a church and of officially joining. What is the difference? And does it matter? Is joining just putting your name on a roll? Well, it isn’t. To officially join a church is to make a promise. When people join Westminster, we always ask four questions. The first three simply reaffirm their baptismal vows. These three are about their commitment to Jesus Christ. The last one, however, is about their commitment to us. We ask: “Will you be a faithful member of this congregation, share in its worship and ministry through your prayers and gifts, your study and service, and so fulfill your calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?” The answer we hope to hear is: “I will, with God’s help.”
Notice how that works: The person joining has a calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We are realistic that he or she cannot answer that call faithfully without a church. What we want to know is: Are we the one for you? Will you make a promise to us that you will be a keeper of your brothers and sisters here at Westminster? Will you let us keep you?
It is possible to be active, even to be committed to a church without making such a promise. But being a member means making the promise because it is the promise and the commitment that bind us together.
You are your brother and sister’s keeper. Suppose, however, that you don’t want to be. What if you want to just be a Christian without joining or being part of a church? Again, this is the way of Jonah. By not joining a church or participating in one, you do not escape responsibility, you just prove unfaithful. Like it or not, your faith in Christ makes you part of God’s family, and not just in some mystical, cosmic way, but in the flesh-and-blood way of a church, made up of real people.
God creates the church. Not only the universal church, God creates local churches by calling people together. People join a given church for different reasons: They like the music or the preaching. They get involved in a group or activity. I would never second guess someone’s reason. Yet I do believe the best reason is that you believe God is calling you to a certain church. A mature Christian will always consider how he or she can minister in a church more than just what the church can offer them. And a good church knows that we are our brother and sister’s keepers. If we are not, then no matter how many activities we can offer, we are less than the church—we would have become a marketer of religious experiences, and membership wouldn’t mean a thing.
Very good, so much for the first point. The second, you will be glad to hear, is a bit shorter, but not less important. What is happening in the story of Cain and Abel? We witness the destruction of relationship caused by sin. Adam and Eve eat the fruit they were not supposed to. They get kicked out of the garden. Theologians call this “the Fall.” The human race is now less than it was—broken by sin. One result is the fracturing of relationships. Their relationship with God is broken, and now relationships within the human family begin to fall apart. Cain and Abel are brothers—the first pair of brothers. We ought to expect them to work together in a relationship of respect and love. Instead Cain kills Abel, and for some reason we are not surprised. We are not surprised because we have seen enough to know how the world is.
Jesus came to undo the effects of sin. He died and rose again to free us from the power of sin. Certainly he puts things right between God and us, but that is not all he does. He also reconciles human beings to one another. The murder of Abel was not what God had in mind when he created humanity. But that is where we find ourselves. Part of Jesus’ saving work, then, is to transform us, so that our relationships with others are what God intends them to be.
Now here’s a funny thing: Rather than change us instantly, the way he healed the sick during his ministry in Galilee, he changes us slowly. He gives us his Spirit, then he puts us in relationship with others who have his Spirit, then he lets us learn and grow the hard way.
The church—and by that I mean a local congregation with real people you know—is a means of grace. God uses it to change our hearts and fit us for life in his kingdom. Through the nitty-gritty process of dealing with other people in the church, we learn how to forgive and be forgiven, how to care and receive care, how to be patient with others, how to speak the truth in love, how to be accountable to one another, how to hear God speaking a message through the people around us, how to be humble, and how to know and worship God.
No church gets it completely right, and some get it very wrong. Nevertheless, the local church is a power channel of grace. Through it God does a good bit of his work in us, and often it is the things that people think are distractions or difficulties that turn out to do the most good. You don’t really know how to love until you can love a difficult person. You don’t know how to forgive until you actually do it.
Membership means you comprehend this truth on some level and you open yourself to God’s work though the people in your church. “I am going to love and grow with these people, and through them God is going to teach me many things. This is where I belong.”
It is a lot easier to be a Christian abstractly, without a church, than concretely, having to put up with other people. We all know people who have dropped out and gone that route. But among the things they lose is the best tool God has for making them like Christ.
It is like the beginning of a symphony when the musicians tune their instruments before the conductor comes out. In heaven, the real music begins; yet here on earth, we are each tuning our instruments. If all you heard was a symphony warming up, and you didn’t know the performance had not yet begun, you might decide it doesn’t sound so good. You hear all sorts of warbling and stray notes. Life in the church is like that. We are trying to get it right. Trying to get in tune and harmonized. Why do symphonies always warm up the way they do? I suppose it is because if they didn’t, the performance wouldn’t sound right. Some Christians may get to heaven and find they are out of tune. They missed the cacophony of warbling, but they are not ready to perform.
So you see, the church is God’s gift to you. Through it God meets your need for belonging. Yet God meets other need through it as well, including some difficult work to make you more like Christ. Grace reconciles us to God and to one another. Just because it is grace does not mean it is quick or easy.
You are your brother and sister’s keeper, and they are yours. This is the will of God. Thanks be to God for his marvelous grace. Amen.