Should Christianity Be Popular?

A few weeks ago when I began to sketch some notes for today’s sermon, the phrase that caught my attention was the end of verse 15: “[Jesus] was praised by everyone.” So my title asks, should Christianity be popular?

Jesus certainly was. Almost all of his conflict was with religious and political leaders but normal folk seemed to have liked him and responded positively to what had to say. Admittedly Luke’s comment about people praising Jesus is a summary or general statement. But we have no reason to doubt its basic accuracy and we can conclude that people mostly liked what they heard Jesus say and saw him do.

So ought the faith Jesus founded also be popular? Is Christianity something that people should like and to which they should respond positively? Let’s think about this together for a few minutes this morning as we reflect on the lesson from Luke’s Gospel. Let’s read it in chapter 4.

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

I heard a story not long ago about a Presbyterian church that needed to build a new building. Apparently there was considerable disagreement among the members about what needed to be included in the building, how much to spend, and how to finance the project. But finally a particularly wealthy member of the congregation offered to build and to pay for the entire project. There were only two conditions: (1) everyone would stay out of his way, and (2) everyone would stay out of the building until it was completed. He assured the session and the congregation that everyone would be happy with the results and finally they agreed.

Construction began, was soon completed, and the day came for the first service in the new church building and the first chance to look inside. As the congregation arrived, the ushers opened the doors, welcomed the worshipers, and proceeded to seat them. However, there was only one pew and it was in the extreme rear of the sanctuary. But, amazingly, when that pew was full, an usher pressed a button and the pew slid forward on tracks stopping in the very front of the sanctuary and another empty pew popped up in the back. It was filled with worshipers and sent forward in an identical manner. Eventually the entire church was filled with people who eagerly anticipated both worship and the next new revelation.

Well, the pastor was really excited about this too. Not only was the sanctuary full but it was packed full down front — not always the case in most Presbyterian churches. So all of this really inspired him and he got to preaching like never before. In fact, he preached and preached and totally forgot what time it was.

But suddenly, as soon as the service had lasted exactly 60 minutes, a chime sounded . . . and, whoosh . . . a trap door opened underneath the preacher and he disappeared down a slide. A moment later he popped up at the door where the worshipers greeted him as they left the sanctuary.[1]

I got quite a kick out of that story, and as I chuckled about it, it made me even more aware that we don’t have much time. Whether worship lasts 60 minutes or less or more, with our busy lives and all that competes for our attention, we don’t have much time each week to really take into ourselves, into our hearts and minds, the heart and mind of God. So I want to think with you today for at least a few minutes about those good folk in a synagogue in Nazareth long ago as they tried to take into their hearts and minds what Jesus was saying to them.

We know that it didn’t take long for the good folks of Nazareth to change from a positive regard for Jesus to a murderous desire to kill him. Just a few minutes after he said that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled in their hearing, the citizens of his hometown got very angry and tried to throw him off a cliff. But that’s next week’s sermon and today I want to stay focused on what Jesus said that caused a positive response and I want to ask if the Christianity we teach and live ought to also be positive, to be popular.

We begin by understanding what Jesus said. He read as his text a passage from Isaiah. It was from a popular section of Isaiah that told how God was again going to make things right in Israel after the devastations of Exile. It was almost what we would think of as an “Easter text.” It was about new life and hope and wonderful things to come. It’s the kind of message that I’ll preach to you on April 8th which is Easter this year. Everyone likes to hear that kind of text and the positive messages based on such texts.

For Jesus said that good things were going to happen to God’s people. God’s Spirit had anointed him to:

That’s great stuff and a faith that promises those things ought to be popular, don’t you think?

Yes, one would think so. We all want good news for our literal poor and our spiritually poor. Everyone wants his or her captivity and blindness overcome. We want our oppression and addictions healed and the Lord to give us a good year. Who doesn’t want these things? If that is Christianity, then it should be the most popular idea around and everyone should be flocking to church so we would all have to build new and bigger sanctuaries, whether or not they had pews that automatically slide up to the front.

But then Jesus added, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Uh-oh. Now there is a problem. Today! Fulfillment! In our midsT! Jesus was saying that in him the fullness of God’s liberation was with them right then. Quit waiting for the Roman oppressors to be defeated. (Which is what every Jew in Palestine hoped for.) Quit waiting for some blessing in the future. Quit waiting for pie in the sky by and by. God’s salvation has come — now, here, in you.

Oh, dear. That’s a problem, isn’t it? You see, this shifts the focus from what God has already done to how we will respond. It shifts from the admittedly popular message that God has blessed us to the challenging and sometimes difficult message that we must live in the reality of this blessing. God has redeemed us. We must, therefore, live redeemed lives.

That’s not so popular but I think it is the challenge of being Christian. In Jesus Christ, God loves. Do we love? In Jesus Christ, God heals. Do we heal? In Jesus Christ, God liberates. Do we liberate? It is one thing to know that we are loved and blessed by God. It is quite another to live in light of what we know. The message from God isn’t new. Jesus stood up in his hometown’s synagogue and read a text that was more that five centuries old. The message wasn’t new. The question was would they accept and live out what they already knew.

That’s also the question for us. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we remembered a week ago, did not come preaching something new. He came shouting something we already knew: “You have said in your own Declaration of Independence, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights.’” And King insisted that either we live by what we already knew — or else we were unfaithful to our own founding documents. So we killed him, because King told us what we already knew. Friends, as with Jesus, as with Martin, we already know all we need to know.[2] The challenge is always, will we live in light of what we know?

Should Christianity be popular? Of course, for it is the greatest news of all. It proclaims that we are not alone and that we are loved — eternally. But in this popular message there is a challenge that may not be so popular. Will we live in light of God’s love for us? Will we change our lives to reflect God’s love?

In a book about Presbyterian worship I read the story of an incident that occurred many years ago during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in a little mission church in New Zealand. In that church the people came forward to receive the bread and wine. A line of worshipers had just knelt at the altar rail when suddenly from among them a young native arose and returned to his pew. Some minutes later, however, he came back to his place at the rail.

Afterward a friend inquired why he had done this. He replied: “When I went forward and knelt, I found myself side by side with a man who some years ago had slain my father and whom I had vowed to kill. I felt I could not partake with him, so I returned to my pew. But as I sat there, my mind went back to a picture of the Upper Room, with its table set, and I heard a voice saying, ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’ And I saw a Cross with a man nailed upon it and the same voice saying, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ It was then I arose and returned to the altar rail.”[3]

Well, our little time is gone and I’ve got to stop or you are going to whoosh me away, if not literally, at least in your heads. But everything I’ve said today should help us at least appreciate how important worship is, not just occasionally but every week. For it reminds us, like it did that native New Zealander, about what we already know. Worship helps us at least a little bit to meet the challenge of responding to Christ’s popular message. We have in scripture and proclamation and sacrament the very presence and Word of God. God’s Word tells us that we are loved and forgiven and healed and liberated. That’s wonderful news and a great blessing. But it also asks us a question. Will we respond by loving and forgiving and healing and liberating? I hope we will, whether that’s popular or not.

[1] EcuLaugh, online, www.ecunet.org/eculaugh, Internet, 10 Jan. 1998.

[2] William H. Willimon, “His Own Knew Him Not,” Pulpit Resource 26.1 (1998): 18.

[3] Donald Macleod, Presbyterian Worship: Its Meaning and Method (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1980) 66.