Passions

October 28, 2007
Joel 2:23-29; Luke 19:41-48
I was sitting at the kitchen table working on a sermon this week – perfectly appropriate on this Reformation Sunday, given that among Martin Luther’s best-known works were the teachings gathered under the title, Table Talk, in which Luther offered these words that shall guide our morning: “I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching, for the delight of hearing vanishes therewith, and the preachers hurt themselves.”
In any case, as I was sitting at my table, the door bell rang and my writing was interrupted by two extraordinarily clean-scrubbed young Mormon boys who wanted to tell me about the truth of Joseph Smith, God’s prophet and apostle.
All of which got me to wondering: how do we know who speaks for God? That is certainly among the questions I’d like answers to, and, thus, it is one of the problems I wrestle with from time to time – when I’m not shooing Mormons off the porch.
There are slips of paper tucked into your bulletins this morning. On one side it reads, “passions,” on the other it reads “problems.”
I want to take a couple of minutes together this morning to name some of our passions and problems. Let’s begin by jotting down, on the side that says “problems,” three questions you’d like to ask God.
I’ve named one of mine – how do we know who speaks for God?, and here’s another example: I have a friend who says the one question she’d like to ask God is “why do we teeth?” That, of course, is a question that only the mother of a teething toddler would ask, but it points to the problem of human suffering, and underscores the tendency we have to ask questions first out of our own experience. So, take about two minutes and write down three questions that you’d like to pose to God.

We’ll come back to these in a couple of minutes, but first I want to try to give this conversation a bit of a frame and see how our texts for this morning might inform it. When we say we’d like to pose some questions to God, the kind of questions we pose say something about what we assume about the nature of God.
Who is this God to whom we turn with the questions of our hearts?
Joel tells us that God is the one of infinite mercy, who hears the cries of the suffering and acts to relieve that suffering. Joel tells us that God is alive and active in history. Joel tells us that God’s spirit pours out on all flesh, and that our visions of a future otherwise come from that gift of spirit, that calling of God.
One imagines that Martin Luther, trusting just such a God, asked “O God, what would you have me to do about a screwed up church?”
So, what are some of the questions that we have for God?

Now, on the flip side of the paper, where it says, “passions,” I want you to write down three issues that you are passionate about. Another way of framing the question is, “what makes you angry?” Still another way of asking it: “what would you like to see changed?” Think locally or beyond the local – wherever your passion lies. Again, we’ll take about two minutes to write down three concerns about which you have some passion.

We’ll come back to these in a couple of minutes, but first I want to try to give this conversation a bit of a frame, as well.
When we ask, as Christians, what makes us angry, it’s instructive to ask, at the same time, what made Jesus angry? The stories this morning from Luke – the lament over Jerusalem and then the cleansing of the temple – tell us that Jesus had no patience for degraded and corrupt religious practices. The gospel accounts suggest that the money changing that so angered Jesus was just one more social structure that took particular advantage of the poor and those least able to defend themselves.
It’s appropriate to recall his anger on the Sunday when we celebrate the Reformation – a movement begun with Martin Luther’s disgust with degraded and corrupt religious practices. The money changing in the temple was probably on Luther’s mind as he considered the selling of indulgences in the medieval church. In both cases, the religious practices were part of a larger social-economic system that kept the powerful in their places of privilege, and kept the poor in their place.
What made Jesus mad? Any blessing of an unjust status quo, any practice that marginalized the poor, any barrier to God’s love, any barrier to this table. What was Jesus passionate about? The poor who were marginalized, the outcasts who faced barriers to the welcome table, the small community he gathered together to resist the social and religious powers and principalities that profited from unjust systems and structures be they temple or empire.
Jesus’ anger, his passion, provides powerful guidance and a healthy measure of agitation as we consider our own anger and passion.
So, what are some of the things that tick you off?

It is important and instructive to name the things that anger us, but if we merely wallow in the anger, it festers. On the psychological level, unexpressed anger is one definition of depression. On an institutional level, anger that cannot be channeled into constructive action becomes the source for deep discontent.
Five centuries ago, Luther tapped a broad and deep anger at the degradation of the church and channeled it into a movement that we know as the Reformation.
We are the children of that movement – a people called to be reformed and always open to being reformed according to the movement of the spirit of God.
