Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 & Luke 12:32-40
Investing in God’s Dream
James Sledge August 8, 2010
I recently ordered a book by a Presbyterian pastor about helping people encounter the Holy in worship. The opening chapter began with this little anecdote.
One Sunday morning, a mother went upstairs to her son’s room to wake him for church. Slowly opening the door, as it softly squealed in protest, she said, “Dear, it’s time to get up. It’s time to go to church.” The son grumbled and rolled over. Ten minutes later his mother again went up, opened the door, and said, “Dear, get up. It’s time to go to church.” He moaned and curled up tighter under the blankets, warding off the morning chill. Five minutes later she yelled, “Son! Get up!” His voice muffled by the blankets, he yelled back, “I don’t want to go to church!” “You have to go to church!” she replied. “Why? Why do I have to go to church?” he protested.
The mother stepped back, paused, and said, “Three reasons. First, it’s Sunday morning, and on Sunday mornings we go to church. Second, you’re forty years old, and you’re too old be having this conversation with your mother. Third, you’re the pastor of the church.”[1]
The book’s author tells this story to highlight the ambivalence many pastors feel about worship. A lot of pastors enjoy preaching and enjoy teaching but find worship unsatisfying.
When I did my seminary internship, the pastor of that church was getting fairly close to retirement. And he told me one day that when he retired he would likely not attend worship anywhere for a year or so.
When I did my seminary internship, the pastor of that church was getting fairly close to retirement. And he told me one day that when he retired he would likely not attend worship anywhere for a year or so.
I was too surprised by this admission to ask him to explain exactly what he meant. I presume that he still planned to pray, to read the Bible, to serve God in some way. But for some reason he wasn’t going to attend any worship services.
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says Yahweh… Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile… I cannot endure your solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. Seems God can be more than a little ambivalent about worship, too.
Now granted our worship is quite different from that of the ancient Hebrews. No animals are slaughtered; we pay little attention to the cycles of the moon; nothing is burned. Yet I think fundamentally, our worship has much in common with those Israelites. For many of us, worship is something that we do to help maintain our standing with a distant, far-off God, a God who is not much involved in our daily lives.
I know that’s not true for everyone. Some of you experience God as very active and present in your life. But on the whole, I’m not sure Presbyterians act like this is so, and the Church’s worship has not acted like it either.
Perhaps I can clarify by asking a few questions. Who is Jesus? What was his message? Why did he travel about the Judean countryside healing, teaching, and gathering followers?
Very often, people answer such questions in terms of Jesus as Savior, the one whose death somehow rescued us. And more often than not, this rescue is understood in terms of going to heaven. In other words, a far-off God in a far-off heaven rescues us from this messed up earth and our limited bodily existence for something better, somewhere else.
Yet Jesus speaks of God’s kingdom not as something far-off, but present. Both Jesus and Isaiah speak of God as extremely concerned about the earthly plight of human beings, and Jesus speaks of a kingdom that has already begun to emerge in his ministry, and which we are called to be a part of now.
Unfortunately, the Church has too often lost sight of this, has thought in terms of a far-off God and so has confused the Kingdom of God
But over and over Jesus tells us to get ready for the coming kingdom here and now. Jesus begins his ministry by calling people to repent, to turn around and change direction because the kingdom of God
When God is in some far-off heaven and Jesus comes to take us there, his parable about alert slaves ready for the master’s return is usually understood to speak of death. You never know when you might die, so you’d better have things in order. But Jesus is talking about the Kingdom, God’s new day.
Early this year, we began the Appreciative Inquiry process here at Boulevard, which gave birth to our Dream Team which is now giving birth to the groups and activities described in the Dream Team material in your bulletin. When the Dream Team first began to talk with members and to listen for how our strengths helped us hear where God is calling us, I was intrigued by what emerged. There was interest in more small groups and more community involvement, but in concert with these was a desire to grow spiritually and to do mission.
Now spirituality and mission can be pretty vague terms and can mean lots of things to lots of different people. But to my mind, spirituality is all about drawing closer to God. Spirituality presumes that God is not far-off in some distant heaven, but that God is present to us, available to us. And the Dream Team seems to have tapped into a hunger we have to connect better with God, with Jesus. And this cannot help but connect us with what God wants and what God is doing. Deep spirituality gives us eyes to see God’s coming new day.
And when we see it, we long for it, for things to be set right. To use the biblical term, we hunger and thirst for righteousness. And so we begin to work for things to be set right. We begin to invest in God’s future, to give our money and time and energy to mission that reveals that coming new day to others. Yes, poverty, hunger, violence, hatred, and oppression can seem intractable problems, and it is easy to become frustrated, to trade God’s new day for belief in a far-off God who rescues us for some far-off heaven. But when we drawn near to the Master, as we experience his transforming love in our lives, we know he is at work here. We know he is bringing that new day, that the Kingdom will break through when we least expect it.
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Jesus is calling us to find our places in that Kingdom, to invest ourselves now in God’s dream for a new day. Where is God calling you to be a part of it?
[1] N. Graham Standish, In God’s Presence: Encountering, Experiencing, and Embracing the Holy in Worship (Herndon , VA
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