mission — Andy James

A Body with a Purpose

January 31, 2016 By Andy James

a sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a and Luke 4:14-21
preached on January 31, 2016, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Since we didn’t have worship together here, what did you do last Sunday? Did you sleep in and enjoy the beautiful snowscape from the warmth of your bed or couch? Did you get up and start clearing your sidewalk or digging out your car, trying to get at least a few of those 26 inches of snow cleared away before having to venture out on Monday morning? Did you find an online devotional or streaming service where you could set aside even a little of the day for worship?

I myself actually did all three of these things, but beforehand I took advantage of our snow Sunday by watching soccer. Watching soccer is something of a surprising hobby for me—I only played one season of it as a child, and I spent about half of that season sidelined at home with chicken pox!—and I only picked up interest in it as an adult three or four years ago. But now I am a season ticket holder for the New York Red Bulls and I spend far too many hours sitting on my couch watching soccer, mostly from the United States and England. Before these last few years, I’ve not been much of a sports fan in general, only watching the major championships here and there and not really taking up support of any particular team along the way. But now I watch three or four games a week on average, and I’ve started to learn more about the different strategies that get played out along the way.

I’m particularly interested in how teams get put together, especially in the American Major League Soccer. Some of these teams are built around highly-paid star players, with supporting casts made up of those who can fill in the gaps without breaking the salary cap. Other teams bring in stars who have made a name for themselves in other parts of the world but are now a little—or a lot—past their prime, hoping that the wise presence of these veterans will rub off on the young guys who fill in the other nine or ten positions on the field. And other teams put together a roster of young unknowns who may not play quite so wisely or quite so perfectly but who come together as a team to build on one another’s strengths and fill in one another’s weaknesses.

The body of Christ, the church, operates in similar ways. While we are not quite a team in the traditional competitive sense, we are certainly a group of people with different gifts who come together for a common purpose, and each little corner of the body approaches its form in a different way. The apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear in our reading from 1 Corinthians this morning. Paul insists that we are one body—one body with many members who come together to be something more than we would be on our own; one body that belongs together, even when we think that we could do things better on our own; one body that benefits from the gifts that each one of us offers; one body that treats one another with honor and respect; and one body that goes wherever we may go together.

Paul’s image of the body of Christ is incredibly helpful for most people to understand how different people come together to be the church, as it invites us all to think about how we fit into the body of Christ. We are part of something larger than ourselves, and we can see this so clearly when this approach is before us. And we all have a part to play in the life of the church, whether it be as an arm, a toe, an eye, a stomach, or even a hangnail! Today is a great day to remember these things, for as we gather after worship today to do the work of our congregation in our annual meeting, as we elect officers and hear reports looking back and looking forward, we are reminded very, very well of the ways in which we all contribute to the life and work of this part of the body of Christ.

But when we our focus is on how the body of Christ comes together, as it is here, it is easy to miss the deeper call of what we do together. When we spend most of our time wondering how we fit into the body of Christ, we are thinking about the parts, not the whole. When we are focused on the very helpful and generous gifts of the individual arms and legs and hands that make up the body, we can easily miss the need for all these parts to work together for a common purpose. And when we miss the ways in which the different parts of the body are united into one, we forget that the gifts of the Spirit come upon us all—the hands, the feet, the arms, the eyes, and even the hangnails—to guide us as we join in God’s work in the world.

The words of Jesus himself in our reading from Luke this morning point us toward our common purpose as the body of Christ. As his continuing body on earth, we the church are called to fulfill the scripture once again, just as he did:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon [us],
because [God] has anointed [us]
to bring good news to the poor.
[God] has sent [us] to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

This week at our presbytery meeting, I think I got a better understanding of all these things than I have had in quite a while. On Tuesday, the presbytery approved the service of a ruling elder from the Church of Gethsemane in Brooklyn to broaden his ministry and perform the sacraments in this congregation and in their ministry in prison. This congregation does incredible ministry and mission among the incarcerated, and this elder who we commissioned on Tuesday began his connection with this church when he himself was in prison. Now there is a strong gospel command to share good news with those in prison, to visit those who are in jail, to care for those who are held captive in whatever way, but for a variety of reasons, this has not been a part of my own personal ministry. Yet on Tuesday, the body of Christ honored and supported one of its parts who is very much called to do this work. We laid hands on Chibueze and affirmed his call to be a part of our body, to witness to God’s presence in a place where it is all too often invisible. We recognized that not all of us have the gifts we need to do the kind of work that he does, and so we commissioned him to proclaim release to the captives, trusting that God would use our gifts in the body to support his gifts in the body, too. And we charged him to be the body of Christ in his work in ways that others of us are not gifted and called to do.

