The Third Mark of Mission: Responding to a World in Need with Love

The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ. Full stop. We, the Church, are entrusted with continuing the work that Jesus began. We don’t just worship Jesus – we are called to follow him and to share in the work he began in Galilee two thousand years ago, to bring peace on earth and good will to all. Lord, make us instruments of thy peace…

Ultimately that work is about loving God and loving neighbor. The five marks of that mission are as follows:

1.    To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.

2.    To teach, baptize and nurture new believers.

3.    To respond to human need by loving service.

4.    To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation

5.    To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

Today we reflect on the third mark and our shared vocation to respond to human need by loving service. There is a LOT happening in today’s Gospel reading. Among other things, Jesus is teaching us to pray, a prayer familiar to all of us. But that sermon will have to wait for another day. I want to focus in on that “knock at midnight.”

Jesus said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

On September 14, 1958, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon on this text. He told the gathered community:

It is also midnight in our world today. And we are experiencing a darkness so deep that we can hardly see which way to turn. It’s midnight. 

As he unpacked that, he noted that it was midnight in the social order, with the war in Vietnam. And midnight in so many people’s personal lives, experiencing despair and the dark night of the soul. And midnight in the moral life.

Did I mention, he preached that in 1958. But it seems like it could be ripped from the day’s headlines. It feels like midnight in our world as well. In Gaza and in Ukraine and so many other places. In the hard work it is to manage our own psyches and in a world where it feels like we’ve lost our way morally and ethically. It’s still midnight. Bob Dylan has a song with this refrain: “it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” Well, it’s there.

But the knock comes at midnight from a world in need is looking for bread. The Church cannot roll over and go back to sleep, pulling the covers over our collective head. We have been called to continue with the work of Jesus. We are called to respond to a world in need by loving service.

I think the hardest part of this work is that the world’s needs seem so great and we seem so small. There is a saying that comes from the Talmud that is worth remembering in this context. It goes like this:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

If that is what you take away from this sermon today on the third mark of mission, it will be enough. We can argue whether or not it’s harder to be the Church today than it was when Jesus called those first-century Palestinian Jews to follow him, or whether it was harder to be the Church in 1958 when it felt like midnight in America, or today. But I think the fact of the matter is that it’s never been easy to be a follower of Jesus. And the darker it feels, the more clear it is what we must do – which is not to curse the darkness but to get out of bed at midnight, open the door, and light a candle to do the work we can do. To do justly, now. To love mercy, now. To walk humbly, now. To respond to the needs of this world.

As a nation we have been much better at sending young people to war than we have in welcoming them home and taking care of our Veterans. So the knock at midnight might be to serve a meal to Veterans, which is always about more than the food and about the table, the conversations, the kindness offered. We will always have folks in our midst who cannot afford to clean their clothes, which is what Laundry Love is about. We are collecting backpacks for kids because we respect the dignity of every human being and because Jesus loved the little children of the world – all of them. No exceptions.

We do what we can, and this congregation gets that. I truly am proud of all that you do in the neighborhood for the least among us, which reminds us all that life is precarious. I am grateful to be an interim in a place that is focused on ministry beyond these walls and I pray that will continue, with God’s help. I trust that it will because even when your priest left here fifteen months ago, you didn’t miss a beat in continuing this work. Always with God’s help, of course.

But probably the most important thing I learned in the dozen years I worked for a bishop is that there are things we can do better collectively – which calls us beyond our parochial silos. There are things we can do better as a diocese and as a global church, where we can leverage our influence and our resources.

We need both, in my experience, to live out this third mark of mission. We can’t do nothing locally and say we paid our apportionment to the diocese and they’re on it. But neither can we simply say we will take care of Bristol and Warren and that will be enough. It’s a both/and. Same with us. Not everyone is able to do everything nor should we. The Mission Committee can set priorities and recruit volunteers and we, as a congregation, cannot do it all. But we can do something.

It's tempting when it feels like midnight to curse the darkness. But the faithful let our little lights shine and illumine a path. We get up out of bed to show love to our neighbor. To do justice now, to love mercy now, to walk humbly with God now.

Those small acts ripple out and God can do infinitely more with them than we can ask or imagine. Not only do we do this because we see our neighbor in need but we do it because we honestly believe that when we care for the least of these we are caring for Jesus himself. It’s where we find God in the world, in the faces of all who suffer.

We have got to find a way, I think, through the political polarization of our day that also makes it feel like midnight to remember these five marks of mission and especially this third mark. That is not easy. But we cannot let our fear of the darkness keep us from doing what God calls on us to do. It seems to me that one of the key issues right now is about immigrants and refugees. Most of us can agree on the broad contours, I think, regardless of our political differences. There should be a fair process, a process not tainted by racism, toward legal ways that we invite people to become part of this land of hope and dreams. Because that lady holding that torch in New York Harbor declares to the world that this is a core value for us.

We need to claim that, not only as an American value but as the core of Jewish and Christian theology. Really, it may be hard to do but it’s simple to know what we are to do: Love God. Love neighbor. All of them. No exceptions.

The Second Mark of Mission: TEACH

My apologies: I promised the faithful at St. Michael's that I'd publish the five sermons for the series on the marks of mission and then promptly forgot after posting the first one. Here is number two. (RMS) 

Luke 10:38-42

As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

Martha gets a bad rap in this gospel reading today, and I want to offer a defense of her at the start.

All of life includes some amount of “being” and some amount of “doing.” Forget the word “ministry” for a moment: just living and being a good neighbor and friend and family member requires some doing and some being. The key, I think, is learning to know which needs to happen in a particular moment.

In my own life, sometimes I can get so focused on “doing” and on accomplishing the tasks on my to-do list, on meeting deadlines and all of that (all stuff that gets rewarded big time in American culture) that I forget to stop and smell the roses. Maybe some of you have this experience also.

Decades ago, I found that parenting Graham and James was an antidote to getting too focused on doing. If I didn’t take time, I would have missed key moments in my kids’ lives. And I don’t only mean the big ones like sports events or concerts, but the day-to-day stuff like seeing a flower or a butterfly or feeling cool water or making sand castles at the beach on a warm day.

Being a grandparent is an invitation to remember those lessons and re-engage with a toddler and to be fully present in those moments at  a stage in my own life where I’m more fully aware and engaged than I probably was when I was thirty-something.

I believe that we are all a mix of doing and being. But having said that, there are people in this room who are better at one than the other. There are people who actually love running around in the kitchen and dicing and chopping and stirring and simmering and all the rest. I’m one of them. It’s a language of love for many of us. I get Martha.  Although one thing to notice in today’s gospel reading: Martha is “distracted by her many tasks.” She’s not having fun chopping those onions and mincing that garlic. She’s overwhelmed.

And I also do get Mary, who wants to be at Jesus’ feet and learn and savor that moment. It’s just, to be very honest, something I need to be more intentional about.

But I don’t think the problem is with Mary and Martha’s personalities. I think the problem is when we get caught up in sibling rivalries and patterns and all the rest and we sometimes just get wiped out. Martha likes the kitchen. I have to believe that because I am a person who also does and I know people who do. When someone says to me, “oh, don’t worry about cooking, we’ll order take-out pizza,” I know they are trying to be helpful but to the Marthas among us, it sounds like an insult. We enjoy the work. It’s meditative and holy. But I also know we Marthas can get stressed out and also wonder why someone doesn’t offer to help us dice onions or stir the sauce or even set the table. And at least to help with clean up! Right?

And before I move on, I want to be clear that this is not meant as a diss to Mary. Hey, Jesus is there and he won’t be around forever and maybe takeout pizza or felafel-to-go would be just fine. She’s doing what she likes, making time for a friend. That’s holy too and in this story she seems to be the one who has chosen the better portion. She is in fact the point of this sermon – that we have so much to learn in our walk with Jesus.

In the story we heard, the point is not simply that Martha is running around in the kitchen like a chicken with her head cut off, but that she’s resentful about it. She wants Jesus to make her sister help. Maybe both could have worked on their communication skills, and maybe both could have cooked a simple meal together and then sat and relaxed together if they had communicated better. But the main point is that she tries to draw Jesus into a triangle. She doesn’t speak directly to her sister. She asks Jesus to tell her sister to help. Not cool! And Jesus says, “I’m not biting!”

I’m preaching a series this summer on the Five Marks of Mission. The Five Marks of Mission have won wide acceptance among Anglicans (and other Christian traditions) and have given congregations and dioceses around the world a practical and memorable “checklist” for mission activities. They are not a final and complete statement on the Church’s Mission, but they offer a practical guide to work God has given us to do. They were first developed as four marks by the Anglican Consultative Council in 1984, more than forty years ago. A fifth was added in 1990 to address creation care and the climate crisis.

The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ. Full stop. We, the Church, are entrusted with continuing the work that Jesus began. The five marks of that mission are as follows:

1.    To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.

2.    To teach, baptize and nurture new believers.

3.    To respond to human need by loving service.

4.    To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation

5.    To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

Today is number two: to teach, baptize and nurture new believers. If we were translating this into a newcomer program we might call it Invite, Welcome, and Connect. The third of those is the hardest: helping people who come through our doors (whether invited or because they were curious) and then welcoming them in, to become part of what we are about. To connect. To share the work. To do that we need to be clear on what we are about, our core values, our mission and purpose.

What does it mean to follow Jesus? What does it mean to make time, in prayer, to sit with him and learn and grow? I think the second mark of mission invites us to find our inner Mary; we need to make time to be with Jesus. That includes worship and Christian formation and service in the world, all of which help us to deepen our faith. In that spirit of Mary, I invite you to be still and take in a deep breath. And then let it go.

Let’s do that again. Breath in, deeply, and then let it out.

The word “conspiracy” comes to us in English from two Latin words: con means with and spiritus means breath. We, the Church, are part of a conspiracy together – as we breathe in that Holy Spirit. We are part of a conspiracy of love.

We are baptized not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit. That begins a life-long practice. We need, I think, to let go of some old tapes. We don’t learn the Christian faith by memorizing creeds. We learn it, over time, by practicing. Like a kid learning piano and practicing scales. Like a kid learning to play basketball and practicing drills.

We don’t come here to get our individual needs met; that may happen but being the church is about becoming part of a community. When we breathe in God we become part of this holy work. But it takes practice. And a lifetime.

God is never done with us. We are all works-in-progress, Marys and Marthas alike. Some of us grow into the full stature of Christ more by doing and others of us more by catching our breath but all of us are called to share the work as we grow more and more fully into relationship with Jesus.

We had over thirty people in Episcopal 101 this year. Some have never been confirmed or received but others have been actively participating here for years. Yet still there is this hunger here, at St. Michael’s, that I take as a sign of the Spirit’s presence among us. I give thanks for all of you, and the work that God gives us to share in this time and place.

I think summertime has always been more of a “being” time for me – a chance to recharge the batteries, to rest, to read, to ponder. I hope and pray it is that for all of you and that this Sabbath rest is part of our ongoing formation, and helps us to stay focused on the work God has given us to do in this time and place.