For the Nations
Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany A
January 5, 2013
Epiphany A
January 5, 2013
Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA
Here’s a question
for you: For whom does Decorah First United Methodist Church exist? We don’t ask purpose questions very
often. We mostly specialize in what and
how questions. What curriculum will we
use in this year’s Vacation Bible School?
How will we make progress in paying our apportioned share of our
connectional ministries? And when we ask
a purpose question it usually comes out as, “Why does Decorah First United
Methodist Church exist?” But the
question I’m asking is a little different: For whom does our
congregation exist?
It’s important to
ask that question because, if we do not, we will tend to default to our
culture’s answer, to the answer of the Empire: every group and organization
exists to maximize its own good. Corporations
exist to make a profit. Organizations
exist to maintain and expand themselves.
Empire exists to extend itself. And
the assumption is that this ethic applies to people, too. People exist to benefit themselves. They seek their own good. They pursue it, as the economists claim, as
rational actors.
For whom, then, does
First United Methodist Church exist? It
exists for itself, to maintain and even expand itself. In church talk a growing church is by
definition a vital church and “vital” is the highest compliment anyone can pay
a church. The help wanted ads in The
Christian Century magazine always contain phrases like “vital congregation
seeks dynamic pastor.” Dynamic is the
highest compliment in church talk for a pastor, just as vital is for a
congregation. It’s natural that the two
belong together.
Churches, we assume,
are supposed to grow. We never ask what
seems to me to be the obvious question: Until when? Is there a time when a church is allowed to
stop growing? And when would that
be? No one ever talks about the end
game. And it seems to me that we
should. What is our goal? Can we stop when everyone in Decorah belongs
to a church? Or do we have to go until
First United Methodist Church is the only church in Decorah? Can we stop then or do we have to swallow up
everyone in Winneshiek County?
Here I point out
that a pretty good working definition of cancer is when something insists on
growing with no upper limit and without regard to what happens to anything outside
itself. Unlimited growth is the ethic of
empire whether the thing that is growing is a clump of cancer cells in the
human body, a nation that insists on controlling the world, or a congregation
that thinks it has a mandate to convert everyone. This ethic so saturates our culture that we
will fall into it by default. The
question, “For whom does First United Methodist Church exist?” can help us to
avoid defaulting to the ethic of empire.
As it happens we are
not the first to struggle with this question.
In ancient Israel at the time Isaiah 60 was being written, the question
took this form: What does it mean to be
the covenant people of God? Why has God
chosen Judah and to what end? The Jewish
people had been forced to deal with these questions because they had
experienced empire at its worst in the form of the Babylonians who had
destroyed Jerusalem and carted its people off to exile in Babylon. It was from there, from that position of
being strangers in a strange land that exiled Judah had to come to grips with
who they were and what their purpose was.
They came up with
two answers. Those two answers run like
threads through the fabric of the Hebrew Bible.
Both answers agreed that the people of God exist for the glory of
God. The covenant people point to the
covenant God. Their character is a
demonstration in the real world of God’s character.
But beyond that, the
two answers differed. The first held
that the particularity of God’s people, their special character, their “set-aside-ness,”
their holiness, was more or less an end in itself. This answer focused on the need for a
distinct identity for the Jewish people.
This identity was to be maintained by several practices. Within the scope of this answer, Jews were
the people who worshipped only their God, who did not inter-marry with other
people, who observed a weekly Sabbath, and who kept a purity code. Because God’s people kept their special
character, God would watch over them and ensure their success in this world and
their respect among the nations. This
answer is most clearly found in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Leviticus.
The authors and
groups behind books like Ruth and Isaiah disagreed with this answer. They believed that, while it was important
for Judah to keep its special character, this was not an end in itself. Judah’s special character and its purpose were
for the sake of the nations. Through
Judah’s unique experience of covenant life with God, yes, even through the
misery of the exile, it had come to know the God of peace and justice. It had come to know the things that were
needed to live a life that was truly human.
These were gifts that it could not keep to itself. They belonged to anyone who wanted them. In another part of Isaiah, it was put this
way: Judah is given as “a light to the nations.”[1]
These two answers,
in spite of their agreements, are vastly different and had huge implications
for the future development of Judaism. Was
the basic orientation of the covenant community to be turned inward or
outward? Had the covenant community been
rescued from the world? Or had the
covenant community been sent in mission into the world? Was it to live in isolation? Or was it to risk itself in engagement? Was Jewish thought to become a
monologue? Or was Jewish thought to
plunge itself into conversation with its neighbors?
These questions were
at the heart of Jewish debate in Jesus’ day and in the decades that
followed. If we now turn to the story in
Matthew, written as it was while this debate was taking place and, indeed,
participating in it, we can see that Matthew comes down hard on the side of
outward orientation, missionary presence, and risk-taking engagement with the
world. Who are the very first people who
come looking for Jesus? They are not the
Jewish scholars, not Herod’s intelligence community. Jerusalem—today we would say Washington or
Des Moines—has no clue.
No, the very first
people who come looking for Jesus are strange figures from the east: magi,
whoever or whatever they were. The
section of a mosaic from Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna on the bulletin
cover shows the magi (whom it numbers as
three) wearing Phrygian caps. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magi_%281%29.jpg) In the late sixth century when the mosaic was
made, that style of cap was an emblem that signaled the foreign, strange and
exotic. The magi are “the nations,”
foreigners, “Others.” They have seen the
signs of Jesus’ birth, not hidden in the Jewish scriptures but broadcast across
the heavens. They have come to honor him
by kneeling before him, the way that kings were honored
in the ancient Middle East. They get
it. Though we never hear from these
mysterious characters again, we get it.
This light is for the nations. This
good news belongs to the world.
So let me ask my
first question again. For whom does
First United Methodist Church exist? Are
we “innies” or “outies?” Is the basic orientation of our community to be turned
inward or outward? Have we been rescued
from the world? Or have we been sent in
mission into the world? Are we to live
in isolation? Or are we to risk
ourselves in engagement? If we follow
the line that Matthew took, if we are to be faithful to our roots, the answer
is clear: we come down hard on the side
of outward orientation, missionary presence, and risk-taking engagement with
the world.
First United
Methodist Church does not exist for itself or even for its members. It exists—and our life of discipleship
exists—for the sake of the world, and especially that part of the world to
which we have been sent. The real
measure of our discipleship and—if I am allowed to use that tainted word—our vitality
is what happens after we hit the doors, between now and next Sunday at 9:00
a.m.
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