Loving the Invisible Neighbor

Follow Christ. Question Culture. Love the Church:
Houses, Cars, and Community
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-9; Matthew 5:13-16

Click "play" button below to view sermon video (also includes personal testimony by Andre' Mast, at end of sermon):


Last Sunday I used up half my sermon time introducing the series,
“Follow Christ. Question Culture. Love the Church.”
I had to set the stage, because this is a different sort of series.
If you missed it, sorry I can’t do it again.
Check out the CD, or go to our website to listen to it.
In a nutshell, we’re looking at a number of pressing issues in our culture,
and doing so by first clarifying who we are as God’s people,
and then trying to ask the right questions of our culture,
being appropriately skeptical.
So we follow Christ...
that is, get clear about who we are called to be as disciples.
We question culture...
that is, frame questions that rise out of our identity as disciples,
And we love the church...
that is, commit ourselves to life in community,
where we do the real work of faith-filled moral discernment,
centered around the living and written Word.

It will not be in these 20-minute sermons
that all the answers to these complex issues
will be packaged and dispensed for your convenience.
No, you will be sent from this place with, hopefully,
the right questions in hand,
and the right community in which to wrestle with them.
_____________________

So, this morning we look at houses and cars.
I wonder what you came expecting me to say about this topic.
I’ll bet some of you expect me to talk about
how much we spend on our houses and cars,
how we often use our resources to surround ourselves in luxury
at home and on the road.
That is a good thing to talk about.
And maybe we will, when we get to the topic of money,
later in this series.
I’ll bet some of you expect me to talk about
how our houses and cars,
especially as they get larger, or more numerous,
wreak havoc on the environment,
and contribute to global warming.
That’s also a good thing to talk about.
And no doubt we will, when we get to the topic
of caring for the earth, later in this series.

Instead, I want to reflect on how cars and houses,
and the way we use them,
impact our experience of human community.

So, as we begun, let’s take the first step together,
and position ourselves rightly, as a follower of Christ.
Let’s clarify our faith identity, our calling,
our shared convictions and commitments.

In your order of worship, you’ll see “Confessing our Faith.”
These words are gleaned from the Mennonite World Conference
statement of shared convictions,
and MCUSA’s Confession of Faith.

Read this in unison, if you can in good faith:
As a church, we are a community of those whom God’s Spirit calls to turn from sin, acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, and follow Christ in life.
We believe that the mission of the church is to proclaim and to be a sign of the kingdom of God. The church is called to witness to the reign of Christ by embodying Jesus’ way in its own life and patterning itself after the reign of God. It is the new society established and sustained by the Holy Spirit. By its life, the church is to be a city on a hill, a light to the nations, testifying to the power of the resurrection by a way of life different from the societies around it.

So we’re saying that we, the church, bow collectively,
to Jesus Christ as Lord of all.
And we, the church, have a mission from God,
both to proclaim and to live, the good news of the Gospel.
And God expects us, the church, to live as a new society.
To show the world what life in God’s kingdom looks like,
on the ground.

Living in community with one another.
Living as a sign to the world.
This is our identity. Our shared conviction.
We didn’t invent it. Jesus gave it to us.

Today we heard part of Matthew 5, from the sermon on the mount,
You are the salt of the earth...
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.
If you check the Greek, you’ll see the word is “y’all” (so to speak).
It’s “you” plural, not singular.
Jesus was speaking to his disciples as a unit.
“All y’all disciples are like a city on a hill.”
Jesus’ instructions for witness,
were that we collectively shine a light.

So, if we accept this identity, this mandate,
to live as a new society,
and be like light and salt and leaven in our culture,
pointing others toward life in this new society...
then we have some pretty significant questions to ask of our culture.

Why should we care about our surrounding culture?
After all, isn’t the church just its own culture within a culture?
And isn’t the world around us someday going to judged by God?
Shouldn’t we just live quietly, let the world be what it will be,
and wait for our heavenly home?
That’s what the exiles in Babylon were thinking,
when the prophet Jeremiah wrote them a letter we just heard read.
The people were in exile in a foreign land—
like us citizens of God’s kingdom living in this world,
we’re resident aliens—
And the word of the Lord was to settle down.
Get married, have children, build houses, plant gardens.
In other words,
participate fully in the culture where you find yourself,
but participate as an agent of shalom, of peace, of wholeness.
Then, in v. 7 of Jeremiah 29 they are given this mandate,
which I take as our own.
“But seek the welfare—
and the Hebrew word here is literally shalom—
seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the Lord on its behalf,
for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

We should care about our culture, fallen though it may be,
because as we seek its shalom, we will find our shalom.

And when it comes to the topic of nurturing human community,
our culture doesn’t lend itself very well to that.
Human beings were created for community.
That message came through loud and clear
in Desmond Tutu’s remarks at JMU on Friday.
In both his speeches, at the dinner and the public meeting,
he insisted that our humanness, which is a gift of our Creator,
can only be fully experienced in relationships.
He said, “A person is a person through other persons.”
He said, “My humanity is bound up in yours,
for we can only be human together.”
He said, “If I dehumanize another person, I dehumanize myself.”

Those words brought thunderous applause
from the thousands gathered in JMU’s Convocation Center.
As well they should.
The words of Archbishop Tutu are authentic,
because his life is authentic.
They ring true.
But the culture we live in tries to deny it.
And most of us who stood and applauded on Friday,
including myself,
have chosen a lifestyle that actively works against
forming deep and meaningful human community.

We build ourselves into a society that specializes
in separating ourselves from each other.
We design our towns and cities and subdivisions in such a way
that we ensure a maximum of privacy,
and a minimum of real face-to-face human interchange.
We have created an automobile culture
that gives us all a maximum of individual freedom,
and minimal opportunity to be true co-travelers with others.
And we people of faith,
we followers of Christ who should be thinking in different ways,
hardly even raise an eyebrow.
We accept it, uncritically, as the way it is.
Daily, we make choices that keep us in a private world of our own,
and never give it a thought that we might be working against
the kind of life God created us for,
the kind of life that makes us human,
as Desmond Tutu reminded us.

So I invite us today to question culture.
I invite us to question the kind of thinking that has led our society,
to flee densely-populated areas like cities,
and move to sprawling suburbs that promise a better life.
Better, defined as more private, more separated, more independent.

I recently read a book, which André Mast referred me to,
that had a rather significant impact on my thinking,
and is beginning, just beginning,
to have an impact on my behavior.
The book is Sidewalks in the Kingdom
by a Presbyterian pastor named Eric Jacobsen.
He writes from his context in Missoula, Montana,
a small city, a little bit larger than Harrisonburg.

He said the way our society structures itself,
is driven primarily by false gods that we worship.
_____________________

For instance, he says we worship the god of individualism.
Nothing wrong about valuing the individual. God does, too.
But individualism becomes a false god, an idol,
when we commit ourselves so much to this value
that we distract ourselves from God and from God’s will.
Our worship of individualism creates a culture where
almost any limitation on individual rights is bad.
The only way we limit individual rights at all,
is if the exercise of my rights,
keeps you from freely exercising your rights.
But to ask people to limit their individual rights
for something so vague as “the good of the community”?
No, that’s too authoritarian.

How much has our worship of this false god,
determined how we design our houses and neighborhoods?
We know that living close to neighbors almost always, eventually,
bumps up against my individual needs or preferences.
So these days, we do anything we can
to avoid the inconvenience and annoyance
of having to interact too much with neighbors.

Take an imaginary walk with me
through an old traditional neighborhood.
It comprises a dozen or so city blocks.
We can see that the lots are quite small,
the house are close together, with lots of big front porches.
Every house is close to the street,
and a continuous sidewalk runs in front of every house.
It’s clear, just from the physical design of this old neighborhood,
that people assumed they wanted to see each other regularly,
that folks would drop by unannounced,
or stop and chat as they walked by,
on their way to pick up something at the store.

Now walk with me through a new neighborhood,
romantically named, Whispering Oaks Estates.
Houses sit on large lots, well back from the road.
There are few front porches, but many magnificent-looking doors.
Most of the streets are cul-de-sacs.
People don’t just happen to walk by, or even drive by.
If you’re one of these streets,
you’re either coming or going from a house on this block.
We have to walk beside the curb, on the slope of the road,
because there are no sidewalks.
But even if there were
and even if people were walking on them,
and even if a neighbor’s front door was within earshot,
we wouldn’t see or hear them,
because their living area is at the back of the house,
facing a fenced back yard.
We get the strong feeling,
just from how this so-called neighborhood looks,
that people don’t expect to interact much with real neighbors.

I wonder...should our identity as Christians,
and our calling to love our neighbors,
make a difference in the way we design houses and neighborhoods?
How can we, in fact, love our neighbors,
when we’ve gone to great pains to make them invisible?
_____________________

Another god we worship is independence.
We believe it is a virtue not to need another person,
not to be indebted to anyone else.
But I think our worship of this false god of independence
is directly and powerfully linked to the fact
that we Americans have developed a car culture.
The car allows us to do what we want, where we want,
and when we want,
without regard to distance,
and without being constrained to someone else’s schedule.
The car has allowed us to construct a way of living
whereby people routinely get into their private,
sealed, quiet, climate-controlled transportation capsule,
and drive long distances to go to work,
or to shop,
or attend church,
or visit family and friends.

We rarely question whether, all things considered,
the benefits outweigh the costs.
What has the automobile cost us in terms of human community?
What has it cost in terms of stress-levels and time away from family,
when each year the average American spends more time
commuting to and from work
than they spend on vacation?
What has it cost us in terms of segregating people from each other, as people moved out of the city,
with its diversity of culture and class,
and into a homogeneous suburb you have to drive to get to?

One author makes the point that before 1950,
there were very few retirement communities.
We didn’t have them, because we didn’t need them.
In old-style neighborhoods, where there were
stores, barbershops, churches, and other businesses
all within a few blocks of each other,
and all connected with sidewalks,
when an older person lost the ability to drive,
they did not lose their independence.
They could still maintain a viable lifestyle by walking.
And those who were too poor to afford a car,
could easily get to work or the store or the doctor, on foot.
Isn’t it ironic, that because we worshiped independence,
we structured our society around the automobile,
and as a result, we are now dependent in ways we didn’t expect.
We live farther apart from each other,
and from the goods and services we need for daily life.

Oh, but the car is a much more efficient way of getting around,
isn’t it?
The Austrian social critic Ivan Illich didn’t think so.
In one of his books, he calculated,
that the typical American male devoted
more than 1600 hours a year to his car.
Driving, idling, finding parking.
Working to earn the monthly payments.
Working to pay for gas, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets.
Four of his sixteen waking hours are either in his car,
or gathering resources for it.
And this does not [include] time spent in hospitals after a wreck,
or in traffic courts and garages and watching car commercials.
If we spend 1600 hours to get an average of 7500 miles,
that’s less than five miles per hour.

That’s only slightly faster than walking.
But much slower than a bicycle.
_____________________

I hope none of you think I’m saying these things
because I have it figured out.
In these areas, I am most assuredly, not holier than thou.
I’ve only begun to ask the questions more seriously,
and have only begun to take little baby steps.
It wasn’t that many years ago,
that Irene and I were the owners of five cars.
Yes, five.
Okay, so a couple of them were real beaters,
that our daughters were driving around, but still.
We’re down to two now, if you don’t count my scooter.
I am pretty proud that I drive a scooter all over town.
But I really shouldn’t be.
It gets such good gas mileage, and it’s so fun to drive,
that I’m more likely to run quick errands
than I would be otherwise.
And the 2-cycle engine puts more pollutants into the air,
per horse-power, than most other vehicles.
And I don’t have the option of taking a passenger.
Scooting down the road at 30 miles an hour,
with a helmet on,
the most I can do that’s even remotely community-building
is waving at other scooter drivers.
Scooter or not, I need to walk more.
I need to ride my bike more.

And when it comes to houses, we have no front porch.
Our deck faces our back yard.
We were relieved when the maple grew tall enough
to shield us from our neighbors when we’re sitting back there.

But at least,
I’m starting to get enough courage to ask some hard questions.
And maybe we will need to make some choices eventually,
that involve sacrifice,
if we want to be faithful to our calling
to love our neighbors as ourselves.
_____________________

So no, I don’t expect us as a church to suddenly, en masse,
reject suburban life and move back into old city neighborhoods.
But what I would hope for is this—
that we begin to ask ourselves, and ask each other,
hard, honest questions about how much we have bought into
the assumptions of our surrounding culture,
and have structured our lives in a way
that makes loving our neighbor more difficult than it is already.
Are there steps we can take individually,
Are there steps we can take as a church,
to overcome some of the barriers to loving our neighbor—
barriers we intentionally built into our lives
because culture convinced us to?
Are there steps we can take to be counter-cultural in this way?

At the end of your order of worship are some questions.
They are just a few samples of the kinds of questions
we could be asking each other,
and asking of our culture.
Take these questions to your Sunday School, your small group,
your family dinner table,
your coffee club.
In this sermon I just raised the questions.
Now it’s up to all of us together,
to do the hard work of Christian moral discernment.

And may God help us,
with each other, and with our neighbors,
to be “strangers no more.”
Amen.

—Phil Kniss, September 23, 2007

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When God Starts Taking Bribes

Follow Christ. Question Culture. Love the Church:
War, Terrorism, and National Security
Deuteronomy 10:17-21; John 18:33, 36-38a; Psalm 131

Click "play" button to view sermon video (includes testimony by Dan Wessner at the end of the sermon):


Or click the button below to hear audio only:

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Sermon text:
Maybe this was a really bad idea.
Maybe the Worship Committee should have shot it down
when I first brought it to them.
To take nine Sundays at the beginning of our church year—
a time of new attenders, new enthusiasm, new budget pledges—
and plan a worship series organized around some of the most
controversial issues in our culture and in the church.

Maybe it’s a bad idea.
Or maybe, it’s one of the most fruitful ways we can spend our time
worshiping God together.
It’s one or the other.
I guess we’ll soon find out which.

I choose to believe it’s the latter.
I choose to believe that one of the functions of worship
is to reposition ourselves rightly before God.
Life in this world gets crazy and complicated,
and we sometimes forget who we are as a people before God.
True worship reminds us of that.
It gets us back into position.
It returns us to a place where we remember who we are,
and why we were created.

We Christians confess: human beings were created for one purpose—
to love and worship God.

This series is my way of calling us back to that one purpose.
Thing is, we can’t love and worship God in the abstract.
We have to do it in the particular.
So how do we love and worship God with our lives
in our particular time and place,
as 21st-century North American Christians?
as citizens of the only remaining global superpower?
as people inhabiting the post-Civil War rural South?
living in a medium-sized college town?
along with one of the largest immigrant populations in the state?
attending a church located in Mennonite Grand Central station?

All these realities, and many more, shape the culture we move around in.
And we must listen to and follow God’s call... in our culture.
Where we are. It’s the only place we can do it.

It is oh, so tempting, to pursue God in the abstract.
To say we love God, but fail to ask
what it means to love God
in this particular part of the broken world we live in.

In this worship series,
we are going to look seriously at our cultural context,
and a few of the pressing issues in our culture,
and then try to position ourselves before God,
in such a way that we can ask the right questions of our culture.
_____________________

So right off the bat, I have to dispel any false hopes...or fears...
that I’m going to proclaim the correct authoritative position
on these cultural issues.
I know that Christians, in good faith, arrive at different conclusions
on how we should live in our culture,
on how we should respond when the country is at war,
or where we should live,
or what we should drive, or eat,
or listen to, or do with our money,
or how we should heat our home or fertilize our lawn,
or vote, or express our sexuality,
or dispose of our remains when we die.
In a 20-minute sermon don’t expect me, or any of us,
to cover the whole waterfront on these complex issues,
and then conclude with the one right Christian position.
This is lifelong work.

It’s work that needs to be done!
If we believe that Jesus is Lord of every area of our lives.
Is there anything we do, any choice we make in life,
that is outside the reach of Jesus’ lordship?
We Christians say no.
We don’t relinquish these issues to a culture of
red-state/blue-state politics.
We don’t leave them outside the church walls,
and just focus on “spiritual” things.
These are spiritual things.
They’re about who God is, who we are,
and how God wants us to live in this world.

So rather than proclaim the right answer from the pulpit,
I’m going to call us back to a more basic matter—
the convictions and values that guide us as God’s people.
And then I’ll ask us all to go from here
and do the hard work of moral discernment,
as we live in Christian community with one another.
Sometimes painfully struggling with each other.
Stubbornly clinging to each other in love and faith.

So the goal of this series might sound modest.
To reposition ourselves as a people before God,
so that we ask the right questions.
But actually, that’s a radical goal.
It gets to the root.
It’s something we don’t often do.
We usually take the lazy route.
We let our surrounding culture frame the questions.
We listen to public figures and politicians and celebrities,
and try to answer the questions they are raising.
But if we call ourselves the people of God,
whose main purpose and identity revolve around
our calling to love and worship God with our whole beings,
then maybe we have a different set of questions,
based on different values.

Look at all the issues we’ll be talking about these 9 weeks—
war, sex, politics, media, food, environment, money, death—
It wouldn’t be hard at all to list the values in our culture,
that shape the way questions are asked about these issues.
Values like...individual freedom,
privacy,
rights,
autonomy,
personal happiness.
Not bad values, in the right context.
But when those are the only values framing the questions,
some important questions get missed.

Followers of Christ hold values that were formed by another story.
And it’s different from the story of North American, post-war modernity.
The church, the people of God, are shaped by the biblical story.
That story has formed values in us,
like love of the orphan and stranger and enemy,
and the necessity of community,
and submission to the way of Jesus,
and obedience,
and justice with mercy,
and placing the interests of others above ourselves.
That should make us ask different questions.
It should help us question culture,
in a healthy way that brings greater clarity.
See, I’m emphasizing questions more than answers here.
Not because I want us to muddle around in ambiguity.
No, the ambiguity is already with us.
Let’s be honest.
The way we as Christians can bring more clarity,
the way we can shine some needed light on these issues,
is by helping each other ask the right questions.
When the right questions are asked,
we will be drawn in the right direction.
It’s getting stuck on the wrong questions
that leads us down endless dead ends.

So each Sunday, as we raise these cultural issues,
we’re going to remind ourselves, in light of scripture,
where we are positioned before God.
then, from that position we will try to raise
faithful questions of our culture,
and then go from this place to continue the conversation,
discerning the voice of the Spirit in our midst.
_____________________

Now that I’ve used up a chunk of my 20 minutes,
let’s jump into the issue of the day,
this small matter of war, terrorism, and national security.
Now you know why I said I won’t cover the whole waterfront.

I invite us to begin, as I said, from where we stand as the people of God.
Look in your order of worship at the item labeled
“Confessing our Faith”

This is where we position ourselves in worship.
It’s just part of our confession.
But it will give us a place to stand as we ask our questions.
There are two parts.
The first is from the “shared convictions” statement
of Mennonite World Conference.
The second is from two articles in MCUSA’s
Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective.
So let’s confess our faith together, in unison,
The Spirit of Jesus empowers us to trust God in all areas of life
so we become peacemakers who renounce violence,
love our enemies, seek justice,
and share our possessions with those in need.
We believe that peace is the will of God. God created the world in peace, and God’s peace is most fully revealed in Jesus Christ, who is our peace and the peace of the whole world. Led by the Holy Spirit, the church follows Christ in the way of peace, giving full allegiance to Christ its head and witnessing to every nation and society about God’s saving love.
_____________________

We have just said an awful lot.
But rather than jump immediately to some logical conclusion,
I want to bring us back to the most basic level.
What is it that we believe about God?
What are some of the defining convictions,
those central, unshakable, core beliefs that form our faith?

