Sermon:
October 14, 2001
Morning Services 

Scripture:
Hebrews 12:14-13:2

While driving home with my wife on Friday night, it occurred to me that this is the only church I have ever served without its own bowling league….or, at the very least, its own bowling team. Not that I ever bowled in any church’s league or on any church’s team. I haven’t rolled a bowling ball in 15 years. Not that I can’t. It’s just that I don’t. I don’t own a bowling ball, bowling shoes, a bowling glove or a bowling shirt. If put on the spot, I can knock down a few pins. I can also tell a strike from a spare, keep an accurate score card, and spout a bit of bowling jargon. But the alley I know best was the one that ran behind my house in my youth. And, since the days of my youth, I’ve converted far more sinners than splits (especially 7-10 splits).

As a non-bowler, I have company….but not a lot. As of late as last year, there were over 91 million bowlers in America….maybe the most ever. But what is surprising is that the proportion of those 91 million Americans who bowl in leagues has declined by almost 75 percent since the 1960s.

Who says so? Robert Putnam says so. And who is Robert Putnam? Robert Putnam is the Dillon Professor of International Affairs at Harvard, who, in January of 1995, published an article entitled "Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital." When the article appeared in the Journal of Democracy, it caused something of a stir, academically. Now that Putnam has followed with his book, Bowling Alone (released just last year), his thesis has pushed a hot button, popularly.

Why? Because the decline in league bowling is but one small symptom of what Putnam calls the collapse of American community over the last four decades. As a nation of individuals, we are doing as much as we ever did….probably more. But we are doing it with each other less and less. Especially when it comes to joining up with each other in more-or-less formal organizations to do whatever we more-or-less like to do.

Membership in civic and fraternal organizations is down, down, down. Rotary clubs, along with the Lions, the Elks, the Optimists, the Knights of Columbus, PTA, the Masons, the Shrine, the Star, and the Rainbow Girls all decry a lack of recruits, affiliates, novitiates, brothers, sisters, sign-on-the-dotted-line members or ready volunteers. What’s more, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, labor unions and ethnic clusterings all tell the same story. One of our members used to own a marvelous athletic complex adjacent to the State Fair known as Softball City. There were diamonds everywhere and league games every hour of the day and night. He sold it a couple years back. Unable to fill it up, he could no longer make it pay.

If this were anecdotal evidence (a story here, a story there), it would be one thing. But this is researched and documented evidence. Putnam is a thorough fellow. There are nearly a hundred graphs and charts in his book. As with any social theorist, he has his detractors. But all of them concede that he has done his homework.

Civic disengagement is his theme. He says that we have been disengaging ourselves from each other (evidenced by the breaking of organizational ties) for over 30 years. And he argues that it is more than a mere coincidence that, over the same period, we have seen other forms of civic disengagement such as declining percentages of people who vote in an election, sign a petition, serve on a committee, write a letter to a politician or take the time to attend a public meeting.

His earlier work (on political and economic development in Italy) reported a similar finding. He noted that the most progressive communities in Italy all had something in common. Each of them had a community choral society. People that sang together (at least once weekly) apparently did lots of other wonderful things….community benefiting things….together as well. Just as there is "economic capital" you build up for yourself and the culture by buying bonds or banking assets, there is "social capital" you build up for yourself and the culture by forming bridge clubs or joining bowling leagues.

Stick with the bowlers for a minute (and trust me, this really is going somewhere important). Obviously, the fact that people are not bowling in leagues does not mean they are bowling singularly. They may be out there with their kids, their neighbors, their co-workers, or any number of folk. But they are not there with the same folk every time. Neither do they bowl at the same time every week. Which worries the people who run bowling alleys (or "centers," as they now want to be called). For while there are enough occasional bowlers to fill the lanes on good nights, it is the leagues that buy 75 percent of the beer and pizza. And, as any owner will tell you, the money is not in lane fees or shoe rentals. The money is in the beer and pizza.

But the proprietor is not Putnam’s concern. Neither is it mine. Instead, Putnam worries about what the loss of a league does to the individual bowler on the one hand, and to the republic on the other. Start with the republic. When you participate in a bowling league (interacting with the same people week after week), you practice the virtues and skills that are prerequisite for a democracy. You learn to show up on time, do your part, carry your end and root for your teammates. You also learn to operate in a framework where rules must be followed, traditions honored, sportsmanship exhibited and accurate scores kept. Moreover, someone on the team has to send the notices, order the shirts, keep the records and know whose birthday comes when. All of which are associational skills.

But such leagues (just like church choirs, community bands and neighborhood pinochle groups) also provide settings in which members can talk about their shared interests. Sure, you could call a talk show….wait 30 minutes….blow off steam for 30 seconds….then do it again in 30 days. But no one holds you accountable for things you say on a phone-in talk show. Nor do they know you well enough to understand "where you’re coming from." But when you sound off to your bowling team, they are going to understand you some weeks and challenge you other weeks…. because they see you every week. Which means that (over time) they are going to alternately love you and put it to you in ways that will not happen with people you see less frequently.

What groups are Americans still joining in great numbers? Americans are still joining self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers International or Recovery. And Americans are joining cause-related groups like the National Rifle Association, the Sierra Club or the Right to Life Caucus. But most people leave self-help groups when they get what they came for….thinner, saner, soberer. And, as concerns the cause-related groups, the most that 95 percent of the members ever do is write a yearly check and skim-read a monthly newsletter.

We could talk about why this has taken place and whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. But you can do that on your own. Instead, I give you what follows….in part, because it will transition me from social analysis to sermon and get me closer to where I want to take you.

Putnam observes (correctly, I think) that one major difference separating Americans raised during the Great Depression and World War II from those coming of age in the ‘60s and later, is that the younger group has lacked "great collective events" to bolster their civic identities. Unlike the Depression and World War II, the defining movements in American life over the last 35 years (the Cold War, the drug war, Vietnam, civil rights, the feminist movement) were most notable for their divisiveness. Instead of reaffirming commonly-held values, they often pitted sharply divergent norms against one another. Which created conflict....bred distrust….and caused us to move (often unconsciously) further away from each other. "Don’t get too familiar," we seemed to say. And if you do, don’t do it too often. Jump in (by all means), but leave yourself room (and time) to jump back out.

I do not believe we are going to recreate the 50s all over again. But could it be….could it conceivably be….that September 11 (and everything since) have given us a "great collective event" that has brought us closer together than it has split us apart? Not that we are of one mind about it. Or about anything. But something has cut across the things that divide us, putting us in touch with other things (deeper things….half-forgotten things….almost buried things) that unite us. To the degree that we are again becoming more intentionally associational as a result.

More to the point, is it likely that some are going to come to a place like this….a church like this….for regular dosages of the same serum they sought as a one-time antidote to that crisis of the spirit we know as Terrible Tuesday? The crisis came on 9/11. We collectively called 911. And the Church of Jesus Christ responded. But before any response was made, the call was made. Something in us said: "Call here….try here….come here." Like the prodigal in the far country, we knew where home was. What’s more, we knew that there would be a light there….people there….prayers and pray-ers there….a story (into which to fit this story) there…. and a presence there (that, if it couldn’t completely secure us, could demonstrably strengthen us).

I have friends, made across the years, who have never been active in any church. And I have other friends who, in the years we were together, were more active in a church than they are now. From time to time, they call the switchboard, ask the secretary what time our services are, inquire as to whether I am preaching, and then show up. After the service they greet me at the door, test my memory for names, hug me (while mumbling into the padded shoulder of my robe about "how long it’s been"), and then (almost to a person) say: "We just had to come and get ourselves a fix."

Which is a fascinating choice of words, given that "fix" is an image drawn directly from the drug culture. What are they saying? Are they coming here to shoot up….turn on….get high? And if so, on what? On me? Or you? Possibly the choir? Perchance the scenery? Maybe on what we mix and bottle here? Or could it be something else….something bigger than anything "we" do here? I certainly hope that whatever it is, we haven’t cut or cheapened it in the delivery. After all, if Jesus’ self-authenticating miracle in the gospel of John was to change water into wine, I’d hate to have it said of me that I got it nicely changed back again.

But to my friends who come for a "fix," I find myself wanting to say: "Stick around. For this is one place where an overdose is permissible and addiction is downright desirable."

Pardon the crudeness of my images, but I’m aiming at something here. After 37 years, I am kinda "bullish" on this church thing. I think the Bible is, too. We’re giving them away today….Bibles, I mean. I hope our kids read them. I hope you all read them. Because if you read big whole chunks at a time….not just little snippets, a story here, a story there, a couple of verses marked out with a little lacy bookmark crocheted in the form of a cross….I mean, if you really read it like you might read a novel so as to get caught up in its sweep, you are going to find that the Bible doesn’t spend 20 pages (tops) talking about private and solitary journeys of faith. In the Bible, faith journeys are corporate journeys….the nation of Israel first, the emerging Church of Jesus Christ, second. To be sure, we may meet Jesus one-on-one. But we walk the life of faith together.

Three nights after the attack on the World Trade Center (at a hastily-convened dinner party), one of you raised a glass to toast nine of us, saying something to this effect: "I’ve watched all the TV I can watch alone. I’ve absorbed all the reality I can absorb alone. All I can say is that I’m glad you were available on such short notice, because I need to be with friends like you." And looking around, I realized that the ten of us were "church." And hearing the emotion in his words (he who isn’t usually given to such emotion), I realized that this was church. By contrast, I broke bread with three couples in 36 hours, in northern Michigan, just two days ago. And, concerning the world situation, all of them said: "We feel incredibly safe up here. But we feel terribly isolated."

Oh yes, my friends, we need to be together. We need to be together in the Lord. And, in the spirit of "Hospitality Sunday," we need a few who will greet us in the name of the Lord. So volunteer, will you? We need people who will say to us: "Come on in. Take off your hat. Stay a while. We’ve been waiting all morning for you. The preacher’s been sweating all Saturday night for you. The choir members have spent Wednesday or Thursday evening practicing their little lungs out for you. There isn’t a better place in the world for you to be than here. And there isn’t a better time for you to be here than now."

Last Sunday I had to leave this sanctuary without shaking hands at 12:00 because I had to board a plane at ten minutes past one to fly to Raleigh-Durham. It was my first flight since….well, you know when. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. I mean, they had lots of greeters at the airport. Some with uniforms. Others with guns. A few with those wands they use to feel you up electronically. Then, with the TV monitor announcing that we had just commenced bombing Afghanistan, I boarded the plane.

Greeters at the airport.
Greeters at the church.

I suppose there are jobs just waiting to be had at the doors to a 747, just as there are jobs waiting to be had at the doors to the Church of Jesus Christ. I’ve gotta tell you, the pay’s better at the airport. But you tell me. Which job would you rather have?

Note: Both Robert Putnam’s article (1995) and his book (2000) are readily locatable through normal channels (including the Internet). Suffice it to say, it is hard to pick up a book on present-day congregational life without hearing Putnam quoted. As for the sermon itself, it was initially requested as part of an effort to increase our congregational consciousness in the area of "Hospitality Ministry" (hence, the text) and to increase the number of persons volunteering to be greeters. Somewhere along the line, it took a wide turn into a sermon on the communal nature of the Christian life. Which either reflects sloppy discipline on the part of the preacher or overpowering evidences of the Holy Spirit in the process of sermon preparation. Hopefully, the latter.