Does God's Mission Have Us?

5 Easter, 19 May 2019, Grace Episcopal Church

It is not that God’s Church has a mission, but that God’s Mission has a church.

I wish I could put that statement out there and just let you all think that I came up with it. But, in fact, I didn’t. The Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Maryland made that statement, and you can find his sermon based on it on the Web at a site called “Sermons That Work.”

I think it is a great insight, and one particularly important to consider at times of transition in our lives and in the life of a church, like when beginning a new assignment or searching for a new rector. So hear it again:

It is not that God’s church has a mission, but that God’s mission has a church.

     

We church folks have a tendency to get such things reversed. We tend to talk about “the church’s mission” in and to the world.

And, yes, of course, it is in part just an easier way to talk about things. After all, the church is structured and organized to do certain things: to serve the spiritual needs of people, to spread the Gospel, to do various kinds of outreach, like disaster relief, soup kitchens, and so forth.

One could even argue that talking about these things as “the church’s mission” is a healthy way of taking responsibility and claiming ownership of the things we are called to do as the body of Jesus Christ in the world.

I would not deny or reject any of that. At the same time, it is also the case that the church has, throughout history, tended to get confused on this point. And when the church loses sight of its subordination to God’s Mission, when the church starts thinking it is pursuing its own mission, bad things tend to happen.

For one clear historical example, consider the Roman church’s shake-down of believers by putting a price on forgiveness. That was the practice known as the selling of indulgences, and it was the impetus and inspiration for the 95 theses Luther probably did not actually nail to a church door, but did present to his Bishop along with a letter calling for open debate on the matter, and thereby kicked off the Protestant Reformation.

But we needn’t go so deep into history to find examples of religious institutions acting arrogantly, and taking over the role of God in seeking to make the world over in their own limited, exclusionary image. In recent years, we have seen a seemingly endless stream of religious fanaticism, Muslim and Christian especially, blowing up, gunning down, burning worship spaces… from the Middle East to New Zealand to Pittsburgh to St. Landry Parish, Louisiana.

Those are extreme examples, so let’s bring the point closer to home. If indeed we agree that God’s mission has a church, in general, then it’s not a huge step to recognize that the same is true for all of the church’s constituent parts: God’s mission has an Episcopal Church, God’s mission has a St. Alban’s and a St. Thomas’ and a Grace Episcopal Church and School, and on and on.

How does it re-orient our thinking to say that Grace Episcopal does not have a mission, but that God’s mission has us? What would count as evidence?

What do people see when they look at us? God’s mission at work in this community? Or… people focused on, distracted by… preserving a beautiful edifice, balancing the budget, how tall the fountain should be, the leaky roof, who’s on the search committee, the one “right” way to do liturgy… and myriad other things.

It even seems to me there’s some struggle of late about who Grace Episcopal belongs to: the people who pledge? the ones who have been here the longest? a simple majority of members… or of who was at a particular meeting? the vestry? the Bishop?

Here’s my answer: If Grace doesn’t belong to God’s mission, it has no business taking up prime real estate on this corner in this neighborhood in this community.

Do we think WE have a mission in the world? Or do we understand, accept and practice our faith in ways that make perfectly clear that God’s mission in the world has us?

Here’s another way to pose the question: If God’s mission were illegal in Monroe, La., would there be enough evidence to convict Grace Episcopal?

And now, one more step, even closer to home. Consider this: It is not that Bette Kauffman has a mission, but that God’s mission has a Bette Kauffman.

I thought about standing up here and naming names, but.. you can put your own name in the sentence. How does that distill your thinking? How might it adjust priorities for each of us?

We have lots of practice and experience in seeking to carry out our own mission in the world. Indeed, that is the primary job, for each of us, of our own precious, fragile ego.

I am reminded of a lesson I learned many years ago from a more experienced leader of people. I had just come to Monroe to be an academic department head at what was then Northeast Louisiana University. A senior administrator was giving me some insights into the various personalities of the faculty I was about to become the head of. (And, BTW, being an academic department head is The Original “herding cats” kind of job!)

