Ephesians 2.13-22                                                                                            15 July 2007

"CAUGHT UP IN A CAUSE BIGGER THAN OURSELVES"

Anybody remember the movie City Slickers?  It was about Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, on a cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado with friends. They were working through their mid-life crises.  The scene I have in mind has Curly, the dusty old cowpoke played by Jack Palance, shaking his head at such fancy talk.

”You city folk!…You spend fifty weeks a year getting knots in yer rope,” Curly starts in.  “Then you think that two weeks up here will untie them for you.”  The horses pause beneath them for effect.  “Do you know what the secret of life is?”  “No, what?” Mitch wonders.  “This,” Curly answers, holding up a gloved finger.”  “Your finger?” Mitch asks, thrown off.  “Just one thing.  You stick to that, and everything else don’t mean a darn.”  “That’s great,” Mitch enthuses, “but what’s the one thing?” “That’s what you’ve got to figure out,” Curly cryptically answers.

It’s a good film, typically American, isn’t it?  You need to live for something bigger than yourself.  You need to get caught up in a cause or passion greater than you are.  But what is it?  It’s up to you to decide.  It can be whatever you want. So as a result, people devote their whole lives to getting into the right mutual fund, getting enough protein and fiber in their diet, or swimming once with the dolphins. 

Of course, none of these are bad things.  It’s just that none of them is great enough to merit having our whole lives arranged around them.  As Christians, we believe in that one thing that Curly was indicating with his gloved index finger. But we believe that one thing is not for us to make up or contrive all by ourselves. We believe instead that having made us, and knowing us better than we know ourselves, God has something specific in mind and sent Jesus to reveal it to us.

At the end of his time on earth, at moment they were parting company, Jesus said to his eleven friends, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And I am with you till the end of the age.”

What is our one thing?  It is to invite and to form disciples.  That is our central mission in life.  And in order to shape new disciples, it goes without saying that we must become disciples ourselves.  And that takes a whole lifetime and ever remains a work in progress.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Teach them the information I’ve brought you.”  He doesn’t say, “Impress upon them the belief system you have.” Rather he says, “I have brought you and formed you in a whole new way of life. Practice that way of life, in little everyday ways that seem trivial, but are not, as well as in the greater moments of your life as you stand at the crossroads. Teach others to live as you yourselves have begun to live, what you learned from me.”

From our Christian view, what is the one thing of Curly’s gloved hand?  Let it be clear.  Discipleship means learning to live the message Jesus brought, and even as we spiritually remain works in progress, influencing others to live his message.

Now, some people get overwhelmed by that, the part about influencing others.  What right do I have? Who am I to say?  Everybody has to do that on their own! We prefer how Curly skirted that issue by letting everyone decide for themselves. Modern evangelicalism has left a bad taste in people’s mouths, especially after 87% of them supported the Iraq war as the rest of the Christian world opposed it.

So let me put this another way.  What does it mean to be Jesus’ disciple and to influence others to live his message? Paul said in Ephesians.  It means letting Christ bring peace to the world through us, breaking down the dividing walls of hostility, things like race, language, culture, sexual orientation, nation, gender, you name it; and becoming ambassadors of reconciliation for those formerly at odds with life. This is what Jesus meant by spending more time proclaiming the God’s reign or the kingdom of God more than any other subject he talked about.

As for me, I see nothing in this message to be shy about in sharing with others. As for me, I know that left to our own devices, uninfluenced by this lofty goal God revealed in Christ, people will choose less essential things.  Things like earning a gazillion dollars or flashing the whitest teeth or always having the biggest boat.

But here’s the part I want to talk about today.  One of the spiritual basics about being a Christian is that rather than only living for ourselves, we live for a cause bigger than we are.  This is foundational for Christianity, it’s not all about me and what I want, it’s all about God and what God wants.  What does God want?   Not much mystery there, survey Ephesians chapter two or the Sermon on the Mount.

For me that is one of the really attractive things about being Christian. We have been rescued from insignificance, triviality, and irrelevance. Deep in our bones, we all long to live out of a bigger story, narrative or drama than our solitary lives.  We all long to be caught up in a cause greater than ourselves. It makes life worth living. Just listen to how surviving WWII veterans talk who fought in squadrons to eradicate Hitler. I also watched this reunion of the 1967 Red Sox joking about learning to put up with each other to win an American League championship.  To a person, such as these will say how much they miss living for the greater cause.

