God is calling

1 Kings 17:7-16

7But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

8Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” 11As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” 13Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. 14For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” 15She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

 

Two cannibals meet one day. The first cannibal says, “You know, I just can’t seem to find a tender missionary. I’ve baked ‘em, I’ve roasted ‘em, I’ve stewed ‘em, I’ve barbequed ‘em, I’ve even tried every sort of marinade. I just cannot seem to get them tender.” The second cannibal asks, “What kind of missionary do you use?” The other replied, “You know, the ones that hang out at that place at the bend of the river. They have those brown cloaks with a rope around the waist and their sort of bald on top with a funny ring of hair on their heads.” “Ah ha!” he replies. “No wonder…those are friars!”

What do you think of when you hear the term “missionary”?  I would bet that most of us have at least some understanding of what a missionary is.  We often think of a missionary as the people that the church supports financially and prayerfully to send them into the remote parts of the world to work with indigenous people, teaching them about Christianity and trying to teach them what we believe to be better ways to live (reading, writing, arithmetic).  And indeed, this is mission!  But mission is so much more!

            I would define mission as joining with God to bring shalom to all of the world.  We often hear shalom translated as “peace”.  And that is somewhat correct.  Peace is an aspect of shalom, but the definition of shalom is much bigger than peace.  Shalom means “well-being.”  So when I say that mission is joining in with God to bring shalom to all of the world, I am saying that mission includes economic development in third-world countries, mission includes feeding the poor, clothing the naked, sharing God’s redemptive message, the forgiveness of sins, digging wells for fresh water, teaching inner-city school kids, working with AIDS victims in Africa and in our neighborhood, prayer, and financial support.  Mission is joining in on what God is doing and not just sitting back in our easy chair, going to church once a week, and saying, “It’s all good, I’m under grace.”

            Rob Bell was asked once what the mission statement for his church is and he replied, “We are disciples, who are making disciples, who are making disciples, who are making disciples…”  I like that!  Because to bring about God’s shalom, we need followers of Jesus Christ.  Now I did not say that we need believers in Jesus Christ.  The Bible tells us that even the demons believe.  When Jesus gave his great commission in Matthew 28 he tells his disciples to go out into all of the world and make more disciples, more followers, not just believers.

            Today we are going to look at the prophet Elijah and we will see on this Missions Sunday that if we are doing what God has called us to do, God will supply us with what we need to work for God’s shalom.  We will also see that sometimes answering God’s call requires a leap of faith.  So let’s jump into the scripture to see what we can learn about joining God in his mission.

            Elijah is an interesting character who leads an interesting life.  In the scripture leading up to our text for today we find that King Ahab has come to power and married a woman named Jezebel.  Ahab begins to worship the god of his wife, who is named Baal, and builds a temple and an altar for Baal, and then puts up an Asherah pole.  So we have the new king of Israel and many of the people breaking the first commandment “You shall have no other gods before me.”  God doesn’t like it when his chosen people reject him, so God sends the prophet Elijah to Ahab and tells him that because of his sin, that there will be a great drought in the land. 

            God then speaks to Elijah telling him to move east of the Jordan, and it isn’t clear why God told Elijah to do this.  It is either to keep him safe from Ahab, to lead him to water, or likely both.  So this is what Elijah does, he picks up and moves to the Jordan.  And God led him to water to drink and the ravens, birds from the air, brought him bread and meat twice a day.

            Elijah was doing God’s work, was he not?  He was a prophet of the most High God, working to bring God’s shalom to the world.  And God sent him to a place where he would be safe and God delivered food for him.  God provided what was necessary for Elijah to do the things that God had called him to do.  And I believe that is true for people that are doing God’s work today as well.  Now God never promises to keep us safe when we are doing God’s work.  We have large volumes of books naming people that died serving God.  One of which is the Martyr’s Mirror.  But we have probably all heard stories of how God supplies for those who are committed to his service.

            We in Virginia Mennonite Conference have a wonderful mission organization just up the road in Harrisonburg.  Virginia Mennonite Missions supports around 200 mission workers every year in at least fifteen countries, often in partnership with other mission agencies.  They tend to concentrate missionaries in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean region, and some Asian and European countries.  Not only do they participate in overseas ministry, but Virginia Mennonite Missions is also very involved in local ministry as well; planting churches and equipping the established churches for ministry in a rapidly changing world.  I get a monthly newsletter from Ed Bontrager informing us of resources for those in pastoral leadership in these times.  VMMissions is a great organization, and I am glad that we as a church support this organization.

