It is such a beautiful day! I know you saw blue sky and mountains and the water on the way in today. Way back in the 16th century, John Calvin used to say that when we look out at the beauty of God’s creation, we can see something of God, we can know some things about God simply by seeing what he has made. But we don’t see all of God. It’s as though our vision is a little fuzzy. Calvin said we were like people who needed spectacles, glasses that would bring the fuzziness into sharp focus. And these spectacles, he said, are the scriptures. When we read the scripture, it brings all of God into focus, the God revealed in Jesus.

This is the third time we have looked at what it means to Follow Jesus Together, looking at the marks, the characteristics of God’s people, the church. Today we’ll read from Hebrews 10:19-25.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

It’s pretty much the second thing the writer of Hebrews says in this passage. The first thing is this: it’s all about Jesus. The writer of this letter to a faith community has spent roughly 10 chapters spelling out what is summarized in 10:19-23. It’s about Jesus. Because of what God has done in Jesus, we have access to God, forgiveness and a basis for trusting in God’s promises. Jesus first. It’s such a good reminder for us. First of all, it’s about Jesus. Secondly it’s about us. The church follows Jesus, the church is born from the gospel, and not vice versa. When we get the order screwed up, we are in bad shape.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

Why would the writer of this letter write this? Clearly, it was happening or he wouldn’t have written it. But why? Why would the believers in Jesus avoid meeting together?

Sometimes its dangerous. When a group of us were in China in 2002, visiting an illegal training school for underground church leaders, I had a chance to spend an entire day and night meeting with the students. They asked me to teach for an entire day, and in the middle of that day I was tired of talking and I said “Let’s stand up and sing a little bit!”

They were excited to do it, but they instantly had to send four people in four different directions to make sure the doors and windows in the entire building were closed tight so the sound of singing wouldn’t drift out into the neighborhood. If it did, neighbors would call the police. And in fact, 2-3 times that day we had to stop our training time and sit quietly for a few minutes because a spotter had seen a policeman with a dog out in the area. Not all Christians get to enjoy fellowship like this today, and we can easily take it for granted.

Or sometimes it’s dangerous in a different way. We’re afraid of being labeled as one of “those.” After all, they say Seattle is one of the least churched-cities in the country. Christians get labeled. Who wants to be branded as a right-wing republican conservative who talks about God but shows little faith…or a flaming liberal left-wing democrat who talks about faith but not God? It’s safer to go your own way.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

Why not? What’s the big deal? We don’t have to go to church, we don’t have to be in a small group, we can be Christians by ourselves, right?

In theory only. My experience is, not in the real world. On Easter morning, I talked about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor was executed by the Gestapo in 1945. In 1935, ten years before his death, he lived in a subversive community of young people training to be pastors, and wrote his reflections in a little book called Life Together. In it he says

“the physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.”

And it is especially apparent, he writes, when it is not easily accessible:

“The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.”

On my same trip to China, I was up early one morning to go run. We were in Beijing, my internal time clock was a little messed up at that point, and I went for a run about 6 AM in the morning. There were very few people out on the streets in downtown Beijing except some army guys doing military drills. I was a little tired, it was the very end of the trip, and I was feeling a bit alone and unable to speak with anyone I did see because of the language barrier.

That’s when I heard it: deep base voice, a block away singing the hymn “How Great Thou Art!” In English! I wondered what that was all about. The voice drifted away, I finished my run and was walking back to my hotel when I heard it again, closer: “How Great Thou Art…”

This time I followed the voice, and ended up meeting and talking for awhile with a man from Hong Kong, there on business and starting his day worshipping God. “A physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.” We can be that for one another, whenever we gather together. There is more going on here than just a bunch of people being in the same space.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

Why would we?

I have a friend who slips in and out of a service on occasion and says “I don’t want all that touchy feely fellowship stuff, and I can barely put up with the singing. I just come to hear the sermon, and that’s the information I need to be a Christian.”

And maybe it would be if being a Christian just meant having a set of beliefs, just getting the right information. But it’s not. It’s following after Jesus, the risen, living God of the universe made present in the Holy Spirit. It’s being in a relationship with the mysterious and personal God who has said “Yes” to revealing Himself in Jesus. We are made to be in relationship, with God and with other people. I don’t care how much of an introvert or extravert you are, you were created/wired to be in relationship with God and with the people made in God’s image.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

Why would we?

Because it sounds like an institutional recruitment thing. Like maybe Dan gets paid on a “per-head-in-the-pew” basis! Hmm…actually, I think it’s more of a family thing. Our family at home wouldn’t work so well if we were never together, never talked about things that mattered, never got mad, never forgave, never laughed.

Is our community here any different? Maybe the meeting together is in worship. Maybe it’s being part of a home group, or a men’s group or a women’s group. Maybe it’s being one on one with someone. We’ve been working pretty hard these last several years at making sure that when we meet together around Bethany, it includes what Hebrews calls “mutual encouragement.” Even our teams of teachers or deacons or staff, even our church Session devotes significant amounts of time to not just working together, not just being a Presbyterian Committee, but to being a community. To knowing what is going on in the lives of the people around us, to making space so that we can really know others…and be known. Nobody needs more tasks without relationships.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

Why would we?

Because we have things going on in our lives that are secret and we don’t want others to find out. If I let anyone get too close, they’ll find out I’m different than I look on the outside. They’ll find some stuff that’s not pretty. Here’s four big secrets at Bethany right now…I hear them from some folks, but of course there are many more:

• From some couples: “We’re having a hard time in our marriage, but we don’t want anyone to know.” Marriage is hard work…and not every problem is just a 2-person problem, we sometimes need others around us to walk with us.
• From some men, “I can’t keep myself from looking at pornography on the internet.” Some surveys say that number is 60% of men in America. I think that’s low, actually.
• From some women: “My husband or boyfriend shoved me, or hit me.” That’s just flat out wrong. If you find yourself there, don’t try to convince yourself that it’s okay. It’s not.
• From others: “God has felt a long way off for a long time. I’m just going through the motions of faith.”

They’re all secrets, and there are many others. But as long as they remain secrets they get more and more destructive. They need the light of Christ to shine on them and disarm them. They may need grace, friendship, confrontation, counseling…but they need to be told, and you can only tell secrets to people you trust, and you can only trust people you know, and you can only know people that you spend time with and get below the surface. The most potent power in each case is the secrecy.

“Do not neglect meeting together.”

Why would we?

As early as the second century AD, we have records in the church of people not meeting together, not for any reason that I’ve talked about yet, but rather for one that is terribly familiar to us: they were too busy. Second century! They were working too many hours at work. There were too many other things going on, and the thing that was expendable was gathering together with other Christians.

Boy, this does sound familiar, doesn’t it? I mean, there are not enough hours in the day. There are not enough days in the week. There are not enough weeks in the year. We go to seminars, for heaven’s sake, we buy expensive software or complicated calendar systems or Blackberries…just to try to manage our time better. We try to cram in as much as we can, but it doesn’t tend to be more room for relationships, with God or with other people.

I am the chief of sinners in this regard. Thanks be to God I’m married to Anne, who has a much better perspective on this than me. I go from being so overscheduled I can’t see straight to making big blanket statements like “we can’t schedule time to see anyone until next September!” Luckily, Anne is more balanced. And then we make time to see people and we’ll get together and in one evening we tell stories, we totally fall in love with them, we fall in love with their kids.

The payoff is amazing. I don’t have to tell you. When one of my men’s groups or our pastoral staff can get our schedules together enough to sneak up to Whidbey Island for a weekend, it changes everything. Knits people together, opens conversations that would never happen elsewhere, tears down defenses and pretenses, literally takes relationships to an entirely different level…just from one weekend together.

“Don’t neglect meeting together.”

Why would the church, the people of God, not meet together?

If we’re honest? We don’t necessarily like each other. We’ve been disappointed with the church before. We’ve been wronged or hurt by people in both real and imagined ways, we’ve run into a policy we don’t like, people haven’t reached out to us. We go from group to group, or church to church, searching for the right one, the one that will make me feel good, the one that’s friendly. So people sometimes say to me “I’m a Christian, I just don’t like organized religion,” forgetting that the church is not an “it” but a “they,” a bunch of people. One of my favorite authors Kathleen Norris says

“I have come to suspect that when people complain about “organized religion”what they are really saying is that they can’t stand other people.”

We’re a funny, aren’t we?! A sometimes bizarre, talented sometimes dangerous bunch. Volatile. Norris says the church is so full of diverse characters that it’s more like a Christmas party at an insurance office than some polished, beautiful postcard scene. Somehow we have to push past and know each other.

Bonhoeffer spoke to this as well. He says most people come to community with

“a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world…the sooner this disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.”

Did you notice Bonhoeffer said it was God’s grace that made us disillusioned with the whole lot? There’s a sense of “Good, reality has set in. Good, now we can get down to the –messy- business of knowing each other.”

We bear responsibility on each side, whether we’ve been here an hour or forty years. To be welcomers, to reach out to people new in our community, to overlook quirks and defects and to reach in and extend ourselves, joining a small group, committing to part of the family of God. Following Jesus Together means being part of a community of intimacy. Knowing and being known. It’s risky and dangerous and thrilling.

Bonhoeffer once more: “The goal of Christian community: that we meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.” That sounds a lot different than showing up at a building once a week whether you feel like it or not. A lot different than sitting through a religious service. “We meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.”

When Jesus modeled out a community like this, he started with 12 folks. They spent three years together. When they were too concerned with the world, he called them to pay attention to souls. When they were too inward looking, he called them to pay attention to world. When they were too hard on each other he told them to be gentle. When they were confused and battered and helpless he told them…to stay together. And the mark of his followers, the one distinguishing characteristic would simply be this: whether or not they loved each other.

Do not neglect…meeting together.