Jeremiah 6
(9) BFC 2018
Jeremiah 9:17-24
November 4, 2018
Tracy shared with me this morning this Facebook
post from our General Minister and president, Rev. John Dorhauer. This is a real billboard outside of St.
Louis, Missouri. The cross with the flag
superimposed on it. Make
the gospel great again. And the Word became flesh. John 1:14.
President Trump portrayed as the Christ.
Many
of you know that I am an avid reader and listener of African American scholar
and Christian theologian, Dr. Cornel West and have related that the FBI comes
to visit him and people like him about twice a year to tell him that he is on
some rather infamous lists. Some 12 years
ago, the FBI told Dr. West that he is on the list, a targeted list of 276 white
supremacist militia groups. I cannot
even imagine what that number must be right now. Into that hatred and evil, Dr. West
responded:
That’s like four fascists for every progressive. And they’re organized. With guns!
What are we talking about? You
better get your spiritual identity together.
You going to talk in that space with that kind of force? You better have a sense of who you are. You better be willing to die. You better be clear about what the depth of
your level of commitment and love is.
This ain’t no plaything.[1]
I am a huge fan of family systems
thinking espoused by Murray Bowen and Edwin Friedman. That family systems approach was popularized
in the Christian Church by Lutheran pastor, Peter Steinke, who developed a
whole curriculum called “Healthy Congregations.” I used that curriculum for the first time in
a very conflicted church in Wichita, Kansas, Pilgrim Congregational Church (a
church that loved me well), to try and reset a church that had had a tumultuous
relationship with its pastor and to remind them of what church was supposed to
be at its core. One of the ways we reset
is by coming up with a mission statement for the church.
Healthy
Congregations suggests three requirements for a mission statement. First, the statement should be no longer than
a sentence. Second, the statement should
be understandable to a twelve-year old.
Third, if the congregation were held at gunpoint, the whole congregation
could repeat it. After years and years
of gun violence, they have changed the third requirement to the whole
congregation being able to repeat the mission statement under duress.
During this interim ministry work in
Wichita, Kansas, I was able to coax a whole table full of people from Pilgrim
Congregational UCC to attend a Healthy Congregations workshop. When the speaker began reciting the
requirements for a good mission statement, our moderator began distributing
around our table the two-page mission statement written by a former
pastor. When the speaker arrived at the
third requirement, our moderator hastily re-collected the mission statement she
had distributed and leaned in with a smile to whisper, “I’m getting the
revolver out of my purse right now.” We
all laughed with a lump in our throat.
The reason for such requirements is that
mission statements should not demand an encyclopedic memory for us to be able
to clearly inscribe or give full throat to their meaning. Mission statements should not be so
intellectually-driven that a Confirmand is unable understand them. And, finally, mission statements should so
captivate our heart, soul, mind, and strength that we can bring them forward to
guide us at times of great stress or discord.
We should not have to run for some document buried in our archives to
know what our mission statement is. A
mission statement should convey the most deeply-held values written on our
collective hearts. Like a North Star, a
mission statement should lead us forward, tell us next steps, especially when
the night is full of shadows.
A
mission statement should state values that say, when the going gets tough, here
is how I or we will be acting in the world.
The
Scripture from Jeremiah is just after The Exile has begun. God calls in the professional mourners to
weep over leaving their land. The
land—the very thing that was part of the covenant with the people—is now lost. Homes on the land have been destroyed. Public and community places, where people
would gather on the land, are now no longer available. In the fields and farms, the land was
fertilized by human corpses. All the
ways the land provided for human habitation and vitality were no more.
God observes what the values, the national mission
statement was of Judah and Jerusalem before the Exile began, the values that
led to the unraveling of creation, making the land a desolation. Judah and Jerusalem boasted of a word used
often in Hebrew Scripture synonymous with power and use of the military.[2] They boasted of might or strength. They boasted of a word used often in Hebrew
Scripture to connote royal riches.[3] They boasted of their wealth. They boasted of a word used by Jeremiah to
suggest the access and control of worldly information and media. They boasted in their wisdom. The Living God asserts that Judah and
Jerusalem’s values, their mission statement, which included might, wealth, and
wisdom, led to their fall. Let the
wailing and grief begin.
These are such important words in the
lexicon of Jewish theology that even the apostle Paul, six hundred years later,
picks them up to detail his alternative values and his alternative mission
statement. In one of his letters to the
churches in Corinth, Paul writes, “If I am to boast, let me boast not of might
but of weakness. If I am to boast, let
me boast not of wealth but of poverty.
If I am to boast, let me boast not of wisdom but of foolishness.”[4] To recognize how truly counter-cultural
Paul’s values are, think about how many Christians you see on TV or in print
boasting of these Christian values—weakness, poverty, and foolishness.
But
where God was once an observer, God is now a subject who ask the people to
remember. We learn God’s values. God’s mission statement is found in the last
part of the Scripture passage read for today. “I am the Living God. ‘I act with steadfast love, justice, and
righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight,’ says the Living God.” In contrast
to the triad of might, wealth, and wisdom, God acts with the triad of steadfast
love, justice, and righteousness—chesed, mishpat, and tzedekah. These words are found all over Scripture and
define the God of our tradition and the life, mission, and ministry of Christ.
The
Living God makes it clear that this is no namby-pamby mission statement. God says, “I delight in these things. I get jacked and jazzed for them. I am passionate about these things.” These words are full of persistence, grit,
and determination. As this is God’s
mission statement, every once in a while we should pause to ask ourselves why
we are doing the things we do? What is
our mission statement?
I
want to ask you now. What kind of life
do you want to live? What are the values
that get you jacked and jazzed for living in the world, get you jacked and
jazzed enough to walk with them through tough times? What do you delight in?
On
the back side of your song sheet, I would like you now to write out what you
consider to be your mission statement.
If you can’t come up with one, hopefully this prods you to think
intentionally about what it might be. Or how you want to define one to live more
intentionally. Then also, I’d like you
to think about what the mission statement might be for our church. What does our church get jazzed about, find
life in? What do you see Billings First
Congregational finding delight in? Ok,
take some time to think about that now.
I’ll probably stop you before you are ready but let’s give it a
try. I would love to hear some of the
ones you might have for the church.
Sheet
hand out:
1.
Not
more than a sentence
2.
Simple
enough for a 12-year old to understand
3.
Can
be repeated under duress
What
do you take delight in? What gives you a
sense of satisfaction and joy? When
there is delight in your life, what is going on? What do you see, hear, taste, feel or touch?
What
is your mission statement? Or what would
you like to be your mission statement?
When
there is delight and joy in this church, what is going on? What do you see, hear, taste, feel or touch?
What
is the mission statement of the church?
Or what would you like to be the mission statement for the church?
[1] Dr. Cornel West, “The
Socratic, Prophetic, and Democratic,” 4th Annual Barry Ulanov
Memorial Lecture, James Memorial Chapel, March 29, 2006.
[2] I Chronicles 29:12; 2
Chronicles 20:6; Esther 10:2
[4] I Corinthians 1:31ff.
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