As we go into our annual meeting today, I invite you not just to think about the gifts that you bring to this little corner of the body of Christ on the corner of 149th Street and 15th Drive but also to wonder together about how the Spirit is upon us. How are we being anointed, together, to do the work that Jesus began and called us to continue? How is the Spirit leading us to proclaim release to the captives of our own time, to help people see in new ways where they have been blinded for so long and open the pathway of life to the oppressed? How is God working in our midst to help us to show that this is a season of the Lord’s favor, not of God’s condemnation? Thankfully we don’t have to do all these things ourselves—as the commissioning service at presbytery reminded me, not all of us are called to every important work of the church, and we as a congregation may not be called to do all of these things that are before us from Jesus’ proclamation—but we are most certainly called to use our individual gifts for the good of the whole body.

As we enter the second month of 2016, I feel that we are probably closer to this work than we have been in a long time, for in 2015 I saw a new sense of mission and outreach in our life together, with our focus on the Orange Campaign and Presbyterian mission in Madagascar taking center stage, and I am hopeful that this new year will see this work continue to grow. But as we do these things, how will each of us get involved? What will be your role in the body of Christ in this time? Will you be the legs that do the walking, the arms and hands that do the writing or typing, the eyes that keep looking for other ways to get involved, the ears that listen to the voices of those who need help, the hangnail that keeps on reminding us that there is more to be done, or some other part of the body? It is much like the decision we each faced last Sunday: how will we spend the time that is before us? How will we worship and praise and serve God, each in our own way, yet joining together as best we can to do God’s work in this time and place?

So may God give us wisdom for our worship and work, so that together we may truly be the body of Christ, individually members of it, proclaiming the good news of God in word and in deed until all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

Mystery and Mission

May 31, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 6:1-8
preached on May 31, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

We’re coming out of quite a festive season. Between the great church holy days of Easter and Pentecost, the more minor celebration of the Ascension, the various joyous Sundays of the Easter season, and the cultural celebration of Mother’s Day, we have been quite a festive group of people lately! Today, though, we shift from a season of festivals into that great season of green, Ordinary Time, with one final festival: Trinity Sunday.

Even though it is certainly rightfully considered a festival of the church, Trinity Sunday is not quite the same as all these others. While all the other festivals of the church celebrate moments in the life of Jesus or the church, Trinity Sunday celebrates something far more abstract: a doctrine. And of course this is not just any doctrine—it is the most misunderstood and most easily dismissed doctrine of the church! Far too many Christians either shake their heads and ignore this doctrine because it seems too complicated or actively choose to think and even preach against it because they think that it is an outdated, unnecessary, and artificial set of rules placed on our understanding of God. But the doctrine of the Trinity that we celebrate today has stood the test of time. It continues to shape how we think of who God is and what God does even as we remember that our understanding of God is limited by our humanity. And this doctrine gives us a dose of much-needed humility in a world where we seem to think that we can know and understand everything, for just when we think that we have this all figured out, the paradox of one-in-three and three-in-one crops up all over again!

Yet the gift of this day is not just in giving us a bit of humility, taking us back to this easily-misunderstood doctrine of the early church, or even the wonderful hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy!” that is practically required to be sung on this day! Through the wisdom of the lectionary, Trinity Sunday also leads us to thoughtful texts that look at the mystery and mission of God that stand at the center of this great and complex doctrine. Our reading from the prophet Isaiah today opens us to this mystery and mission so very clearly.

Here the prophet tells us the story of his call to serve God and the people of Israel that began with a strange glimpse at the mystery of God and ended with a call to serve the mission of God. In the midst of transition and turmoil in the life of the nation, Isaiah had a vision of God “sitting on a throne, high and lofty.” On this throne, God was surrounded by servant angels, ascending and descending by the throne, covering their faces and bodies with their wings as they proclaimed the wonder and holiness of their master:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.

As these angels offered their songs of praise, the temple filled with smoke and shook with wonder and majesty. Isaiah was stunned by this sight. His mortality and impurity and humanity became abundantly clear alongside the holiness of God. He could not even declare God’s holiness as we did in our opening hymn but instead offered a prayer of confession:

Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!

But Isaiah’s impurity and humanity didn’t really matter in that temple, for everything there was centered in the holiness of God that could change everything for Isaiah. To make this clear, one of the angels flew over to Isaiah, carrying a live coal from the altar. The angel touched the coal to Isaiah’s lips and proclaimed,

Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.

