How to Really Love Santa Cruz 2020

My name is René, I'm another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church and again, I am just so glad you're here whether this is your first time or your thousandth time, we are just super, super stoked that you decided to spend part of your Sunday morning with us.

You know, because I'm a pastor, people often email me kind of church jokes that they think I think are funny. But sometimes they actually are. For example, I love it when people send me pictures of funny church signs that they have either seen themselves and they take pictures of and send me or they've seen other places on the internet and every few years I share part of my collection with you. Would you like to see some of these? Alright, here's one. Now is a good time to visit. Our pastor is on vacation! I think this Methodist church probably should invest in a new sign. First Congregational Meth Church.

And you know, you don't really want your sign guy to write the text for the sign when he's ticked off. Whoever stole our AC units, keep wanting... It's hot where you're going. This is part of this whole category that I would call unwise marketing. Probably not going to drop people in like this. Life stinks. We have a pew for you. Pack up the kids, let's go. Here's a welcoming sign. We are Baptists, no Protestants. Me cavemen pastor. Me Protestant?

I don't know what he was talking about, but here's a subtler approach. I find your lack of faith disturbing. You know, why quote Jesus when you can quote Darth Vader? In fact, there's a whole other subcategory of threatening church signs. If you think it's hot here, imagine hell. Choose the bread of life or you are toast. And did you notice this encouraging message brought to you by Grace Baptist Church?

And finally, just to be clear, if you're considering attending, surfer, skateboarders, musicians, artists, vegetarians, occupiers, activists, addicts, and fornicators are all going to hell repent now. I have a feeling this church is not in Santa Cruz. Because I was looking at the sign and thinking except for maybe one or two adjectives. That's our church staff. Obviously, we have no skateboarders, but you can tell when you look at the vast majority of these signs, these people are kind of feeling under siege, right? They're sort of in their little enclave and there's so much anger at the world out there.

You think it's hot here, try hell. I think there might be a better way to reach your city. And so let's talk about the way we hope to do it around here. Grab your message notes. How to really love Santa Cruz. It has this artwork on top to help you follow along and I thought since Valentine's Day was Friday, let's talk about love for our city.

Now, a little preview next weekend. We're starting a brand new series called Rhythm for Lent. That's the 40 days leading up to Easter and this is going to be about the spiritual practices of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ really did live his life in a steady rhythm. He would be with crowds of thousands, but then he got time alone. He would feast, but he would also fast. You read the Gospels, he was never in a hurry. He has this rhythm.

Meanwhile, you and I live at the same monotonous, hurried, frantic pace every day of the week. And I think we can learn something from the spiritual rhythm, the spiritual practices of Jesus Christ that starts next weekend, goes up to Easter. I'm really looking forward to that. So this weekend, how to really love Santa Cruz. And I want to start with one of the most famous verses in the Bible. It's this Jeremiah 29:11 and let's read this verse out loud together. All right, here we go. "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." And that ought to be on a church sign, right?

Now, I think a lot of people here in this room right now, the last few months or the last few weeks have been so tough for you. And you need to hear these words. There is hope for you. You have a future. God has a plan for you still. You can see why this is such a famous verse, such inspiring words. But you know these words are even more inspiring when you understand the completely hopeless situation that the original readers of this verse were in.

It is a fascinating story that puts this into a dramatic new context that I think will make it absolutely more encouraging for you, but almost no one remembers this story anymore. So let me tell you the story behind these famous words. It's about 600 years before Christ, 2,600 years ago. The Babylonian army has destroyed Jerusalem, burned it to the ground, and then they take Jewish exiles as prisoners to the city of Babylon.

In fact, I want to show you a picture found by archaeologists made by those Babylonians at the time of those very Jews being taken to Babylon. Men, women, children, all forced to pay homage to the blood-thirsty king who has destroyed their city and maybe their civilization. And when they get to Babylon, they are marched in procession down the main street, which is lined with carvings of lions, brightly colored on the walls representing Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of war.

