Sunday: 10th Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: John 6:35, 41-51
Preacher: S. James Steen

On Thursday and Friday I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, an annual event sponsored by Willow Creek Church in South Barrington. My friend, Jeannette Defriest, who is the Rector of St. Luke's in Evanston, has been telling me for years that I should attend the Summit. I have resisted her invitation, partly because I already participate in a good deal of continuing education and, honestly, I've also resisted because Willow Creek is a mega-church with a theology that, in some areas, I don't accept.

One thing I learned there is that we're on the right track at SPR when we normally limit our sermons to no more than 15 minutes. David Gergen, the CNN commentator who, among other things, teaches leadership at Harvard, spoke of a recent Harvard study on preaching that advises limiting the length of sermons. The study discovered that, once the preacher goes beyond 30 minutes, nearly everyone has quit listening and is instead having sexual fantasies. Being so much briefer than half an hour, it's a great relief to know that we're in no danger of leading you into that temptation!

There were thousands of people at the event and some very impressive speakers. Besides David Gergen, the list of better-known speakers included Bono, Tony Blair (by teleconferencing), and Gary Hamel, whom the Wall Street Journal recently named as the world's most influential business thinker.

It was actually the talk by Gary Hamel that I found most exciting and germane to our work at SPR, as he spoke very directly to what it requires to be a vital church in the third millennium. I know that he's a business guru and not a theologian. But he's also a Christian who is deeply concerned about the Church. And I would prefer to see us grappling with theology in a vital, dynamic community, rather than one that's dying.

Hamel challenges us to ask whether we are changing as fast as the world around us, because, in his words, most churches are "prisoners of precedence." He reminds us that in today's environment we are either moving forward or backwards. There is no in-between. He's right; and by the way, I think everything he says about churches can also be said of us as individual people. I'm trying to listen with that perspective.
Hamel says that the biggest organizational advantage a church can have is an evolutionary advantage, to keep evolving. This requires four things:

1. Resist the temptation to deny reality. Face the facts. Welcome the voices of those who disagree with the majority.

2. Don't rush to closure when looking toward the future. Before making decisions, allow yourself to be in an uncomfortable state of uncertainty for as long as it takes.

3. Look at everything you're doing as a church and ask what hasn't changed at all for two or three years. The longer you stay in the trenches, the easier it is to mistake the edge of your trench for the horizon.

4. Ask whether you are more committed to welcoming seekers to the Good News of Christ or to maintaining established church practices.

Finally, in practicing all four, move away from a hierarchical approach to one that is flat and open to leadership from the whole body. If you want to get there fast, do it alone; if you want it to last, work as a team. Consider Jesus' approach in this.

Leadership practices do matter, but not as ends in themselves. Their purpose is to support the church in living its core message; and today's Gospel passage is helpful regarding that message. Earlier in the week your staff did a Bible Study on that passage. There, Jesus says that whoever believes in him and partakes of him has eternal life. It's a bold claim, and it's one I believe. But I won't make such a strong assertion without first saying something about what it means to have eternal life in Christ.

We all have times - some brief, others sustained - when we experience eternal life. Being in love, loving deeply, being moved to tears by beauty: are a few examples. Someone recently told me of a magical time when she was part of a group where everyone was so totally in sync that it was like nothing she had experienced before or since. She was describing an experience of what John means my eternal life.

The community of John, like other Christian communities, had a unique perspective and character. Its members were intensely aware of the contrast between their new life of freedom in Christ and their former life under the law. We, who live in the 21st Century, might think they were fanatical in their sense that Jesus was the only way - indeed that what they had experienced was the only way - but this grew out of their new knowledge that for them following the way of Christ was like being truly alive for the first time: Eternal Life. And we might note that they did admit the possibility that they didn't have a total monopoly on the truth; for later in John, Jesus says, "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them, also...." (Chapter 10)

Eternal life: offering to all who come into this place an experience of that precious reality is the thing most central to the mission of this community. John's feeding imagery - Eucharistic imagery - is one key to understanding this. We at SPR claim, as our central vision, becoming a community that mirrors the radical hospitality Jesus. It's the thing that, for us, is just over our horizon. So, we begin by proclaiming that everyone, without exception, is welcome as we gather around this table. We do not always succeed in practicing that value; but we keep at it.

As we point out repeatedly, it's no small matter that here the table sits in the center of the gathered community. It doesn't just belong to the priest. It belongs to all of us. Jesus promised to be in the midst of the community that gathers in his name to share bread and wine. So every such meal is an encounter with him and a taste of eternal life. That's also why our altar is in the center. Eating together is numinous. We eat together to remind ourselves that in feeding and being fed, we give and we receive Christ. And we nourish one another and receive nourishment not just because it feels good, but in order to have what we need to go back out there, to serve God's world. That, I believe, is who we are.

Amen.