            Now as many of you probably already know, the past year or so has been a pretty tough year for many people financially.  Many people have lost jobs, lost hours at their work, taken a pay cut, lost homes, and so on. We are in a recession; times are tough.  So when times get tough, non-profit organizations like churches tend to take a hit financially.  It makes sense, when your constituents are making less money, less money will be donated.  This is true for most churches, and it is often true for organizations like Virginia Mennonite Missions.

            VMMissions has an annual budget of about $2,000,000.00 and they operate on a September 1-August 31 fiscal year.  During this past year individual and congregational giving was down 6%, which is not really that much when compared to other mission organizations.  But that wasn’t their only hit financially.  One thing that we often overlook is that the exchange rate of the US dollar to the Euro has not been in our favor recently.  So even if VMMissions is able to raise money, it is worth less when it is sent into other countries.

            But perhaps the biggest hit that VMMissions took last year was in their long-term investments.  We often refer to these investments as endowments.  They put a large sum of money in a high-earning account, like a money market or CD, and use the interest off of these accounts for their operating expenses.  VMMissions usually depends on 10% of their income coming from endowments.  That’s $200,000 that they usually rely on from endowments.  This year they lost money on their endowments.  I don’t know many non-profit organizations that can take that kind of hit and survive.

            So VMMissions was looking for ways to save money in the upcoming year, as we all should.  Pay cuts for staff personnel, elimination of staff positions, elimination of missionary positions; all were considered.  Chris and Melody Riddle were home on furlough this past summer after only 2 years of ministry in Italy.  They believed that they were just getting settled in their community, just getting comfortable with the language, their kids were just starting to connect with other kids, they were finally feeling like they were doing ministry, and they were told that there might not be enough money to send them back.

            Perhaps God was saying that the work of VMMissions and the work of the Riddles was no longer needed, because God provides for those who are doing His will, right?  Maybe this was God’s way of saying, “It is time to find something else to do.”  But in August, and remember that this is the last month of the fiscal year for VMMissions, approximately $600,000.00 in unexpected donations came in, mostly from bequests.  Now not all of this money was made immediately available for VMMissions, but it gave a huge boost financially to VMMissions as well as a huge boost to the attitudes of the 200+ workers with VMMissions.  There was still a need to reduce this year’s budget by 9%, but Chris, Melody, and the boys have been able to return to Italy to continue in the work that they have begun.  God provides when we are doing God’s will.

            Now this is not a call to complacency.  I am in no way suggesting that we sit back and do nothing and just expect that God will take care of things.  No, we are called to action.  We are called to service.  We are called to give of our time, we are called to give of our energy, we are called to give of our money, and we might be called to give our last bit of food.

            In our scripture for this morning, Elijah goes to the town that God directed him to.  And Elijah approaches a widow that God told Elijah would provide food for him.  But when Elijah asks her for bread, she tells him her sad story.  She only has enough flour and enough oil to make a small loaf of bread.  When that is gone, every thing is gone.  So she is going to go home, make what bread she can, share it with her son, and then die of hunger.

            But Elijah informs her that God has a different plan.  God wants to use her and God will make sure that the small amount of flour and oil will not run out until the drought is over and there is food in the region once again.

            How many of you know what an impala is?  Now I’m not talking about the Chevy Impala, I’m talking about the African antelope-like creature called an impala.  Impala’s are herbivores, meaning they eat plants.  They are not a predator to anything but grass and shrubs.  However, impalas make a pretty tasty treat to lions, tigers, and other carnivores.  Impalas grow to about 3 feet tall at the shoulders, and can weigh up to 170 lbs. so they are quite comparable to our white tail deer that so many of us like to eat.

            Now the interesting thing about an impala is that God gave them the ability to escape danger in an amazing way.  Impalas can jump over 10 feet high into the air, and over 30 feet long.  So when a predator approaches an impala, they just start jumping around, covering long distances in a single bound, until they reach safety.  To put that in perspective, if you put an impala on a basketball court, an impala could jump high enough to land on top of the basket and it could jump far enough to go ten feet beyond the three-point line. 