And this is actually one of the very lions that they would have seen. This is from the ruins of Babylon, and it was made just a few decades before this happened in history. So the idea was march past these beasts of prey because we have destroyed your hope and destroyed your city like a lion devours its prey so that the people would feel just hopeless.

And then what do they find when they get to Babylon? Well, it's interesting. Historians say that the Babylonian civilization at the time was becoming socially fragmented because the Babylonians, their practice was to bring different exiles into their city from every country they had conquered, and they basically had conquered much of the known world.

So there were all these little tribes, all these little subcultures, all these little languages and belief systems, and consequently there was no moral consensus because all these groups had their own ideas, of course, about what was right, what was wrong, so there was no agreement. But the Babylonian elites were hostile, particularly to the Jewish faith. And so the question the Jews in Babylon had to answer was, how do people of our faith live in a fragmented, immoral, hostile society where they are the minority?

Now look at that question, and let me ask you, do you think that's relevant for us today? If you're, well, I mean, pollsters say all American citizens are beginning to feel this way, but maybe particularly if you're a person of faith, there have probably been times that you felt like our society is so fragmented and there's no moral consensus anymore and kind of the academic elite maybe, you know, look at my faith and my religion with derision and you felt like you're under siege.

So how do we live in that kind of a culture as people of faith? Well, as Tim Keller points out, there are three possible answers to this question for the Jews in exile in Babylon. Babylon's answer was really genius and it was assimilate. The Babylonian said, well, now that your civilization is conquered and we have dragged you as slaves into Babylon, we actually won't oppress you now that you're here. Did you know that?

This was their tactic. They said, we're not gonna oppress you, we're not gonna enslave you now that you're here in our city because they learned people tend to resent that and lead very expensive and very messy rebellions. And you can eventually put down the rebellions, but it's just a hassle for everybody. So they said, oh, we're not gonna enslave, we're not gonna oppress you, we won't push you down, we will absorb you in.

And so the Babylonians took the cream of the crop of every nation that they conquered and they would give them great free Babylonian educations, Babylonian names, new identities, great Babylonian jobs, so that pretty soon those people were just like the Babylonians. They lost their distinctive way of looking at the world. They're no longer Jews or whatever they were in a couple of generations. They're just absorbed. They're just assimilated down.

And so that was the Babylonians answer to the problem, assimilation. And then there's the religious answer. In Jeremiah 28, the chapter right before that famous verse, the religious leaders of the Jews in exile are, they're led by a self-proclaimed prophet named Hananiah. And Hananiah is a fire and brimstone fundamentalist preacher. And he says those Babylonians are so immoral and they're so offensive to God that God is going to rain down judgment upon them.

And so you people of God, what you need to do is to huddle up in your little holy huddle. Let's all stay in our safe little religious enclave and quite literally let them all go to hell. Let's isolate. You could call it tribalism. Let's huddle up. And this is a very common religious response to living in a secular world, isn't it? Distain the world. Our city's going nuts. Did you see some of the laws that they're passing? So let's all look down on it because we're better than them. Let's judge it. Let's feel superior to it. Let's write little church signs that condemn it. Let's just stay safe in our own little subculture.

But in Jeremiah 29, God says actually in answer to Hananiah, the self-proclaimed prophet and all those religious people, he says no, no. My answer is not isolate and my answer is not assimilate either. God's answer is totally unique. It was totally unexpected. It must have just blown the minds of those exiles in Babylon at the time. Are you ready for this?

I really think especially here in Santa Cruz, especially in an election year, where people are getting so tribal and so antagonistic and so divided and especially here on the west coast where people of faith can sometimes feel like my values are under attack. We need to hear what God said to his people in a very similar situation culturally here in this chapter of the Bible. I think this could blow your mind too.

I think it could change the way that you think of and pray about and feel about Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz City. Jeremiah 29 starting in verse 4. This is an answer to those religious kind of fundamentalist isolationists. Verse 4, "This is what the Lord Almighty the God of Israel says to all those..." Watch this. "I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon." I don't have the time to go into it, but God's saying, "You shouldn't frame this as it's all the Babylonian's fault. I allowed this to happen for a bigger reason. I've got my purposes, so just believe that."

