Did you happen to see the tribute to John Belushi on
television this past week? (Or TRY until the cable went out?)
John was an incredible comic talent who created fascinating
characters. What brings him to mind this morning is the
delightfully wacky pair that he and Saturday Night Live partner
Dan Ackroyd teamed up to create - Jake and Elwood, the Blues
Brothers. These two genial bozos are sent out on an ill-fated
fund-raising mission for their old parochial school by a fierce
old nun. As they blunder through a series of larcenous schemes
and make general movie mayhem, Jake and Elwood establish their
credibility by quietly proclaiming to all their detractors,
"We're on a mission from God."
Right! In the face of ludicrous and often illegal fund-raising attempts, Jake and Elwood's explanation for all their
activities is hilariously absurd. A "mission from God?" No.
They are simply two losers trying to run a series of scams, and
we laugh at them.
But what about this - the possibility of someone's being on
a genuine mission from God? After all, one of the signs of
"delusions of grandeur" on psychological tests is a positive
answer to the question, "Do you believe you are a special agent
of the Lord?" Hmm. Is that excessively exalted language for the
activities of someone we might actually know?
- Can someone like that checkout clerk at the grocery store be
... on a mission from God?
- Is someone like that neighbor who feeds your cat when you
are gone ... on a mission from God?
- What about that annoying PTA organizer who keeps calling ...
on a mission from God?
- Is someone like that teenage daughter with her room filled
with giggling girlfriends ... on a mission from God?
- And how about someone with bills to pay, kids to shuttle,
dinner to cook, a garage to clean out, and 10 pounds to lose
... on a mission from God?(1)
YES! All these people may very well be on a mission from
God. Just as you and I are.
Truth be told, God chooses all sorts of folks to accomplish
divine purposes in the world, even wildly improbable ones.
Consider the sketch we read a moment ago which could have just as
easily been written by the Saturday Night Live folks and starred
a John Belushi or a Dan Ackroyd for the silliness of it. God
comes to Jonah and tells him to go to Ninevah; Jonah disobeys -
he runs off in the opposite direction. Then there is that storm
at sea, the big fish, and history's first submarine ride.
Finally, Jonah is barfed up on the beach. Picture it - seaweed
hanging over his ear, his clothes in tatters from being half-digested, smelling like something no fish market could ever sell.
A Ninevite is standing on the shore, surf-casting from the sand
and enjoying a day off. Suddenly, here is Jonah walking up the
beach saying REPENT. What would you have done? I think I'd
repent! Do you think John Belushi could have done something with
that? "I'm on a mission from God!"
Of course, you who are a part of the church of Jesus Christ
are indeed on a mission from God. In Jesus' words in the gospel
lesson, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." That
sentence has been called the Charter of the Church.
Presbyterians understand that. We affirm the old truth that
the church is to mission as fire is to burning - without mission,
there is no church. One of the foundational chapters of our Book
of Order is called "The Church and It's Mission."(2) In a few
words, we hear our task:
"The Church is called to tell the good
news of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus
Christ as the only Savior and Lord...The Church is called to
present the claims of Jesus Christ, leading persons to
repentance, acceptance of him as Savior and Lord, and new life as
his disciples. The Church is called to be Christ's faithful
evangelist:
- Going into the world, making disciples of all nations...
- Demonstrating by the love of its members for one another and
by the quality of its common life the new reality in
Christ...
- Participating in God's activity in the world...
- Healing and reconciling and binding up wounds,
- Ministering to the needs of the poor, the sick, the
lonely, and the powerless,
- Engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, fear,
oppression, hunger, and injustice,
- Giving itself and its substance to the service of those
who suffer,
- Sharing with Christ in the establishing of his just,
peaceable, and loving rule in the world.
The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the
risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and
giver of life..."
You see, we who are the church not only CAN say, we MUST
say, "I'm on a mission from God!"
As many of you know, there is one person above all others in
the Presbyterian Church who is a vital and vocal advocate for
mission, our former Moderator, and speaker here in Warren for our
175th anniversary, Marj Carpenter. In her most recent book,(3)
Marj says, "I admit I am sinfully proud of being Presbyterian.
It's a sin to be proud but we don't waste that one much. When
anybody asks what church we attend, we drop our heads and
sheepishly say, 'Presbyterian.' But there are 90-million people
out there in more than 120 countries who are very proud of being
Presbyterian and Reformed, and we helped put them there."
She talks about speaking in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to
a gathering of six small churches all started by the same
Presbyterian pastor as he went through the area 250 years ago,
back before we were even a nation. "Members of one of those
congregations had been among the sixteen Presbyterians who signed
the Declaration of Independence. We all know the only
clergyperson to sign that wonderful document was one of ours, a
Presbyterian: John Witherspoon." He was a professor at the
College of New Jersey, which was ours, and it has turned into
Princeton University today. We forget to be proud of the fact
that Witherspoon taught the people who wrote the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights. Because of his influence on those writers,
the government of the United States is patterned after the
government of the Presbyterian Church.
Marj notes that we have almost forgotten that England's King
George III called the entire American Revolution a Presbyterian
insurrection, and it was. It was Presbyterians here in
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in Virginia and West Virginia,
Delaware and Maryland, North and South Carolina and Georgia, and
on up the coast into New York and New England who planned and
fought that revolution.
We have also forgotten how many presidents of the United
States have been Presbyterian. The Episcopal Church has us by
one, but between these two, we have had over half the presidents
of the United States. That makes us heavily responsible for what
has and has not happened here.
We can be proud of James Knox Polk, a direct descendant of
Scotland's John Knox, and of Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan
and Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison and Woodrow Wilson,
Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. We might even stretch it a
bit and claim Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln never joined any
congregation, but he attended Presbyterian churches. There are
three Lincoln pews in this country. One is at First Presbyterian
Church in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he attended worship the
morning before he gave the Gettysburg Address in the cemetery
that afternoon. One is at First Presbyterian Church in
Springfield, Illinois, where he attended while he worked in the
state capital. The third is at New York Avenue Presbyterian
Church in Washington, D.C., where he attended when he was
president -- even the last Sunday of his life. Marj notes that
she had the opportunity to speak at that church during the year
she was Moderator, and says she deliberately went early to sit in
the Lincoln pew and to say a prayer.
Marj continues, "I am even proud of the fact that
Presbyterians meddle in everything. Who but Presbyterians would
want to know whats on the moon? Every single trip into space by
U.S. astronauts, except two, has had a Presbyterian on board.
There wasnt a Presbyterian on the one that was aborted, and
there wasnt a Presbyterian on the one that took nine times to
get off the ground. They needed a Presbyterian that day. But
there have been many wonderful Presbyterians in space -- like John
Glenn and Buzz Aldrin and Sally Ride, whose sister is a
Presbyterian clergywoman."
"Im proud of the fact that Presbyterian men and women have
had a lot to do with business in this country. A few years back
we lost two of our best when Sam Walton, president of Wal-Mart,
died in Arkansas and Tom Watson, president of IBM, died in New
York City. Both were Presbyterian elders who gave heavily to
mission, and we miss them. They join that long list of
Presbyterians -- names like Carnegie, all those libraries, and
Wanamaker, that wonderful store in Philadelphia, and Flagler, all
those hotels and churches in Florida, and Mellon in Pittsburgh,
and so many others..."
"Presbyterians in the Civil War helped up North with the
underground railroad, and there was a time that the Presbyterians
down South walked with the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. They
were the only ones who went with them. They needed to do that."
Mission around the world? Pick a place. You would be hard
pressed not to find a Presbyterian presence, and Marj Carpenter
could probably tell you a story about it. God bless 'er.
"I'm on a mission from God." Yes, I am. And you are. And
you and you and you and you. It comes with the territory. It is
a very Presbyterian statement. If you are a part of the church,
you are on a mission from God. Remember, Jesus did not command
the world to go to church; Jesus commanded his church to go to
the world. Did you hear that? Jesus did not command the world
to go to church; Jesus commanded his church to go to the world.
"I'm on a mission from God." What will that mission look
like? It will be different for each one of us. For some, it
means helping youngsters with their school work in our Hope
Tutoring Center; for others, serving food in the Sharing Place or
growing it for sale at the Farmers' Market; for others teaching
Sunday School or leading a youth group; still others, singing in
a choir or playing bells; for a certain hardy bunch it will
involve a trip to Mexico this summer; and for lots of others, it
will involve paying the bills for that trip. We walk these
hallowed halls at 3rd and Market during Mission Month and see
display after display of opportunities to be involved. Around
here, it is easy to find a place to say, "I'm on a mission from
God."
In my files this week I came across an old sermon by Billy
Graham's late brother-in-law, Clayton Bell, who was pastor of the
Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas.(4) It contained a
fascinating poem written by a receptionist at the Fifth Avenue
Presbyterian Church in New York City. It offers a wonderful
insight:
I dont know how to say it, but somehow it seems to me
That maybe we are stationed where God wants us to be:
That the little place Im filling is the reason for my birth,
And just to do the work I do, He sent me down to earth.
If God had wanted otherwise, I reckon Hed have made
Me just a little different, of worse or better grade,
And since God knows and understands all things of land and sea,
I fancy that He placed me here, just where He wanted me.
Sometimes I get to thinking, as my labors I review,
That I should like a higher place, with greater things to do;
But I come to the conclusion, when the envying is stilled,
That the post to which God sent me is the post He wanted filled.
So I plod along and struggle, in the hope when day is through,
That I am really necessary to the things God wants to do;
And there isnt any service which I should ever scorn,
For it may be just the reason God allowed me to be born."
"I'm on a mission from God." And so are you.
Amen!
1. "A Say-so Spirituality," Homiletics, April 6, 1997
2. G-3.0000
3. Marj Carpenter, And a Little Bit Farther: More Stories of Mission "to the Ends of the
Earth", (Louisville, KY : Geneva Press, 1998)
4. B. Clayton Bell, "Common Tools and Uncommon Tasks," Clergy Journal, July/August,
1999, pp. 19-22
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