            Now if you go to the zoo, you will see impalas enclosed in an area with only a short wall around it that is about three, maybe four feet high.  And it doesn’t take a physicist to figure out that an impala should be able to jump out of a pen that has a wall that is only three feet high.  And having grown up on a farm, I know exactly how difficult it can be to keep an animal within the confines that you choose for it.  So why don’t the impalas jump out of their pens?

            Well someone figured out that impalas will not jump somewhere if they can’t see the place where they are going to land.  In order to have the confidence to leap over that wall, they need to see what is on the other side.  So as long as the wall is at or above eye level, they will not jump over it because they are afraid of what’s on the other side.

            We have the ability to do great things.  We have been called to join God in his shalom making mission to this world.  We have been called to join in what God is doing, but so often we are afraid because we are uncertain of what might happen.  We refuse to jump out of our pens because we don’t really know what is on the other side of the wall.  It is safe in our pens.  We have food to eat and a place to sleep.

            And this is understandable.  We all fear the unknown.  The woman from our scripture hesitated to give Elijah the last of her food and there is good reason to hesitate in this situation.  I would hesitate too.  Wouldn’t you?

            Now the interesting thing to me is that in verse nine God tells Elijah that he has instructed a widow in the town to feed Elijah.  But when Elijah comes to the woman, she says that she can’t feed him.  She only has enough to feed her son and herself one more time, and then they are going to die.  But Elijah instructs her to first make him something to eat, and then she will see that God will provide for her until the great drought is over.  They will not run out of flour and they will not run out of oil.  There will be plenty.  And evidently the woman listened to Elijah because what Elijah had said would happen did happen.

            See the thing that makes God’s calling so much easier to answer is when other people are hearing the same thing as you are.  God had told this woman to feed Elijah, but she didn’t listen.  She was like that impala, not knowing what was on the other side of the fence, afraid to jump because of the unknown.  But when Elijah comes along and confirms what she has heard, then she knows that her original call from God was authentic.  Someone else has heard it as well.

            Now I know that the Bible shows us some special cases where an individual is called by God and nobody else seems to know about it.  We don’t know that anybody else was able to confirm Abram’s call to leave Ur, we don’t know that anybody confirmed Moses’ call to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  But I believe that when God calls us today, God does so by speaking not only to us, but to other people as well.

            Diane Zaerr Brenneman worked for Mennonite Church USA in a role that the business world might call human resources.  She was in charge of getting pastors to fill out what is called the Ministerial Leadership Inquiry documents which are then matched with a similar document that churches that are looking for a pastor fill out.  So Diane was in a position where a lot of pastors would come to her to say, Hey, can you help me find a job? 

            Diane told me that quite often she would have newcomers that would come to her office, call her on the phone, or send her an email saying, “God is telling me that I should be a pastor.”  And her response was always, “Great.  Who else is telling you that?”

            I encourage you to ask the same question of yourself when you sense that God is calling you to do something scary, life-changing, life-altering, or new.  If you sense that God is calling you to join in on God’s mission, ask friends and family to help you discern if that calling is truly from God.  If the impala would only ask the neighboring orangutan if it was safe to jump over the fence, then maybe it would find the confidence to do just that and explore new territory.  And maybe, just maybe, if we partner together, affirming God’s call on our lives, we might be able to join together to seek God’s shalom for all of the world, disciples making disciples, who make disciples.

Mission is Messy

Mission is Messy

 

1 John 3:16-24

 

16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

 

23And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

 

            A true story.  There is a local church that had scheduled a fund raiser that would be announced this week during their worship service.  I believe the money was to go to the church’s building fund.  But in light of all of the things going on in the world today, they decided that they better come up with a different fund raising event.  The original plan was to have a number of people from the congregation participate by having jars with their names on them where people would put their money in the jar and the person with the most money in their jar would be obligated to do something that we normally don’t do as human beings.  Any guesses what they were originally planning to do for a fund raiser?  They were planning to have a “kiss the pig” contest.

            With the recent attention that the swine flu is receiving, I think that this particular congregation would have been up against a large obstacle, nobody would sign up to be in the contest (fyi I believe that the possibility to receive N1H1 virus from swine is very low, if not impossible).  But as Christians making up the large body known as the church, we know what it is like to be up against a few obstacles.  We face obstacles all of the time.  And today I would like to look at our scripture to see that we as the church have obstacles to fulfilling our mission, our calling from God to share God’s love with God’s people.  So let’s jump into the scripture and see what we can learn from John about our mission as the church.

            Our scripture for today starts out by saying, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”  We as Christians are really good at remembering the first part of this verse.  Jesus’ love for us is the reason that he came to the earth, lived a perfect life, and yet was punished and forced to pay the ultimate price.  He had to give his life so that we might have life.  This is the kind of thing we learn in Sunday School as children.  So why do we often miss the second part of this verse?  Why do we miss the part that tells us that since Jesus laid down his life for us that we need to do the same for others?

            Usually when I read this verse I immediately think of Jesus dieing on the cross and that we are called to die, either literally or metaphorically, with Jesus.  But I don’t think that our interpretation of this scripture needs to be limited to this understanding.  John does not use the words “Jesus died for our sins” in this section.  But he chooses to say that Jesus laid down his life for us.  And I have heard, though I cannot confirm this, that the only person to use the phrase “laid down his life” in the New Testament is John.  Therefore I believe that when we read verse 16 in context, it can really broaden our understanding of this scripture. 

            Look at verse 17.  Immediately after John tells us that Jesus laid down his life for us and that as his followers we too should lay down our lives for one another, he goes on to say, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  I think that when John talks about Jesus laying down his life for us, he isn’t just talking about Jesus dieing on the cross.  He is talking about Jesus sacrificing all that he had in heaven, living as a part of the triune God, in a perfect place where there is no pain or suffering, no anger or hatred.  Jesus laid down the life that he had in heaven to come to this earth to be hated, tortured, spat on, and crucified!  He laid down his life in heaven and picked up a cross.  Not because he enjoys that sort of thing, but he did it out of love for us.  And now John is saying that as his followers, we should lay down our relatively comfortable lives for the sake of others.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help?  The answer should be clear to us.  If we hoard all of the world’s goods to ourselves while those around us suffer, then we simply do not have the love of God within us.

            As I was preparing this message I started thinking about the word “mission”.  We use the term mission all of the time in the church.  We talk about the Valley Mission, we talk about being a missional church.  We have a Moment in Mission where we often talk about missionaries.  We even have a mission statement.  But what does “mission” really mean?  I looked it up and the simple definition of mission is: the business with which a group is charged.  The mission of a vacuum salesman is to sell vacuums.  The mission of a general contractor is to build houses.  So what should the mission of the church be? 

            I believe that the mission of Christians and the mission of the church should be just what John tells us in our scripture for today.  The mission of the church is to show people the love of God.  And as John tells us in verse 18, we are not just to show people the love of God in words and speech, but in truth and actions.

            I don’t believe that John is saying that we are not to use our words to tell people that we love them and that God loves them, that they are some how supposed to observe our lifestyle and see that we love them.  But John is saying that words alone fall short of our mission.  To love in truth and actions means that we back up our words by giving of ourselves, giving of our time, giving of our money, even giving of our personal satisfaction at times.  I think that is what John is encouraging people to do when he says that they are to lay down their lives for others in the same way that Christ laid down his life for us.  Jesus sacrificed his comfort to help us bear our pains. 

Now when I think of the mission of the church as to be the loving, inviting community of believers, sharing the love of God with all people, I recognize that different people will carry out this mission in different ways.  Some are called to be pastors, some are called to work with the poor.  Some are called to be evangelists, some to work for peace and justice.  Some are called to lead Bible Studies, and some are called to do help repair a neighbor’s house after a bad storm.  All of us are called to share the love of God with others, but not all of us are called to do it in the same way.

The apostle Paul loves to use the metaphor of the church being a body, the body of Christ, to be precise.  And the body is made up of many parts, the head, eyes, arms, and legs.  Each part is important; each part has its own function. 

So if we are all gifted in different ways to share and spread the love of God, then why does so much of the world not reflect the love of God?  Well I think that it is safe to say that there are obstacles to fulfilling the mission of the church.  I would like to share a few of those obstacles with you today and hopefully we can avoid these obstacles as we seek to fulfill the mission we have been charged with.

Personal Time

            The first obstacle to fulfilling our mission as the church that I would like to address is our personal time.  This past Wednesday I was driving through town on my way to a meeting 20 miles away.  And if you recall, it rained all day Wednesday.  So I’m driving through town and I see a person walking down the road, trying to protect himself from the rain with a little umbrella, which isn’t much help when the rain is coming down horizontally.  As I approached the person, I recognized him as someone I speak to frequently; he works downtown.  He has told me before that he doesn’t have a car, and I assume he was walking to work in the rain.

            I almost stopped to offer him a ride…almost.  I slowed down.  But I never stopped.  Of course I could justify not helping this guy.  I was afraid I would be late for my meeting.  I didn’t want my car to get wet inside.  I wasn’t even sure if it was the guy I was thinking of.  But if it was him, and I’m pretty sure it was, I know that he still had a least one mile to walk in the rain.  And the thing that bothers me so much today is that I got to my meeting plenty early to have picked him up.

            Time…how dare we allow our busy schedules keep us from sharing the love of God with other people?  The ironic thing about my missing an opportunity to share God’s love with this gentleman is that the meeting that I was trying to get to on time was a church meeting.  I was trying to do something for God, and in doing so I might have missed an opportunity to fulfill our mission as the church to show the love of God to God’s people.

            I believe that our busy schedules become an obstacle to sharing the love of God with other people.  How many of us have ever said, “I would help serve a meal at the soup kitchen this week, if I only had the time.”  Or “I would stop and pay a visit to my neighbor girl who is a single mother trying to pay the bills on a measly welfare check, maybe even offer to watch the kids for her, if I only had more time.”  Time is a precious commodity, and it is often an obstacle to our mission as the church.

Personal property/space

            The next obstacle to fulfilling our mission as the church that I would like to address is the issue of personal property and space.  I know that I am usually looked at as being idealistic when I draw your attention to the early church and lift them up as a model for how we are called to be the church.  But I am pretty sure that a lot of people called Jesus and his early followers idealistic as well.  So I guess I’m in good companyJ.

            The book of Acts tells us that the early church did not have private ownership of their ‘stuff’.  There would have been personal property.  That is obvious when we read the scriptures that the early church members still had possession.  But they shared them in a radical way.

            Today there is an excellent program in the Harrisonburg area that goes by the acronym HARTS, which stands for Harrisonburg and Rockingham Thermal Shelters.  HARTS is a faith-based organization that provides shelter and a meal for homeless people in Harrisonburg during the winter months to keep people off the street in the freezing weather.  The way I understand HARTS is that churches open up their facilities to provide a warm place out of the weather, restrooms, and a meal for one week from Monday night through Sunday morning.  After the week was up, the HARTS employees pack up the cots and move them to a different church.

            HARTS provides a staff member that would stay up all night long to monitor things and people as they would come and go throughout the night.  The staff members were trained to deal with violent people, people under the influence of various substances, and people with mental illness.

            I know of a number of Mennonite Churches in Harrisonburg that participated in HARTS this past winter, and I heard mostly good things.  I have heard stories of how churches have brought in food and blankets, sharing their goods with these people in need.  Then the homeless people that stayed in the church would often go to the Sunday morning church services in the building that they had called home for that last week.  As I have said, I think that this is a great program.

But this year (I believe the second year of HARTS), a group in Harrisonburg asked a few local churches to host one additional week to extend the HARTS program through the month of April.  This other group would provide volunteers to stay with the homeless folks in the churches.  But it turns out that these volunteers are not trained to deal with some of the things that transpired over the week.

            I heard that one church had issues with an intoxicated man vomiting on the carpet and people were making themselves a little too at home, rummaging through the cabinets and cupboards in the fellowship hall kitchen.  Two churches had people smoking in their men’s room.  One church even had fecal matter smeared on the wall.  I call your attention to the title of my message this morning, “Mission is Messy.”  It sure can be.  But I come back to verse 17, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”  Again the assumed answer is that it can’t.

            I spoke with one of the pastors of the church that hosted HARTS one additional week without the paid staff member present and he said that he had heard a lot of negative things about opening their facilities up again.  And it is that one word that causes me to tense up a bit; when they call it their facilities.  I thought that the church was God’s house?  The pastor of the church and I both agreed that some things could be done better to monitor things, but we also agreed that using God’s house to show God’s love to God’s people is always a good idea.  But personal property and personal space can clearly be an obstacle to mission.

Lack of Gratitude

            The pastor from the same congregation that had problems with people misusing “their facilities” told me that a big problem that they faced was that people in their congregation were complaining that the homeless folks seemed to have a sense of entitlement and were less than appreciative of the things that were being provided free of charge.  The guests were complaining about thing not being just right.  One guy said that his cot was too lumpy and he would rather sleep on the floor than to sleep another night on that thing.  One person made a big stink about the church only providing white sugar for his coffee and he wanted the pure Sugar in the Raw.  So what are we to do with people like this that show no gratitude when we go out of our way?  We love them anyway.  We show them the love of God, even when they don’t seem to appreciate it.  Our mission of showing people the love of God is never contingent upon the recipients’ gratitude.