And then there's four things God says that had to have just exploded the minds of those refugees. And the very first one may be the most mind-blowing of all. He says, "Stay in your new city." Stay. Don't flee Babylon. So you're in Babylon now, not Jerusalem. Well, build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.

You know, I didn't tell any of the other services this, but I gotta tell you something that was on my heart, and I gotta be careful about the way I say this. Friday I read a newspaper story that religious people, people of faith, and people who define themselves as being conservative in some way are four times more likely than anybody else to be seriously considering moving out of California or to have already moved because they feel uncomfortable here now.

Now I can understand why people would want to move because of housing affordability or maybe their kids live in another state, and I don't propose to tell you where God wants you to live. But if our only motive for wanting to move out is because we feel uncomfortable here now culturally, biblically, that's not a very good motivation to move. God says to people in a very similar situation here in Babylonia, "I want you to settle down there." Why would he say that?

Well, let me give you a formula for being a positive influence to any community. It goes like this. Proximity, you have to be near people if you want to have an influence, right? That just makes sense. If you want to understand people and empathize with them, plus longevity, honestly, I don't think people in Santa Cruz really trust anybody unless you're here for at least a decade.

You know, everybody here wants you to be a what? It starts with an L. A local! They even have stickers that they put up in businesses. Local, right? You earn trust by proximity, longevity, plus integrity. You know, you could have proximity, longevity, and just develop a reputation as a real jerk. You have to have integrity. If you say you're a follower of Jesus, then act like Jesus, right, with love. So proximity plus longevity plus integrity equals influence. Does that make sense?

Now, I did not always get this. I've told some of you that years ago a man named Brian King was president here at Cabrillo College, and he was on our board here at TLC. He was a good personal friend of mine, and he said, we were driving back from lunch one day, and he said, "René, can I ask you a question that may be kind of awkward?" I said, "Sure, shoot." He said, "Why aren't you out in the mix more in the community?"

And I got kind of defensive, and I said, "But I am, like our church does, like an annual beach cleanup day or something." And Brian said, "No, why are you not personally René Schlepfer at, like, the regular Chamber of Commerce meetings or Rotary Club meetings or at the second harvest meetings or on a hospital board or something?"

What he was saying in an ice ray was, "René, you spent all your time in a church ivory tower in your office writing sermons wondering why people aren't walking in the door asking to be led to Christ." So he said, "Come on, you'll be my guest." And he brought me to the Santa Cruz Rotary Club that week for breakfast and a couple of days later to the Aptos Chamber of Commerce breakfast and then to a second harvest meeting where there were a bunch of different business leaders, and I was the one pastor there, and I have to say that week changed my life.

Because I finally got what he was talking about, and I think what God's saying in this verse, which is, "Don't holy huddle like Canada I was telling people to do in Jeremiah 28. Get in the mix in your city." Now there's a ton of ways that you and I can do this here. Service clubs like Rotary or neighborhood associations or coach a team or get into a business group like the Chamber of Commerce or join a band or join an orchestra or just get to know your neighbors who are really different than you or grab lunch at work with people who are not exactly the same as you.

People who really differ with you on many different issues specifically go, "Hey, let's grab lunch. Get in the mix in the community somehow. Join a club." I know somebody who's in a local hula group. All right, it's me, but be in the mix. Why? I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast. This is out of WNYC in Manhattan. It's carried on NPR. Every week they answer a different economics question, but the whole show I was listening to this one day was about the question, "Is religion good for you?"

The way they always let readers pose questions, and this reader was saying, "Yeah, I've got some friends who are really getting into their church, and they're giving to their church, and I want to know, what's the ROI? What's the return on investment on that? Like is it good for you?" Now this was interesting to me because this was on WNYC in Manhattan, not like Caleb in Sacramento, right? They didn't have a dog in this race, in other words.

