Discipleship Sermon IIII

Mission

 

Today's discipleship sermon is about the mission.

In today's Gospel we hear about how Jesus imagines his mission happening.

And it is interesting that Jesus describes this mission as someone planting a little seed in their garden only to have a strong tree take root and house the birds of the air, or as a woman adding a little yeast to the dough to make a batch of bread...

 

The problem is we're so familiar with these parables we don't let them shock us anymore...

The truth is, I do not think this is how we expect Jesus to describe the way God's Kingdom comes.

Let us pause to notice who Jesus preaches to; the type of people Jesus sends, and how Jesus sends these folks...

I mean, let's just take a second to notice who Jesuspreaches to:

Jesus is preaching to those who have lost it all,

Those who are hungry,

Those who are weeping,

Those who have been the target of malicious rumors.

These are the kind of people Jesus preaches for, Jesus chooses.

 

That isn't all, though.

When Jesus sends these folks, he doesn't even offer much in the way of formal training and he doesn't provide much in the way equipment either!

That is the scandal of Jesus' mission.

When we let ourselves get over how familiar we are with this story, and let Jesus shock us, well then those parables of seeds and yeast as harbingers of the Kingdom are less interesting, as they are a surprising descriptions of reality...

 

Think of it, the people who are the regular targets of gossip and who have known more of tears and hunger than anything else; it will be those people, sent just as they are with nothing else, that Jesus says will be what God uses the make God's kingdom come...

Wow.

When we let the stark reality set in, it begins to seem like yeast and a seed might be a flattering description of these nobodies; these losers who Jesus chooses to initiate God's kingdom, here...

Here's what is so scandalous about how Jesus decides to begin his mission; see, we're prone to imagine God's kingdom starting in the Crystal Cathedrals, organized by experts, and carried out by trained professionals; not by whoever is at hand with whatever is on hand.

That is too haphazard, it isn't glorious enough to be how God's kingdom will come.

No, we prefer to imagine God's Kingdom starting in glory and going from glory to glory.

Never in a million years would we imagine God's Kingdom starting in a manger, and going to the lost, hungry and mourning for the lost hungry and mourning...

Tragically, these kind of assumptions of ours reflect a lack of imagination, a lack of faith...

Here's a story...

It takes place in Philadelphia.

In the late-fall a group of homeless, single moms decided to take over a closed monastery.

You see, with the rats, rain and cold weather coming on, these women who had been waiting years upon years for affordable housing, decided they had to do something.

So those women gathered their children, left their tent shanty-town for a little more safety of a monastery.

Well, it probably isn't too hard to imagine how the catholic diocese felt about having homeless folks showing up in a closed monastery...

And when the local newspapers found out about a church trying to kick people out of their building, the press had a field-day.

This story did two things.

First, it created a lot of bad-press for these church leaders. The story looked bad because, you know, they were kicking homeless people out, into the cold...

And second, ordinary people, Catholics included, read this story and couldn't believe the church was kicking homeless mothers out, into the cold. Some of those people decided to get involved.

Folks at the monastery made a banner reading, "How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday, and ignore the homeless the rest of the week." People would go over to that “bad” side of town where the monastery was and knock on those enormous church doors to drop off donations or join those mothers and children.

And so those same church leaders had to get creative.

What they did was get the fire-marshal involved.

The idea was that these church leaders would say they were just kicking those people out for their own safety, as everyone was sure the monastery wasn't up to fire-code...

Desperately all of the people in the monastery tried to install smoke-detectors, fire-extinguishers and the like in time for the inspection.

Sadly it was a race against the clock, a race they were losing...

 

Then on the last night, at 2 am, only 6 hours before the inspection, there was a knock at the door...

A few people went to answer, and when they saw firefighters there already, they started begging them to come back later. They didn't think the inspection was until later, they weren't ready, all the kids were already in bed.

Before they could finish, though, the firefighters interrupted.

"No, we're not here to inspect," one said.

"We're here to help you get ready for the inspection," another said.

"We could get fired for being here," someone in the back added...

So for the rest of the night, these firefighters helped install smoke-detectors, light the exit signs, and all that.

The next day when the fire-marshal came, after a walk-though he said he wasn't going to make these people leave, the building was up to code...

 

It is moments like that, stories like that, when we are reminded that this mission Jesus begun does indeed begin like a pitiful seed, and can, somehow, grow into a strong tree.

It is moments like that, stories like that, when the wisdom of Jesus' words break through and touch our hearts.

It is moments like that, stories like that, when we can glimpse the foolishness of dreaming God's kingdom only comes in those Crystal Cathedrals, instead of among poor mothers, ordinary folks...

Finally, it is, I believe, moments like that, stories such as that one, that we all long for; that cause us to wonder, 'can this vision of Jesus' be true'...

The truth, though, it isn't just us who wonder about these questions, either...

The world also longs for this very-same promise, the world wonders if a vision such as Jesus' could ever be a reality.

The world, with us, long for all to be cared for; long for the lost, the hungry, the mourning to be included.

That is the wisdom, the power of Jesus' mission, of his parables.

It is as if Jesus imagines beauty saving the world, as if Jesus imagines communities that live so beautifully they will attract others, they will save others, save the world,

save ourselves...

While conventional wisdom might advise we build an immaculate cathedral and hire an effective and charismatic communicator to start an powerful movement, Jesus says otherwise.

Jesus says, 'you who have been grasped by this promise, my vision; you are enough, you're just what I need.

Jesus says, you who have been captivated by me, go to the world sharing this message that has captivated you, share this message, live it out with a world that is dying to be saved by just this kind of vision.

 

Here at Trinity I like to say we have good problems.

In other words, it seems to me that the challenges we face are the kind of challenges the Bible, Jesus, and his mission can help us think through.

Truthfully that has been much of the point of this discipleship series.

 

You see, I think struggling we have, struggling to figure out how we will live out this vision with little resources are the very kinds of questions the people who first heard Jesus had, the kinds of questions Jesus is speaking to in today's Gospel.

Now, if we were trying to figure out how to finance some kind of extravagant life-center, I'm not sure the Bible would be much use to us; truthfully a management manual would be more helpful for that kind of situation.

To the kinds of challenges we face, though, are the kinds of issues the Bible, Jesus has much to say about.

In other words, while we might prefer to just have things easy, that is never what Jesus promises.

Not only that, but we're also in good company.

 

One of the great discipleship questions we've gotten that touches on this issue is, "How can we be an encouragement and an example to our neighbors that goodness and truth do exist in the world."

Here is why we should always take Jesus' words so seriously that they have the power to shock us, even after many years.

The surprising thing is that Jesus says it isn't as hard as we like to imagine it is, as we are afraid it is.

What Jesus says is, 'you are my seed, and although you may be insignificant to the eyes of the world, you are just what I need to grow my kingdom strong as a great pine-tree.'

Once I was listening to a Methodist bishop speak about the state of the church. The bishop was talking about all the things he couldn't fix, what he didn't know how to fix, what he didn't have the tools to fix; and then he just stopped...

The bishop stopped and said, but I guess what I have to ask myself is, do I have the faith to trust that God can make the disciples God needs for the world.

 

And truthfully, I believe that is the question these words of Jesus pose to us today...

Do we have the faith to trust that God intends, or even can use us, use Trinity to share Jesus' vision with the world?

Do you know, when I look around and think about our situation here at Trinity, what I am convinced of over and over again is not that our challenges are too many; but that our real challenge is simply lack of imagination, lack of faith...

Let me just throw some things out there, some ways we can be an encouragement, an example:

What if we put solar panels over our roof that needs repaired?

What if we organized a community garden?

What if we packed meals for students who went to food-insecure homes for the weekend?

We are the closest church to the homeless shelter, ya know. What if we decided that this building should be a safe-haven for those who have to leave the shelter during hot and cold days?

What if we worked with the community to organize a walk-in clinic, so the folks at the homeless shelter could have access to healthcare?

What if we organized a day-care, so the parents could drop off their kids at a safe place while they searched for jobs?

Or Burlington's homecoming is October 4.

What if we all sported greyhound purple, made signs that said we love the greyhounds, and a couple that said "good luck, Clinton' for good measure (since we’re Christians, after all). What if we took those signs and went to our corner parking-lot and handed out hot chocolate.

And those are just a few simple examples, really they are easy things to accomplish.

But what if, compelled by this mission Jesus is talking about, we went for it?

Now, obviously none of us would know what, exactly, would happen if we did those things. I am convinced, though, that if did some stuff like that we would put ourselves in a place where we could experience the wisdom, the miracle of Jesus' words, his vision.

And who knows, perhaps people would ask us why we're up to that kind of stuff. With that question hanging in the air we'd be able to speak a word to the lost.

Maybe we'd say something like, 'Jesus says God's kingdom comes right here, right here in our neighborhood,

and we're just going take Jesus at his word,

so want to use our resources wisely,

we aren't annoyed y'all use our parking lots, we love having you here,

we aren't afraid of our neighbors, we love them,

and believe it or not, we think God wants to use us, and y'all too, to celebrate God's kingdom, God's kingdom right here.'

 

That's the promise of Jesus' words, people like us have had a seed planted in us, and God intends for something to happen...

Amen