But if we are going to give the whole of our lives for a cause, not holding anything back, it had better be the right cause.  Otherwise, we commit an awful mistake. Soren Kierkegaard wrote of how his life changed when his father suddenly died.  He went from being a spoiled, self-indulgent son of a wealthy Danish merchant to a man so consumed with writing about this cause that he refused to marry and worked himself into an early grave.  Work so brilliant we are still digesting it now. After his father died, the other things that seemed so important before fell away as he finally realized, “I need an idea for which I can live or die.”  That  “idea” was how the world is changed in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus; how this transforms human life into what God meant us to be in creating us.  Personally, I believe Kierkegaard made the right decision. For I have made the same decision.

The biggest reason Dennis Union Church has received 63 new members in five classes over the last 13 months is because this is the message we’re projecting. As Jake and Elwood put their antic misadventures into perspective in the movie The Blues Brothers, “We’re on a mission from God.”  We can laugh, if we want, it was another comedy.  But stop by on Tuesday as our “missionaries” work on our auction. Do they live for old books, antique jewelry or used furniture? No, they do it because they believe in this church, the Gospel it proclaims, and the promises of the Christ who lives, risen from the dead, at the very center of those promises. They want to promote the cause of peace and reconciliation among the unsettled

Another story, Bill Boothe spoke of walking around our construction and noticing a group of motorcyclists sitting there, clad in their leather, scratching their heads. Now, that scene right there is arresting enough.  Picture it, Bill Boothe, Hell’s Angels, Bill Boothe, Hell’s Angels. I tell you, it conjures a delightfully incongruous image.  Anyway, these bikers were wondering, what in the world are we up to with this colonial meetinghouse elevated toward the heavens on red I-beams. So Bill gave them the story of how the dimensions of our lofty project were revealed.

But why do we this really? Because we like bigger and shiner buildings? No, we do this even in an era when Christianity in North America is in decline and the mainline church in particular continues to dwindle, because God has put us in a position to make a difference.  The people of DUC radiate the blessing of that difference in the good spirit you bring here, and the sacrifices you gladly make that God be mightily praised, and that our corner of the world might be remade in Christ’s image.  We believe in that.  It is the most vital cause we know.  We want to carry that difference forward indefinitely into the future. If that stops motorcycle gangs in their tracks, think of how your neighbors might respond to an invitation. When people in a narcissistic age get caught up in a cause greater than their self-advancement and self-interest, it is stunning, even arresting to leather bikers.

We are on a mission from God.  So we might ask ourselves: are we willing to put aside personal agendas in favor of this greater mission? Are we willing to live the message Jesus embodied and boldly invite others to share such a life? Are we willing to prioritize this mission above storing up more wealth and possessions? More important than achieving interrupted comfort and insulated security.  More than being popular or famous.  More than advancing ideological political causes.  More important and above other missions in this one and only life God gives you.

These are the questions that I would leave with you as you enter another week.

But before I leave off today, know this.  Despite the countervailing evidence of the daily newspaper, where it feels like evil has the upper hand and it has the people by the throat, God’s cause announced in Christ remains secure. Yes, we will lose battles for the right and good as we go, but God has already won the war.  It was won 2,000 years ago on the hill Golgotha and an empty cave not far off. We believe history moves inexorably toward its consummation. The source of Christian joy is trusting in the endpoint despite evil, suffering, and death.   Our one thing is living out this glad news and sharing it with those who don’t know it. Amen.

O God who stood before history, and who stands now at the consummation of history, fall afresh on your people gathered here and in all places this day! May the world know your desire for all people to praise and give thanks, to live in the peace and reconciliation of which Jesus was the pioneer. In our differences, bring unity; in our lethargy, bring life; in our despair, bring hope!  Remind us today of our bigger mission and wider purpose that we would find our bearings.

Surprising God, generous God, transforming God, sustaining God, your Spirit is at work among us in ways far beyond our imagining, sending us into new adventures, opening new doors, exploring possibility beyond our dreams. We praise you for 11 new members today and 63 in the past year, called forward to confirm the covenant of salvation in Christ. May we be a people filled with the desire to respond, with the energy for your purpose, for the centeredness that only your Spirit can bring.  Grant us new life in the Spirit this very day, we pray! Amen.