            Anyone that has tried to show the love of God to another person probably knows what it means to be rejected, shot down, or denied.  Anyone that has tried to share their faith has probably found people that didn’t want to hear it.

            Greenmonte Fellowship does a great job of providing financial assistance to those in need in the area of their church, and I have tried to model our local relief program after what I have seen at Greenmonte.  When someone comes to Greenmonte looking for a little help, they give it to them with no strings attached.  But if that person comes back to ask for help again, before they receive another dime from the congregation, that person has to sit down with a financial advisor from the church to discuss how they can budget appropriately so that this is not an ongoing problem.  And you wouldn’t believe how many people walk away at that point.  They aren’t willing to receive the free help from the church.  All they want is the money. 

            So what are we to do?  We love them anyway.  We continue to show people the love of God because showing the love of God to God’s people is never contingent on the recipients’ gratitude.  But my goodness, does it hurt to offer a simple “thank-you” from time to time?  No, but we can never allow a lack of gratitude to be an obstacle to the church’s mission.

            I’ve only scratched the surface, I know.  There are many, many more obstacles to the mission of the church, because mission is messy, it’s hard, and it can be unrewarding.  But showing others the love of God is what we are called to do.  It is our mission.

            But don’t leave here today discouraged and depressed.  Because not only is mission messy, mission is magnificent as well.  We are a part of a long line of successful missionaries.  We all have been witnessed to in truth and in action, we have all felt the love of God.  The mission of the church traces back 2,000 years.  2,000 year!  That should say something to us all.  Because believe me, mission was just as messy 2,000 years ago as it is today.  The fact that the mission of the church continues today shows us that it is worth it.  The church has been called to be a community of believers that shares the love of God with all people.  We are all called to do it in different ways, just as the body has many parts.  But we are called to fulfill this mission.  Let us step up to the challenge, because not only is mission messy, it is magnificent.

            I will close with a quote from Henry Ford.  “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

Henry Ford

Mission as Improv

Kevin Gasser

Staunton Mennonite

6/22/08

 

Matthew 10:5-25

5These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. 11Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12As you enter the house, greet it. 13If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

16“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 24“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; 25it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

 

In the late 1990’s, a show debuted on television called “Whose Line is it Anyway?”  The idea of the show was that four participants would be given themes for skits and they would then act out these skits.  The skits were not only unrehearsed, they were unwritten.  The participants made them up as they went.  This required quick wits and anticipation of where someone else was going with the skit.  The participants needed to know one another and how they would think.  They needed to be up to date on current events, news stories, popular culture, and things of that nature because anything was fair game.  This was an exciting show to watch because of the giftedness of these participants in their ability to improvise, or Improv these spontaneous skits, building off one another.

But I think that it is interesting how we look at Improv differently in different fields.  For instance, think of a pastor that stands up on a Sunday morning without having prepared a sermon for the day, not having read the scripture, and just begins to talk.  We might refer to this kind of Improv as “flying by the seat of your pants” or “winging it”.  Now compare that to the Improv we might hear from a Jazz musician.  If a Jazz musician stands up and starts playing without music, without even having a song in mind, we don’t say that she is winging it or flying by the seat of her pants.  No, we call her a genius.

None of us would accuse a Jazz musician that can stand up and compose music as she plays it of being unprepared.  Just the opposite.  She is very prepared.  She has studied music composition, she has learned her instrument, she has practiced, practiced, and practiced some more.  So Improv doesn’t mean that the improviser isn’t prepared.  Quite the opposite is often true.  Improv takes more preparation than a rehearsed, practiced, refined approach.

This morning I would like to look at the church’s mission as Improv.  And for a missionary to be able to Improv well, we need to know who we are Improv-ing with, we need to know that God will be with us, and we need to know that we will sometimes fail by worldly standards.  We will start by looking at with whom we are Improv-ing

In our scripture for today, Jesus sends out the original twelve disciples on a mission trip.  He gives them specific instructions on who they are to preach to; the Jews, not the Gentiles or the Samaritans.  He gives them instructions on what to do, preach the message that the kingdom of heaven is near while healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing those who have leprosy, and driving out demons.

