True Confessions of the New Pastor and Proud Papa

The young pastor was quite nervous. Oh, he had preached many sermons in his life, but now he was the new associate pastor at The First United Methodist Church in town. Having labored over his manuscript for many hours, he walked out of the restroom to face the task at hand. Right before he entered the sanctuary, however, he was stopped by a rather large, intimidating looking fellow, presumably one of the church’s elder statesman. Before the young preacher could say a word, the man looked him right in the eye and said, “Preacher, remember one thing: Sermons should be like a woman’s dress: long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting!”
Now before you ask, the answer is no, this event did not actually happen to me. Nevertheless, this joke does communicate the truth that a pastor’s first sermon in their new appointment can be both an exciting and anxious experience. It is a preacher’s first opportunity to introduce herself or himself to their entire congregation. What words are appropriate for such a moment as this? Well, on the occasion of my initial chance to meditate upon the Word of God with you, I thought I might use this message to share with you some true confessions so to speak, my passions as one of your new pastors.
So, here it goes. My first true confession: My name is Jimmy Cooper, and I love Jesus. I grew up in the Church, and therefore there is not a time where I was unaware of Christ’s love for me. I believe that Jesus Christ is the solution to the deepest longings of the human heart. He is the answer to the problems that plague our society.
Moreover, I want you to know that I am convinced that Jesus Christ has sent me and my family to you, the people at First United Methodist Church in St. Charles. I have been sent here to give you a very urgent message, to tell you a story. It is the greatest love story ever told. The simple and yet life changing message is this: God loves you. God loves you so much that God decided that He would rather die for you than lose you. If you were the only human being who had ever been born, if you were the only one who had ever sinned, if you were the only person on the planet in need of forgiveness, Jesus Christ still would have went to the cross and died just for you.
As your pastor, it is my mission to remind you of two things: (1) God loves you and (2) The fact that God loves you should make some kind of visible and apparent difference in your life! Actually, don’t tell Pastor Robin and the staff parish committee, but I figure my job here is fairly simple. W.T. Handy, a former bishop of the Missouri Conference of The United Methodist Church, used to say that pastors have two tasks: Preach Jesus and love the people. He was persuaded that if you did those two things as a pastor, you would succeed. So, let me tell you right from the start that I am not here to play church. I am here to preach Jesus and love you to the best of my ability. In addition, let me say that I think those two things are intimately related. After all, those of you who have known this person Jesus of Nazareth and have been following Him for a while do not need to be told that Jesus said and did some odd and strange things while He was with us. Sometimes He says and does odd things even today! Therefore, if I am going to preach this Jesus to you in all His oddness and strangeness, you will first have to know that I love you, which I will do all in my power to show you. At the same time, though, if I do truly love you, I cannot water Jesus down and offer you Jesus lite. Rather, I must preach Jesus to you, with all His oddness and strangeness intact.
To put it another way, I am persuaded that my job here is to be another John the Baptist. This is why we read the Scripture passage this morning from the Gospel according to St. John. For when it comes to oddness and strangeness in the Bible, it does not get any more odd and strange than John the Baptist. He lived in the dessert, ate locusts and wild honey. Now that is odd and strange. Plus, if today is about getting to know the new pastor, I figured I might as well include my favorite Bible verse, which is John 3:30 – “He must become greater, I must become less,” or from another translation, “He must increase, I must decrease.” Of course, this verse has taken on all new meaning for me these days. With the recent birth of my son Noah James, it appears as if there are a couple of different He’s now in my life who must become greater, who must increase as I become less, as I decrease. If it ever was, it is certainly no longer about what Jimmy wants.
This is why I want to be more like John the Baptist, for he was not all that concerned about his own status, prestige, or recognition. He was not, as some United Methodist pastors are, always on the lookout for the next great appointment. Our story for today illustrates this point. His disciples came to him with the complaint that now that Jesus was baptizing on the other side of the Jordan, everyone was leaving John and going to Jesus. But this did not worry John in the least. His mantra was simple: “He must become greater, I must become less.” “He must increase, I must decrease.” You see, John knew that his job was simply to testify to what he had seen and what he had heard. John became known as the pointer, the one who showed the way to Jesus Christ. In that sense all of us are called to follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist, pointing the way to Jesus the Messiah, insisting that He must become greater, He must increase, even if this means that we must become less, that we have to decrease. The Church is at her best when she remembers that she exists for the sake of her bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
This leads into my second true confession: My name is Jimmy Cooper, and I love the Church. Now this is not always a popular thing to utter in polite company these days. We live in a world where people are spiritual, but not religious. Organized religion is something to be suspicious of, not celebrated. I must admit that I have always wondered: Those people who are against organized religion, what do they want exactly, unorganized religion? That doesn’t sound any better to me…
Of course, on the one hand Jesus was certainly critical of the organized religion of His day. He was tough on them all, whether it was the Pharisees, Saducees or the Zealots. Jesus was constantly questioning the religious status quo of His day. However, this did not drive Him away from the synagogue but in fact led him right into it. He was regularly interacting with the chief priests and the religious rulers of His day, yes calling into question the structures of His day but doing it from within the confines of organized religion itself. His response to the corruption of His organized religion was not to abandon it but to engage it even more so.
Moreover, do not forget that it was Jesus who intentionally founded the Church. If He was so against organized religion, why would He have deliberately called twelve disciples, a clear sign referring to the twelve tribes of Israel. Why would He have sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to give birth to the Church? No, far from being opposed to organized religion, Jesus was the One behind the Church from the beginning. To this day, no one has greater faith in the Church than Jesus Christ. After all, He maintained that upon the rock of Peter Jesus would found the Church that would be so strong that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it!
The problem is that the Church has not always been faithful, which is why most of us know people who are spiritual but not religious, suspicious of organized religion. It is such people who are the subject of my last true confession: My name is Jimmy Cooper, and I love the lost. I will get to speak more to this particular passion next week, but let me say a bit about it now because it relates to my previous confession concerning the Church. You know, the Church is a unique organization in that it exists primarily for those who are not a part of it. If anything frustrates me, it is when congregations merely want to play church, forgetting that our primary task is not to take care of the ones who are already inside; instead, it is to go out into the world, making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Obviously, this requires a humble spirit, a generous heart, a commitment to self-sacrifice, a recognition that it is not all about me, and most importantly, a willingness to follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist as we point the way to Jesus Christ and say, “He must become greater, I must become less,” “He must increase, “I must decrease.”
Now that I have confessed that I love Jesus Christ, His Church and those He and we are still trying to reach, I would like to offer some brief petitions and heartfelt pleas to you all, just in case you are wondering what you can do for me during my first days at First Church.
Pray for me and my family. My wife Erin, my son Noah and I would be delighted to know that we have been added to your prayer list and devotional life. Recently my family has undergone a lot of transitions: my wife’s pregnancy, the birth of Noah, leaving Chicago, moving to St. Charles, our last Sunday at Friendship United Methodist Church, our arrival here at First Church, ending my doctoral coursework, and beginning preparation to complete my foreign language requirements, take my qualifying exams, and write my doctoral dissertation. We praise God that this has gone rather smoothly, but we would nevertheless welcome your intercessions on our behalf. And we promise to do the same for you.
Be here. This may be as obvious as my request for you to pray for us, and as an associate pastor I am used to preaching Sundays when everyone, including the senior pastor, has the tendency to go on vacation. You know, the Sunday after Christmas, the Sunday after Easter, and the month of July. I am not telling you to not go on vacation this summer or to come to church when you are ill. I am simply reminding you that God does not go on vacation from us, and neither should we go on vacation from God. If you go out of town, terrific, have a great time, and feel free to visit another church. Who knows, you just may come back with a great idea for us? Next week, Pastor Robin and I are going to start a new sermon series based on our mission here at First UMC, which is that, “For the love of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we gather people to Christ, grow in Christ, and go for Christ!” Do all you can to be here as we recall the mission of our Church?
How many of you have seen the movie Jerry Maguire? Well, if you have, you will know that my next request comes from one of the most famous lines that Tom Cruise utters in that film. It is, “Help me, help you.” You may be surprised to learn that just because I have been appointed to First UMC does not mean that God has automatically downloaded into my brain all of the history of this church, all of the background information I need to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ, or all of the wisdom about how we can best reach the people of our community with the love of God. I know you may find this hard to believe, but as members of the body of Christ we actually need each other. If I am going to do things like lead our small group ministry and assimilate new members, which by the way is just a fancy way of saying that once people join our church it is my mission to make sure our church helps them to connect with God and our congregation, I am going to need your help. We as your pastoral staff may not know what group to offer unless you tell us what kind of small group you would desperately want to join, not to mention your ideas for who could lead such a group. If I am going to work to ensure that all of our members are a part of one group where they are growing spiritually and another where they are serving others (which by the way is my goal, I like to call it the worship +2 model), then it would assist me greatly to have conversations with you regarding what experiences best communicate God’s grace to you, as well as what passions you have for mission and ministry in the church and world.
Be open to the new things that God is doing in our midst. One of my favorite religious movies of all time is The Blues Brothers. In that classic two great modern theologians, Jake and Elwood Blues, remind us that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Allow me the chance to offer one brief example: just over forty-five years ago a young adult Sunday school class from First United Methodist Church felt compelled to start another Methodist Church in St. Charles. The next year the church was commissioned with sixteen members. This church came to be Faith UMC in St. Charles, my home congregation. Back then, no one probably imagined that someday the church that First UMC planted would then produce one of its future pastors, and yet, forty-six years later, I present myself to you as a small return on that investment, only a portion of the great things that God has done through the willingness of those original First UMC missionaries who went on to plant Faith UMC. Who knows? If First Church had not done this, I may not be standing before you today.
Indeed, the Lord works in mysterious ways. God wants to do a new thing in our midst. Alas, too many churches get in the way of what God wants to do. They say things like, “We’ve never done it that way before.” Instead, I invite us to dream God’s dreams for this place, to jump on board with what God is already doing, to enjoy the ride He wants to give us! I think you can tell but just in case you can’t, my last confession is simply that I am thrilled to be here. I am honored to be one of your associate pastors. I covenant with you that I will preach Jesus and love you until God calls me somewhere else. Until then, let’s enjoy the ride. Hopefully, not only will my sermons be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting, but I also hope that First Church can continue to be faithful as we fulfill the tasks that God has called us to, that this community will be a living witness that the last can become first, that we are willing to say with our lips and our lives, “He must become greater, I must become less.” “He must increase, I must decrease.” Amen.