We just said we believe that “God created the world in peace.”
That’s one of them.
We Christians believe, unshakably,
that God is Creator of the universe and all that is in it,
that God created it in peace, in wholeness, in shalom.
It was good (Genesis 1). It was very good.
And we believe that God has a deep, saving love for this world.
That’s another one.
That God wants all peoples, all nations,
to be reconciled to himself, and to each other,
because God loves them with an everlasting love.
And we believe that in Jesus Christ,
God’s saving love and God’s peace is most fully revealed.
That’s another one.
That Jesus is our peace, and the peace of the whole world.
That the lordship of Jesus Christ
extends to every realm of life, public and private,
and that we can therefore trust God in all areas of life.

So...
• God created the world in peace and wholeness.
• God loves the world and its peoples eternally, and universally.
• And God’s saving love has been fully revealed in Jesus Christ.

If those were our only three confessions of faith,
and we believed them so deeply that they ordered our lives,
don’t you think we’d still have a lot to say
to a culture steeped in violence?
These are the affirmations that will help us ask the right questions.

But before we get to the questions,
let’s ground ourselves in the story that shaped these confessions.
The biblical story.
These confessions didn’t come out of thin air.
They came from our story.

Psalm 131, which we opened with, put us in the right position with God,
as a weaned child with its mother.
We quieted our souls before God, in a posture of utter trust,
vulnerable trust.
We said we don’t occupy ourselves with matters too great for us.
We simply, yet not so simply, put our hope in the Lord,
from this time forth, and forever more.
That text establishes the relationship we have with God.
One of dependence. One of trust.

Then this posture was reinforced by our Gospel reading from John 18,
where Jesus explains to Governor Pilate
what kind of Kingdom he’s been proclaiming.
“My kingdom is not from this world. If [it] were,
my followers would be fighting
to keep me from being handed over...
for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”
Jesus explains that the authority of his kingdom
is not secured with military might, or national boundary,
but with truth.
Truth, wherever it is found,
determines the boundaries of God’s kingdom.

But the scripture I want to focus on is from Deuteronomy 10.
This is the God in whom we rest and trust. Listen!
“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords,
the great God, mighty and awesome.”
We’ve heard that before. That’s familiar language.
But how about this?
“...who is not partial and takes no bribe.”
Why would Moses make a point to his people,
that God doesn’t take bribes?
That’s an interesting thought.
When someone in power takes a bribe,
they are selling their favor to a person or group.
And that person or group is buying a privileged position.
To be the first in line.
Or a guarantee they will get the goods they need.
Or a promise they will be protected from harm.
Whatever the purpose of the bribe,
it’s a transaction that sets up a special relationship.

Our scripture says, God will have none of that.
Yes, this is the God who chose the people of Israel,
and gave them a special task in the world.
But special favor for a price?
No, God’s favor is not for sale. God takes no bribes.
God is not partial.
Deuteronomy goes on to say,
God loves the orphan and widow and strangers alike,
providing them food and clothing.
You see, in the system of the world,
favor is purchased.
With money, with material goods, with oil, with guns.
Those without access to those things
stand at the end of the line, and often go hungry.
It is the nature of God to love all peoples, without partiality.

You’ve seen that bumper sticker around here,
“God bless the whole world. No exceptions.”
People who display that on their cars
may or may not be politically motivated. I can’t say.
But that’s not a political statement.
It’s a deeply theological statement, grounded in Deut. 10.
God is not partial. No exceptions.

Deuteronomy continues,
“You shall also love the stranger,
for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
You shall fear the Lord your God;
him alone you shall worship;
to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear.
He is your praise; he is your God.”

This is what the worship of God means, dear people.
We love those God loves.
And God is not partial. God takes no bribes.

That is our faith. That is our conviction.
So let me start framing the questions.
So we can be sent from here asking the right questions.

If God takes no bribes, is not partial to one class, or tribe, or nation,
how can we who fear God justify our partiality?
How can we so clearly take sides,
and participate in human warfare,
where one group of people God loves
seeks to destroy another group of people that God loves?
Deuteronomy says, “You shall fear the Lord your God;
him alone you shall worship.”
Can we truly “fear and worship God,”
and simultaneously put our trust in weapons of war?