Now many people have criticized Jesus here for limiting this mission to the lost sheep of Israel and not to the Gentiles and the Samaritans.  And there are other times when Jesus seems to only care about the Jews.  Remember the Syrophoenician woman (Matthew 15, Mark 7) who came to Jesus to ask for healing for her demon possessed daughter?  Again, Jesus says that he came for the lost sheep of Israel.  What is the deal here?  Did Jesus have a problem with people of different races?

No, I think Jesus shows many other times that he was not racist, or sexist, or what ever other –ist people might want to accuse him of being.  He healed the Syrophoencian woman’s daughter, he ministered to the Samaritan woman at the well, he referred to the Good Samaritan as a neighbor, and he gave the great commission to preach the gospel to all nations.  So what Jesus is doing when he tells his disciples to go to the lost sheep of Israel, the Jews, he is preparing them to minister to people that the Jewish disciples would be familiar with.  This was not to be a cross-cultural mission trip.  There wasn’t enough time to prepare them for a cross-culture experience.  Jesus has just called these disciples in the previous chapter.  So they had to go to a group of people that they understood and that would understand the message that the disciples would be bringing.  He would send them on their cross-cultural mission later.

What Jesus is saying is These are the kinds of people I think you can reach.  They are the ones that know about the kingdom of God.  They know what to expect; the blind will see, the lame will leap, the dead will rise.  And when you do these things before them, they will know that the kingdom has indeed come near!  Jesus knows that the Jews will hear the words that the disciples say and the Jews will see the deeds that the disciples do and some will follow Jesus.  I think this is why Jesus limits the people that the disciples are to be sent to the Jews.

When we do Improv, it is always best to know something about the person with whom you are Improv-ing with.  For instance, Mr. X, would you please help me with a demonstration?  (I pretend to pitch a baseball to Mr. X.  He will likely act out catching the ball and throw it back.  We didn’t plan this out, but I knew how he would react and respond.)  I asked Mr. X to Improv with me because I knew that he would know what to do when I pretended to pitch a baseball to him.  We didn’t plan this out beforehand.  I know that Mr. X is a baseball fan and that he would receive my invitation to play a fictitious game of catch. 

So when Jesus sends out the disciples on their first mission trip, he sends them to the people that will be able to respond to the offer to participate in the message that they are bringing.  Like Mr. X was able to recognize my invitation to play catch, the Jews would have understood the invitation from the disciples to hear about the coming of the kingdom of heaven.  If I had chosen to Improv with someone else, I would have chosen a different activity that would have been more easily recognized by them.  I would approach them differently than I approached Mr. X because I know they are different from Mr. X.  This is guideline number one for mission as Improv; try to know the person with whom you are going to be Improv-ing with.

Back in our scripture for this morning, we read in verses 9-11, “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.  Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave.”  It seems to me that Jesus is instructing these missionaries to not take anything extra with them; no extra money, no extra clothing.  He is saying, “Don’t even worry about where you will stay.  Just stay with someone who is worthy of your company.”  I think it should be clear to us that Jesus is saying that God will take care of the missionaries.  God will work through regular people to provide the things that they need.  Therefore, the missionary need not worry about these things.

But we do worry about these things, don’t we?  We worry about what we are going to wear, what we will eat, where we will stay.  I just got back on Thursday from a trip to Maine where we were for eight days.  And we had everything planned out.  We packed clothes for the trip, we got cash from the bank and made sure that there was money in our checking account.  We knew where we would be staying and how we would get there and what we would drive.  It is not normal for us to not plan these things out in advance when we travel.  But here Jesus is saying to the missionaries, “Trust in God and you will be okay.”

Now when Mr. X and I were Improv-ing earlier like we were playing catch, it seemed like he changed up the pitch a little on me.  He seemed to have thrown a curve ball to me.  I could not have anticipated that he would throw the curve ball back to me, but I reacted accordingly.  I improvised and went where he was taking me with the game we were playing.  I didn’t say, “No, now stop.  I am leading this experience and you will only do as I lead you to do.”  I went where he wanted to go, and because I was prepared to do so, I was able to respond accordingly.

When we do Improv in mission, we must be able to stray from our notes in order to have a real conversation with people.  And this is important because people will ask questions, they will want you to explain why Jesus had to die, what about other religions, what about other lifestyles, do Christians hate homosexuals, why can’t we get along with other denominations, let alone other religions.  When we Improv, we must be ready to adjust when the person we are Improv-ing with wants to give some input as well.  And that does take prior preparation.

