The Fourth Mark of Mission: TRANSFORM

“When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

This quote has been attributed to all kinds of folks but as best I can tell, it in fact originally came from Dom Helder Camara, a Brazilian Archbishop known for his advocacy for social justice. His experience is what can get preachers into good trouble as they make the move from “preaching to meddling.”

When I worked for a bishop, I never got a call from a vestry that was concerned that their priest was telling the congregation to respond to human need in our midst. I have never (not once) served a congregation that doesn’t do good works. Laundry Love. Veterans Lunches. Collecting food at Thanksgiving. Giving out backpacks to kids at the start of school. All of these are worthy things and all are related to the third mark of mission, to see our neighbor and to respond to their needs.

The trouble comes when we ask why. But today is a day for us to ask why as we continue a preaching series on the five marks of mission. To briefly review, they are: 

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.

Our new Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, began a letter to the faithful earlier this summer with these words:

I am writing to you from Geneva, where I am meeting with global partners at the World Council of Churches and the United Nations Refugee Agency. As we have discussed how our institutions might act faithfully and boldly in these turbulent times, I have been reflecting on how we Episcopalians can respond to what is unfolding around us as followers of the Risen Christ whose first allegiance is to the kingdom of God, not to any nation or political party.

For a long time in the history of our denomination we had a close proximity to power and we took full advantage of that. At our worst we were chaplains to the empire. We lost our ability to speak prophetically. The fourth mark of mission calls on us to reclaim that prophetic voice.

So today I’m going to preach on the first chapter of Isaiah. But what I really want to say to you, St. Michael’s, would require a much deeper dive into the prophets. For today, what I want you to notice is that ALL of the prophets (and not only Isaiah) are NOT looking down the road to predict the coming of Jesus. This approach got Christians off track and it’s been a real challenge for us to get back on track. But notice where we begin. It’s where all the prophets begin: situated in a particular socio-political context. It’s not pie-in-the-sky thinking. In this case, the vision comes to Isaiah in the days of some kings whose names almost certainly don’t roll of of your tongues. But you can Google them if you like. (AFTER this sermon!)

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

So what is the vision? It’s beautiful really. It goes like this:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;

cease to do evil,
learn to do good;

seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

I submit to you that this is exactly the right text for the fourth mark of mission. Notice our verbs: to transform unjust structures in our society. To challenge violence. To pursue peace and reconciliation. This, in a nutshell, is what the prophets are about. This, in a nutshell is what this fourth mark of mission is about. But it’s hard work. It’s easier to offer acts of mercy than to do justice.

This is not an Old Testament thing, but it does point to where we overlap with our Jewish cousins. When John the Baptist comes to prepare the way for Jesus, he looks and sounds a lot like an Old Testament prophet. And when Jesus says, “who do people say that I am?” the answers include “you sound like one of the prophets.” In fact when Jesus begins his public ministry he unrolls the scroll of Isaiah and it sounds very much like the reading we heard today. Jesus lived and breathed the Torah and the prophets, even if the Church has too often forgotten this. It’s why this fourth mark of mission is so crucial to us as we seek to follow Jesus in this time and place.

In one sense it has always been hard. But I think it’s gotten more difficult as our American political scene has become so incredibly polarized. Yet especially for this reason, now is the time for us to reclaim our voice and remind ourselves and the world around us that even though not partisan, we are also clear that the gospel isn’t just spiritual. It’s not about what happens when we die. It’s about this world we live in. It’s about caring for the least of these in our very midst. It’s about advocating for the rights of those who have little power. “Widows and orphans” is code language that gets repeated over and over again by the prophets to make this point. It’s about believing what we pray: thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.

I went to college in Washington, DC because I felt called at that point in my life to find my way in the world through government. I worked in Congress one summer during those four years. I thought I’d head to law school after graduation. But my father’s untimely death at the end of my freshman year and those Jesuits got to me and from those experiences I heard a call to ordained ministry. But I’ve never become uninterested in politics.

Even so, and maybe especially for this reason, I try to make my preaching about Jesus, about what it means to be the church, not about my own political point of view. I’m a priest and a preacher to Democrats, Republicans, Independents and those who couldn’t care less. But this is not about me. I’m only confessing what makes it both hard and interesting for me. It’s about Jesus. And Jesus came to the edges of the Roman Empire to speak truth to power. He was executed on a cross, the preferred Roman practice of instituting the death penalty. That suggests that the Romans thought he was “too political.”

Why did they think that? Because in the midst of seeing human need and healing people and sharing table fellowship with people of all kinds. Jesus proclaimed a kingdom. In saying that God was king he was saying that Caesar was a poser. In the Revelation of St. John, which we’ll be studying this fall, we will see Christ as the lamb on the throne, the one to whom every knee shall bend. This is language about power and authority. Political power and authority – not just spiritual power and authority.

You are in the process of calling a new rector and this process has inspired me because you all inspire me. I hope you get someone here who is not afraid to engage with this fourth mark of mission. But let me offer a piece of advice. Clergy tend to take one of two extremes in their preaching and teaching. On the one hand are those for whom this fourth mark of mission is all they want to talk about and they speak as if they have the whole unvarnished truth. They are sometimes in danger of forgetting the other four marks but also of thinking they possess the whole truth on complex issues. On the opposite end are those preachers and teachers who avoid conflict of all kinds including speaking hard truths. So they water the gospel of Jesus Christ down and make it cute and funny and entertaining.

But this world is too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love. I’ve been doing this work now for nearly forty years, since 1988 – first as a United Methodist pastor and for the past 33 years as an Episcopal priest. I wish I could tell you that I have the secret formula to finding the sweet spot, but I don’t. What I do know is this: we will not go wrong if we keep following Jesus, if we continue to trust the prophets, and if we are not afraid. I also think a pastor builds community and consensus and does not dictate from on high. As I prepare for retirement I can honestly say it’s the toughest job you will ever love, if called to it. And also that it’s harder today than when I began.

We have to go deeper. As a parish, and as a denomination, we are at a crossroads. If we stay close to the prophets we will all be ok. You will be ok as a parish – Democrats and Republicans and Independents and those who are not so political. That will happen when we are able to remember together, with God’s help, to seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. When we are engaged in these things we are on the right path to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation.