Vision

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 15:1-17:

Whenever I get on a plane and sitting and getting settled, as I watch everyone else get to their seats and put stuff away, I think to myself, this is how every plan crash movie begins. Anyone else ever think that? No, I’m the only weirdo? And then, of course, once everyone is in their seats and getting ready the flight attendants come out to give their spiel about safety and emergency preparation, but few people actually pay any attention, right? Perhaps if it was your first flight, or maybe on a plane type you’ve never flown before, you might pay a little more attention but for the most part we ignore the information because one we’re largely familiar, and second, we don’t think it really applies to us. Afterall, all of us expect to make it to our destination, unless you know that you’re starring in a movie about a plane crash. But, as Seth Godin pointed out, if during the flight the pilot came on and said they were having some “technical problems” or something else that seems to downplay a serious issue, and then said the flight attendants were going to be giving instructions of what to do, I’m willing to bet that everyone on the plane would then be paying really close attention to what the flight attendants were about to tell us. And so, what’s the difference? The immediacy and the need to know what’s happening because our lives may depend on it. But, the airlines couldn’t do that often because if they did we’d blank them all out again because the pressing would then become routine. And so today as we conclude our series on seeking God’s visions and dreams for us as a congregation, I don’t want to say this is the middle of the flight and pay attention to what’s about to happen, because that would be overkill, but I do want to make sure we’re all paying attention because today, when we talk about our legacy, or how we want to be known, is really important.

In fact, this might have been where we could have started and built from because as with all goals, if you don’t know where you want to end up, then you’ll just wander everywhere and nowhere in particular. And so, thinking about who we want to be gives us the end point from which we can work backwards to create the steps of how we are going to get there. And one of the things that I think is important is that for the most part the things that people stated for what they wanted to be known for where largely ideas rather than concrete things, and I’ll come back to why I think that’s important in a moment. But even the more concrete things can be seen as aspirational with multiple ways of getting there. So, for example, one person said we should be known for having environmentally sustainable landscaping, and my thought was to expand that out and say we want to be known for environmental sustainability altogether, or of having a zero carbon footprint. And that would be a great goal, and great thing to be known for, and also allowing for multiple ways of getting there. Or another had that we would have a cool youth group; again, multiple ways of getting there, and multiple interpretations of what it means to be cool, and admitting that I am not the best arbiter of coolness for teenagers these days, let alone in 10 years, when shockingly we will still have a teenager in the house. But the bigger piece is about the leeway of allowing ourselves room to grow and to change.

The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus announced that they are going back onto the road this year, but it will not be the circus with which most of us are familiar. There will be no animals, and they are no longer traveling by train. Instead it will have displays like that of cirque de sole, as well as clowns and other circus acts. What allows them to make the changes is not only the demands of today’s audience, but it’s also the fact that their mission was to provide entertainment to children of all ages, with incredible feats and draw-dropping moments. That’s their language. And so, with that as their goal, it means they can reimagine their show so that it seems nothing like what they did before, while also being remarkably similar to what they did before. You will still recognize it as a circus, but they are not locked into how people have always known them. They have the freedom to keep what’s essential and change to be something new. And the same is really true for the church.       

In what is known as the great commission, Jesus tells us to go out and make disciples, but he doesn’t tell us how to do it. He doesn’t say go knock on people’s doors, or make tiktok videos, of that worship has to do this and look like this, and so the church has done lots of things in lots of different ways throughout the last 2000 years. But one of the things that caused the early church to grow, to cause people to be attracted to it was how Christians responded to others, in particular those who were excluded, like slaves and women, as well as how they responded to those in need. In offering support to the poor and caring for people who were sick and injured. That is, they followed Jesus’ injunction, or better to say commandment, that we offer love to the world, not just to those we like or who look and live like us, but to everyone. And that call hasn’t changed at all, and so I was thrilled that by far the most common response to the question what do we want to be known for, or what our legacy might be, was that people wanted us to be known for was as welcoming and inclusive for offering God’s love to the world. And honestly, if that’s what we could be known for, and I think that we are, or at least we’re moving in that direction, that would be enough. Because if we are being God’s love in the world, then we will also be bringing people into discipleship. And while we often think of that as being new disciples, and that’s important too, it’s also about bringing those who already know God and Christ into relationship. And I can say that’s where I have always felt strongest in my call to ministry, is in helping people deepen their relationship with God, and sometimes even coming back to the church after they have left the church, or in some cases that the church left them. And so, making disciples is a broad category, and all of that comes from being God’s love to the world, all the world.

There is a church sociologist who says that every church should ask themselves the question, if your church were to close when anyone notice? Would anyone care? And while I cannot say that would be true of some churches with which I am familiar, I certainly believe that would not be the case for us for a plethora of reasons, and one of the things we have to understand is how people come to know us and make us their church even if they have never attended here. We did two funerals a couple of years ago for a family that had brought their children to the Ark.  And so, when they had a crisis in the family and needed a church, where did they turn? They came to us because we were their church. The same is true for some families who came here when we hosted the food pantry. We were their church because we were the ones who were responding to their time of need. We were the ones who were helping them in their time of need. Because here’s the thing. People don’t care about how much we like each other, they don’t care that we get along, they don’t care that we say that we are Christians, what they care about is how we respond to them.

Do we say that we are hospitable, but aren’t? Do we say that we are God’s love in action, but aren’t? If our actions don’t live up to what we say, then nothing else matters to the world, because if we are not living it out, if we aren’t producing the fruit then it indicates that we aren’t connected to the vine. Because we cannot do what we do without God. We cannot love without the love of God flowing into us and through us. And that also means that sometimes we have to stop doing some things because they aren’t bearing fruit any more. It doesn’t mean that they haven’t born fruit, but maybe they aren’t the direction any more. And so, we celebrate what has happened and how it makes us who we are, and then we see where God is working and bearing new fruit so that we can participate and grow along with God and with each other. and so, in that, we might say that one of the best things that we might be known for, of what our legacy might be is that we abide in God as God abides in us, so that we indeed bear the fruit of Christ in the world, and that comes about because we love. We love God, we love each other and we love the world, not in word only, but most importantly in deed. And we can only do that when we all work together. Not just the elected leaders, not just those who quietly work behind the scenes, but everyone. Because, as Paul says, every person is necessary, every part is important, everyone has to work together in order for the body of Christ to be present, active and engaged with the world. A vine without only one or two branches is not only not attractive, it’s not healthy. For our vine to be full and growing, to be bearing the fruit of Christ, all of us need to be abiding in the vine and growing together so that we will indeed be known as the church that loves, that serves, that works, that abides. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.