The Feast of the Procrastination

I preached this sermon on Sunday, May 13 at St. Mark's in response to the Reclaiming Jesus Declaration. The declaration can be read in its entirety here.
 

Friday night at 7:25 p.m. I wrote this sentence. It’s not that I didn’t want to write it earlier. It’s not that I didn’t think about writing it earlier – in fact, as I do each week, I spend time each day reading the texts for the week and giving thought to where I’d like a sermon to go.  But, nonetheless, it is Friday night at 7:27 p.m. I came into the office quite a bit earlier to write that sentence – well, not that exact one – but a first sentence to this sermon.  Now, this may come as a bit of a surprise to you but I am a bit of a procrastinator. You can ask Scott or Dave or Lola or David . . . . or Andrea. Yes, just ask Andrea. She’ll tell you it’s true.  I know other procrastinators – I’m in really good company. Even here in this room. (Don’t worry, I won’t name names). 

Just a few days ago, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Ascension – that day 40 days after Easter when Jesus is lifted up into the heavens.  For me, the Feast of the Ascension is also the Feast Day of All Procrastinators for on that day, according to the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus is lifted up into the heavens right before the disciples and they all just stand there looking up toward heaven.  They are staring long enough that two men come along to jar them out of their trance and to say, “Hey! Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”  And only then do the disciples get on with the work of being followers of the Way of Jesus.  The disciples are the great procrastinators. It’s not that they didn’t know what to do. In fact, just before Jesus was lifted up into heaven he said to them, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  So they know what they are supposed to be doing – witnessing!  But there they stand.

Sometimes I worry that the church in the 21^st century has become the church of the procrastination.  Like those first disciples, we too have received the story – not first-hand like them, but we’ve heard it told – beginning with Jesus baptism until the day when he was taken up into the heavens.  We have heard this story.  And we too have heard Jesus’ invitation – whether it is the “Go and make disciples” invitation of Matthew’s gospel or Jesus’ prayer that we heard this morning from John’s gospel – that we, like Jesus, are sent out into the world to share the truth of God.[1]  But instead we gather in rooms like this on Sunday mornings to hear words that may comfort us, that may heal us, that may feed us but forget that we come here also to be strengthened and given courage to go out and heal others, feed others, comfort others, be Jesus’ hands and feet in the world. What are we waiting for?  Are we waiting for the right moment? The right kind of brokenness in the world?  Are we hiding behind excuses – I don’t know how to speak truth to this pain, I don’t have time to get caught up in this work, I am afraid of the consequences of my actions if I do what Jesus calls me to do?

In just a couple of weeks – on May 24 – The Presiding Bishop of our church, The Most Rev. Michael Curry, will be joining a march on the White House by Christians leaders as part of an ecumenical movement to “reclaim Jesus.”  The march will launch The Reclaiming Jesus Declaration – a declaration signed by 23 faith leaders (Episcopal, United Methodist, AME, Wesleyan, Reformed, Baptist, and more).  I want to stand here and read the entire declaration to you because I think it is important for us to all know what it says; but, it is too long and I want to give it the time it deserves. But I will read the introduction:

We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake.

It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. We pray that our nation will see Jesus’ words in us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

When politics undermines our theology, we must examine that politics. The church’s role is to change the world through the life and love of Jesus Christ. The government’s role is to serve the common good by protecting justice and peace, rewarding good behavior while restraining bad behavior (Romans 13). When that role is undermined by political leadership, faith leaders must stand up and speak out. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.”

It is often the duty of Christian leaders, especially elders, to speak the truth in love to our churches and to name and warn against temptations, racial and cultural captivities, false doctrines, and political idolatries—and even our complicity in them. We do so here with humility, prayer, and a deep dependency on the grace and Holy Spirit of God.

This letter comes from a retreat on Ash Wednesday, 2018. In this season of Lent, we feel deep lamentations for the state of our nation, and our own hearts are filled with confession for the sins we feel called to address. The true meaning of the word repentance is to turn around. It is time to lament, confess, repent, and turn. In times of crisis, the church has historically learned to return to Jesus Christ.

Jesus is Lord. That is our foundational confession. It was central for the early church and needs to again become central to us. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar was not—nor any other political ruler since. If Jesus is Lord, no other authority is absolute. Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of God he announced, is the Christian’s first loyalty, above all others. We pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Our faith is personal but never private, meant not only for heaven but for this earth.

The question we face is this: Who is Jesus Christ for us today? What does our loyalty to Christ, as disciples, require at this moment in our history? We believe it is time to renew our theology of public discipleship and witness. Applying what “Jesus is Lord” means today is the message we commend as elders to our churches.

What we believe leads us to what we must reject. Our “Yes” is the foundation for our “No.” What we confess as our faith leads to what we confront. Therefore, we offer the following six affirmations of what we believe, and the resulting rejections of practices and policies by political leaders which dangerously corrode the soul of the nation and deeply threaten the public integrity of our faith. We pray that we, as followers of Jesus, will find the depth of faith to match the danger of our political crisis.

You can read the full Reclaiming Jesus Declaration by clicking here. I invite you to come and take part in a series of conversations about the Declaration and what we might be called to do in our own community to Reclaim Jesus. Here is the schedule for those conversations:

·       Wednesday, May 23, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
Civil Discourse, Followers of Jesus & A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis

·       Friday, June 8, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
Potluck Supper, Made in God’s Image and Likeness, We Are One Body

·       Tuesday, June 19, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
To Protect and Seek Justice & Truth is Morally Central to Our Personal & Public Lives

·       Sunday, June 24, 10:30 – 12 noon
Potluck Brunch, Christ’s Way of Leadership is Servanthood / Go into All Nations Making Disciples

·       Tuesday, June 26, 7:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Change the World through the Life & Love of Jesus Christ

My friends, we cannot gaze up to the heavens any longer.  We must get on with the work Jesus has called us to – the work of speaking Truth to Power, the work of witnessing to a broken world, the work of the Gospel.  It is Friday night at 9:02 p.m. when I wrote this sentence.  The sermon is ended but our work goes on. Let us not procrastinate any longer.

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[1] Matthew 28:19; John 17:17-18.