So they interview a professor at MIT named Jonathan Gruber, who has done a big research project entitled "Religious Participation and Outcomes. Is Religion Good for You?" Wouldn't you like to know what he said? Like, "Are you wasting your time here, or is this actually helping you?" Well, he said, "Yes, in every matter..." It's a great interview, but here's just one quote, "The religious are more likely to have higher incomes, higher education, have more stable marriages, essentially be more successful on any economic measure that you want to use." Interesting.

Then the host asks him the obvious question, "So has your research made you more religious?" And the professor says, "No, but it has blown away my prejudice against religion." He says, "I used to have what I would call the standard academic elite critique of religion. It's bad. Now I see it as a good, but watch this, I was prejudiced against it because I hardly knew any religious people myself." Well, I heard that and I thought, "Ed, whose fault is that?" That's on us. That's not on him. That's on me for living all those years as a pastor in my own little ivory tower here at the church.

We got to believe, you know, in this equation and this equation is also the idea behind, like, the coffee house. We're starting this fall. We're not building a coffee house for just church people to have coffee. We're building a front porch in proximity to our closest neighbor, Cabrillo College, that's inviting so the whole community can gather, where we can all rub shoulders with each other, get to know each other, reduce some of the friction that comes from not knowing each other. Proximity, longevity, integrity, there as well.

God says, "Stay. Don't flee. I know some of the practices in Babylon offend you, but put down roots so you can actually have some influence." And then second, grow in your city. Grow there. Next verse, "Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there. Do not decrease." Sometimes people of faith can think it's holy to say, "The world out there is so bad that we as God's chosen ones will do our best to get purer and purer and smaller and smaller, and our smallness is a sign of our holiness."

That's not what God says here. He says, "Increase is not an unspiritual goal, and I make no apology the fact that I do pray that Twin Lakes Church will increase, and I pray that our school will increase at our camps and the other churches here in Santa Cruz too. I pray for that." Now, as he says here, part of that growth is taking care of our sons and daughters, the next generation.

This was the whole rationale behind our 2020 vision projects that we started in '93, wrapping up this year. Praise God. But from day one, this has been about the next generation. That's why the new children's building here, the new children's classroom building at the children's home we support in India. Now we're building a new college building. But this is not about buildings. It's about investing in the next generation. The next generation has to be strategically reached in order for us to increase.

And you'll be hearing more about this later on this year, but that's a part of how we grow in the city and not just get into a small holy huddle. And then third, God says, "Help in your city." Actually, look for ways to help out before your city, not against it. Verse 7, and you know what? Let's read this out loud together too. It's on the screen. "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile."

Now, when you think of the word "peace," what comes to mind? The English word "peace." Probably two general things. A cessation of hostilities, no more war, and a sense of inner calm, because that's what our English word means. Well, this is the Hebrew word for peace, "shalom," which means far more than our English word. So many more dimensions. It means total flourishing in every dimension of life. Economic, relational, spiritual. Every dimension.

We're not just here to help people spiritually. We're here to help bring shalom. Yes, spiritually, that's why we share the gospel, but also in every other way. And here's why this is so important, because, follow me here, this helps us find common ground with people here in Santa Cruz, people we may disagree with on a number of other things, but we can work together on the common good.

A couple of quick examples. A few months ago, you might recall, we did a used clothing drive here to assist people who find themselves homeless in Watsonville. We did it with the Salvation Army. Well, you all brought in so many clothes that we had more than the Salvation Army could dig in, which is awesome. Thank you. But then we thought, "What are we going to do with all these extra clothes?"

Well, somebody said, "You know, I know a professor at UC Santa Cruz whose specialty is the migrant farm worker population down in Pajaro in Watsonville. Let me connect you, and maybe you can come up with something." And working with this UCSC professor, we were able to distribute all the rest of the clothes to 27 different families of migrant workers, and they were all able to find just the sizes they needed. Plus, we gave them all Target gift cards so they could get more necessities.

And that was beautiful, but what was especially beautiful to me was that we as a church were working with a UCSC professor who may have been, just like that MIT professor I listened to on Freakonomics, probably not knowing a whole ton of other Christians. But there we were together seeking the flourishing of our community, and we probably laid to rest some stereotypes about each other, too.