At some point, in speaking about a particularly difficult personality, he said this: When you’re handed a 2x6, don’t waste time wishing it was a 2x4 or a 4x4, even if that’s what you really need. Instead, figure out what you can do with a 2x6.

Thank goodness, God is The Master at figuring out what to do with a bunch of odd-sized pieces of lumber… because that’s what we are… and not only odd-sized but rigid and stiff-necked, just like lumber!

Brothers and sisters, I have invited us to a moment of profound humility. I have asked us to recognize that The Mission is God’s and that we are called–individually and as a church–to belong to God’s mission. I have invited us to consider that the biggest obstacle to our belonging fully to God’s mission is our investment in our own pet projects and opinions, and need to be right, and need for control.

And all that must die. We must relinquish our death grip on all that stuff of the ego… for God’s mission to truly HAVE US. Something always must die to make way for something new to be born. That’s the central story of our faith.

Let us be clear. Death and rebirth are never easy or pain free. But they are the way of the cross. They are the way of following Jesus.

The Gospel is always good news, and today’s Gospel lesson reminds us that love is the way—not only the way of life for us, the way of being church, but also the way others will know that we belong to God’s mission.

But the bit of good news I especially want to highlight this morning is the Revelation to John that was read as our Epistle lesson: See, the home of God is among mortals. What a glorious thought! Maybe a little terrifying, too, but… wow! This revelation is not only about some distant future, but about now, for the home of God is among us.

Then following that astonishing thought comes the line: And the one who is seated on the throne says, "See, I am making all things new." 

That’s the hope and the promise I claim for us this morning. "See, I am making all things new." 

Grace is still kind of in the painful, “feels like dying” part right now. But new life is coming and is already here. To paraphrase an old familiar song: New life is busting out all over. We are an Easter people.

And what do we do with that? Here’s how Br. David Vryhof of the Brothers of St. John the Evangelist puts it: 

God’s mission is to radically transform the world. Our task, then, is to discern how we can be a radically transforming community in the world, embodying God’s values and giving the world a glimpse of God’s…vision [for humankind].

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Radical Community

Maundy Thursday, 2019, Grace Episcopal Church

Our lessons begin this evening with the story of the first Passover. God has heard the cry of the Israelites and is going to bring them out of bondage in the land of Egypt.

  

We know from Hebrew Scripture that the Israelites had multiplied and were about to surpass their oppressors in terms of population. But numbers alone had not prepared them for the great escape.

Moses had even taken matters into his own hands and killed an Egyptian overseer who was abusing an Israelite. But that act of individual courage—or foolhardiness, depending on your point of view—had consequences primarily for Moses himself. He had to flee into the desert.

For God’s plan to work, the Israelites were going to have to act in unison.

For a people to rise up and walk out of bondage, they must overcome personal fears and anxieties. They must throw off those feelings of isolation and helplessness and apathy that often overtake people in dire circumstances.

For any group of people to march into an unknown future, to go where God’s mission calls them to go, they must give up individual preferences, and set aside their own coping mechanisms and adaptations to the current situation. They must relinquish ways of thinking and practices tied to the past. Indeed, they must yield their very natural desire for control, their very egos, to the future of the community.

And so God planned for the Israelites a feast to be prepared and shared in a particular way that required people to come together and to work together as they never had before.

Each household had to secure a lamb, but smaller households had to join with a neighboring household. The lamb was to be male and 1 year old. It had to be apportioned exactly to the number of people who would eat it.

It had to be kept until the 14^th day of the month. Then the entire congregation of Israelites had to come together to slaughter those lambs at twilight. Not at dawn or noon or whatever the traditional time for slaughtering livestock might have been, but at twilight.

The lamb had to be eaten that very night, and everyone, everyone, had to prepare and share the feast in the same way. The lamb was to be roasted, not boiled, with head, legs and inner organs intact. No place here for that plaintif cry, “But, dad, I don’t like roasted lamb!”

The Israelites were to be dressed to march…  loins girded, sandals on their feet, staffs in hand. Can you imagine the problem if some had insisted on wearing their Sunday best for this feast, then had to flee into the desert wearing, say, high heels?!

 (I can hear my mother in there somewhere: No, you will not wear your sneakers to the dinner table.)

God even dictated, through Moses and Aaron, that they were to eat standing up.

The first Passover was a radical act of community.. to prepare the people of Israel to rise up together and march off into the unknown. The first Passover was an answer to the need for cohesion among the Israelites, cohesion and the courage and faith to rise up, yield their own individual egos and preferences and dearly held practices—perhaps even strongly held views that they’d all be better off staying in Egypt!

They had to yield all of that, and more, in order to leave their homes, risk everything, and march into the dark and unknown desert. And God, in great wisdom, understood that radical acts of community can’t be a one-time thing.

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you, God said. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Fast forward a few thousand years. The followers of Jesus are about to enter into a different kind of wilderness—the wilderness of betrayal and grief and loss. Jesus has been telling them what is coming. But they don’t get it.

I am not being at all critical of the disciples here. I’m pretty sure, in their shoes, I would not have gotten it either. I suspect their incomprehension was part denial, and part, well, incomprehension. After all, no human had ever risen from the dead…

But wait. What about Lazarus? They witnessed that! So maybe it was all denial, which is an amazing thing. Denial can blind us to things in ourselves that are unbelievably obvious to others.

Whatever the reason the disciples are clueless, but Jesus knows what’s coming. Notice how concerned John is with “knowing” in tonight’s Gospel lesson, and not in the sense of knowing facts, but in the sense of understanding.

“Jesus knew that his hour had come,” John writes. “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands” got up, took a basin and washed their feet.

Jesus knew also that the disciples did not understand. He acknowledges as much when Peter challenges him, and after he has washed their feet, he explain again in simple terms so that they might begin to understand.

But most of all, Jesus knows that the events about to happen had the power to shatter the little community of believers gathered around him, to tear them apart and scatter them to the four winds.

And so, on this night of remembrance of God’s radical act of community that brought the Israelites out of Egypt, through the wilderness, through hunger and rebelliousness against God and deadly disputes among themselves, and, yes, even moments of wishing they were back in Egypt, slaves but with food and a roof over their heads---

On this holy night of remembrance, Jesus institutes a new radical act of community. Very soon, we will consecrate bread and wine, and we will share, once again, our communal feast of Christ’s body and blood, our own radical act of community.

 

So I’ve just drawn a bridge between God’s institution of the first Passover, and Jesus’ institution of Holy Communion, and that connection is real and appropriate. At the same time, it is important to note that the first Passover was designed to separate the Israelites from the Egyptians, and to form them as a people and a nation, God’s own people and nation.

Jesus came to proclaim a new covenant. The Gospel according to Jesus Christ is a message of love and reconciliation and inclusion. Notice that as Jesus institutes our most holy act of sharing his body and blood, and models for us the servanthood of love by washing feet, he includes even his betrayer.

We are called by Jesus the Christ into an ever more radical form of community. Yes, it is a community of people who love one another and uphold one another in prayer and fellowship.

But like Jesus the Christ on the cross, his community faces outward. It spreads its arms to the world. It transforms evil by loving it to death. It practices community by inviting everyone to the table.

Radical community takes the table—the holy feast of love and forgiveness and reconciliation—to the hungry, the isolated, the stranger. It is community that carries the light of Christ into the world.

Soon we will strip the altar bare and begin our own march into the darkness of Good Friday, following Jesus the Christ. We will do it fortified by our communal feast, our radical act of community, and the knowledge that the blazing light of Easter awaits on the other side.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN