Sardis: A Church Essentially Dead—Isaiah 52:1-10; Rev. 3: 1-6
On Monday I attended the closing sale of a church building. For around 40 years this church celebrated hopes, joys, baptisms, funerals, dinners, faith and fellowship of all kinds. But as the congregation dwindled, it was time to re-think ministry and merge with another church. This is becoming an all-too-familiar refrain for churches these days. I subscribe to a Facebook group for appreciating old homes. At a rate of almost 2 per month there are churches being sold on there, and the churches are being converted into condos or private homes.
In the past year, we have witnessed an acceleration of the decline that everybody knew was happening. With COVID closing churches, businesses, and gatherings, it became clear that folks could either watch online, or they found something else to do on Sunday mornings. There was a grimly titled article on one of my clergy email lists which said, Dear Church, They’re Not Coming Back. The depressing and dire news is not just fond on television anymore. And yet, all this misery and concern leaves us asking a simple question? What now? Is the church in her dying gasps? Like Sardis, is the modern church essentially dead? We consider that question today in our series on the seven churches of Revelation and what the modern church can learn from them.
When John writes to the church at Sardis, he offers a rather awful message: “[Sardis], you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead.” How exactly could they have this good reputation, but problematic assessment? There were many lively things going on—the church at Sardis was always doing stuff. This was by no means a declining congregation. But they were spiritually as good as dead. So many people came to Sardis, and they all lacked a spiritual depth. It reminds me of the rebuke Jesus gave to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:27, “You are whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.” In modern times I think we struggle with this, for we look at numbers as a mark of growth and strength. But thousands of people make no difference if there is not a spiritual foundation and depth of faith within. The church must grow in faith and understanding of mission before it can ever consider growing otherwise.
In essence, there are three things a church does: maintenance, ministry, and mission. We can define maintenance as keeping up the physical location and a center for church work. Ministry is the work that a church does to grow in and of itself and develop its members. Mission is the way the church reaches out and connects to the community. Most churches are quite good at the ministry portion—there is a sense that they take good care of their members. And so long as the money holds out, churches are good at maintenance. But the real struggle in or churches today is this idea of mission. Mission is what we are lacking.
John, in Revelation 3, tells the church at Sardis, “Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again.” If we go back, we can find this call to mission in Matthew 28 where Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” with further instructions to baptize and teach the world. Go out into the world and make disciples—it’s a mission for the church. The words of Isaiah echo this idea, saying, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation.” Even now as it was then, there is beauty and rejoicing at those who bring good news to a weary people.
Why do we have this good news? What is this push to “go into all the world?” The church at Sardis appears to have been busy—what were they doing? The short answer to that, is “who know?” All of their busyness lacked substance, and it was killing them because they had no deep roots, no real depth of faith. If our faith is going to blossom and grow, then we have to grow in the depth of wisdom, knowledge, and faith. The church at Sardis had lost its depth and the total collapse of the church was not far behind.
So, can this dire prediction for the church be avoided? The short answer here is yes. When we think of the Christian faith, there is one central overarching theme stands out as the core of what we believe: resurrection. What our faith comes down to is a belief that Christ died and was resurrected from the dead. You’ve been to enough Easters to know the story. Either we fundamentally and truthfully believe in resurrection as the hallmark of our faith, or we don’t. And if we believe that Christ can live again, then we must also believe the same of Christ’s church. We do this by reclaiming our mission—to go out into or communities, neighborhoods, towns, and cities proclaiming good news and living out that good news of Jesus’s love.
The Rev. Fred Craddock told a story of an old church he pastored many, many years ago, which I’m going to generally paraphrase. This church had an incredible opportunity to minister to folks who were seasonal visitors to the community—making them part of the church and capitalizing on their presence for the several months they were there. Instead, the church moved to block these people completely and totally from coming in and joining in ministry, and Rev. Craddock left as pastor soon after. In telling this story, he says that he came back to this isolated, unyielding, and unwelcoming church many years later and was surprised to find a beautiful white-painted building, perfectly maintained. The picket fence was still intact, and there were dozens of cars on Sunday morning. The place was packed. The warm, welcoming sign said to everyone who came there, “All you can eat buffet. $9.99.”
What the modern church is missing is this passion for mission and for God’s people. We ask our friends to church, but they’ve attended another church for 50 years. We ask our kids, grandkids, nieces, and nephews to come back and visit from their churches. But John did not tell Pergamum, Sardis, Ephesus, and others to share folks around as needed. Jesus did not tell the disciples to visit a few synagogues with their friends. The church, instead, got a much harder mission: go into the world preaching the good news to all people. Make disciples.
Statistics say that our churches are declining. There is no way around that cold, hard fact. Like Sardis, there’s a lot going on, but much of it is full of sound and fury signifying nothing as Faulkner so eloquently said. There is a cold, hard realization that the universal church, all the denominations together, are nearing a crisis point. But God’s people have been here before. Isaiah is a prophetic word to a people suffering in exile, slavery, oppression, and decline. And Isaiah 52:10 reminds both them and us that, “The Lord has demonstrated his holy power before the eyes of all the nations. All the ends of the earth will see the victory of our God.” Are we, then, going to be a people tethered to a statistic of decline, or are we fundamentally, at our core, a people who believe in a God of resurrection and life?
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/239475264821382