And there are so many other ways that we can do this. I mean, we need church volunteers, don't get me wrong, ushers and workers with our children and so on, but a huge part of being an influence in our community is finding ways to go out into the community. Another example, we want to get more and more involved with CASA that stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates, volunteers who help kids in foster care.

In fact, next weekend CASA will be here with a sign-up table. Is CASA specifically a Christian thing? No, but it's a seeking the flourishing of our community thing. Finally, you heard Brittany in announcements talk about safe families for children. What's this about? Well, sometimes judges find themselves, you know, with kids who need safe temporary emergency housing, who are they going to turn to? These kids aren't yet in the foster system, safe families for children.

And after the 10:45 today, you can come in to an informational meeting. It's another way to get in the mix of our community and seek its flourishing. Listen, there's so many more things. If you want to get involved, if you want to get ideas, email Robin Sperlak, robin@tlc.org. She's our community outreach director here at TLC. She'll find ways that you can get out there, work with other people who differ from you, but with whom you can seek the flourishing of Babylon by the Bay here that we love and live in.

And then fourth, God says, "Pray for your city." Rest of verse seven, "Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." I'll confess something to you. True confessions. A few years ago, I noticed something I was falling into. And when I saw it in myself, I was just so repulsed. But I had slowly, like frog in the kettle, gotten to the point where anybody that I saw as a bureaucrat, like a politician, a school administrator, anybody like that, I was just looking at with cynicism and criticism.

You know, you'll never find a Bible verse that says, "Thou shalt be cynical," that's not in the Bible. God says, you know what? He says to these people about the Babylonians, "Overlords, pray for them." So, you know, if the Bible tells you to pray for somebody like your civic leaders, then it's a good idea to actually ask them, "What should we pray for?"

A few days ago, I sat down along with some other local pastors for breakfast with Santa Cruz Mayor Justin Cummings. And I told him about the sermon, and I said, "How can I ask people to pray for Santa Cruz and for you?" And he specifically mentioned housing affordability and homelessness. He said, "These issues are so complex, we could use prayer." Yesterday, I phoned County Supervisor Bruce McPherson. He said, "You know what? Pray for more kindness." He said, "The vitriol and division is the worst I have seen it in my entire career here."

And then I texted our County Supervisor here in our area, Zach Friend, and he had an interesting answer. He said, "You know what? Pray for the city staff." He said, "They do so much work around here, but we tend to forget about the 800 city employees that work here every day who aren't in the news, but make it a special place to live." So there are some specific requests, and here's what I'd like to ask. I told them we would pray for them.

So either, could you either write this down or take a shot of this with your phone or something and pray for this this week so I can say we are praying for those requests as a church. We're praying about housing affordability and homelessness. We're praying for more kindness. When we see city or county workers, we're going to be able to go up to them and say, "You know what? Our church prays for you. You guys have a thankless job and we want to thank you."

Now here's my really big question. It's one thing for us here in Santa Cruz, where we've got a pretty good, let's face it, to hear this, but the first people who heard this instruction from God in Babylon, real Babylon, they must have thought, "Are you kidding? How can I pray for prosperity for these people?" I mean, Babylon's king was a ruthless ruler named Nebuchadnezzar II. This is a carved image of him from the ruins of Babylon at the time.

One expert described him like this. "He was an egomaniac known to be hot-headed, murderous, vain, unreasonable, and incredibly cruel. And those were his good points. His hands were dripping with the blood of the Jewish people, and the city was filled with idols that would have offended any Jewish person." And now God says, "All right, pray for that city's prosperity. Get involved. Settle down. Make yourselves at home. How do I live like that?" They must have been asking. "How do you stay and love and pray for people who are actually trying to oppress you and who don't like you?"

Well, check this out. Back in Jeremiah 29, God says, "I want you to do this and not listen to those false prophets who tell you to get into a holy huddle and not care. Why?" Well, the very next verse is that famous verse. "Because I know the plans I have for you." They're plans for good and not disaster. They're plans to give you a future and a hope.

He's saying, "I know it's tempting to think of yourself as some endangered species that's about to go extinct because the bad guys are getting their way." And he's saying, "That's a false narrative. I have got a great future for you. I've got plans for you. I've got wonderful things in store for you so you can help out even in Babylon with a total sense of relaxed confidence and no defensiveness." Man, are these words for us today or what?

Now, what is this specifically talking about? Well, God's plans to bring these Jewish exiles home to Jerusalem. And for the rest of the amazing book of Jeremiah, the author paints this picture, a poetic picture of what it's going to be like when God brings these people back. And I've got to read you some of these verses. Imagine what it must have been like for these first people to hear this if you're one of those Jewish people stuck in Babylon. "I will gather them from the ends of the earth. A great throng will gather there. Their souls will be like a well-watered garden and they shall sorrow no more at all."

Now, wait a minute. There was a lot of sorrow even after the exiles returned to Jerusalem. What's this talking about? Well, there are clues. Keep reading. "I will make a new covenant. I will put my law in their minds, write it on their hearts. And I will be my God and they will be my people." What's that mean? Keep reading. "Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "that that city shall be rebuilt and it shall not be captured or destroyed anymore forever." But Jerusalem was destroyed and captured after the exiles went back. So what's this talking about?

Well, the people in Bible times realized this was talking about a day that God would establish Jerusalem and from Jerusalem shalom would spread to the whole earth where there would be no more sorrow forever. And they waited and waited and waited for that day. And at the very end of the Bible, the Apostle John has a vision of his future and our future. And he says, "I saw the holy city coming down out of heaven from God. And I heard a loud voice saying, 'Behold, God's dwelling is now among his people.' And God himself will live with them and they will be his people and he will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All those things are gone forever."

The promise of the Bible is that one day God will bring perfect shalom to Jerusalem and the whole world. No more injustice, no more sorrow, no more death, no more disease, and we will be comforted. And when you believe this will happen, when this idea captures your imagination, it completely changes the way you respond to the world around you when you're in a culture where you feel like you're kind of the religious and cultural minority.

Because you're not on the defensive, because you have confidence about the future, you're not living in fear of being made extinct. And you can reach out in love because you want to bring the people around you a taste of this kind of shalom around you. This is really the second half of what you have to know to really love Santa Cruz. The first half on the first page of your notes is have love for your city. But to do that you really need the second page, which is hope for your future. Because nobody can love without hope. Without hope, love dies.

You know, do you ever worry that your best days are gone? One church sign I didn't show you earlier. The Lord is good and His love endures forever. Hours nine to four. It's easy to feel like God's office hours are over, right, for me. No, there is hope for you. God has a great future. It's not over. So you can love your neighbors and love your city with that hope.

So with all this in mind, I want to encourage you to ask yourself this question. Am I living, right now honestly, disdainfully, everybody's so disdainful these days of everybody else is not exactly in their worldview. Political parties, Christians, disdainful of atheists or whatever, atheists, disdainful of Christians and on and on and on, but it doesn't have to be that way.

So ask yourself, am I living here in my town, my city, my county, disdainfully or lovingly and be honest with yourself. Now maybe you're thinking, I don't know, Santa Cruz is super weird. This is hard. But when I believe that God loved me so much that he gave himself for me when I was a sinner, when I deeply differed from God, he came down and sought me out.

Then I have an inner resource for deeply loving people who might differ from me on every point because Jesus did that for me. And I can live with them and love them and cooperate with them and get to know them as friends because that's what Jesus did. As Tim Keller points out, think of how God won you over not by taking power but by serving you, not with a sword in his hands but nails in his hands, not coming to judge but to bear judgment. That's how God so loves the world and that's how I can love it.

Let's pray together. Lord, help us to be this kind of faith community that gets in the mix and specifically we want to pray for those prayer requests for from some of our leaders, for wisdom about housing and homelessness, for more kindness and for the hundreds of city and county workers who tirelessly work with so little thanks. They do so much to bless them, help them flourish.

And God finally for everybody here today who maybe just needs hope. I pray that they would sense a small voice saying don't give up. There's hope, there's a future for you. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.