A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, January 25, 2009
Mark 1:16-20
John 15:1-5
Have you done a “gut check” recently? I don’t mean looking at yourself in the mirror at the gym. I mean have you asked yourself how you’re doing, how your spirit is faring in these challenging days? Everywhere we look we see dangers. Every time we stop we realize a underlying element of anxiety or maybe even downright fear.
The economy is contracting. After years of “more, bigger, faster” we’re facing the truth that nothing can continue to grow forever. Everything in God’s world goes through cycles of growth. And when the branches of a plant get too big for its roots to support, it must be pruned back to encourage new growth.
Most of us grew up with the assumption that the next generation would do better than we had, and the next and the next: more education, more income, more security, bigger houses, fancier cars. It was easy to assume that such growth could go on forever.
What we failed to see – or at least failed to acknowledge – is that the branches were far outreaching the roots. We were over-extended in every way, like dumping growth hormones into the food supply. It worked for a while and it felt pretty good. But no longer. So we have to face three realities: 1) nothing can keep growing forever; 2) anything that grows must be pruned and cut back, and 3) if we don’t do the pruning ourselves, much larger forces will do it for us.
That’s true for governments, corporations, churches, and individuals. We’ve bought the lie that success can be measured by continuous growth. We’ve wanted to believe it. The 17th century author John Flavel, (1628-1691) wrote:
“Whatsoever we have over-loved, idolized, and leaned upon, God has from time to time broken it, and made us to see the vanity of it; so that we find the readiest course to be rid of our comforts is to set our hearts inordinately upon them.”
I’ve spoken before of my grandparents who were married in 1908 and soon went as missionaries to Japan. They had four children, three boys and a girl. They lost two sons to disease in a period of five years and my grandmother struggled to make sense out of it. In a letter which I still cherish she wrote of these losses as “a deep pruning,” and then reaffirmed that pruning is necessary for further growth. She drew great comfort in her confidence that the pain would ease and God would bring some new possibility out of it.
So the question for us is this: if we can’t measure our effectiveness and success by continuous growth, what can we do? If we’ve always defined ourselves with “more, bigger, better,” how do we define ourselves when we’re not growing?
This is certainly a question that touches on the strength and viability of every element of our society. But for us in the church it is, of course, a spiritual question. If you haven’t already started, now is the time for real, honest-to-God soul-searching that doesn’t assume we can continue to feed our appetites – not as a world, not as a nation, not in our families, not in our church.
There’s ample evidence in scripture that God doesn’t see the world as we do; that God doesn’t pursue the same matters that we consider ever-so-important. Just last year preacher and author Tony Campolo wrote a book called “Who Switched the Price Tags?” In the preface he wrote:
Do you ever get the feeling that somebody has gone through our world and switched the price tags on everything? Things that ought to be treated as precious – like family, friends and faith – are inconsequential, and things like a new BMW, membership in the country club and the climb up the corporate ladder are all too often considered of great importance.
Our whole society, the whole world economy is experiencing a deep pruning. No one can fix it, if we mean putting it back together and making it appear the way it used to. The long-term situation may look quite different.
In the short-term we need to reclaim the Serenity Prayer and keep our focus on the things that matter most – living with loving and generous hearts; recognizing and nurturing the gifts God has given us, and remembering the least, the lost, and the lonely among us.
In just a few minutes we’ll begin our semi-annual congregational meeting – the time and place we, as members, make some of our most important decisions. We’ll be adopting our 2009 budget and adopting new bylaws by which we govern ourselves.
Some would call these irrelevant documents. Some would suggest that Council and lay leaders should just do what they need to do in their meetings and not bother use with details. Not so! The new bylaws remind us we are congregationally governed and each member is a stake-holder. They are simplified, clarified, and flexible. They reflect our new governance model and still give us room to breathe as we live our way into the future.
Our annual budget is actually a mission statement that reminds us specifically and concretely what matters most to our church community. I want to lift up a few quick observations about the budget the Council is proposing:
1)We continue to be a generous church. Our 2008 budget, which you approved last year, assumed a year-end deficit of about $28,000, while the actual year-end deficit was $3,700 – about 7/10 of one percent away from balanced. Wow! That’s because many of us gave extra near the end of the year – gifts above and beyond what we pledged; because of new pledges added during the year; and because our Teams and Committees contained their expenses all year long.
2) Our budget committee has done a terrific job in preparing the 2009 proposal. Chris Keiter, Cyndi Alden, Carol Zechman, and Sally Sutton really know their stuff and worked together wisely and well. I was there primarily to keep the prayers flowing, since the budget sheets make my eyes roll! I believe they’ve struck a difficult but fair balance between our internal costs and our mission-outreach.
3) Our historic patterns of income are being re-examined. For ages we’ve been able to rely on member pledges and investment income to underwrite our budget. The investment issue is obvious to all of us. We’ve seen about 1/3 of our invested funds evaporate since September 30th. The loss of income from these assets will likely be tougher for the 2010 budget year than for 2009. And while total giving continues to grow, fewer households are contributing. We need to talk about that.
But still… year after year we get anxious about how we’ll make ends meet, and how we’ll carry forward with all the wonderful ministries and all the wonderful staff that mean so much to us. And each year we make it… by the grace of God, we make it.
The pruning we’re experiencing is no surprise. Internally, here in the church, it’s painful only if were decide to see it this way. Growth will come again. But we also know that in God’s own wisdom this isn’t the time. It’s time, rather, to look prayerfully at our life together and give great thanks for so many blessings.
Jesus calls disciples – present tense. When he calls us he teaches us to use our gifts and skills and talents for holy purposes. He shows us that we can swap a fisher’s net for the tools that will help us gather in a great catch. All in good time.