First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Isaiah 5 and Luke 12

“Becoming a Church”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

August 19, 2007

Benjamin Franklin was almost many things. He was almost a scientist; he was almost an entrepreneur; almost a diplomat; and, almost a Christian. It wasn’t that Franklin didn’t accomplish more than most, nor am I suggesting that he wasn’t something to be remembered, esteemed even. Yet, during Benjamin Franklin’s life you gain a better sense of who he was when you realize how many times he was almost something and it was in almost being something that shaped the course of his life.

The easiest example is the best place to start. Franklin was almost a scientist, but he was not one. He did change the world with his discoveries about electricity introducing the lightning rod. Given how much this is now a part of life it is hard to imagine the way a lightning storm struck terror into communities 300 years ago. For with a strike you could lose everything. Intrigued by the phenomenon of electricity Franklin was able to discern through observation how placing a metal rod on the roof of a building would keep it safe from a lightning strike. In spite of his discovery though he needed to leave the proof, the description and reason why this was so to others, to scientists, because he wasn’t one.

The University of Oxford gave him an honorary doctorate as did a score of colleges, but he never attended one. He almost did, he was accepted and could have easily excelled at Harvard while growing up in Boston, but instead he was made a printer’s apprentice.

It was as a teenage apprentice that he took to writing pseudonymous articles. His first and most famous character was Silence Dogood. Writing under the character of a much older woman Franklin found a voice and experienced the success that would have easily led many to seek the path of being a writer. And while Franklin did write a great deal, he was never really a great writer. He was probably more read than any writer of his times, but he never translated his popularity into a career. Everyone read what he wrote, but he never really became a writer. From time to time he would come very close, as with his autobiography, but then he would set it aside.

When I said Franklin was almost a Christian I don’t mean this as a critique but an affirmation of what he said and wrote and struggled with in regard to the Christian faith. Franklin was a pragmatist. In other words, believe what you believe is true, but mostly do what is right. Nearly all of Franklin’s writings, from the Poor Richard’s Almanac, to his many letters and pamphlets, were at some moment an appeal to do what is right. Live simply. He would become famous for the saying: early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. The more I read of him the more I am convinced that such advice is not to help people get rich, but to simply do what is right.

In Philadelphia, as a young merchant, he was a member of a Presbyterian Church which he didn’t attend. When a new associate was hired whose sermons were more on the practical than the doctrinal side, he started to attend regularly. The ensuing heresy trial of the young pastor led Franklin to refrain from much of organized religion. It was one of the few times of his life where he weighed into a theological debate and it was simply to defend what he considered helpful preaching.

Ironically, Franklin would have a key role to play in the Great Awakening as he befriended George Whitfield and published his sermons throughout the colonies. Franklin liked Whitfield even though he didn’t ascribe to his theology. So it was not the hope that the gospel was being offered far and wide that led to the mutual admiration they shared. What appealed to Franklin about the work of Whitfield, what he really liked about his ministry was how he created a common experience in the colonies by traveling through each one as he preached. In his writing and relationship with Whitfield, though, it was clear that he felt ill at ease with Christianity when it ventured beyond a common experience. Again and again, he would espouse trust in the teachings of Jesus, while pulling up short when it came to devotion and doctrine- again, almost.

As one of two colonial postmasters Franklin had the rare vantage of knowing the colonies as a whole. This is what made him an easy choice by five different colonies to represent them to Parliament. And here Franklin became almost a diplomat. He was treated like a diplomat; lived in London for the better part of 15 years representing colonial interests just as a diplomat would. Yet, and here is the strangest thing, he was not a diplomat because there was no country for him to represent in areas requiring diplomacy.

As so many other moments in Franklin’s life, he was in the most significant place at the most significant time. He was in England in the 1760s and early 70s as they debated the future of the American colonies. He missed the Boston Massacre and Tea Party; he was at sea during the shot heard round the world at Lexington and Concord; yet he was on the floor of the Parliament to debate the Stamp Act; he spoke at length and tried to pressure the crown to rescind the charter of Pennsylvania so to forestall civil war there, he was published widely and was well received in every chamber and hall. Some could suggest his fame opened the door, but it was the debate that ensued which made the difference.

Yet, in the end it was the moment when he realized he was not a diplomat that opened his life to truly becoming something. I should clarify. It wasn’t that he lacked skill as a diplomat; nor was it the significant blunders he made as a diplomat and there were some; it was that he lacked a country to represent. More importantly, the empire, of which he saw himself a part of, didn’t see him or his home or his colony as a place to be represented. This moment came in 1775 after Franklin released some very damning private correspondence written by the governor of Massachusetts. Called before Parliament he was dressed down, mocked, and censured. And some could suggest it was pride that led him to reject his allegiance to Britain, but I believe it was just a moment where he came to see that almost being something was not worth dying for.