In that moment, something changed for Isaiah. He went from being fearful of this mysterious God because of his sin to being called out to new life because of God’s wonder and glory. The mystery of God had opened just enough for the mission of God began to emerge. When another voice thundered through the temple, asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, Isaiah knew that he could respond with confidence:

Here am I; send me!

Isaiah’s vision puts the mystery and mission of God on full display for us, too. Amidst the mysterious servant angels, we see God calling for someone to journey forth. Amidst the clouds of smoke that cover the glory of God, we see a revelation of God’s self that shows us that we must respond. And amidst the wondrous way of forgiveness opened by the fiery coal from the altar of God, we are freed to join in the mission of God without fear.

All this mystery and mission are a great fit for the mysteries of Trinity Sunday. After all, who really understands how God can be three in one and one in three? Who understands how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit manage to be three independent beings of one God? How we can identify the actions of one person of the Trinity when we have enough difficulty recognizing anything that God is doing in our world anyway? How we can see such distinction in the actions of the persons of the Trinity even as their actions are indivisible? And what difference does it really make why God is trinitarian in the first place? Answers to these questions are far more complex than we have time for in a twelve- to fifteen-minute sermon, yet the fact that we explore them as Christians ought to show that we take the mystery of God seriously.

Even as we get a clear glimpse of the mystery of God, the mission of God also becomes clear for us here. Just as God emerges from the mysterious cloud to call Isaiah, so we too are called from the mystery of God’s being to participate in God’s mission in the world. Over the last several months, our church leadership has been thinking and talking and praying about ways to engage us in intentional mission in the world. We have always been a missional church, with substantial financial gifts given to support mission efforts locally, nationally, and internationally through the deacons and many of you regularly inviting us to join in working with organizations and projects that you care about. Even as we honor these deep commitments and long histories of engagement, we also recognized the importance of taking up mission together, so we discussed several possible projects where we might come together to be active as a congregation in supporting mission efforts in our community and world. We agreed on two new projects as a long-term commitments to new mission engagement in our community and world even as we continue to support the Grace Church Food Pantry, Heifer International, and other projects and look to welcome even more ways to engage in mission together from the passions in our midst.

First, we will work to build relationships with mission partners in Madagascar. Last fall, we welcomed Lala Rasendrahasina, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar, to speak with us about that nation and the church’s work there, and he sparked some initial interest. We will be supporting Daniell and Elizabeth Turk, two Presbyterian mission co-workers who assist the church in Madagascar with agricultural, environmental, and health projects. The session has already approved a substantial contribution toward their work, and we will be working to engage with them in other ways in the coming months.

Second, we will be supporting UNiTE, the United Nations Secretary General’s campaign to end violence against women and girls. Among other projects, we hope to “Orange Our Neighborhood” during sixteen days of international activism around these issues in November and December. You’ll be hearing more about these projects as the date nears and we have an opportunity to learn more about these important issues and help others in our community join in these efforts.

These are places where we have heard God calling us, and I hope and pray that you will find a way to join in responding “Here am I; send me!” just as Isaiah did.

Even amidst the mystery of what this mission will look like for us in the end, our mysterious God who works in so many different ways and is so well described in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invites us to respond just like this, offering ourselves in service that reflects the incredible presence of this mysterious God so that the mystery might be peeled back for others and ourselves as we join in God’s mission together.

So as we join Isaiah and countless others in joyfully responding to God’s call, may God’s mystery and mission become all the more clear for us so that we might welcome others to join us in watching and waiting and working for God’s new creation to become real in the world as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

A Strange Celebration

February 22, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Mark 1:9-15
preached on February 22, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

What do you do after a marquee moment in life? How do you celebrate a major accomplishment before moving on to what is next? Athletes and others used to proclaim that they would be going to Disney World, but what do you do?

Our reading from Mark today tells us about one of Jesus’ most incredible moments, after all, so I wonder a bit about what we think he might best do next to celebrate. When he went out to the Jordan to be baptized by John, he knew that he would submit to John’s baptism for the repentance of sins, but he didn’t necessarily know that he would hear the voice of God speaking to him so loudly and boldly, declaring from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

So after this marquee moment, what did Jesus do? As Mark tells it, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness… for forty days.” That was quite a strange celebration! Mark doesn’t tell us all that much more about these forty days for Jesus. Matthew and Luke, the two gospels who built their own accounts of Jesus’ life, ministry, and death on Mark’s telling of the story, both go into great detail about these forty days, explaining very carefully the particular temptations that Jesus faced and sharing his responses to them with us. But Mark simply tells us that after his baptism and the words of affirmation from heaven, Jesus was “tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” before he emerged from the wilderness to begin his ministry and proclaim his message in Galilee.

For Mark, this time in the wilderness matters less for the specific temptations that Jesus faced and more for the ways in which these forty days enabled him to explore and understand his call to ministry. This is the beginning of everything we know about Jesus from Mark, after all—there’s no virgin birth, angel visitations, or boyhood antics described here—and everything that follows from this for Jesus in Mark builds on this time of temptation and exploration in the wilderness.

When he emerges from the wilderness, Jesus is definitely not the same as he was when he went in. Mark tells us that after his forty days in the wilderness, Jesus set out to Galilee to proclaim the good news of God:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

Jesus is a changed man after his sojourn in the wilderness with Satan, the wild beasts, and the angels. This man who approached John without reservation to receive a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins now has a message of repentance of his own to share that cleanses the heart, not just the body. This man who entered the waters of the Jordan as something of a blank slate emerges from his time in the wilderness insisting that there is something more to his life than what there was before. This beloved son came to understand his status and his calling in a new way after these forty days and so set out to proclaim and live a new message that called all people to trust that God’s kingdom was coming into being in the world and that all things would be made new once and for all.

For centuries, Christians have used this story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness as the basis for a time of penitence and preparation for Easter. The emphasis for this season of Lent has traditionally been on giving something up—on building up spiritual strength to overcome the temptations of everyday life, on fasting from food or other earthly things as a way of embodying in our physical bodies the sort of spiritual change that we desire in these days, on setting aside things that we can control that impede our spiritual growth. But when I look carefully at Mark’s version of this story, the tradition of giving something up for Lent doesn’t seem all that connected to Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. We hear so little here about the temptations that he faces that we can’t build a season of practice around them. And the wilderness mentioned in Mark doesn’t look very much like our world.

This wilderness is a strange place. It can bring the danger of encounters with Satan and wild beasts or the safe comfort of angels ready to serve and care. In the first thirteen verses of Mark’s gospel, we hear about the wilderness four different times. It is the place where John the Baptist comes from and the place where Jesus is driven by the Spirit after his encounter with John. On the whole, it is a place of hostility and conflict that emerge not from the pains of giving up coffee, chocolate, or alcohol for six weeks but from the ongoing conflict between the forces of good and evil that stand at the center of Mark’s understanding of the world.

So when Jesus was driven out into this wilderness, amidst all the real challenges that he faced, I think he took up far more than he gave up. In his time in the wilderness, Jesus came to truly understand what the voice had said to him in his baptism. In the midst of his temptation by Satan, he sorted out what true repentance meant. As he journeyed through the wilderness of conflict between good and evil, Jesus discovered what it meant to live faithfully in the day and age when the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near so that he could share that message with others. And as he emerged from the wilderness, the time was right and ripe for his proclamation of the new thing that God was doing in the world in him, through him, and because of him.

In these forty days of Lent, we too are faced with the challenges of discovering a way through the wilderness of life in our increasingly complex and challenging world. We hear how God has claimed us and promises to make us and all things new, and we have to sort out what that might look like. We encounter the challenges of temptation and uncertainty in the wilderness of these days and must decide how we will respond. And as we seek a way through this wilderness, we must still be ready to share what we have encountered and learned along the way with others when we emerge into the new life on the other side.

This year, in our life together as the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone, we’ll be taking this approach of taking up something new during these Lenten days as we explore a few of the possibilities for mission and ministry in our midst. We have discovered quite well that we are active and engaged with our community and our world in ways that speak to our varied interests and passions, and the session is hopeful that we can continue to deepen and broaden our commitments to mission in our life together. Beginning today and continuing for the next four weeks, each Sunday you will hear about some of the mission work that we are already doing—and some possibilities for you to get more involved. As we make our way through this Lenten season, it is my hope and prayer that you will find some new place to participate in our work of reaching out beyond these walls and being a part of the kingdom of God coming near in our world.

Even if you’ve already given up something for this Lent, I hope that you will take up something new for this season that will continue well beyond it, for the journey of penitence and renewal that we share in these days is not so much about the things that we give up for forty days but about the ways that we continue to grow in faith, hope, and love each and every day so that we too might proclaim that message that Jesus offered to those who would hear:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

So as we journey these forty days together, wandering the wilderness of our world, may we discover the pathway to live in the time that is fulfilled and the kingdom of God that has come near so that our Easter celebration may be filled with faith, hope, and love enough to enjoy and share. Thanks be to God! Amen.