Coffee Houses and The Little Ones

 

Pentecost 18

Mark 9:38-50

I remember the year we decided to stop doing coffee houses.  They had been a long-time tradition in the campus ministry.  It was the big event every semester.  The whole campus was invited.  People would read poetry, play music, tell stories, share a rant, and drink coffee together. (I also remember the year we got the new-fangled espresso machine!)  But, every year, fewer and fewer people came.  Every year it was harder to get people to volunteer for all the planning and preparation required to pull it off.  Even more, it took so much time and energy from the small handful of people in the ministry that we didn’t have much time to do anything else.  The beloved tradition had not only become ineffective, it was getting in the way of ministry.  Change was necessary.  So we ended it.  Those few who were still deeply invested in the tradition cried out loudly.  “But, we’ve always done it that way!”  (Which was an amazing thing to hear from twenty year olds who had only been around for a few years).  Letting it go was not easy.  But, we did.

In Mark 9, Jesus suggests radical surgery for those things within the community of faith and in our personal lives that become stumbling blocks to our faith and even more, to the faith of those “little ones” who are not a part of the community.  The disciples complain to Jesus about someone casting out demons who “is not following us” but Jesus tells them not to stop him.  The disciples want to be in control, but  Jesus reminds them that God’s Reign is bigger than their comfortable little community. 

We who are “in the church” can get so tied up in our long-standing traditions, practices and customs that we can miss the new thing that God is doing just outside our big wooden doors.  Those traditions, practices and customs can become stumbling blocks to the faith of the “little ones” who believe but who have, for many reasons, been alienated from the church.  “But, we’ve always done it that way!”  can get in the way.  In our hearts, we know that change is necessary, but it can be so, so uncomfortable.  Radical surgery is necessary, but painful.  Too painful for many.  But, Jesus always calls us to remember the little ones.  Jesus always calls us to set aside our selfish need to be in control, take up our cross, lose our lives in him, embrace the servant lifestyle and participate in the Reign of God. 

The only other option is to keep doing coffee houses until the room is empty and the mic has gone silent.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

A Prayer for the Church

Ephesians 3:14-21

This has been a full week.  I have spent this week thinking about and planning for the future mission and ministry of the Gospel with several congregations and groups in the Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod.  I find mission visioning and planning to be among the most rewarding and meaningful work that I do as a Bishop.  Challenging work, yes.  But, I am confident that the Spirit is leading us into God’s future even if we cannot always discern that clearly.  Instead of my usual pattern of writing on the Gospel lesson for the upcoming Sunday, this week I want to share my reflections on a passage from Ephesians that has been speaking to me powerfully as I have thought about mission and ministry during my various meetings and conversations.

Ephesians 3:14-21 is a prayer for the Church that is as pertinent today as it was when it was first written two thousand years ago.  It is a prayer for the Church of Jesus Christ to be rooted and grounded in love, which is the very nature of our God.  The Hebrew scriptures confess God’s steadfast love for the whole world and God’s faithfulness to all God’s people.  God created the world in love and humankind was created both to be in relationship with God and to be stewards of God’s love in the world.  When God’s people have forgotten that, disaster has always resulted.  But, even then, God does not abandon us.  Instead, God sends prophets and poets, judges and leaders to call us back to our roots.  In the New Testament, Jesus teaches that the greatest commandment is the love of God and love of neighbor.  Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God shows us the breadth, length, height and depth of that love.  Jesus’ death was not about appeasing an angry God.  It was about demonstrating the truth that God’s love for the world is more powerful than our human proclivity not to love. It proves that God’s love is more powerful than death itself, even a horrible, unjust and violent death like Jesus suffered. 

Ephesians 3:14-21 is a prayer that the Church not turn inward on itself, but that it turn outward in love.  It is a prayer that the Church not give in to the self-centered and self-serving ways of the world, but be strengthened by the Spirit to walk the self-giving and servant way of Jesus Christ trusting that Christ goes with us on that way.  I love the promise at the end of the prayer.  In praise and thanksgiving, the prayer reminds us that whatever we can ask or imagine our loving God is always one step ahead of us; always working to accomplish more in us than we could ever dream possible.   That’s why people of faith should always be leaning forward, not backward;  outward, not inward;  hopeful and not despairing. 

This is a prayer for all generations.  It is a prayer for us today and for tomorrow.  It is a prayer for a Church that is always growing and changing, yet always rooted and grounded in the love that is ours in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

What’s In It For ME?

Pentecost 16

Mark 8:34-38

“What’s in it for me?”  I hear this question being asked a lot these days.  I hear it from individuals.  I hear it from congregations.  I hear it in the media.  And, I must confess, I’ve heard it fall from my own lips a time or two.  “What’s in it for me?”  I suppose we could blame the prevalence of this question on our cultural emphasis on the individual as the measure of all things. One of the universities where I served used the tag line “It’s All About U” for a while.  It made me cringe.  Self-preservation could also be driving the question.  By nature, we become protective and defensive when we feel threatened, or afraid, or vulnerable or uncertain about the world around us.  Digging a foxhole and climbing in seems prudent when the bullets are flying.  I frequently see this kind of self-focused thinking and behavior in congregations and other organizations struggling with financial and other challenges. 

Against this backdrop of cultural values and human nature, Jesus’ statement in Mark 8:35 sounds radically counter-intuitive, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it.”  Jesus suggests that asking “What’s in it for me?” is absolutely the wrong question to be asking if we want to know the fullness of life.   Instead, we should be asking, “What’s in it for YOU?”  That is, we need to ask how we use our lives to serve others in the name of Christ.  Life is not meant to be hoarded, it is meant to be shared.  This is the heart of the Gospel; demonstrated most fully when Jesus gave his life for the world on the cross.

But Jesus not only suggests that we should give our lives away.  Even more, he suggests that, in doing so, we will actually discover life.  If we risk giving ourselves away, we will discover a joy that the one who hoards life will never know.  When we adopt the servant lifestyle, we discover God in the face of the other and meet fellow travellers who accompany us as we accompany them.  When the challenges of life come our way (and they always do) we will have friends who can carry us, just as we once carried them.  When we give our lives away we experience in concrete ways the breadth of God’s mercy, the depths of God’s compassion and the reconciling power of God’s love for us all.

The life of faith is not about our personal relationship with God in Christ.  The life of faith frees us to live the abundant life God created us to live for others.  We were not saved for ourselves.  We were saved for the sake of the world God loves.    

Peace,

Bishop Mike