1 Peter 3:15 teaches us to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”  And also to do this with gentleness and respect.  Again, this comes back to the Improv-ing of a musician.  To Improv well requires that you know what you are doing well.  Practice may not make perfect, but practice does make better.

But in spite of all of our efforts, when we Improv with others missionally, it is not only us that engage in this experience.  It is the Holy Spirit of God working through us in this Improv-ing.  So while we can prepare, practice, and become more and more ready to engage in Improv with those we come in contact with, it is only through God that we can have meaningful conversations.  Just like the disciples had to learn to trust in God for all of their needs, we too need to learn to trust in God for what we need as well.  Whether it is equipping us for Improv dialogue with a neighbor, or our clothing, food, and housing, we all must learn to trust in God.  And that is the second guideline for mission as Improv.  Practice as much as you can, but you need to trust God to provide you with what you need.

As we look at the rest of our scripture for today, and even beyond what was read for us, we find that Jesus wasn’t expecting everything to be rosy for the 12 disciple missionaries.  The rest of the chapter is made up of Jesus telling the disciples what to expect on their mission trip.  And most of it isn’t good.  Jesus talks about people not listening to the disciples and how they are to shake the dust off their sandals as they leave that place.  But it gets a lot worse than people not listening.  Jesus says that the disciples are like sheep and that he is sending them out to the wolves, that they will be handed over to the governing authorities, flogged, tortured, persecuted.  I would imagine that the disciples are wondering, “What did I get myself into?”  Imagine how much they must have believed in Jesus to be willing to put themselves through such pain and agony!  But they did it!  They spread the good news even though Jesus told them how much it might cost them.

One of the biggest fears any of us have is that of failure.  We don’t want to look foolish in front of others.  So we don’t take chances, we don’t step out of our comfort zones.  We might see an opportunity to do something great, but not take it because of what others might think if we fail.

When we see people doing Improv, like on Whose Line is it Anyway, we often see the participants trying to get the audience involved.  They look for people in the crowd that are willing to jump up on stage and work with them, to create a skit as they go.  And it looks like a lot of fun while the professionals are doing it, but the audience members are usually so reluctant to jump in.  They are afraid of looking foolish, and many people miss out on a lot of fun because they are not willing to give it a try.  They are afraid of failing.

Well guess what.  When you do Improv, you will likely fail by human standards.  There is a good chance that you will be left without the words to say at the appropriate time.  There is a good chance that you might look silly.  But what if you got up there and you didn’t fail?  What if you were able to keep up with the professionals?  What if you turned out to be quite the Improv-er?  You never know until you try it.  And to tell you the truth, I don’t consider anyone a failure who tries something new only to find out that they are not gifted at it.  I only consider someone a failure if they never try.  This is my third guideline for mission as Improv: you don’t fail if you don’t convert someone to Christianity, you don’t fail if you are persecuted and run out of town like the disciples.  You fail when you choose to never try.

Yes, it is difficult to put yourself out there, to let others know that you are a follower of Jesus Christ.  Sometimes it is even difficult to do this with other Christians.  But compared to what these disciples had to deal with, I think we have it pretty easy.  I have maybe been snickered at or ignored because I shared my faith.  But I have never been flogged, arrested, or felt like a lamb thrown to the wolves.  Yes, we may experience some persecution, but not like these disciples did.  So why are we so reluctant to engage in conversations, why are we so reluctant to try to Improv with those we come in contact with?

Mission as Improv means that we must know the people we plan to Improv with so that we can be ready to have an answer for our faith.  Mission as Improv means trusting in God to provide the words to say and the actions to live out when our own ability to do so comes up short.  And Mission as Improv mean being willing to accept persecution, whatever that might be. 

Over forty years ago, Bob Dylan wrote, “The times they are a changing.”  This is just as true today as it was back then.  We are living in a new day and age, and I believe we need a new way to share the love of Christ with others.  Let us enter into dialogue with others with the ability to Improv as we go.  We can come to a conversation with all of the answers to the questions, but if these aren’t the questions that people are asking, we need to be ready.

 

*Thanks to Nick Nissley of the Banff Center for his insight on Improv at the Lexington Seminar, June 2008 http://www.banffcentre.ca/about/