Clayton Presbyterian Church
October 29, 2006
Busy Man Accomplishes Nothing
Rafael Antonio Lozano is a man with a mission, albeit a strange one. The 33-year-old computer programmer from Plano, Texas, is on a quest to visit every company-owned Starbucks on the planet.
Lozano, who calls himself Winter, began his mission in 1997, when there were 1,304 such stores worldwide. Today, there are over 6,000 in 37 countries. As of October 31st, 2005, Winter had visited 4,918 Starbucks in North America, in addition to 213 others around the globe.
Despite his impressive pace, Winter is realistic about the nature of his quest, saying, "As long as they keep building Starbucks, I'll never be finished." He is also realistic about the importance of his mission. "Every time I reach a Starbucks, I feel like I've accomplished something," he said, "when actually I've accomplished nothing."
I guess we can expect Lazano to show up here in Clayton when they finish the Starbucks on Highway 70. I can’t imagine, though, what will happen to him if they ever stop building new Starbucks. He won’t have anything to look forward to. And when he looks back, all that he will be able to claim is that he used his time and resources to visit every Starbucks on the planet. That’s kind of depressing, if you ask me.
I don’t know about you, but I want something to show for my life. I want to have a legacy that is not so pathetic.
Did you know that Jesus’ disciples felt the same way? Although that’s not as noble as it sounds. Two of his followers, named James and John came to Jesus as they were on the road and asked him for a favor. They asked to sit on his right and left hand when he got the glory. You see, they knew that his ministry was about more than just traveling from village to village, teaching and healing. They could just sense that as they were traveling to Jerusalem, the capital city, the great moment was at hand. James and John wanted a guarantee that all of the sacrifices that they had made in following Jesus were going to pay off. They were going to get ahead. They wanted positions of prominence and power.
But they missed what Jesus had been trying to tell them. He wasn’t going to be exalted like an earthy leader. His Kingdom was one of a different kind. I want to read to you Jesus’ response.
Scripture: Mark 10:41-45
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."(NRSV)
They wanted to be promoted to the top. But Jesus replies that this is not how it works in God’s Kingdom, in his scheme of things. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. You don’t ascend into greatness, you descend into greatness. You should strive to be the servant not the master.
I preached this past Monday night at a renewal service at Oak Grove Presbyterian Church headed out Highway 42 most of the way to Wilson. And their pastor, Rick McDuffie, asked a question that I thought was really a good one. He said, “How do you know if you have a servant’s attitude? You look at how you respond when someone treats you like a servant?” When someone treats you with less respect than you think you deserve, do you blast them with both barrels? Do you stew on it all day thinking of just the right comeback that you wish you could have said? Or do you take it in stride?
Jesus, as he tells us, came to serve and not to be served. Even though he is rightfully the King of all creation and he deserves to be served, he came to serve. His ministry was a ministry of service. He came to give, even his very life so that we might have life. Any of us who aim to follow him must do likewise.
But service does not have to be huge, grandiose and highly visible to have a huge impact. The smallest things done with a servant’s heart can make the biggest impact.
Minimal Mission
This summer at a conference I was at, Rev. Scott Dudley, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Bellevue, WA., told a story about a manager of Microsoft. He decided that he wanted to be more loving to his employees. He decided that instead of emailing people who sat just 10 feet away from him, he would actually get up and go talk to them. You know, like they mattered.
A few weeks after he started doing this, one of his employees came and gave him a copy of the videogame, X-Box Live. The manager said, “How did you afford this?” Because he knew how much he was paying they guy. It was not that much.
The employee answered,
"I sold my gun. You see, six months ago my mother died and I was depressed. Then I started working here thinking it would help. But, no one ever talked to me, except on email. So, I looked up ‘coping with dead mother’ on the internet, but what I found instead were suicide chat rooms. So, I went out and bought a gun and I have been practicing ever since. Every night I put the gun to my head with Kurt Cobain music playing in the background. And for the last month the safety has been off. And I knew that the only way that you would’ve known if I died was if payroll notified you. But then last week you freaked me out! You came to my desk and put your arm around me and you told me I was funny, even over email, which is hard to do. And you told me that I always get my projects done on time, which helps you sleep at night. So, I went home and I sold my gun and I bought you this. Because for the last few months you have been complaining about how much you want Xbox Live, but your financial advisor, a.k.a. your wife, won’t let you have it. So I bought this for you. And so for my life, here, this is yours.”
The manager was being church, right where Jesus placed him. And now he has an opportunity to talk about the hope that is found in Jesus.
This is the kind of service that we are called to. Many manager just look at the people under them as those who can help the manager get where he wants to go, to be served by them. But we are called to serve.
Serve Your City
Jesus has called us to serve our neighbors. Our love for our neighbors (the people who we meet on a daily basis and not just those who live next door) should be on par with our love of ourselves. This is true for us as individuals, but I also believe that it is true for us as a church, as the gathered people of God. There are too many churches that seem to just exist for themselves. They are more like a social club than a mission. The church is meant to be more like a fort far out on the frontier than a fortress.
