Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

What makes a Church a Church?

We all know that it’s not the building. I mean, we love this building it is the repository of our most precious memories: weddings happened here, funerals were conducted here, baptisms – including a few that get confirmed today – were celebrated here, the body and blood of Christ has nourished our souls here, candles were lit here and alleluias were sung here and prayers were prayed here and tears were shed here and laughter was shared here.

But a building is not the Church.

And we know, or we should know, that just calling something a Church doesn’t make it one. The incoherent messes that we call our state and federal tax codes have, among other things, encouraged crooks and scam artists to call their schemes Churches as they line their own pockets.

But a name does not make a Church anymore than a building can.

With apologies to Joyce Kilmer, “Only God can make a Church”.

And he makes it not out of sticks and bricks and not out of rules and traditions, God makes a Church out of people.

People like us.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.

A church is a collection of people gathered together by God.

Now that is easy to say, but harder to recognize.

Sometimes we even lose sight of that and we think that we all think alike.

But we don’t think alike and that’s the beauty of God’s created Church anywhere it exists.

Look at these characters up here in the front, they come to us today from a variety of backgrounds, no two of them the same; they have a variety of connections to us, no two of them the same; there are a couple of things that one or two of them share, but I can’t think of a single thing that binds them to each other, or to us, except for this: God has brought them to this day and these vows. And what is true for them is true for all of us as God’s people in this place, that is not only what we celebrate with the 5 of them and their families today, it is what we celebrate in our 175 years of life as God’s Church.

We are a diverse group of people. You can pick any issue out of the daily paper: oil prices, war in the middle east, abortion, bank bailouts, gay marriage, property taxes, gun control, designated hitters, I don’t care what issue it is, you pick the issue, you pick a side and I would be able to name people in this room on the exact opposite side of the issue.

That’s what makes a Church.

Not people who all think alike and pray alike and live alike and work alike and love alike, but people whom God has chosen and called, through parents or children, spouses or friends, through a commute that takes someone past us or glimpse of the lit steeple on a dark and lonely night, through a wedding attended here or a funeral or a gentle memory of a lit candle on Christmas eve.

These are the tools that God has used to gather us.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.

And how do you know that you are part of God’s people.

Do you live in the neighborhood?

And I don’t mean do you live close by to this building, like some of us do.

Once upon a time, in 1834 for instance, that might have been necessary as the residents of the area wanted a Church that they could get to easily, but for a number of years our “parish” has been expanding and today there are people coast-to-coast who are part of our prayer network each week, there are people who visit our website and read sermons and I have done long-distance counseling by email and I have even shared the sacrament by telephone.

Our neighborhood has grown and geography no longer defines or limits us.

Which brings us, I think, to the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus told the story because he had just finished identifying the love of God and the love of neighbor as the summary of the law and he was asked “who is my neighbor?”

I don’t want to say that Jesus anticipated Facebook, but when he answered that question he threw geography out the window and he threw all of the ethnic and gender and other walls between people out the window and he expanded our neighborhoods to include anyone who needed the help that we could give them.

And isn’t that what the telephone and email and Facebook and whatever comes next, have done for us?

This church may physically gather here, but there are pieces and parts of us scattered all over the place and every time someone, anyone, who has a connection here helps a neighbor, we grow, we spread, we are the people God made us to be. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people

So to make a Church God gathers diverse people and gives them other people to help, God creates a neighborhood.

But there is one more ingredient.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. This is the great “therefore” of life, this is what drives us to be here so that God can make us a people.

As individuals and a Church we have received mercy.

Therefore, what are we going to do about it?

I don’t have time to list all of the ways that I have received mercy or to thank all of the people that God has provided mercy to me through, it is daily and it is endless.

And the same is true about this congregation, there have been half a dozen moments in our history when we deserved to go the route of so many other congregations and God salvaged us, bringing us people and resources and opportunities that we never expected.

It is because of those moments of mercy that we are here.

That’s what makes us a Church.

That’s the glue that holds us together.

The mercy, the forgiveness that can’t be demanded, that we have given to each other is what makes us a Church.

And what we do about it, the great Therefore, is the result.

There has been a lot of speculation over the years, in sermons and conversations about the Priest and the teacher who avoided the man who had been beaten and robbed and about the Samaritan who stopped to help.

I realized this week that I have never really thought much about the beaten man.

But isn’t his story our story?

Haven’t we, at one time or another, been beaten by life?

And haven’t we been disappointed by people like me, the religious leaders? It’s OK, I disappoint myself on a fairly regular basis. Fortunately I have learned to separate God’s love, which never disappoints, from his flawed and error-prone people.

And haven’t we also been surprised, at times, by mercies tender that God has brought us from unexpected sources? Those glimpses of grace that we have are the experiences and shared stories that God uses to build a Church.

I know it was a parable, but I like to think that the victim became the helper, I like to think that for the rest of his life he refused to look the other way when someone needed help, I like to think that the five of you will recognize the ways that God has loved you through your parents and families and friends and Church and that you’ll love others as they need it, I like to think that all of us will realize that God will never leave us alone and beaten that he will keep sending help until one of them actually stops and helps! And I like to think that we, especially in this Anniversary year, will recognize not only the times when we have been beaten and have been helped, but, more importantly, the times when we are the ones whom God has sent to help. That is the faith that we bring into our neighborhood, a neighborhood that stretches from Amwell Road across the nation and around the world.

Wherever you go and whoever you become, you will always be a part of this neighborhood of faith, this Church that is more than a building, more than a label, this Church that is the creation of God, a diverse people, fueled by mercy, made for service.

Wherever we go and whoever we become, we are Clover Hill.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Clover Hill Reformed Church 1834-2009 A 175 Day Scriptural Companion Dear Friends, As we progress through our Anniversary Year, I invite you to join together in a shared reading of scripture. I have selected 175 passages, from Genesis through Revelation, that have had special meaning in our Congregational life. Go Here