In 1776 Franklin shocked most who knew him or knew of him. He went from being a strong supporter of the crown to being the most ardent of patriots; where a year before you could expect him to mediate debate and defuse the radicals, now he made the radicals look mild. While Franklin had lived his life being almost many things- he was almost a scientist, almost a Christian, almost a diplomat, he chose the most profound moment to be something: he became an American. Not a colonist who was almost a British citizen; not an inventor who was almost a scientist; not a printer who almost became a great writer; he became an American even before there was an America.

To become something is a very scary thing. Kierkegaard said to be a Christian is to will one thing. To be one thing is a daunting prospect. Most of us keep a lot of options open. Like Franklin we are almost many things. We are almost faithful, almost successful, almost here, but ever with an eye to the door. Franklin might have repeated a well worn adage right here: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. And this is good advice, but it is only useful to a point. At some point we need to be something.

In the weddings I perform I know this is part of the underlying awe and mystery of the rite. At this moment you will be a husband, a wife. You will be something. I try never to diffuse this with the experience of a few decades, saying, the real question is whether you will choose to be a good husband, a good wife. For to be such means you have to take risks, make sacrifices, be more humble than proud, value righteousness more than being right. There are many opportunities in a long marriage to almost be a lot of things.

In the passage we read from Luke and the image Isaiah lifted up of the vine gone bad, there is a sense and sensibility of being something, of becoming something. Jesus talks of baptism and fire and family conflict all around the image of what God is doing. In Isaiah we have an image we try to run past in the Old Testament. The image is of God trying to make Israel something and it didn’t work. God doing something that didn’t work is not a popular image or an easy one. God does what God wants to do; it’s that whole all powerful thing. But in scripture this image is always nuanced, omnipotence is always measured, with the things that didn’t work out. Israel was almost a lot of things; in the end they were really exiles in Assyria and Babylon.

Even more unsettling is Jesus saying he came to bring strife, division. And if we take his words as the grousing of a rabble rouser, then we should dismiss them. But what I find in them is the real challenge of becoming something. If you want to leave all options open, let everyone make their own way, let indifference and tolerance replace the hope and faith that wills one thing, then there will not be the divisions Jesus predicts. Yet, Jesus has come to will one thing, to be one thing: he is here to reconcile the world to the Father and this one thing is made manifest in his death on the cross and his resurrection in the church.

To be this one thing is problematic. It is much easier to be many things, to be almost something. But the church is called to be something and hence the divisions, the strife, the absence of peace, even the name calling: part of the deal.

It would be lovely if this were all clear, if what it meant to be the church was a simple affirmation, a simple path. Yet, in so many ways I see the church as struggling to be the body of Christ just like Franklin struggling through his whole life to be something and only finding it near the end. And this something meant laying aside trusted and valued definitions; when Franklin became an American he laid aside all comfort and put on the mantle of becoming a servant of an ideal not yet truly formed.

When I look at the church that is what I see: a struggle to lay aside the comfortable and valuable definitions for an emerging ideal. No where is this more clear for me than worship. I used to believe and say to parishioners, that worship was their choice. Some find God in nature, others in fellowship, still others in service. Often I said if worship is not your deal you are big boys and girls and that is your choice. Yet, I have come to see such a belief is what keeps us almost a church. Maintaining this kind of indifference is how we languish in almost being the church. Worship, worship is where we become the church; this is where we become something. Everything else is fine and good, but it is not what we are to be, the one thing, as it were.

We can go to Malawi and Mexico, we can build the Urban Mission or a strong presbytery, we can study and potluck and Dollar Dinner, we can do all this and so much more, yet unless we are people devoted to worship, then we are ever almost a church. Like Franklin and his views of the colonies being modest and accommodating, so have my views of the church been. Far too long I have abided in the safety of almost being a church, but no more. Unless we are a people devoted to worship, gathering here, praying here, singing here, we will ever be almost a church. And no mission, no program, not even a Malawian choir can make up the difference. We must will one thing before we can be all things to all people.

Jesus said, you can tell the signs of time and this is true. Yet unless we act upon those signs it would have been better if we didn’t see them at all. We are seeing the signs of the times as a congregation: churches are withering and faltering, our culture is awash in self-centeredness and addictions, we are raising children without communities because no one knows one another. It is time to become a church and to be a church we must worship, not for us or if we want, or if it fits, but because it is who we are. We are the church, the body of Christ, the resurrection and redemption of the world. Let us become a church and put aside the safety of almost being something. Let us be the church: willing one thing in worship and then being all things in mission and hope. Amen.