When churches lose that outward focus, they turn inward and lose their vitality. The great spiritual paradox is that when we give away our life, we save it. If we try to keep our lives for ourselves, then we lose it. We become like the Dead Sea in Israel. It is called Dead, because of its incredibly high salt content. Water flows in, but because the heat-induced evaporation, none flows out. The result is stagnation. The same is true for the church. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we could go to church. He died on the cross to be a part of his adventure and his mission to the world.
We are called to serve the community in which we find ourselves. As I and the leaders pray for God’s will, in terms of who he wants us to be, in terms of what our mission is (which is really the same thing), I keep coming back to the idea of hospitality. We live in an inhospitable world. There are so many people who are moving into the area. They are like strangers in a strange land. They need to experience the warm welcome of God.
How can we live that out? One way is to be a welcoming congregation. First that means to invite people to come to church with us, so that they will feel welcome to come and share in this great spiritual family. The second is to greet new-comers to the congregation. Every one of us is a greeter. I cannot overstate the importance of this.
I have also begun to imagine other ways that we could live this out. We could extend hospitality by making our building as available as it can be to others. In September we hosted a group from Hospira here in town. They needed a place to do an all day training and the Clayton Center was booked. So, Tina and Valerie Sanderford, with support from the rest of the youth group, came and provided them with lunch and refreshments. It was a win-win. A local business had a good meeting space and the youth group made money in the process. We practiced hospitality.
We have recently had an inquiry from a women’s AA group using our building on Sunday nights and we are excited about the prospect. I think that there are so many possibilities in how we can practice hospitality toward those around us. Even our small space here can be an offering to God. And hospitality is mission.
Stewardship as Mission
You might be wondering why it is that in the middle of our annual stewardship campaign (the last two sermons that I preached were about money) I am talking about mission. The reason for this is that I believe that mission is a part of Stewardship.
Stewardship captures the Biblical truth that all that we have is not ours; we merely hold it in trust for God. We need to be good managers of what he has given to us. Over the past two weeks we have be wrestling with the idea that to be good stewards means that we need to be generous with our wealth. We can’t, in good conscience, spend it all on ourselves. That is not what God has in mind. We must share what we have. The reason for this is because we are made in God’s image and he is restoring us to that image. Our destiny is to be like him.
Giving to Get
As a whole church we want to give away our life. For the current year we are on pace to do better than a tithe, or 10% of our income. We should be giving away close to 15% of our income. I hope that we never fall below that level. And as our budget grows, that number will grow. This is not to say that the money we spend on other things is not mission, salaries, rent, programming, etc., is not mission. Surely it is and it is vital. But, as part of our worship and our spiritual formation we need to be giving our lives away as well.
This brings us to another paradox when it comes to mission. God doesn’t use us to get his mission done. He uses his mission to get us done. God could accomplish his mission without us. Jesus taught the religious teachers that if God’s people failed to be faithful in their worship, the very rocks would cry out in worship. If we fail to live up to our calling and our mission, God will not let his mission die. But, he still invites us to join him in his mission to save the world. Why? It is as much for our benefit. When we join God in his mission, we become more like him. We understand his grace and his love better, when we try to extend that grace and love to others in Jesus’ name. We come to grasp our faith the best, when we step out and try to share it with others. We understand what we believe the most, when we try to teach it to others.
Missions is a key ingredient in helping us be more like God and in fulfilling our destiny.
So Others May Live
Search and rescue personnel risk their lives in tumultuous seas, deep forests, remote mountains, and desert wastelands. Wherever they're needed they go. When called, they respond, because lives are in danger.
A Search and Rescue Team in Colorado puts it this way: "Millions of people visit the mountains of Larimer County, Colorado, each year. A few will become lost, stranded, or injured…some will die. Our objective is to find and rescue these lost or injured people before it is too late…. We are dedicated to saving lives."
Nevada's Washoe County Search and Rescue Team went out on 74 searches in 2003, bringing 95 persons to safety and recovering the bodies of 9 others.
In 2002, the U.S. Coast Guard made 54,609 rescue trips by boat or aircraft, saving 3,661 lives.
The Search and Rescue Team motto: "This we do so others may live."
This should be our church motto as well. Even as we carry on those other key activities, like the worship of God and the education of our children, we must keep our eyes on the needs of our neighbors. Whether it is listening to employees at work, feeding the hungry through CAM, or sharing the gospel with someone who feels like their life has no meaning or significance, we are called to serve others. There is so much need out there that we don’t have the luxury of setting some superfluous goal, like visiting every Starbucks, where it “feels like you have accomplished something, when you have accomplished nothing.” Jesus gave his life for us, so we could give share our life with our neighbors.