ACTS 1:6-14
Unison Reading: The Purpose of Our Church: #A-16 (Worship Book)
The purpose of the First Congregational Church of Southington is to: love and worship God, extend God’s radically-inclusive love to all people both here and around the globe, make more and better disciples of Jesus Christ and inspire people and society to become more just, loving, compassionate and Christ-like.
Gordon E. Ellis
May 8, 2005
KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING
Well, today is the LAST Sunday in the EASTER season. We’ve been living 50 days of JOY, EASTER joy, following the resurrection of Jesus. BUT, even though it comes at the END of Easter, today’s Lesson is about a BEGINNING. You see: after visiting them briefly, the RISEN Christ does not STAY with His disciples. When they ASK Him WHEN He is going to FINISH His work, He tells THEM to do it. In other words, He gives THEM a MISSION: YOU will be my WITNESSES in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And THEN, He ASCENDS into heaven, and He’s GONE!
Now, I UNDERSTAND that this story is primarily METAPHORICAL, but I also LOVE its imagery! PICTURE the disciples: they’re LOSING the leader they love AGAIN. SO, they MUST be upset! But WHAT a SIGHT to behold! Have you ever lost a helium-filled BALLOON? You WATCH it get smaller and smaller as it gets higher and higher, until finally, you can’t SEE it anymore. Now picture the APOSTLES seeing the SAME thing with Jesus. Can you see them standing there open-mouthed, CRANING their necks to watch JESUS disappear into the clouds? WHAT a SIGHT it must have BEEN!
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of the best preachers in America today and one of my seminary classmates, imagines the apostles looking up to heaven for a long time, and THEN, having to get over it very quickly AS they try to figure out HOW to get ON with the MISSION that Jesus has GIVEN to them. She says: No one standing around watching them that day would have guessed what an astounding thing happened when they all stopped looking into the sky and looked at each other instead. On the surface, it was not a great moment: eleven abandoned disciples with nothing to SHOW for all of their following…. BUT, in the days and years to COME, it would become very apparent what had happened to them. With nothing but a promise and a prayer, those eleven disciples consented to BE the church, and nothing was ever the same again, beginning with them. The followers became leaders, the listeners became preachers, the converts became missionaries, and the healed became healers. And the disciples became apostles, witnesses to the risen Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit… and SO, they STOPPED looking up toward heaven, and looked at each OTHER instead. And THEN, they got ON with the business of being the church. (Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine [Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1995], pp. 77-78). Because what ELSE do you DO when you’re left on your OWN?
A Navy veteran once told me that, when HE was in the Navy, he spent a good deal of time maintaining relief folders. THESE were folders that contained a set of instructions and information that would HELP someone come in, with very little notice, and do ANOTHER person’s job. The military, of course, is always preparing for WAR, and in WAR, people DIE unexpectedly, or get transferred to NEW positions. SO, the IDEA is that a NEW person can sit down, read through a relief folder, and know EVERYTHING that is necessary to KNOW in order to do the job. And I guess it WORKS.
Well, a MISSION STATEMENT is a SHORTENED version of a relief folder. It tells, in a FEW short phrases, what the PURPOSE of an organization IS. That’s why I had us read our church’s mission statement today. And EVERYTHING that happens in an organization should, in some way, RELATE to, or IMPLEMENT, that organization’s MISSION statement. Well, IN our Scripture Lesson today, Jesus gives US a very succinct MISSION statement for the church. You see: HE is being TRANSFERED, so to speak, and WE are taking over His job! SO, he gives US a relief folder. He says: It is not for YOU to know the times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority. But you WILL receive POWER when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and YOU will be MY witnesses. SO, WHEN is the church most LIKE the church? It’s NOT when it adds many new MEMBERS, although growth is a GOOD thing. And it’s NOT when the church meets the NEEDS of its CURRENT members although that, TOO, is IMPORTANT. NO! The church is MOST like the church when we fulfill the MISSION that Jesus gave us. And that MISSION is to WITNESS to the love of God AS it has been REVEALED to us in and through Jesus Christ. THAT is the church’s MISSION in a nutshell!
You know: for the past 35 years or so, MANAGEMENT consultants have been getting hired by corporations and organizations all over the world to help them strengthen their company or organization. And for 35 years, these management consultants have been stressing ONE common theme, the SAME thing, even though they couch it in lots of big words and fancy phrases. And what they ALWAYS say is THIS: Remember: the MAIN thing is to keep the MAIN thing the MAIN thing. Did you get that? Remember: the MAIN thing is to keep the MAIN thing the MAIN thing! And most SUCCESSFUL companies FOLLOW that advice. FIRST, you figure out what the MAIN thing IS for YOUR organization or your company. And THEN, you SPELL it out in a MISSION statement. And after THAT, EVERY decision you make, no matter HOW big or small, you make SURE that it FITS you’re your MISSION statement, that it’s MADE with that MAIN thing in mind. And part of the VALUE of a mission statement is that it HELPS an organization distinguish between the GOOD things and the BEST things, and between the IMPORTANT things and the ESSENTIAL things. After all: so MANY things seem GOOD and IMPORTANT. BUT, they CAN’T do them ALL. And SO, they HAVE to figure out WHAT are the BEST things, and what are ESSENTIAL things? And that’s ESPECIALLY true when it comes to HOW they INVEST their TIME, their TALENT, and their TREASURE.
And that’s why I believe that it’s important for ALL of us to have a MISSION statement for our PERSONAL lives as well, and for our FAMILY life. I mean we are all just SO busy these days, and there are so MANY things to KEEP us busy -- good things, IMPORTANT things. But WE need to decide what’s BEST and what’s ESSENTIAL, because it ALL feels GOOD, and it ALL feels IMPORTANT. And SO, a MISSION statement will HELP us to decide HOW to WISELY invest our limited amount TIME, TALENT and TREASURE. And ANYTHING that doesn’t fit our personal or family MISSION statement, we need to let GO of.
Well, the CHURCH is THAT organization that is founded on the MISSION statement that Jesus gives to His APOSTLES in our Scripture Lesson today: to WITNESS to God’s love AS it is revealed to us IN and through the LIFE and MINISTRY of Jesus Christ. And for the CHURCH, this IS the MAIN thing. And HOW do we witness to that love? Well, I believe that it’s summed up VERY well in the REPLY that Jesus makes to the TEACHER of the Law in Mark’s gospel. The teacher ASKS Him: Of all the commandments in the Law, WHICH is the MOST important? And Jesus replies: The most important is this: LOVE the Lord your God with ALL your heart, with ALL your soul, and with ALL your mind, and the SECOND is LIKE it: love your NEIGHBOR as yourself (Mark 12:28-31). SO, witnessing to God’s love is the MAIN thing, and we DO that by loving GOD and loving NEIGHBOR. And loving GOD and neighbor are the CENTRAL themes of BOTH the Old Testament and the NEW Testament. SO, WE keep the MAIN thing the MAIN thing by preaching and teaching and demonstrating our LOVE for God and our neighbor WHEREVER we are, and in ALL that we DO.
And you know: WHEN we keep the MAIN thing the MAIN thing, it TAKES the center of our universe OFF of ourselves and MOVES it to CHRIST. And when CHRIST becomes the center of our universe, when CHRIST becomes the FOCUS of our LOVE, THEN people will begin to see CHRIST in and through their interactions with US. And THAT is what it MEANS to be a WITNESS! WHEN we love GOD with all our heart and soul and mind, and WHEN we love our NEIGHBORS as ourselves, it changes WHAT we do and HOW we do it! And let’s FACE it: we do things for LOVE that we WOULDN’T do for any OTHER reason. I’m sure you’ve KNOWN people, and MAYBE yourself, who have done EXTRAVAGANT things for the people they love, things that they WOULDN’T do for anyone ELSE? Maybe they’ve driven GREAT distances to be together? Maybe they’ve spent EXCESSIVE amounts of MONEY on flowers and gifts? Maybe they’ve devoted DAYS of hard LABOR to helping someone do a task that WASN’T much FUN? Yes, at times, we do CRAZY, but WONDERFUL things for those we LOVE. And our extravagant actions MAY seem excessive or undeserved to those looking ON, but our actions flow from a HEART of LOVE. LIKEWISE, our love for GOD causes us to DO things that we would NOT otherwise DO, AND, in WAYS that we would not otherwise DO them, and OFTEN, for people that we don’t even KNOW. And DOING such things keeps the MAIN thing the MAIN thing!