It’s that spirit – of hope, of love, of reconciliation – that spirit makes possible our own move from anger into transformation.
So, in the next few weeks and months, as we think together about our own practices, our own way of being the church here at Clarendon, let’s gather together our questions, let’s name our passions, and let’s be open to the spirit moving amidst us anew and afresh that we might build on what has been planted here and grow a renewed community, reformed and always open to being reformed according to the word of God and the movement of God’s spirit in our midst.
Before we close, what other word should we hear from the Joel or Luke passages, or from the Psalm this morning?

Let’s close this morning with prayer. I’ll close us with the well-known serenity prayer. In many 12-step circles, it is prayed as, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Lovely words, to be sure. But the prayer’s original words, as written by Reinhold Neibuhr, stress not that we change what we can, but that we change what should be changed – in other words, that we act on our anger, that we engage our passion, that we work to change the things that should be changed. Let us pray, God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Amen.

Sour Grapes, Sound Doctrines and Surly Judges

October 21, 2007
The texts we’ve read this morning offer more than just the opportunity for an alliterative title – although that’s nothing to be scoffed at! Something interesting is going on in each of these passages, and taken together, there is a powerful word from God for us this morning.
But before we look at that, let’s look at ourselves for just a moment – at this congregation – and see what word from God is emerging from our own experience – from the texts of our very lives, if you will.
Lately I’ve been sensing a growth of fearfulness among us, and an inward turn that I think indicates what, in the business world, might be called “mission drift.”
I’ve heard it suggested that we’ve put brand-spanking new doors on the place just in time to close the doors on the church.
I don’t believe that’s what God has in mind here, and I do believe that, in the end, God gets what God wants. Of course, if we’ve discerned wisely and well that God desires a vibrant, growing community of progressive Christian faith in this place, then it is abundantly clear that we must change.
Why call an inward turn “mission drift”? Because our mission, as Christians, must always be focused outward.
But I’m going to begin with an inward turn of confession. I don’t think I’ve done a very good job leading change here of late. I’ve let myself get distracted by the complications of property transactions and let myself get dragged down emotionally and spiritually by the challenges of this building and our budget.
At the same time, I’ve been drawn into some exciting ministry beyond the walls of Clarendon. I’m not sorry for that, but I am sorry for this: I’ve failed to bring you along with me into that ministry to share the excitement. So, I apologize for those failures. I ask your forgiveness, seek your renewed engagement and promise my own.
I cannot tell you now where all of this may lead us in the future, but I trust that God has great things in store for this community of faith. So let’s get on with it.
As we get on with it, we shall be guided by several touchstones of our faith, that are underscored in this morning’s readings:
First, we rely on God, and the covenant that God has inscribed in our souls. Let’s not have sour grapes about past errors, but rather let’s hold one another accountable to living together as a covenant community that cares deeply about the state of the broader church and of the world, and that bears one another’s burdens, binds one another up and loves one another as we together do the work of caring for that church and world.
Second, we pray without ceasing and with an urgency that reflects the deep brokenness of the church and world. Like the widow in Luke’s story, we come to God in prayer with an urgent demand: thy kingdom come – Now! Thy beloved community come – this day!
Further, just as Jesus came in a specific time to specific people, our urgent cries for justice, for healing, for liberation and wholeness concern specific people in this specific time. The prayer list in the bulletin reflects this reality. Our common prayer life, with concerns for princes and paupers alike, reflects this reality. Let our individual prayer lives reflect it as well, as we live prayerfully that we might, indeed, pray without ceasing.
Thirdly, we encounter the living God in the living word – the living word of the canonical scripture, yes. But also, convinced that God is not through speaking, we open ourselves to the living word of God in other ways as well – contemporary prophets and poets, psalmists and musicians as well as through those that enrich our tradition from ages past.
Moreover, we engage all of that “word of God” remembering that we are both a community bound to a particular tradition, and also a community bound to a tradition of rereading, reinterpreting and reengaging God’s word so that it remains fresh and lively and full of God’s spirit, just as Paul knew that it was.
All of this takes passion, commitment, time, money, effort. But first, it takes practice.
Have you ever learned a skill? Say, typing, riding a bike, swimming, reading, playing a musical instrument? No matter what it is, it takes practice. Over time, we become what we practice. If you practice swimming, you will become a swimmer. If you practice piano, you will become a pianist. If you practice reading, you will become a reader.
Obviously, there are issues of unique gifts and traits involved in how proficient we might get, but my sister, who teaches art in Atlanta, has told me often that, with practice, anyone can learn to draw. It’s fine motor muscle control, she says, nothing more. If you practiced, she tells me, you could become an artist.
I don’t know about that, and my stick figures probably put my sister’s convictions to their sternest test, but let me share my own deep conviction with you: We can become the community of faith we’re called to be if we practice being it.
It will take time and effort and money. It will take decisions, and passions, and convictions. It will take openness, honesty and change. It will take faith, hope and love.
The good news is: we’ve got all of that and more. The biggest challenge probably lies in finding and taking time. We all lead complicated, busy lives. The church that we grow here will not look like the church that was here in the 1950s, when folks led less scheduled lives and every pew filled up each time the door was open. We’re going to try and fail and try again and succeed and try and fail and so on many times as we experiment with things like educational forums, dinner groups, Sunday schools, peace witnesses, prayer groups, equality work, Bible studies and GA agitation and many other things old and new. No one of us – including me – will be part of every effort. But each of us must be part of the entire effort; each one of us must be part of the ongoing practice of discerning our own calls and vocations as we sort out when and where to engage.
We will become what we practice.
Part of that will involve our money. Most of us have practiced all our lives being great American consumers – and we have become just what we have practiced. I was pondering my own wonderful, environmental piety the other day as I road my bike to work, until I paused to consider also that I was happily astride a $400 bike, pedaling away in my $100 athletic shoes, with my Apple PowerBook in my $80 saddlebags. OK, the PowerBook was a hand-me-down gift, but you get the picture. It is a resource-intensive picture, and it is, alas, a picture of consumer debt.
The choices that reveal themselves to me as I look in the mirror underscore the challenge of faithful stewardship of money. In order to reach a Biblical tithe – 10 percent of my income dedicated to God’s purposes – I must reorder my priorities. That takes time, and it’s a journey. But it is a journey toward a deep liberation from all the false promises of the consumer culture, and I invite you to join me on that journey.
The good news for the church budget is that all the money we need, we have. The bad news is, of course, that we’re spending it elsewhere. We will become what we practice.
If we practice being a collection of consumers, that is what we will become. If we practice being a community of uncommon generosity, that is what we will become.
We will become what we practice.
Our practice will test and engage our passions and convictions as we continue to try bold new ways of engaging that intersection between Christ who calls us and the culture in which we live. Whatever we do, let these two questions guide our efforts:
Does this program, that project, this worship change, that building improvement enhance our ability to reach those who have not heard and do not know of God’s liberating love? It’s not a question of growing membership, it’s a question of sharing the gospel.
And, second, does the project, program or decision enhance our ability to provide welcome and hospitality to those who have heard an invitation and responded by seeking to journey with this community for a while? Again, it’s not a question of growing membership, but it is a question of inviting others to become sojourners with us.
Let me close with a story and an invitation.
As you should know by now, we have begun a six-week exploration of call and vocation as a pilot project of what we’re calling the Center for the Advancement of Lifelong Leadership. Whether or not that project goes beyond this six weeks remains to be determined – by all of us. But that’s not what I want to talk with you about right now.
Instead, I want to tell you a bit about what happened at the first meeting last Sunday evening.
The gathered group included some folks from the community who are not members of this congregation. They included one young recent immigrant who is just happy to be alive and out of the war that has torn his homeland apart. A woman whose life has been torn by violence who is seeking a way forward. A bisexual man exploring vocation in hopes of finding his own voice. A middle aged man trying to figure out what’s next in his life.
Each of them – just as with each of us – suffers some brokenness, endures the ache of emptiness in the God-shaped holes in their hearts.
We all have such holes. We all seek to fill them up. Some of us fill those holes with work; some with medications; some with stuff; some, few graced ones with the abiding presence of the God of life and love.
Our calling as a community of disciples of Jesus Christ is to help others find that presence for themselves. That’s what we mean by sharing the gospel.
The CALL pilot project is one hands-on, intensive way we can do that. The folks who have come to that program from outside the church may not ever set foot in this space to worship. They may not ever join this congregation or contribute to its budget – any more than the folks who eat the food we bag at AFAC do.
But they will be fed. And, in the end, that is the measure of our love for Jesus: did we feed his sheep, did we tend his lambs, did we feed his sheep?
As we do this tending and feeding, lives will be transformed – including our own. We will become what we practice: a community of transformation.
So how do you fit in? How do you plug in?
Well, immediately after worship and coffee this morning, each of the ministry teams of the congregation will be holding brief meetings to organize their work. If you feel called to the mission and outreach of the church – the work of CALL, the work of peacemaking and doing justice – then head downstairs to classroom A. If you feel called to the work of nurturing, hospitality, Christian education and worship, go to the Sunday School room to be part of the Christian Education and Worship team. This morning, that team is going to talk specifically about the ministry of deacons – of those who take on the role of caregiving within the congregation. If you feel called to the work of keeping our facilities in good working order, head to the tan parlor with the Facilities and Personnel team. And if you feel called to the work of financial stewardship, join the Finance ministry team gathering in the purple parlor.
I was reading some polling data last week about that indicate what Jimmy Carter might have called a growing malaise in this country concerning our direction and our future. I was struck by how often the word “fear” showed up in the report.
In the gospel story from Luke with which we began, the one person in the story with the most to fear is the widow. Dispossessed and with no hope for a future, the most marginalized person imaginable in that social setting, she is the one who dares to demand a future. Who dares to hope that justice will be done. Who dares to conceive of a community in which she will be welcomed and honored.
We are the same; and we are the ones who we’ve been waiting for.
Amen.

Help Me, God, I’m a Mess

Jer. 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19
I was out running the other morning when I glanced down and found this button on the sidewalk. It reads, “I’M A MESS.”
At that particular moment, it spoke to me. I was thinking about call – both the program we’re launching this evening and the deeper questions of call and vocation: the “who am I and why am I here?” questions.
I suspect that there are times in each of our lives when we feel like we’ve got a good grip on that – those moments when we feel as if God is in heaven and all is right with the world. Then there’s the rest of the time.
That time when it feels like we’re in streams of constant whitewater, struggling to keep our heads above water, looking for something to grab on to, trying to find a calm place if only for a while.
I don’t know about you, but life feels like that to me much of the time.
Then I come across stories like the ones we’ve just read. Strangers in a foreign land, buying homes and trying to settle down, lepers looking for a healing hand.
I read these stories and think, “what have I got to complain about?” After all, I’ve got a house and a healthy family; I’ve got a job and so does my wife; we’re not exiles and we’re not lepers.
Sure, we’ve been out of work and, but for the grace of family, technically homeless for a while less than a decade ago, and sure, I know a bit of what it feels like to have a close family member treated like a leper due to mental illness, and yes, we’ve been exiled from the church at times. But removed from our homes, counted among the least of the least, complete social outcasts? Not hardly.
So I read these stories, and I consider the streams of whitewater that form the undertow of my life and find myself drawn in two radically different directions.
Split thus between feeling completely stressed out by the whitewater and then guilty for feeling that way when my life is so privileged, I find myself with just one thought: “help me, God, I’m a mess.”
So I’m wondering this morning: am I alone in this? Is it just me, or do any of the rest of you ever feel this way?
Perhaps I ought to underscore again the privilege I enjoy. I try to be thankful, ever day, for what I have been given, and I try – not always successfully – to avoid that particular form of American idolatry that wants me to believe that I’ve earned what I have.
I believe Jesus anticipates this idolatry when he observes that only one of the ten healed lepers comes back to say, “thanks,” and wonders, “what’s up with those other guys? Do they think this happens every day? Or, what’s worse, do they think they did it all by themselves?”
All he asks of the one who returns is gratitude and that God be praised. That seems to be the full extent of religious practice here. Give thanks! Praise God!
That small, but not insignificant, insight can get you through quite a bit of seemingly constant whitewater. Give thanks! Praise God!
The simple act of naming one’s blessings can slow the stream for a while. Praising God for a while can make the water stand still – not forever, mind you, but for a while.
That’s one of the reasons we gather here on Sunday: to offer some words, prayers, songs of praise and rest in still waters – or, if you’d rather stay dry, beside the still waters.
Naming one’s blessings can sometimes do more than stem the tide. Sometimes, naming blessings provides clues to those big questions with which we began: who am I and why am I here.
When I name my blessings, name those times that make me feel most blessed, I gain some insight into who I am and why I’m here.
I am most grateful for my children and for the times I get to spend with them – one on one or as a gaggle. That time fills me up, and makes me believe that maybe one of the reasons I’m here is to be a Dad.
Of course, I also spend a fair amount of time wondering just what emotional scars I’m leaving on their psyches, and what they’ll be in therapy for 10 years from now. But I set those fears aside with the assurance that perhaps I’m also here to keep some good therapists employed.
What we are thankful for speaks volumes about our values. Are we thankful, at the break of day, for the opportunities we will have this day to serve others? Do we offer gratitude at night’s fall for chances we had to help someone along the way?
To the extent that we are grateful for such opportunities, we can call ourselves followers of Jesus; to the extent that we are not, we can see the distance yet to travel in our efforts to follow and be disciples.
Sometimes, though, it’s tempting to fold up on ourselves and seek escape from the world. Surely the exiles in Babylon must have felt that desire – to withdraw from an alien society, to escape from exile. Yet the word of the Lord comes to them: build here, in the very midst of what seems so foreign. Do not withdraw, do not slip into escapism. Instead, buy land, plant crops, build homes.
The word of the Lord is not “give in to the exile and trade your God for theirs.” Rather, it is to become resident aliens – to live in the world but not be of the world, and to find the capacity for praise and thanksgiving in the midst of it all.
“I’m a mess” … well, why would I expect it to be otherwise? We’re invited to live as resident aliens in our time and place, and to find within ourselves, the capacity for praise and thanksgiving. And, well, we live in difficult days.
Sometimes it is awfully difficult to find the capacity for praise and thanksgiving within ourselves. We do live in constant whitewater, and often feel like we’re slipping beneath the waves.
When I was much younger, I loved whitewater. I did a lot of canoeing, and I loved playing in whitewater. Of course, it can get tiring.
I recall being on a river in North Carolina once, in an inflatable kayak. I was playing in a standing wave, surfing it, when the front end of my boat went under the wave. I leaned hard downstream to keep from being flipped under the wave and risk getting caught there. I could maintain that position, but I could not pull free from the water. For a while it was fun – the struggle to paddle out from the water, the delicate balancing act to avoid tipping, the wonderful feeling of being in the midst of all that powerful water. For several minutes, it was a rush. But then I began to get tired, and for one of few times in whitewater, I felt a brief but unmistakable brief rush of cold fear. One could get hurt here.
Fortunately, I was with a group – although they were all sitting on the bank downstream eating lunch. But I waved my paddle – indicating distress – and someone threw me a rescue line that provided the extra leverage I needed to pull out of the wave.
You can learn a lot about life on a river.
Being in the midst of the whitewater of life can be a rush. I’d always rather be busy than bored. But sometimes you find yourself overwhelmed, and exhausted from the effort.
At such points, you can give in to the fear that creeps in, and turn in on yourself. Or, you can reach out to others.
When I was a kid at summer camp years ago, I took on a craft project: I was going to carve a canoe. I’m no artist, and after a week of work I was distressed that my efforts had not produced a thing of great beauty. I was giving up on it, and, in fact, took a chisel and hammer and tried to drive the chisel straight through the wood to crack it. I would break it and be done with it. But the artist who was the craft leader, came up and gently asked me what I was working on and what I wanted it to turn out like. She encouraged me to continue the work and not give up. So I did. Now I’ll not kid you. My 10-year-old talents did not produce any great art – although, to be honest, that was probably the height of my artistic output! But I’ve kept this canoe for more than 35 years as a reminder both to keep on keeping on, and of the importance of opening oneself to the encouragement of others.
You can seek escape – turning in on yourself, self-medicating with drugs or drink or less harmful but no more helpful turns to mindlessness – surf the net, tune out to TV, head to the mall to shop.
Or, you can choose mindfulness: deep awareness of oneself, of one’s community, of one’s God. Such mindfulness involves planting oneself, rooting in community and in the lives of others – for the way out of our own suffering is always through the suffering of others. Engage. Be mindful. Be connected. Be open to the moving of the spirit in your life calling you to plant, to build even when it feels like you ought to be running away.