God loves the whole world. Loves all nations and all peoples.
We who fear God, who worship God, who love God—
how do we embody this love of God in the way we live?
Is our love only expressed individually,
by being kind and generous and loving to other individuals?
On what basis can we go to war against beloved children of God,
and claim that by so doing,
we are embodying the impartial love of God?
Maybe when God starts taking bribes...
when God starts being partial,
when God starts anointing certain groups of his children
as being especially favored,
then perhaps we will have a different set of questions to ask.
Perhaps then our job will just be to make sure
we are fighting on the right side of the war.

But in our best understanding of who God is,
God is still not partial.
God still loves the whole world, especially the overpowered,
the under-protected, the weak, the lost, the oppressed.
_____________________

Now, I’m not claiming it’s impossible to ask these same questions,
and find different answers,
answers that allow limited participation in warfare.
I have not figured out how to do that,
and still be true to these convictions that shape us as a people.
But I wouldn’t saying it’s impossible for someone to do it.

What I am saying, is that we must start with these questions.
How are we to live in this world,
while being true to our deepest shared convictions?
• That God created the world in peace and wholeness.
• God loves the world and its peoples eternally, and universally.
• And God’s saving love has been fully revealed in Jesus Christ.

I don’t insist that we all believe the same thing about peace and war,
and about responses to terrorism and national security.
But I do insist, that we take seriously who we are as Christ-followers,
who we are as members of the body of Christ in this world,
who we are as part of the faith community called “the church.”
I do insist that we start there,
and let the questions we ask of culture grow out of that identity.

This is too important an issue in our culture right now,
to let the debate be framed by partisan politics.
This is not the kind of question that is best served
with knee-jerk, red-state/blue-state kind of answers.
This is the kind of an issue that needs, I believe,
to be dealt with in a churchly way.

And by “churchly,” I mean people of faith in Jesus Christ,
who are committed to following Christ radically
in all areas of their lives, public and private,
coming together in small face-to-face communal relationships,
where these questions can be asked honestly, and safely.
And where differing answers can be wrestled with
respectfully and vigorously.
All the while grounding these conversations
in the story of scripture that forms us.

We must follow Christ, question culture, and love the church.
When I say “love the church,”
I’m not asking us to love the institution.
I’m asking us to love the people with whom
we are bound in Christian covenant,
as the living body of Christ in this place, and in this time.
Just as we cannot love God in the abstract,
so we cannot love the church in the abstract.

I call us now,
to recommit ourselves to be radical followers of Jesus,
and to come together with other radical followers of Jesus,
in a community of faith formed
by the living Word and written Word
and then, out of that formational community of Christ-followers,
ask the hard questions of our culture that need to be asked.

There are some questions in your bulletin,
at the end of your order of worship.
Consider them part of our worship,
take them with you as you leave this space.
Add more questions to the list.
And take them to “church” with you.
That is, the church I’m asking you to love—
that face-to-face community of disciples
with whom you are in covenant,
who gather with Jesus and scripture at the center,
seeking to be formed in the way of Christ.

Let us go with God.

—Phil Kniss, September 16, 2007



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Work Is Grace; Grace Is Work

(Labor Day 2007)
Matthew 11:28-30; Ecclesiastes 1:2-6, 9; 5:18-20; Psalms 127:1-2

(Click on "play" to hear audio)


Tomorrow is a holiday for some of you, though not all.
It began 125 years ago,
as a day dedicated to the social and economic
achievements of American workers.
At that time, of course, “workers” meant
those who labored with their hands to produce things,
in factories, mines, shops, or fields.
Now, most production is automated.
Workers are more likely to be sitting at a desk
looking at words or numbers,
than using any of their major muscle groups.
But tomorrow, our country takes a national holiday to honor workers.

It’s certainly not a day in the church year.
And we’re not celebrating Labor Day itself in our worship.
But since the country will take a day off tomorrow to honor workers,
it seems appropriate to take one Sunday in worship,
to reflect on work, and how God feels about work.
Read scripture, and you can see that God cares a lot about work.
God wants us to work,
and wants us to join God in his own work.
God wants us to be collaborators, co-laborers, with him.
God wants our work to be holy.

Okay, but as Mennonites, do we really need to take a whole Sunday,
just to convince ourselves that work is a good thing?
We already have that idea down pat.
We have taken the old Protestant work ethic
and pushed it to new heights.
We are known, around the world, for our hard work.
That’s why Catherine the Great
invited Mennonites to come to Russia 200 years ago.
She knew they were hard-working industrious farmers,
who could take just about any kind of land,
and by the sweat of their brow, make it fruitful.
In some areas, if people only know one thing about Mennonites,
it’s that they are hard-working people,
who don’t flinch at a big dirty job,
like cleaning up after a hurricane.
They just come out in droves, and get it done.

So do we really need to take a Sunday to elevate work?
No, not if that’s all we did.
But I want to look at work
from an angle Mennonites might need to hear.
I’m going to pair up two unlikely partners: work and grace.
Christians often think of work and grace as polar opposites.
We think of Paul’s writings, especially Romans,
where he emphatically makes the point
that it is by God’s grace alone that we are saved,
and not on the basis of our work.
That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we rightly believe it.

