Sometimes life just sort of, well… sometimes life sucks. Let’s face it, the economy is in the toilet, people are going hungry. Any wealth that is produced gets re-directed to support the extravagant lifestyles of the elite, or worst, ends up overseas in the hands of our enemies, folks who suppress our religion. The bickering between various factions of our own religion is out of control, everyone claiming they are right and everyone else is condemned. Civil discourse is uncivil, and if you dare speak out against the ruling class, you’re likely to be beaten and tortured. The idea that we are somehow blessed by God is suspect… things around here sure don’t look blessed. And don’t get me started about the guy in charge. Quite a few question whether he is even legitimate. There are just far too many questions… I mean, who died and made him a god? Being posthumously adopted by his Uncle Julius does not really qualify. Can we impeach Augustus Caesar?
You see, things don’t really change. We humans can do amazing things, we can be creative and decent. But no matter how hard we try to respond to the divine, to that piece of us hard-wired to love and to create, we still find ourselves acting small and making a complete hash of things. Wall Street or the Appian Way, it’s about the same.
Yet in the middle of all this misery came Jesus, the cousin of a popular preacher, who himself developed a powerful preaching ministry. But it turned out to be far more than a preaching ministry. It quickly became apparent that God was with this Jesus in some special way, that he had what theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher called “perfect Christ-consciousness.†In a world where pretty much everything bad was contagious, from actual disease to ritual uncleanliness, Jesus became a source of contagious good. Healing poured out of him, the unclean touched him and became clean. Even in his death, he reversed the human order of evil and contagion. There was no worse way to die then to be hung on a tree, ritually unclean and a visible symbol of Rome’s terrorism campaign in the provinces. Yet the cross, that great unclean symbol of shame, became clean, became a source of healing and renewal, through Jesus.
During his life and ministry, Jesus had a pretty simple message. The Creator invites you to live life in full now, to see blessing and wonder, to live beyond yourself, to be more than you dream you can be. Jesus shared this good news:Â you can be that amazing creative loving spirit called into being by your Creator. All you have to do is say yes.
It’s a pretty simple message, and a pretty simple choice. Choose to live in a world of aimlessness and sin, or choose life in full. And by life in full Jesus didn’t mean being rich, didn’t promise health. Life in full meant and means life aligned with God’s purpose. Not in that weird God is a puppet-master Rick Warren sort-of way. In the way of creativity and growth and transcendence and love.
I mention this because it is easy to get caught up in the business of doing church. We do church, but we don’t always do God’s mission. God’s threefold mission for the church: To deepen faith through transformative worship, through spiritual practice and through scripture study; to build God’s just and caring realm through prophetic witness, direct and action and caring ministries, and the part of God’s mission for the church we consider this week, to make disciples.
Now, one traditional reading of the apocalyptic called the Revelation to John says that 144,000 males are getting into heaven, and that’s it. Ladies, you’re out of luck, so you might as well get to sinning. And guys, it’s a competition, sort of like a reality show… someone can steal your spot. If that reading is correct, you don’t really want to tell people about salvation through Christ. It’s like the ultimate reality show, Extreme Hoarders: Salvation Edition. But, if like me, you don’t believe in this reading of this rather doubtful text, then why are you not telling people about Christ?
Notice I didn’t say why aren’t you bringing people to church. A covenant community is necessary to follow the way of Jesus, and the form we are most familiar with is church, but this form is changing, new forms are emerging, there have always been forms of church other than American 20th century civil denominationalism. And I’m not talking about corporate consumer mega-church. Tomorrow night in Pastor’s Class, we’ll talk about some of the new church and covenant community models, springing up spontaneously and organically like a spiritual Occupy movement, the Zuccotti park of the pews. Might God grace us with more rebels, more artists, more naïve young folks young people who believe they can make the world a better place, can make the church a better place, and in the process remind us that we were once those young people. But in the interim, know this: sharing the good news of salvation is not about adding new members to this church so we can fill volunteer slots and increase pledge units. If we are a vibrant mission-focused church, that will happen, but it can’t be what drives our evangelism.
No, effectively sharing the Good News of salvation happens for one reason and one reason only. Your life is changed by the act of choosing to follow Jesus. You can feel yourself being sanctified, being made holy, through the action of the Spirit. And you love others, your heart breaks for others, and you want them to have what you have, to have the joy, contentment, to experience the call of the divine. You may want to change the world… that comes next week when we talk about building God’s just and caring realm, but this week we are discussing the personal, the one-on-one, the simple message that life is better with Christ.
I said its personal and I mean it. I’m not in this business for the money! No matter how hard it gets, how stressed I get, how much the world breaks my heart, I find a deep and abiding peace in Christ. And I cannot stand to see others wallowing in misery when they could have what I have. Its personal because, despite appearances to the contrary, I love being alive, and I love this creation, and I love you all, every single knucklehead. How can I not? You are amazing, miracle upon miracle, and you do amazing things. Okay, sometimes amazingly strange things, but so do I. And sometimes we do amazingly loving things, amazingly creative things, we become imaginative co-creators with our Creator. When we are being sanctified there is a powerful holy imagination that can seize us. I want that for you, and you’re already here. Imagine how much I want it for those poor shmoes out there whose entire values system is given to them by this culture of greed and consumerism! They are miserable, playing a game they can never win, in pursuit of earthly security when there is no earthly security, and even if there was, what would that buy us? No amount of Oil of Olay or Hair Club for Men is going to make you live forever.
I want those folks out there to know that God wants them to live a fulfilling life right now, to be transformed right now. That’s why I do this, that’s why I am passionate about helping you become a healthy church, because I think we are surrounded by thousands of people who don’t get it and could, who could know Jesus. Do I seem a little crazy? Good! I am a little crazy, because what I believe is crazy, at least by the standards of the world. Paul knew it. So did that crazy man who cursed the fig tree, who embraced his own death and forgave his executioners. That crazy man who sent his followers out two by two to spread the Good News. God’s realm is at hand. Believe and follow and you will know life in full.
I’m still the analytical scholarly pastor that can explain how complexity science fits into theology, that can argue for panentheism… no I didn’t say pantheism… and yes, I can tell you the difference. I am still the pastor who gets fired up over the vast con game we call the US economy, over our own addiction to cheap Chinese goods, an addiction that is killing us as surely as if we were mainlining heroin. But when it comes to this second mission of the church, I’m not interested in reason. There are people suffering, and I have the ability to help them.
We live in a society where it is perfectly okay to talk about Justin Beiber’s sex life, or lack of a sex lfe, but we can’t tell people what we believe. Who made those rules? Tolerance is one thing, rolling over and playing dead is another.
This church has had no evangelism deacon since I arrived. We do little to tell others about our presence. Let’s fix that! Maybe the folks we tell about Christ won’t fit here. That’s okay. Maybe they will. That’s okay too. Maybe they’ll change us… that’s the scariest idea of them all!
The Way of Jesus blazes a trail out of our misery, offers us a superhighway to our better selves, allows us to live into God’s dream for us. It is an alternative to all the systems we humans make-up for ourselves. It was an alternative in the streets on ancient Jerusalem, of Corinth and Hippo. It is an alternative on Middle Road, in Bay Shore, on Fire Island, even on Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street. Sharing that good news with others is one of the three tasks Jesus left his followers, one of the three great missions of the church. As Christians we get our own version of that ancient commandment: Go forth and multiply.
Go forth and multiply. Amen.