And offer thanks and praise, for the wonder of whitewater, and for the community that gathers along the banks to pull us free when we find ourselves saying, “help me, God, I’m a mess.”

A Buyer’s Market

September 30, 2007
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; Luke 16:19-31
If you are looking to the Bible this morning for practical economic advice I imagine you’re now ready to run screaming from the room. Jesus’ disturbing little story in Luke’s gospel suggests that the cultural value of affluence runs fundamentally counter to the kingdom value of compassion, and Jeremiah … well, he’s certainly not going to put the profit in prophet.
Perhaps Jeremiah was simply buying low with the expectation of selling high, for surely he must have got a bargain on this land. Jerusalem was besieged – who would be buying property? Supply must have far outstripped demand, so the price must have been right.
On the other hand, Jeremiah was imprisoned. He could not have had much expectation of enjoying a profit. But he goes ahead with the transaction anyway.
Why?
Well, at the risk of your continued groans, one might say it was because Jeremiah was less interested in making a profit on the land than in making a prophetic stand.
Show me your checkbook and I will show you your values; the way we spend our time is the way we spend our lives. A pair of truisms at the heart of this morning’s readings.
The rich man in Jesus’ story spent his life making money. He was probably a highly regarded member of the community, an upstanding citizen, a member of all the right clubs and social organizations; after all, he wore the purple robes of royalty. He may well have contributed to charities – the story doesn’t say – and he probably was a member of the local congregation – after all, he calls out to father Abraham so he’s clearly one of the children of Abraham.
But somewhere along the line he misunderstood what that identity means, and confused knowing the facts of faith with living a life of faith. If he did contribute to charity, he did so without doing justice, for clearly he never identified with the suffering of the poor, the outcast and the marginalized. Such identification is the essence of justice; missing it, he missed the kingdom – he became, himself, an exile.
We North American Christians ought to hear a prophetic and disturbing word in this parable. We ought to feel a certain tension and agitation as first world Christians in a world of often desperate poverty. We ought to respond in fear and trembling to a story that, as Walter Wink puts it, “demonstrates the impossibility of salvation for those who promote a situation which causes inequities and those who gorge themselves on the illicit fruits of their injustice.”
This story reminds us, as the word from Paul in the Timothy passage we did not read this morning puts it, that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. When we listen to these texts, we ought to find our very lives in the balance.
So where is the good news this morning? Is there no balm in Gilead to heal the souls of those of us made sin-sick by affluenza?
There is. It comes from the prophet of the exile, not in word but in deed. When all of the trustworthy economic indicators say “sell,” or, at the very least, “sit this market out,” Jeremiah buys. He invests, when every market index says withdraw. He risks his treasure for the sake of his vision.
Why? Was it just that Jeremiah was a lousy businessman? Just that he had no common sense? Just because he hoped for some pie-in-the-sky salvation in the by and by?
No!
Jeremiah invested because he trusted the imagination of God past the limited vision of the market and the empire. Jeremiah trusted that there was a future promised by God in which “houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”
In other words, Jeremiah trusted in the Godly vision of an emerging economy of abundance, of enough for everyone. Jeremiah trusted in the vision of a commonwealth of the beloved.
He looked around himself and where others saw only a barren and desolate land, he imagined vineyards on the hillsides of Samaria; where others heard only “lamentation and bitter weeping,” Jeremiah heard the music of the dance in which young women would rejoice; where others felt only the sting of broken promises, Jeremiah announced the hope of a new covenant.
Now you may say, and rightly so, that Jeremiah did not live to see his vision fulfilled. He did not live to see that day come when the covenant was cut and the law of the Lord carved indelibly into the hearts of the people. He did not put the capstone on the beloved community he envisioned, nor did he see the arc of the moral universe touch down in a land of unceasing justice.
But he understood something fundamental that we too often miss: we are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful and to trust the ultimate outcome to God. We are called to spend our time faithfully, to invest our treasure faithfully.
That is an incredibly difficult conceptual leap for most of us to take. We are used to being judged according to achievements, payoffs and outcomes. We belittle the notion of getting “A’s for effort.” We get paid for results.
We grow accustomed to believing that the results are up to us, and thus we grow less and less faithful, and trust less and less in any divine purpose for our lives.
We know that the wrong is oft so strong, but we’re not at all certain that God is the ruler yet. We know that truth stumbles mightily in the public square but we do not really believe that we shall know the truth and be set free. We know that the scales of justice are out of balance, but we do not trust that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.
And we despair because all of these huge challenges, that play out in our individual lives and in the life of the world, are beyond our feeble capacity to set right.
It takes an act of great selflessness to acknowledge that we are called to faith not success. It takes an act of great faithfulness to embrace this truth.
It takes great faithfulness because it requires our willingness to work for a future that lies beyond our own time. More than anything else he may have done or left undone, this was the tragic error and great sin of the rich man in Jesus’ story. He had no capacity to see beyond his own desires for he was blinded by his own wealth. He could not build up for the sake of anything other than his own narrow interests.
We are building something here, at Clarendon, for the long run. Its foundation was laid before we were born. It has been nurtured by faithful folks through the long years with all kinds of ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies, births and deaths and rebirths.
Through it all, God’s call and claim on this community has continuously emerged in and through the lives of faithful servants. In the long run God’s will will be done here, and I believe I can draw you a picture of what that is going to look like.
Imagine, if you will, a community of loving and joyful service gathering in numbers too great to ignore to worship God in this place.
Imagine, if you can, a multigenerational community of teachers and leaders and families of all kinds gathered to study and learn the stories of God’s active presence in the lives of faithful people throughout history.
Imagine, if you are able, a community of faithful seekers practicing together the ways of discerning God’s call and claim on each of our lives.
And then imagine, if you dare, a community living out that call and claim day by day in the making of peace, the doing of justice, the everyday passionate practice of compassion.
Each one of these plots is available, for sale, if you will, right now. It may seem to some that we are too small – that we are besieged by trends and numbers and budget problems and an old building and even a culture of disbelief. But I say to you, now is not the time to sell off the assets and weather the storm; now is the time for bold and faithful action.
Now I do not know the communicator’s art of making people feel as if I am speaking directly to them, so let me simply say it plain: I am speaking directly to you.
We have been given a great opportunity and a great commission. We have made covenant promises.
We have promised to nurture our children; so you are called today to teach Sunday School; don’t worry if you feel scared or unprepared, there are folks here who will help.
We have promised to bind one another up; so you are called today to participate in the women’s group, in the dinner groups, or in the other community-building opportunities that will be growing in the days to come; don’t worry if you feel shy or anxious about such things, there are folks here who will make you feel at home.
We have promised to do justice; so you are called today to join More Light Presbyterians – contribute money and time to building a church as generous and just as the God we worship. Don’t worry if you feel like you don’t know enough to help, there are folks here who will walk with you.
We have promised to make peace; so you are called today to witness for the shalom that is God’s desire for all creation. Don’t worry if you feel like you cannot possibly make a difference. After all, we are called to witness, not to success and there are folks here who will witness with you.
For, in the long run, God’s desires will be made flesh and all will experience it.
Now you may say, “but David, in the long run we’ll all be dead.” And I’ll say to you, “yes, that’s right. But it’s not about us, is it.”
It’s about God. It is our deep joy to be about God’s business – to be faithful – to participate in the bending of the arc toward justice. It is not ours to determine when the kingdom comes. Our lives can be glorious simply for the sake of the effort.
Was Martin Luther King’s life less glorious because he did not live to see the day when an African-American would become a serious presidential candidate? Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life less filled with the spirit of God because he did not live to see the end of the Nazis? Was Jesus’ life worth less because he never saw his 40th year, he never saw his vision fulfilled, he never saw the kingdom come?
Was Jeremiah’s prophetic voice silenced because he never built upon the land he bought?
We cannot … we must not … we will not turn away from the task that is before us simply because we have not yet fulfilled the mission to which we have been called. We cannot, we must not and we will not be blinded by a narrow self-interest and paralyzed by the anxious present moment. We will not allow a chasm to grow between ourselves and all of those with whom we are called to ministry; we will not suffer a chasm to grow between ourselves and God.
We have been called – to be repairers of the breach and restorers of the city’s streets to live in. That is our life. That is our witness. Into God’s hands we commit ourselves; into God’s spirit we entrust our futures. Amen.