For example: YESTERDAY, MANY of our members spent an entire DAY working on the HOME of someone in NEED in our community. Well, we DO that for LOVE! This SATURDAY, a group of our church members are heading to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to help the Lakota people, and ANOTHER group will go there in JULY. We DO that for LOVE! NEXT Sunday, we will commission a new class of STEPHEN MINISTERS, who will HELP people, one-on-one, in our church and community. We DO that for LOVE! EVERY week, someone from our Missions Committee delivers perishable FOOD to the Prudence Crandall Home for victims of domestic violence. MANY from AMONG us bring food to CHURCH each week for Southington Social Services. As a church family, through our foundation, Every Dollar Feeds Kids, WE feed and provide vitamins for more than 600 POOR children EVERY single day in Mexico, as well as feeding an entire ORPHANAGE of girls in ECUADOR. Well, we do ALL these feeding projects for LOVE! SOME of our members devote a Saturday each month to work at Habitat for Humanity. Hundreds of you participate in blood drives, contribute to our Covenant to Care Christmas gifts and Easter Baskets, provide Angel Tree gifts at Christmastime, help fill Thanksgiving baskets for people in need, give to our SPECIAL offerings that support worthy, people-helping organizations like Heifer Project, Church World Service and SO much more. And we do ALL these things for LOVE! Friends, it’s AMAZING to see ALL the things that we do for LOVE in and through this ONE little church for LOVE! It’s simply AMAZING!
Now, I can hear MANY of you thinking. You’re saying: Gordon, let’s be PRACTICAL here! Life is SO busy these days! There are just too MANY things to do that get in the WAY of our constantly keeping GOD’S love as the MAIN thing in our lives. And you’re right! Late spring ESPECIALLY is a VERY busy season! SO, when life gets BUSY, how DO we keep the MAIN thing the MAIN thing? How DO we keep the loving of God and neighbor in the very FOREFRONT of our minds?
Well, for those who read the BIBLE daily and meditate regularly, you KNOW how to do it. BUT, for those with little or NO spiritual discipline, I have two suggestions, TOOLS that might HELP. FIRST, intentionally think about God’s BLESSINGS at least ONCE every day. It might help if the FIRST words you utter EVERY morning are the words: This is the day that our God has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! I know: I can hear you GROANING already: I’m not going to jump up and say THAT! BUT, it puts our minds on GOD right from the start! And PARENTS, you can DO it for your kids, and it will give them quite a WITNESS. Just SHOUT that OUT as you’re waking them UP! OR, you say a word of gratitude at MEALTIME. OR, create a MEDITATIVE phrase to REPEAT to yourself as you do monotonous tasks or take walks. But, FIND a regular time and a routine activity when you can INTENTIONALLY remember God’s love and God’s blessings.
SECOND, be purposeful in trying to share GOD’S love in EVERYTHING that you say and do. When we do a BAPTISM, one of our questions to parents is this: Do you promise with God’s help, by your life and teachings, to lead this child toward an understanding of the Christian gospel, and into the service of Jesus Christ? Well, that phrase, BY your life and teachings, is CRITICAL! But actually, we ask no LESS of ANY Christian, because THAT’S our MISSION: to show others what it means to be a Christian by HOW we LIVE and WHAT we SAY. WE become living WITNESSES to the love of God by how, and with whom, we share OUR love each and every day. And we REALLY witness to the love of God when we SHARE our love with people we DON’T even know, AND in ways that even WE had NOT anticipated. SO, LOOK for ways to show GOD’S love to others. Be PURPOSEFUL with your LIFE and TEACHINGS. Make your mission statement FAITHFUL… and then FOLLOW it!
You know: Barbara Brown Taylor finishes imagining the ASCENSION story THIS way: When the apostles stopped looking up and started looking at each other…surprising things began to happen. They began to SAY things that sounded like (JESUS), and they began to DO things they had never seen anyone but (JESUS) do before. They became brave and capable and wise… SO, in the words of the angels: WHY do you stand looking up toward heaven? Look around you! Look AROUND you! And ALWAYS try to keep the MAIN thing the MAIN thing by LIVING your life for LOVE, JUST like every good mother DOES…. BUT, don’t just love the children in your OWN home and family. Love ALL God’s children, REGARDLESS of who they ARE or where they live. Amen