by Parrish W. Jones

©2005. All rights reserved.

 

Psalm 90:1-17

Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Matthew 22:34-46

I'm sure that some of you have gotten bogged down at times. That certainly has happened to me. Being bogged down requires a graphic example so here goes. I was out riding my horse Renegade one day when we came upon a wet area in our path. That is not particularly uncommon. On surveying the area, I noticed that tractors and wagons had crossed and left some ruts, but had obviously crossed. I did not take the time to calculate the difference in pounds per square inch that Renegade put on each hoof in comparison to the pounds per square inch on a tractor or wagon wheel. The result was we entered only to have Renegade sink to his chest in the bog. That's what you call bogged down. Fortunately. after much effort I helped Renegade escape and we went on.

I've also gotten bogged down in writing sermons or essays when I seemed to wander off the path and could not figure out how I would get from where I was to where I wanted to go. When that happens, I push away and do something else so my mind can work in the background and I can reinvision my project.

Congregations often get bogged down when the everyday life of the church becomes its only focus. Details get in the way of keeping our eye on the vision. Behavior unbecoming Christians is often a cause of churches becoming bogged down.

 If we want to be the church God calls us to be, we have to seek clarity. That clarity of vision for the church will not come because we just want it to. It will come from prayerful imagining of the possibilities. It will come by our remembering that we are a part of a larger church whose goals are our goals. That is why I preached the sermons on the Great Ends of the Church. Those Great Ends are as true for Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, and so on and so forth as they are for Presbyterians. In fact, a few years ago you went through a study of the Purpose Driven Church and there is little difference between the purposes outlined in that study and those of the Great Ends of the Church.

To remind you, the Great Ends are: " the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world." Reminding ourselves of these connections is important to our process because it helps us remember that we are not starting from scratch. We have a starting point that places us firmly in a tradition. It reminds us that whatever we imagine, we do so that we are not recreating the church. We are seeking a vision given us by God and in concert with the church universal,, which is to say the present church as it is known throughout the world today and the church as it has been throughout the ages and will be throughout the ages to come. So what we are about is a very solemn responsibility.

As I said last week we want to build a roadmap from where we are to where we believe God is calling us. We will be using a tool for that process which I hope to give you an example of now. I will do so using the journey we have taken through Exodus.

The chart we will use looks like this.

                            Slaves                                                     Liberation

                         Oppressed by Pharaoh                           Free/self-determined

                         Threatened Future                                  Safe Future

                         Scarcity                                                  Abundance

                        Marginalized Groups                   Inclusive/hospitable Community

                        Land of Despair                                       Land of Promise

                        Glory of Empire                                       Glory of God

Notice that all we have done here is to mark out the territory: where the people of Israel were and where God hoped for them to go. Nothing about the call of Moses, the plagues, the negotiations with Pharaoh, the passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law, or the Wilderness of Sin, the Golden Calf, the failure to follow God into the promised land, the wilderness wanderings. None of that which would lead from the Glory of Empire to the Glory of God.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, let us not doubt for a moment that if we were to know the details of the journey, we would shrink from taking it. That is why we do not know the future. However, taking the journey in faith leads us to the promised land. We begin creating our map today by simply marking out the territory. In the weeks that follow, we will create a more specific road map.

Let us remember that as people of faith we are called to the journey. Like Moses we will enter the promised land through our deaths not because we ever get there in any earthly sense. Therefore we will always be on the journey. Because of that fact, we must be faithful in following the only one who can truly shepherd us to the boundary, namely, our Savior Jesus.