These churches in the book of Revelation could be our church. Let us look at the church in the second chapter of Revelation.

Works: I know your works – things you do. It is as though they are being told by the author, “I see you.” Your work has not gone unnoticed. We see the beauty in this place. We see the fresh paint that was paid for by you. I see the grass moved and lives mulched. I see the carpet vacuumed and bathrooms cleaned. I see the dinners and the reports and the mission of the month and the generous gifts to the church.

Toil: John goes on to say, “I see your toil.” The extremely hard work you have done, the labor you did. I see you. The hard decisions you made. I see you.

Endurance: I see the endurance you exhibited during the pandemic, you did more than survive, you thrived. Online worship, zoom meetings, masks, all those adjustments. Facing the illness, seeing loved ones suffer. I see your endurance. Pastoral changes, conflict and resolutions. I see you have endured much trauma.

Truth: You discern truth. You do not let someone who is spreading lies lead.
You have been enduring almost 200 years and still going strong. I see your commitment to the word of God. I see your care for those who have been marginalized and excluded. I see you willing to live the truth even when hate becomes the norm.

Bearing difficulties for the Sake of Jesus’ name. When trouble hits your church, you bear it with grace knowing Jesus name is on our building as the church of God.

Perseverance: You have not grown weary. When there is more to be done, you do it. Care for building, Oyster supper, Rummage sale, preschool, worship – recording, screens, finances, bus driving, concerts, fellowships, small group studies …. The list goes on. It makes me tired just saying all this. The Apostle Paul told us not to grow weary in well doing, and you have not.

But I have this one thing against you (the Lord through the book of Revelation says), “But I have this one thing against you. You have abandoned your first love.”

Why do we give? Why do we give our time, talents, service, presence? If it is not for the love of God, then we have abandoned our first love.

We love because God first loved us. We have a created place of worship because of our love of God. Sometimes our priorities are out of sync.

There is a fable to helps us think about our first love. It is written by Edwin Friedman, a Rabbi and a family systems’ therapist. It is about a spider and fly. The spider creates a perfectly symmetrical web. Flawless in its design. A fly flies into the web. Into the perfectly designed and formed web. So the spider will have none of that. He cuts off the part with the fly and it drops off and she again spins the web recreating a perfectly symmetrical intricate web. This happens again and again. Then at the end of the fable the spider starves to death. Hmmmm. I wonder what it could mean about the church. The spider became very skilled at creating a beautiful web. But a web is intended to attract food for the spider to eat. The spider has abandoned the reason for its existence. We have a beautiful building. It is here to attract us to worship. It is not here to worship as a museum. Sometimes we forget that when people come to church it gets messy. I don’t mean in need of a sexton, or a deep cleaning solution. I mean it is not so smooth when people with their different ideas and their different ways of thinking enter, it gets messy. We cannot abandon our first love. The church is a means not an end. We do not worship the building.

Jesus said it this way, “Sabbath was meant for people, not people for the sabbath.”

The place is beautiful. But the point of the place is to attract others. If we think the means is more important than the end, we have missed the point. We have abandoned our first love. It is not about keeping the place pristine and symmetrical. It gets messy when people come. Because we are messy, and I do not just mean cleanliness. I mean people have personalities that clash. People are human. It is not always pretty being the church.

We love God. If we look around and say this or that person has slighted me therefore, I will stop helping, we have abandoned our first love. If we fuss and fight instead of serving and worshiping out of adoration of God, we have abandoned our first love.

Our love for God is the main thing. It is always important to keep the main thing the main thing.

We can ask ourselves Why am I worshiping? If we say and mean it: Because of my love for God, then that is the first step in living out our life in the church. Saying it and doing it sometimes are two different things.

John in the book of Revelation use the symbolic image of a lampstand to represent the churches. He goes on to say he will remove the lampstand from its place if they do not return to their first love.

C.S. Lewis so cleverly creates a world called Narnia and there is a lampstand that doesn’t seem to fit in the new world. It is at the portal, the children travel through the wardrobe and find a whole new world, a whole new dimension. If you read the books, they travel back and forth and as adults at one time they have forgotten the other world. They see a lamppost and it reminds them of something they once knew. It is familiar.

As a metaphor, if the church in these Bible verses are represented by a lamppost, I wonder if sometimes those who have abandoned church and sometimes even faith, the see a lamppost or something that brings back to mind the place, the time, the love of God. It looks familiar. Perhaps there are smells that are the lampposts, perhaps there are songs that are the lampposts, perhaps a word or a cross, or a person, a lamppost that causes us to see something familiar, something good, something holy. The lamppost is just that. A post, the light that shines in it or does not is the light of Christ. He is the light of the world. Yet, he told us we are the light of the world, too, did he not? We have a full moon this week, are we like the moon shining the light of the son (Son as the moon shines the sun light) so others can find their way?

A very important part of the lamppost is the fact that Jesus is the light. Because what can happen is we become nostalgic. Whether we left the church or whether we stayed in and abandoned our first love, we may feel nostalgic about the things used to be. Those good ole days when we were neither old nor good. Nostalgic is selective memory. It is remembering only the good. The church is not what it used to be we may say. Well thank God for that, we need to adapt and grow and not remain stagnant.

The church can become a monument instead of a movement. The choice is ours.

I see you, I really see you Lima. You work hard, you endured much, you toil without growing weary, you seek truth and do not promote injustice or discrimination. Yet, have we abandoned our first love?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but think of the first time of falling in love. The flutters in the stomach, the good kind of fear that is really more like excitement. The possibilities, the looking forward to where this may lead. The awakening in us something we may not have known was there.

The first love can also be nostalgic, forgetting that it didn’t work the way we planned.

But our first love of God is similar in that it is exciting and intimate and new and awakening. And safe and full of possibility, on the verge of something great.

In the gospel of John there is a disciple who is not named. The disciple is called, “The disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now was that disciple John? Perhaps. Was that disciple someone else? Who knows. I think it matters that that person isn’t named. Because that disciple is you. That disciple is us. We are the disciple whom Jesus loves.

Why do we love? Because God first loved us. As the disciples whom Jesus loves, how will we respond this stewardship campaign?

We love you, Lord, and we lift our voice, to worship.
May it be so, AMEN.