For the Sake of the World
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I sat down at my desk on Thursday, after almost two weeks away, to find a note from Pastor McKinney attached to a copy of his sermon from last week. "The end of our sermon series. Ah! Now we can get back to Mark." Ah! I couldn't agree more. So today we're back to Mark. Even as today marks the end of our summer worship schedule, we're also (finally) done with five weeks of "I am the "Bread of Life" from John chapter 6. But really, as with most endings, we're just beginning, especially when we remember observations Pastor McKinney made the last two weeks, especially when we remember that today on this Labor Day weekend we affirm the vocations of Christians in the world -- we lift up the work you do when you're not assembled here, especially when we explore today's Gospel. The juxtaposition of these three things provides an uncanny opportunity, actually, to explain why some of the changes we've experienced in worship here at Holy Cross have come about, though that isn't the main point of this sermon.

Today we meet Jesus, as we often do, challenging the traditionalists and calling them hypocrites. He quotes the Jewish prophet Isaiah who condemns those who comply with religious forms while "their hearts are far from [God]." This is a great challenge for me because, whether you realize it or not, I really am a traditionalist. It may not seem that way to you, because from your perspective, I've come in here and changed many of your customs. But from my perspective, the changes I've encouraged in our worship have a theological purpose; there is a method to the madness. Not simply change for the sake of change -- we've been recovering the traditions of the earliest Christians, traditions that shape who we are and why we are and who we are and what we do in our daily lives.

Mark Hanson, the presiding Bishop of the ELCA to which we belong, reminds us time and again that "the church does not exist for its own sake but for the sake of the world." Since the church is not a building, but people, you and I do not exist for our own sake either. You and I exist for the sake of the world. The mission statement of our ELCA, in fact, is "Marked with the cross of Christ, we are claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the world." Last week you heard Pastor McKinney remind us that the Table of our Lord is spread for the life of the world, not for our personal comfort..." And today, Jesus' point is not to condemn all religious tradition, but to say, "Beware when religious observance gets in the way of fulfilling the heart of the law, which is love of God and neighbor." In other words, don't let worry about religious rituals distract you from helping people come into closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

I often think of our assembly together here around Word and Sacrament the way I think about taking my mini-van to the gas station for a fill up. When I leave here, with Jesus in me, because I have been here with you, gathered around Word and Sacrament, I have the spiritual fuel to BE Jesus in the world. If I leave my van in the garage all week, I don't need to fill it up -- once a month would be more than enough. But when I use the van, I need to fill it up quite often. If I live as Christ in the world, regardless of where I work or where I live, I need to fill up with Him, again and again. (Fortunately, bread and wine is a little less expensive than gasoline.) Pastor McKinney summed it up last week: "The whole thing of Jesus as the Bread of Life started with the feeding of the 5000. Finally it becomes clear to us -- you and I are the broken bits and pieces with which the world is to be fed."

And that is precisely the point. What we celebrate here and what we are called to live are essentially one and the same. So what we do here does matter. As Jesus received, blessed, broke, and shared the loaves, so the Presiding Minister receives, blesses, breaks and shares the bread in Holy Communion. AND, so does each one of us receive, bless, break and share all the gifts God gives us EVERY day in our interactions at work and play, making the presence of Christ known and felt in the world in ways large and small, much as Jesus received, blessed, broke and shared his life for the sake of the world. It is, says St. Paul, by virtue of our baptism into Christ that we are joined to his death and resurrection. It is, says Luther, by virtue of our baptism into Christ that each of us is ordained into the priesthood of all believers, serving God and the world wherever we may be.

I'm a fan of Mitch Albom -- the Detroit Free Press columnist. I don't always get to his columns, but I have read both of his books. Since he spent his Tuesdays with Morrie, he seems to try, at least, to surrender himself, in his work, to a higher purpose, a higher power. But while reading a recent column of his, I thought, "He doesn't get it." Albom was commenting about Mel Gibson and the anti-Semitic and sexist remarks he made during a DUI arrest. When Gibson made the movie The Passion of the Christ, Albom says, "you got the impression that if Gibson himself wasn't part of the second coming, you had the feeling he was going to film it. Gibson's supporters "saw what they wanted to see," Albom says: "a divinely inspired human being...." Then he says, "We need to learn that divinely inspired human beings are more likely people we never see: They're in poor countries and ravaged cities, feeding the hungry and tending to the sick. They're not making movies."

I'm not a fan of Mel Gibson, but I do take issue with what Albom said. Luther lifted up the notion of ministry in daily life so that divinely inspired human beings would be people we see all the time. Movie making is a wonderful example. Think about the impact movies have on us. Think about how powerfully movies can serve God's purposes. Come to the premier of our Friday Film Fare September 22 and see how much we can learn about God and be inspired from a movie like Hotel Rwanda. And think about what could happen if more divinely inspired people made movies. Ministry is NOT just what I do. It's what YOU do, whether you are building cars, teaching children, cleaning teeth, running a company, changing a diaper, or in poor countries and ravaged cities, feeding the hungry and tending to the sick. Making Hollywood movies can be a profoundly important ministry. If Jesus too often gets trapped in the Bible, as Pastor McKinney observed, ministry too often gets trapped in the church.

God's favorite subject is not religion -- it is people. That's the point Jesus makes today, and the point so many prophets made before him, like Isaiah, who Jesus quotes today. Jesus violates religious observances in favor of doing ministry. For Christians, religious observances are not about us pleasing God. They are meant to allow us to encounter God, so that we might live lives of meaning, purpose, and service, so that others might see in us the face of Christ. We are claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the world, fed so that we ourselves might be food for the world. One church has across the top of the door going into the parking lot, "You are now entering the mission field."

Fred Smith, CEO of Fed Ex, exercises ministry in daily life with a "people first" management style called PSP, or People, Service, Profit. "Take care of our people," he says," they, in turn, will deliver the impeccable service demanded by our customers, who will reward us with the profitability necessary to secure our future." Even when times were tough, the kind of tough Michigan knows only too well these days, Fed Ex practiced this. When FedEx discontinued much of its service within Europe and reduced its European work force from 9,200 to 2,600, FedEx received praise from The London Times, among others, for the way in which it went about the layoffs. FedEx put full-page ads in several newspapers urging other employers to hire former FedEx workers. In Belgium alone, 80 companies responded to the ad with a total of 600 job offers.

Unlike Mitch Albom, the British novelist Dorothy Sayers got it: "The first demand on a carpenter's religion is that he makes good tables," she said. "What use is anything else if in the center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry?" In Candide, Voltaire's hero in the land of Eldorado saw no temples, no churches. He wondered if the people had any faith in God. He was told that they had faith indeed, but that their worship was constituted by their daily work. And so on this Labor Day weekend, we lift up as an offering of worship to God the work we do in our daily lives, trusting that what we do here in this assembly does not distract us from ministry, but fills us, inspires us, equips us, and energizes us for it. May our religion help us to show the world the face of God in our daily lives, even as we see the face of God in Christ Jesus right here -- in the Word, in the Meal, in you, and, by the grace of God, sometimes maybe even in me.
AMEN

Pastor Dana Runestad
3 September, 2006 (B Proper 17)
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Livonia, Michigan

Sources: