February 1, 2009
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Schools have them. Corporations have them. Political candidates have them.
Churches have them. Even your church has one. A MISSION STATEMENT.
Something that names focus, goal, dream, vision. It is something that a particular group
of people has that names a common understanding of where they are going. And when
you have one, it makes it a whole lot easier to determine what needs to be done to get
there.
As I read your Annual Report, I know that you have taken your mission statement
and created goals and objectives and the steps required to make your mission a reality.
It’s the criteria by which you make decisions. It provides a roadmap by which you can
see where you’ve been, where you’re going and whether or not you’ve taken a wrong turn
along the way so that you can get back on tract. A mission statement is what directs us,
challenges us, pushes us, and keeps us striving.
But problems arise when the mission gets blurred by day to day routine and
details – the budget, the paint, the who’s gonna, or simply by leaving this space and
getting wrapped up in work and school and home….
So each week as we gather in worship we are given the opportunity to clear our
vision – to get ourselves out of the way so that Jesus Christ can return to the center of
who we are as a church and as persons. In worship we receive a fresh look at what we are
supposed to be about and why.
Our mission statement as the body of Christ is contained in a Book. In this book -
the Bible - we learn that from the beginning of creation God cares about this world and
the people God has created. In this book we see that it makes a difference to God
whether we treat one another with abuse or compassion, with violence or gentleness, with
resentment or forgiveness, with oppression or freedom. In this book we are introduced to
the many ways we can be mean and cruel to one another. We see what happens when a
group of Hebrews are held hostage in Egypt land, given no rights and treated like
animals. We see what happens when they cry out to God in their anguish. God hears
them – and calls to a man named Moses. Out in a field keeping watch over his father-in-
law’s sheep, Moses sees a bush that doesn’t burn up. As Moses comes closer, God speaks
to him. God calls to him to go back to Egypt. To speak out against the evil of slavery
and oppression. God promises to replace that evil with the goodness of freedom and the
Promised Land. This book teaches us that God cares about how people are treated. God
hates evil.
We know that because our mission statement is not just contained in this book.
Our mission statement is also contained in a person named Jesus.
The Gospel of Mark doesn’t waste any words on genealogies or babies or stars or
wise people. The Gospel of Mark announces at the very beginning – this is the good
news. Jesus is coming. Jesus is the one who brings the Kingdom of God. All we need to
do is turn from our sins and believe this good news.
The Gospel of Mark doesn’t waste any words on details either. To find out what
happened in the wilderness and the time of temptation we have to turn to the other
gospels. In those gospels we learn what the Kingdom of God is NOT. It is NOT a
kingdom where every material want and wish is satisfied. It is NOT a kingdom where
everyone is protected from every pain and hurt. It is NOT a kingdom where the person
with the most toys wins and might makes right.
So what is the Kingdom of God? First, it is a place of community. Jesus has
called disciples to join him in inviting people into the Kingdom of God. Secondly, the
Kingdom of God is born out of the community of God’s people gathered in worship.
For on the Sabbath, Jesus went to the synagogue and teaches the people. Again,
Mark doesn’t waste words on telling us what Jesus said – but we know from the Gospel
of Luke that on a similar occasion in Nazareth – Jesus read from the prophecies of
Isaiah…
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me – because God has chosen me to preach good
news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captive, and recovery of sight
to the blind, to set free the oppressed and to announce the year of the Lord’s favor. And
then he rolled up the scroll and said – ‘This is what I have come to do.’”
THIS is what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like. It is not a political kingdom of
armies and weapons – it is a kingdom of love and peace. It is not a pie in the sky
kingdom for after we die – it is a kingdom ruled by deeds of mercy – right here – in the
here and now.
Mark doesn’t give us the words that were spoken that day. What Mark does tell
us is that Jesus taught with an authority that was unlike any other. For Jesus taught not
the traditions of men, but the Good news straight from the heart of God. And the people
were amazed.
Mark doesn’t give us the words that were spoken that day. What Mark does is
give us a demonstration of the Kingdom. As we learned in Deuteronomy, a saying must
by accompanied by a doing in order to know if it has truly come from God.
The healing that took place that day reveals something important about God’s will
for our world – AND it also says something important about the forces at work in our
world.
Suddenly confronting Jesus comes a man who says – “What do you have to do
with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the
Holy One of God.” And Jesus orders the evil spirit to come out of the man – and it does.
In our modern age there are those who try and diagnosis the medical conditions of
the persons who are healed in scripture – today they might suggest hysteria, or an
epileptic seizure or some kind of personality disorder. But that would be to miss the
whole point of Mark’s message.
This Jesus – this one who teaches with authority – has the power to overcome the
forces of evil. It doesn’t come easily. It is a battle where evil fights back kicking and
screaming, convulsing and exhausting. But ultimately evil is called out and overcome
with the goodness of God. This is the MISSION Jesus holds before us. This is what he
spent the rest of his ministry saying and doing. And we who are the church – the body of
Christ – are still called to shape and direct our work by that mission.
What are the evil spirits of our day that we, in the name of Jesus, must be calling
out of persons and our culture? Evil spirits are those things that suck the life out of us.
Evil spirits are anything that keep people from being free. Evil spirits are the principalities
and powers that enslave people. Evil spirits are the systems that keep people almost but
not quite making it. Evil spirits are the prejudices and practices that keep people who are
“different” from us locked in their place. Evil spirits are named oppression, addition,
abuse, violence, ethnic cleansing, and hatred. Evil spirits are at work wherever human
beings created in the image of God have had their God given dignity trampled under foot
and their noses ground into the dust by those who claim to be superior by virtue of their
skin color or ethnicity or sexual preference or religious beliefs. Evil spirits are at work
wherever children die of preventable diseases, wherever people go to bed hungry…
In our own history, a man of God named Abraham Lincoln acted with boldness to
call out the evil of slavery from our society and replace it with freedom for all God’s
children. One hundred years later a man of God named Martin Luther King, Jr., acted
with boldness to call out the evil of racial injustice and replace it with justice. “I have a
dream”, he said, “that someday all of God’s children, white or black, red or brown or
yellow will sit down at a table together. I have a dream.” This table (the communion
table) and every table.
Decades later, a man of God named Desmond Tutu acted with boldness to call
out the evil of apartheid and to replace it with forgiveness and reconciliation. Each of
these men was called by God to draw out evil and replace it with good.
Historically, each time goodness has confronted any of these evil spirits, society
has gone through the throes that this man did in the synagogue in Capernaum – it has
been a convulsive, wrenching, tearing, crying time. But on the other side of the battle
there has been a measure of freedom from the evil. We still have a long way to go in
fulfilling the mission of Jesus Christ. But Jesus calls ordinary people, like you and me, to
call out evil and overcome it with God’s goodness.
On New Year’s Even in 1999, at the Washington National Cathedral, Desmond
Tutu ended his sermon with these words, “At the beginning of this clean unspoiled
millennium, God says – Get up – God dusts us off and says try again. For God is giving
us the opportunity of a new beginning. God says, ‘You know, I created you for love, for
peace, for laughter, for caring, for sharing, for compassion, for family.’ And God has a
dream – a dream that we will realize that we are members of one family. Not as a figure
of speech, but as the most real thing about us. In this family there are no outsiders. All
are insiders. There are no aliens. All, all belong. Black, white, yellow, gray, rich, poor,
educated, not educated, beautiful, not so beautiful, lesbian, gay straight. And if we are
family then we will work to make all God’s children everywhere have clean water,
enough to eat, adequate education, health care, a safe environment. And if we believed
we are family, we’d say, the ethic of family applies. From each according to their
abilities, to each according to their need. And so we’d say – where are the hungry?”
Yesterday was the last day of the first month of this new year 2009. January was
the month we inaugurated a new president of these United States of America. It amazes
me still that for three days, millions of people containing the diversity when Tutu
describes rubbed shoulders with one another in Washington DC and there were no
arrests. For a moment, they were family. For a moment we had a glimpse of what it
means to live in the Kingdom of God.
And you – in this congregation – in this particular place and time – have taken the
call of Jesus seriously. Each church in each generation must find ways to make Jesus’
mission its’ own – in word and deed.
In your annual report, Charlie Buttrey quoted Abraham Lincoln as saying, “It is
said that an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be
ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations.”
I can imagine nothing better to hold up before your view the something that is
true and appropriate in all time and situations – the Mission of Jesus and the coming of
the Kingdom of God – and your particular Mission that has grown out of it.
Please – read together – the Mission of the First Congregational Church of
Thetford, Vermont.
AMEN – SO BE IT – in Word and Deed.
Sermon 02/01/2009