Preached on the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B), May 12, 2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by Mark Lloyd Taylor, Ph.D.
Acts 1:15-17,
21-26; John 17:6-19
Jesus with His Apostles, by Edward Longo
The church does not have a mission. God’s mission in the world has a church. The church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church.
That’s my take-away from the gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles these past few weeks as we’ve journeyed through the second half of our Easter season. Oh, I’ve taken away some other thoughts and feelings, too – like: We need not cling desperately to Jesus, because he abides with us, abides in us. And: We can’t earn the Holy Spirit as reward for right belief or good behavior. The Spirit, like the wind, blows where it chooses and we don’t know where it comes from or where it goes; we can only receive the Holy Spirit as gift, as Jesus’ own first gift for us.
Those are powerful and potentially life-changing, but still I’m most taken this morning with that first idea: The church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission in the world has a church. An idea that challenges my usual ways of thinking about and being church. That promises to shake things up.
But wait a minute, Mark, you may be thinking. We’re St. Paul’s Episcopal Church here in Seattle. Are you saying we don’t have a mission? After all, we call rectors and welcome curates. We have a vestry, a pair of wardens, and a parish ministry council. We adopt mutual ministry goals. There’s a town hall meeting scheduled for next Sunday. Sure sounds like a mission. We even talk about the building and grounds as our mission base!
Now I don’t want to bump you out at the very beginning of this sermon, so would it help if I phrased it a little less starkly? How about: The church may not have a mission of its own devising, but God’s mission does indeed have a church in order to work itself out in the world. Or, maybe, we all just need to sit for a while with the original take-away: The church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church. What could that mean?
For me, it’s about doing and not doing. About why we do what we do and don’t do. Out of duty? To prove ourselves worthy? Out of love? It’s about digging in and holding on – and, at the same time – about letting go. Both-and, not either/or. But there is an unhealthy extreme on both ends of the spectrum. The church requires many volunteers and a few paid staff. If no one digs in and holds on, the church withers away. On the other hand, some staff or volunteers may take on too much for their own good and eventually the whole community suffers from exhaustion. Those folk need to let go a little. The church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church: so dig in, hold on – and let go. We all need to live this out, but maybe in different ways or for different reasons.
I’m a dutiful first-born child with three siblings, including a youngest brother who was in and out of the hospital the first two years of his life. Taking on responsibilities and getting things done come naturally to me. Saying “No! Enough is enough!” and letting go is harder. Many years ago, back on the East Coast, I truly burned out on church. I served on one board, three committees, and an ad hoc task force. I was assistant treasurer for a year; then got elected lay leader of the congregation. I led worship, preached, taught children’s and adult education classes. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that I no longer visited with my friends at coffee hour. Instead, I went to meetings or chaired meetings or spent time frantically trying to get some other church business done. Eventually, I began to dread going to church because I knew some work or responsibility was there waiting for me. But it was the Easter egg hunt that did me in. There in the splendor of neo-gothic architecture, Tiffany stained-glass windows, awe-inspiring organ music, great preaching; there on the day of all days in the Christian year, the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection, I found myself unable to give twenty minutes to hide Easter eggs for the children when asked to do so. I felt physically ill at the thought of doing one more thing. Knowing it would hurt feelings, including those of my own daughters, I walked out of the church building and wandered around Boston’s Back Bay until the Easter egg hunt was over.
That was my experience. I’ve been in good recovery ever since, learning to let go. Maybe what you need, instead, is to dig in and hold on. To feel welcome and needed and empowered. Either way, God’s mission, the mission that has us, is shared; a mutual ministry. Digging in and holding on while also letting go. Out of love: both doing and not doing.
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Jesus’ words in this morning’s gospel reading from John 17 are all about mutual ministry and shared mission. A circular dance among Jesus and the God he calls Father and Jesus’ followers. A shared name. Shared words. Shared belonging. Unity. All mine are yours, and yours are mine. So that they may be one as we are one. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. But the most often repeated word in our reading is given or gave. It occurs nine times in fourteen verses. A circular dance and also a circle of gifts given and received and given again. Jesus says to God concerning his followers: “Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you” (17:7-8). This aboriginal Christian community didn’t have a mission, God’s mission in and through Jesus had that very first of churches. All as gift. Dig in and hold on. Let go. With gratitude.
Nor did the earliest church have a mission of its own devising. As you heard in our reading the Acts of the Apostles (1:15-17, 21-26), Peter stood up among the one hundred twenty believers and voiced his concern that someone was missing, that in the absence of Judas Iscariot their ministry, their apostleship, was incomplete: twelve minus one – and that the vacancy needed to be filled for the scriptures to be fulfilled. The church proposed two candidates: Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. They proposed two, but God had already chosen one – the church’s task was simply to pray that God would show them who God had chosen. So they cast lots – they rolled the dice – and the lot fell to Matthias, and he was added to the eleven male apostles as the plus one to restore the magic number twelve.
My imagination is fired more by the other candidate: Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus. Maybe Joseph needed a better public relations firm. He had too many names with no clear brand. He was not chosen to be male apostle number twelve. Instead, by not becoming the plus one, Joseph was freed up to share in a different ministry. Surely God’s mission had a place for Joseph and he helped work that shared mission out in the world. I wonder what Joseph ended up doing and not doing? Joseph, along with the other one hundred seven believers not counted with the twelve – including all those women, especially Mary Magdalene apostle to Peter and the others. The church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church. Let go. And then dig in and hold on.
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But what is God’s mission in the world? There are so many ways to name it. Isn’t that what every page of scripture is about? Every Morning and Evening Prayer and every Sunday Eucharist? Every act of witness and advocacy in our troubled country and every act of accompaniment and compassion in this neighborhood?
Here’s how Henri Nouwen describes God’s mission. It “counteracts the…divisions that pervade our daily lives and cause destruction and violence. These divisions are interior as well as exterior: the divisions among our most intimate emotions and the divisions among the most widespread social groupings. The division between gladness and sadness within me or the division between the races, religions, and cultures around me. The Spirit of God…unites and makes whole. There is no clearer way to discern the presence of God’s Spirit than to identify the moments of unification, healing, restoration, and reconciliation. Wherever the Spirit works, divisions vanish and inner as well as outer unity manifests itself.”
Familiar and important ideas. But it gets more interesting. The title of Nouwen’s book is Life of the Beloved. And the key take-away is that the Spirit of God calls us – calls each and every one of us – The Beloved. So, God’s mission is nothing more or less than “the life of the Beloved, lived in a world constantly trying to convince us that the burden is on us to prove that we are worthy of being loved.” “All the good things our world has to offer are yours to enjoy,” Nouwen writes. “But you can only enjoy them truly when you can acknowledge them as affirmations of the truth that you are the Beloved of God. That truth will set you free to receive the beauty of nature and culture in gratitude, as a sign of your Belovedness. That truth will allow you to receive [these] gifts…and celebrate life. But that truth will also allow you to let go of what distracts you, confuses you, and puts in jeopardy the life of the Spirit within you” (my emphasis).
And it gets more interesting and life-changing still, for Nouwen wrote Life of the Beloved at the request of a friend of his, Fred, a secular Jew living and working among the noise and busy-ness, the arts and entertainment of New York City, but a man about to give up on his dreams and just settle for making money and a career. Why don’t you write something about the spiritual life for me and my friends, Fred asked? And so Nouwen did. Or tried to. Things did not go according to plan; Nouwen’s plan, at least. Fred read the book manuscript. And it didn’t work. Oh, he liked the writing and thanked Nouwen, but it wasn’t what he had hoped for. There were still too many assumptions about God; too much religious language. At the same time, however, Nouwen also shared his work with members of a pair of Christian communities trying to blend monasticism and social activism. And they loved it. It was the book they needed. Nouwen says in his epilogue: “I tried so hard to write something for secular people, and the ones who were the most helped by it were searching Christians.” But what about Fred, Nouwen asked these other readers? “‘Well,’ they answered, ‘you might not have been able to write all that Fred needs to hear, but Fred certainly enabled you to write what we needed to hear. Couldn’t you just be happy with that?’” Which led Nouwen to decide not “to write a new book, but to trust that what is here should be published and that what is not here may one day find an authentic form of expression.”
Henri Nouwen didn’t have a mission to write Life of the Beloved. God’s mission in the world had a Henri Nouwen who unexpectedly wrote a book for a different audience than the one he had so carefully planned. Doing and not doing.
It’s the story of Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, all over again. God chose Joseph for a different ministry than Matthias, male apostle eleven plus one. But Joseph didn’t have a mission. Matthias didn’t have a mission. God’s mission had Joseph and Matthias and all the rest of the one hundred twenty believers, including Mary Magdalene and the women.
And so maybe St. Paul’s really doesn’t have a mission. God’s mission has St. Paul’s. With rector and soon-to-be curate. Vestry and wardens and a parish ministry council. Mutual ministry goals and a town hall meeting. St. Paul’s doesn’t have a mission base, God’s mission in the world finds a base at St. Paul’s even with our building and grounds under serious renovation. All as gift, because we are God’s Beloved. Receive these shared gifts with gratitude on behalf of all God’s other Beloved Ones. Delight in them and give them again. Dig in, hold on; and let go.
Resources:
My experience eventually led to a shared book project with Carmen Renee Berry, Loving Yourself as Your Neighbor: A Recovery Guide for Christians Escaping Burnout and Codependency (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).
See Letty Russell, Church In the Round: Feminist Interpretation of the Church (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, pages 87-96) for the roots of my idea about God’s mission and the church.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World (New York: Crossroad, 1992); I quote from pages 129-31, 135, and 148-49.