The Mission

Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-12

January 29, 2017

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. That line is often attributed to Lewis Carroll, though it’s likely a paraphrase of a conversation between Alice and the Cat in Wonderland. It’s not, as I’ve heard suggested recently, the mission statement of the new administration.

Indeed, as a mission statement it makes a better warning. As does a similar line attributed to the late Yogi Berra: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.

It is always good to know where you’re going when you set out on a journey. Of course, if the trip is further than, say, the grocery store, chances are pretty good things are not going to go as you planned. Heck, even trips to the grocery store get derailed. How many of you go “off-list” at the grocery store? Deeper confession time: how many of you go to the grocery store without a list at all?

Yeah, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else. I tend to end up in the cookie aisle.

So, this Sunday of our annual winter congregational meeting seems like a good time to ask, where are we going as church?

On the one hand, the church is not a public conveyance – that is to say, it’s not going anywhere – on the other hand, the church is spiritual gathering. As I have noted often, the church is both institution and movement. As nothing makes more obvious than an annual meeting with budgets and nominating committees and statistical reports, the church is an institution.

If, however, that is all we are then we have far outlived our usefulness in the world. If we are not part of the movement of the living God in the world – a movement of the Holy Spirit – then we really ought to close up shop, sell the property, give the money to somebody doing some good in the world, and just go to brunch on Sunday mornings. Late brunch, please.

The apostle Paul famously called the church “the body of Christ in the world.” A body that does not move is dead, or soon to be so.

I do not believe that the body of Christ in the world is dead, nor is this small instance of it here at Clarendon. No, the body of Christ at Clarendon is vibrant, and, in that vibrancy, we continue to shake things up in our part of the world. That is as it should be.

Nonetheless, it is also good and right and appropriate from time to time to check in, to take stock, to make sure that we’re going in the right general direction. It is good to check the sign posts to see if we’re on the right track.

That’s where this morning’s readings are crucial. We could do way worse than saying, simply, that the mission of the church is “to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.”

If that’s the mission statement for the people of God, then we could do way worse than saying that the Beatitudes are our strategic plan. In other words, what does it look like to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God?

Well, it looks like this:

·      Mourners are comforted.

·      The meek are inheriting the earth.

·      The hungry are fed, and those who hunger for justice are filled.

·      The merciful receive mercy.

·      The peacemakers are honored and called children of God.

That’s a pretty good strategic plan for our current context. For when we look around these days we see plenty of grief, and thus, plenty of mourners who need comfort. We don’t need to look further than the tragic photographs of Syrian children to understand this, nor do we need to look beyond the words of the Torah to know clearly that immigration policy is a Biblical issue: “God loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19 CEB); and “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien residing with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34, NRSV).

So blessed are those immigrants who are mourning, stuck in airports or refugee camps this week, but they are blessed only if we offer welcome and comfort and solidarity, and if we do not condition that welcome and comfort and solidarity on things like race, or tribe, or gender, or religion, or country of origin, or any of the dozens of other ways we divide the earth and all its people.

When we look at the earth – well, I don’t know about you but to me it does not look as if the meek are inheriting it. It looks to me as if those who hunger for money and power are pillaging the only planet we have. While I love the work that George Tahu and his NASA colleagues are doing these days, for the foreseeable future there is no planet B. Thus it looks to me as if we Presbyterians got it pretty close to right back in the late 1980s when we said, in our Brief Statement of Faith, that “we threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.” Care for creation and outspoken advocacy on behalf of our natural environment must be part of the church’s agenda. Blessed are the meek, and, well, sometimes the meek must rise up lest the inheritance of our earth be squandered.

Sometimes outspoken advocacy moves beyond postcards and phone calls to protests – after all, we are Protestants. And when lawmakers propose crackdowns on civil disobedience and peaceful protest the church is called to stand on the side of those who are hungering for justice. That is a none-too-subtle notice that we might just have to gin up the pastor’s bail fund in the days to come.

For it looks so very far from mercy when the nation’s commander-in-chief proudly and loudly proclaims that “torture works,” and calls for reinstating practices that brought profound shame on us all. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

As if that is not troubling enough, our nation remains engaged in the longest running war in our history. It is impossible to discern if the peacemakers shall be called the children of God because it is damn near impossible to identify any makers of peace these days.

Yes, we have our work cut out for us on these, and a whole raft of other crucial concerns. For if we are to take as our mission “to do justice” then we’d best recall Walter Brueggemann’s observation that in scripture justice really comes down to this: sorting out what belongs to whom and returning it.

In practice, in 2017, this means, first and foremost, insisting that gospel values still matter in the world. We are not, as American political scientist Corey Robin put it in the current edition of Harpers, “huddling around the campfire of our dread,” but, instead, we “mass and march toward a distant light.”

Our story begins, after all, with the One who said, “let there be light” and continues through to the light that shines in the darkness. That light of love belongs to all people who dwell in deep darkness.

We claim our place in that light of love by affirming as self-evident these truths concerning what belongs to whom and these commitments to seeing that it is returned and remains with whom it belong:

Marriage rights belong to couples whose love draws them into covenantal relationships, and we shall not stand idly by when anyone tries to undo it through the courts or the congress.

Health care belongs to those who are trying to stay well, and to those who are sick or injured, and we shall not stand idly by when anyone tries to deny it by defunding it.

Bodily autonomy belongs to those who have bodies, no matter what gender. Her choice belongs to her body. We shall not stand idly by when a bunch of men sign orders to deny that constitutional right to choose. And, hey, bathrooms belong to those who have to pee and it just shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out how to make that work for everyone. We shall not stand by silently in the face of anti-trans bigotry.

Good schools belong to all children, and we shall not stand idly by when anyone tries to sell off the public schoolhouse door to the highest bidder because we have seen the results and the results are not just.

Clean water belongs to those who thirst whether they live in the affluence of Arlington, the hardship of Flint, or the straits of Standing Rock. Good food belongs to those who are hungry. Shelter belongs to the homeless. Clean air belongs to those who breathe. Peace belongs to us all.

If justice is our mission, then blessing is our strategy – and, moreover, blessing those whom God blesses. Blessing them in word and in deed. Blessing through political engagement, blessing by way of radical hospitality, blessing through generosity that does not count the costs, blessing by creating beauty for beauty’s sake, and joy for the sake of human fulfillment.

Friends, this is what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ in the world in 2017.  Our destination is the beloved community; our path is a highway for our God through the wilderness of our time. Let us be the church – today, tomorrow, and for as long as we draw breath – inhaling hope and voicing praise. Hallelujah, and amen!