But when we put work and grace on opposite ends of a spectrum,
we, somewhat predictably, end up with a conflict.
Christians like Mennonites, who emphasize the necessity of obedience,
discipline, and following Jesus in life,
are accused by some other Christians of believing in
an awful thing called “works righteousness.”
And Christians who go on and on
about the free, unmerited grace of God,
are labeled by other Christians as preaching “cheap grace.”
And so we have this ongoing tug-of-war between work and grace,
with some pulling this way, and some that way.

I wonder if, by setting up work and grace as opposites,
we have created a completely unnecessary conflict.
So what I’m going to do this morning,
is not just find the right middle ground,
not try to split the difference on this pole between grace and work.
I’m going to make the claim that work is grace, and grace is work.

I understand the concern that we don’t want to say
that we can earn our salvation, by doing good deeds.
And that’s not what I want to say.
And I understand the concern that if everything is under grace,
then we are not called to a higher ethic of living.
And that’s not what I want to say.

I want to say that when we talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
we cannot separate work and grace,
because they’re woven into the same cloth.
Together, they are the Gospel.

When I say that work is grace,
I’m saying that it is only by God’s free and unmerited grace
that we are given the ability to serve God with our work.
It is the reality of God’s grace that gives our work meaning.
It is by grace alone that God invites us to work for God’s kingdom.
Working for peace, for justice, for healing, for reconciliation,
and yes, working for the salvation of ourselves and the world,
is a high privilege to which God has called us by his grace.
We are able to do this work only by the grace of God.
It is God’s amazing gift
that we have been invited to work alongside God,
to co-labor with God,
to carry out the purposes of our Creator God.
How could our earthly participation in that high and holy work,
be anything other than the unmerited grace of God?

This is what today’s scripture readings are getting at.
The reading from Ecclesiastes is particularly striking.
As the two passages from Ecclesiastes, ch. 1 and ch. 5,
were read by two different people,
I wonder if you noticed how different those readings were.
In chapter 1, the preacher in Ecclesiastes despairs at
how useless is human labor.
“What do people gain from all the toil
at which they toil under the sun? [ch. 1, v. 3]
A generation goes, and a generation comes...
The sun rises and the sun goes down...
The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north...
What has been is what will be...
There is nothing new under the sun.”
People work hard, he says,
but they don’t gain anything lasting from their toil.
Someone else ends up benefitting from it.
All is vanity. Vanity of vanities.

But somewhere, the preacher has a change of heart.
By chapter 5, he sings a new song.
“This is a good thing [quoting ch. 5, v. 18]
it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment
in all the toil with which one toils under the sun
the few days of the life God gives us...
[And all who] accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil—
this is the gift of God.
For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives,
because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts.”

Even this once-cynical writer of Ecclesiastes, has to admit,
work is a gift of God.
To be able to be occupied with the joy of our hearts,
to have meaningful toil,
is the gift of a gracious God.
Work is grace.

This notion of work as grace
is underscored in the psalms.
Remember the verses from Psalm 127
read just before our confession?
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.”
Now, we often quote that verse
in connection with the work of the church, and it fits.
Unless we recognize that God builds the church,
our efforts to do it will be in vain.
But the context here is not the church,
it’s just talking about work in general.
Listen again,
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives sleep to his beloved.”

If you build houses for a living,
if you work as a security guard,
if you get up early to work in the field,
if you pull long days at the office,
if you care for children in your home—
if you are doing this work, or any work,
and don’t realize that it’s God’s work,
don’t recognize God’s gift and grace in that work,
then you’re wasting your time.
You’re “eating the bread of anxious toil.”
But on the other hand,
if you accept your work as grace,
and look to God as the giver of that grace,
you can sleep the “sleep of God’s beloved.”

So, we’re on solid biblical ground to say that work is grace.

But can we say it the other way around?
“Grace is work?”
I’m saying we can.
This might be hard to swallow,
for those who celebrate the free, unmerited,
lavish, and abundant grace of God.
Do we really have to work, to obtain God’s grace?
Wouldn’t the apostle Paul throw a fit to hear us say that?
But let’s be clear.
The grace of God is offered freely.
We do not earn God’s favor.
God’s grace is lavish, abundant, and unsparing.
But it is not, strictly speaking, unilateral.
Receiving the grace of God is part of a two-way transaction.
God’s grace is not an unstoppable flood
that just washes over every evil in the world
and heals it and saves it unilaterally, universally,
and indiscriminately.
To say God’s grace is lavish and free
does not mean there are no expectations of us,
no discipline, no hard work, no repentance,
no change required of us.
Receiving God’s grace involves a thoughtful, deliberate,
and sometimes difficult move on our part.
We need to place ourselves in a position
to receive the grace being offered.
God doesn’t dump grace on unsuspecting victims.
God invites us to receive the gift of grace God offers.

The scripture we heard at the opening of the service
is a favorite of many.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens.
Take my yoke upon you...
I am gentle...you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Wonderful words of grace and comfort
that Jesus speaks to the weary.
But you’ll notice: Jesus still invites us to take on the yoke,
and to carry the burden.
There is still a work response on our part,
that completes this grace-filled transaction.
Take on. Carry.
Still good news. Still comforting.
Because the yoke is easy, and the burden light.
It is made light by the grace of God,
and by the love and compassion of God’s people.
But still, this grace is work.

The offering of grace is God’s move, God’s initiative.
requires nothing at all from us.
God’s grace simply is.
And it is freely available to us, and to all.
But receiving it is our part of the transaction.
Receiving it is our work.
And it can be difficult work.
It can even be painful work.
But without this work, the gift of grace
is only a partially completed transaction.
Without our choice to recognize our need,
and gratefully receive the gift of grace,
the transformed life that God wants to give us,
is stopped in its tracks.
Just a surely as a dam stops a river.
The flowing river of grace is free.
But there is a dam with a floodgate holding it back.
And we’re the keeper of the gate.
If we open the gate, the river can keep flowing,
and keep giving life.

So grace is work.
At least, keeping grace flowing is work.
But the work doesn’t stop with that first “yes” to God,
that initial choice to receive it.
God’s lavish grace, when it flows into and through our lives,
calls for a continuing response.
This two-way transaction is more like a continuing cycle,
of God’s lavish gift, our choice to receive,
our response of gratitude,
and God’s continuing gifts of grace.
In this sense, the work each of us do
is a direct response to the gift of God’s grace,
or if it’s not, it should be.

So, you see how work is intertwined with grace,
and grace intertwined with work.
They are not opposites.
They are partners wedded together in this thing called life.

Life itself is a gift that we don’t deserve.
Life comes from the gracious hand of God.
So the work we do is acting out our “thank you” to God.
The ability to work is God’s gift of grace.
So the work itself is our act of gratitude.

And the other thing that needs to be said clearly,
is that this transaction of grace is not a private thing.
It is personal, because each of us needs to choose to receive it.
But it is not private.
Grace draws us into community.
We are a community of people living by God’s grace.
And the grace we receive is not a gift for our private benefit.
It is a gift that comes to us, that we might share it,
for the blessing of all,
and for the building up of God’s kingdom.

Our work, whether it’s tilling soil,
or teaching students,
or constructing buildings,
or generating capital,
or serving food,
or mowing grass,
or pricing used clothing and books,
or visiting the sick,
or taking someone to the dentist,
or balancing books,
or preaching sermons,
our work is a response to God’s grace,
done in the service of God’s kingdom.

If we cannot see the work that we do—
whether paid or unpaid—
as contributing, in some small way,
to the reign of God on this earth,
then we ought to stop what we’re doing,
and choose work that does.

Society values some jobs more than others,
and it shows up in the amount of pay for the work,
or the prestige that comes with it.
God doesn’t look at it that way.
Every job we do—paid or unpaid,
ditch-digging or corporate decision-making—
is an opportunity to offer a gift to God,
in the way we carry out our work,
in the way we relate to our co-workers,
or even in what our work produces.
Every job we do should be offered to God as a gift,
in gratitude for the grace of God given to us.
When we see our work as a gift to God,
our work is worship.
So celebrating work
is certainly a worthwhile way to spend time together
worshiping God on a Sunday morning.

And celebrating work is what we are now about to do in a tangible way,
through our morning offering ritual.
Our offering this morning,
is a more wholistic offering than usual.
We will bring not only our financial gifts of our tithe.
We will bring the gift of our work.

Many of you found out by email, or by word of mouth,
that you were invited, first of all,
to come to worship dressed in your work clothes,
but secondly, to bring some tangible token of your work,
a symbol of what you give to God daily in your work.
If you didn’t find out, that’s no problem.
You might even have something on you that represents your work.
Some might have a business card.
Or a pen, or Palm Pilot, or a needle and thread,
or your student I.D. card.
Something in your wallet or pocket or purse,
that could serve as a symbol of the work that you do.
If you can’t think of anything,
tear off a corner of the bulletin
and write down what your gift of work is.
Either your paid job,
or whatever you do to work for God at this point in your life.

We invite you to bring that forward as part of your offering today.
So that we might pray for it, and dedicate it to God’s service.
At the same time, worship God with your gifts of money.
Offering baskets will be here to drop your money in,
as well as the Penny Power offering for your loose change.

So let us celebrate the gift and grace of God in our work,
and dedicate our work and our money as gifts to God
for the glory of God.

[Prayer of dedication]
Lord, today we have released what we have, and what we do,
and have placed them in your hands as an act of gratitude,
for the free and lavish grace that you give to us every day.
Take all these gifts,
and use them for the work of your kingdom on earth.
We dedicate them to your service.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.

—Phil Kniss, September 2, 2007

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