(a sermon preached for Two Rock Valley and Tomales Presbyterian Churches on June 2, 2024, message is based on 2 Corinthians 4:5-15)
In the 13th century, Emperor Fredrick of the Roman Empire,
conceived of an experiment by which he believed
he would discover human-kind’s original language; Hebrew, Greek, or Latin.
He decided to achieve this goal by isolating a few infants
from the sound of the human voice.
Left to their own devices, he believed these little ones
would eventually speak our natural human tongue.
Nurses were forced to swear they would not speak to the infants
while feeding, bathing, and diaper changing.
Within several months instead of declaring the native tongue of humankind,
all the babies were (… brace yourself) … dead.
After reeling from the horror of this story,
I had an immediate thought.
Is this why mainline Christian churches in America are dwindling in membership,
dare I say (at least our fear says) dying?
Is it because we don’t think sharing our faith is necessary?
Is it because we think that people are born innately with a full-fledged sense of faith?
Probably we realize we have a contribution to make,
but maybe don’t know how to share about why we come to Church,
or we are afraid to do so in this day and time and place?
In Second Corinthians Chapter 4, the apostle Paul says:
“Just as we have the same spirit of faith, that is in accordance with Scripture
– “I believed and so I spoke” – we also believe and so we speak.
… Yes, everything is for your sake so that grace,
as it extends to more and more people,
may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”
We believe and so we speak.
Emperor Fredrick felt his beliefs would speak on their own, with tragic results.
Beliefs are not shared unless they are spoken,
just as they aren’t shared unless they are demonstrated.
When my son John was born,
the nurse who helped me as I was leaving the hospital
instructed me to speak to him constantly;
to explain what I was doing and why,
even on mundane things like buckling him into his car seat.
She stressed to me that even newborns have some understanding of what is going on
and that furthermore they need to learn their mother’s (or a loved ones) voice.
They need to be spoken to because they are no less a person than an adult.
Infants learn this way, even when we are unable to see how.
Research tells us that the typical child takes in an average of a dozen words a day
by the time they are eighteen months old.
(So, if I’ve done the math correctly, that would mean that they ‘know’ nearly 10,000 words by the time they reach 1.5 years of age).
Whether we realize it or not, our words, and the beliefs behind them, are readily absorbed,
long before a child even begins to speak.
And it goes both ways: babies not only understand us when they are preverbal,
but we understand them, even without words.
It often takes just a short time for a new mom to distinguish between a cry that means,
“I’m hungry,” a cry that means, “I need my diaper changed,” and
a cry that means, “I’m tired.”
And if you never could tell the difference, it doesn’t mean you were a bad mom, …
most likely it means you were tired and pulled in far too many directions.
In a language acquisition study some time ago,
it was proven that parents can recognize their children from their babbles and coos.
In one particular study, a group of French laypeople were invited to listen
to recordings of pre-verbal babies from different countries.
With near perfect accuracy,
they could pick out the babblings of their French babies over all the others.
We communicate with words and with pre-verbal utterances;
but the common denominator is that speaking to one another is critical.
We speak in order to develop and sustain relationships.
We voice what we believe; we share what we feel is important.
An important reminder too … we absolutely speak without words as well …
experts posit that 93% of our communication is actually non-verbal
(this includes tone of voice, mannerisms, facial expressions and the like).
Interestingly, when my son John was young,
I tried pretty hard NOT to over-emphasize religion.
I wanted him to believe. I wanted him to know the love of God.
I wanted him to understand his mom’s professional calling,
but I didn’t want it to be all consuming for him.
PKs (Pastor’s Kids) can have a tough time growing up
– either taking on the mantle of perfectly behaved saviors for all around them
or taking the opposite approach by rebelling against their parents’ teachings with gusto.
I didn’t want to encourage either of these postures in John.
And yet, despite my intention to keep Church in a healthy balance for him,
John picked up plenty of what he heard about God, faith and Church.
And from what I could tell,
John was more expressive than most of his peers on these matters.
One day when John was in kindergarten,
he came home to inform me that he had started a ‘God Club.’
When I asked him who was in the club,
he said everyone, … well except for Sam.
As a newly called church pastor I was quite impressed with this …
(that’s a very good participation rate!)
“What do you do in your God club, John?”
“We talk about the things that God does, Mom (duh!)
You know, like create trees, flowers, food, friends – we add things to the list every day.”
Seeing how John absorbed all that swirled around him was a joy, and quite informative.
If children are that adept at picking up on what they hear,
then NOT hearing things might also be profound.
If faith is not discussed, children probably think it’s not that important.
Or, at minimum, they certainly might not know how to develop a sense of faith.
If we live in a void, where there are no expressions of faith,
how can we, like the infants not exposed to language at the start of my message here,
how can we thrive in knowing and sharing the grace of God?
I had the honor of meeting Garrison Keillor, the NPR radio-show host,
a decade or so ago at a ‘meet and greet’ before one of his shows in Carmel, CA.
When he learned I was a pastor, he shared a bit about his pastor (also a young-ish woman)
and his church, … and the dwindling membership he witnessed there.
After summarizing this unfortunately all too familiar situation, he asked me,
“Lisa, where are all the children? They don’t come and when they do,
they don’t know the first thing about Christian teachings. What has happened?”
I was surprised by the seriousness of this very funny man.
Taken aback, I nonetheless quickly quipped,
“I think they’re all on the soccer fields or basketball courts, Sir” …
… because that was my experience.
He was speaking to the choir because I was in this exact season of life and
I found myself, much to my dismay, to be at times an ‘angry church lady’
who couldn’t figure out how to get my kid to his ballgames,
which increasingly ate up all of our weekends, including Sunday mornings,
(which were definitely not sacredly set aside for Church).
In my experience of the larger world,
Church is no longer a part of the fabric of society in many pockets of America.
People are busy with a multitude of interests and activities.
This may be a bold claim, but I actually think people are tying to create their own churches
on the soccer fields and with the communal bike rides,
and they are doing this precisely because the Church has failed them
(yes, there is a whole sermon there, and no I am not touching that one today).
If we were in business, our conversation as the Church would be
“How do we increase our market share?”
How do we convince people that church is as important as soccer or that
down time with one’s family might nicely include an outing to church on Sunday mornings?
The tide is working against us.
We don’t have the latest gizmo or paradigm to share.
Our story is old, … very old.
But this does NOT make it obsolete.
Let us remember, lest we bemoan the times in which we live,
that the tide has often been working against people of faith.
The apostle Paul, author of our reading from Corinthians today,
was arguably one of the most expressive evangelists our Christian faith has ever known.
How did he come to share the Good News?
He shared his experiences,
after being struck down off his horse while traveling the road to Damascus,
supposedly blinded by Christ because he was headed to persecute Christians.
Not exactly a moment when he was at his personal best.
Sharing what we know (in our heads) is not,
as compelling as sharing why our faith moves us to show up at Church.
Sharing how we have come to believe what we believe, however,
… that can be transformative, for ourselves and others.
How do we do this in a society and time in which everything is expressed
in sound bites and text messages?
Faith doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to this sort of brevity.
I wish I could answer that question with a simple reply.
I take comfort in the words of a mentor of mine who recently reminded me that
“Leaders don’t need answers. They must have the right questions.”
And so, knowing that big endeavors require initial baby steps, I’ll ask: “How do we start?”
Maybe by sharing our faith with each other, here in Church.
Consider sharing the reasons why you are committed to this church
and the Christian walk with each other during fellowship time.
What brought you here initially? What keeps you coming?
Our answers might give us insight into how to share our faith
with people in the rest of our lives.
This is evangelism, … and it is important,
as uncomfortable as it might make some of us quiet-spoken folks
to contemplate much less engage.
Maybe we can take some of the pressure off by saying that we don’t have to do this
in order to “save folks for Christ” in a traditional sense.
We have to do this because it’s how we get to know people
and speak of things that really matter in our lives.
Like how we got through some of our personal rough patches
and how we keep our heads and hearts together when life is challenging.
Learning how to have these conversations takes practice,
but we don’t have to have theologically weighty conversations.
Often when I think of some of the points along my faith walk,
I laugh out loud and roll my eyes.
However we start sharing our faith, let us do so.
The vitality of this specific church and the Church universal needs us to be
the hands and feet and mouth through which God,
in Jesus Christ, and by way of the Holy Spirit, flows into this world.
Lord, give us the strength to follow your invitation.
Amen.