3.25.07 What Business Are We In
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
March 25, 2007 “What Business Are We In?” Malachi 3: 1-3
Text: “The Lord, whom you seek shall suddenly come to his Temple. Who may abide the day of his coming? For he is like a refiners fire!” Jesus said: “Do you not understand that I must be about my father’s business? My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a robbers cave.”
Some critics of the historical Jesus have difficulty with the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. They see him teaching pacifism and non-violence and then making a whip of small cords and driving out the moneychangers in the temple. They see this display of anger as inconsistent and even a mark of the fact that Jesus was not so wonderful after all. He was just like the rest of us. He lost his temper too.
Scripture however teaches that sometimes it is all right to get angry in the verse “Be angry and sin not.” There is a kind of anger, which is justified, and it is righteous anger. When we see an injustice, we can be right to be angry about it. However, in this anger we are not to sin. Anything that is unloving is sin. So, in this instance of anger what is the cause and where is the love?
The story of the cleansing of the Temple is recorded four times in the New Testament. But it is necessary to read the first account delivered in historical time, which is found in St. Mark if we are to understand why Jesus got angry. For only in St. Mark is the phrase recorded correctly as Jesus said it. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” All the other accounts stop at “ My house shall be called a house of prayer.” But this second phrase gives the clue as to what Jesus was angry about.
In the times of Jesus sellers of wine and sacrificial animals had set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles. The moneychangers for the Temple had also set up shop there. Why had they set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles? Because it was vacant space. Solomon set up the Court of the Gentiles for the strangers to Israel who wished to pray to God. As a gentile, you could go into that space, pray to the God of the Temple, and ask for help. That was Solomon’s idea of creating a House of Prayer for all the nations. It would be like us dedicating the chapel of Westminster as an interfaith chapel and then discovering after awhile that it was not being used and deciding to sell stuff there. This is what had happened in Jesus day. The Jewish people were told by the prophets to be a light to the gentiles. The Jewish people had a mission to the world to witness the goodness of God who was the God of all the peoples of the earth. God was not tribal and exclusive to Judaism. God was the God of us all.
I think that what happened went something like this. The Temple authorities said: “Look, we need space here. The gentiles are not coming to the temple to pray so why don’t we use the Court of the Gentiles to sell sacrificial animals?” Therefore, the scene of pigeons, sacrificial animals and the exchange of coins in which the annual Temple tax had to be paid. It was a lucrative trade and eventually became a kind of rip-off. But they reasoned that God wouldn’t mind. After all it was for a good cause and as the gentiles were not using the court wasn’t it just good stewardship?
However, they had forgotten an ancient prophecy of the prophet Malachi; “The Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple…who may abide the day of his coming? For he is like a refiner’s fire!” When the Lord Jesus came to his Temple, he found that its purpose, which was to act as a House of Prayer for all the nations had been utterly lost. Instead, people were being ripped off in the name of God. The Temple had turned in upon itself. Worse, it had become a robber’s cave. It had completely forgotten its mission to the stranger and the gentile. The Temple had forgotten what business they were in, hence the righteous anger of Jesus. Where was the love in Jesus’ anger? It was for the strangers and the gentiles whom the God of the Temple loved.
Lyle Schaller is one of the foremost authorities on church growth. In his book, Growing Pains he dares to ask what business are we in. He writes that in every organization there is a natural tendency to turn a means to an end: (a building. a merger, the budget, the staff, an off street parking lot, remodeling the building, building on a parking lot, creating an endowment fund, purchasing a manse or remodeling it, re-leading stained glass windows, rebuilding a pipe organ etc. These become ends in themselves.) This subversion of the basic purpose he says is a natural form of institutional blight. We see this in Government, in business, in schools and in a huge variety of voluntary organizations. The longer an organization has been in existence the more vulnerable it becomes to this malady. The first step he says in combating this malady is to ask the question what business are we in?
According to Schaller; there are many types of churches that do not grow. He cites only three to make the point. The first church’s business is to reinforce friendship ties of many years and the care and maintenance of church property. “These two businesses rarely attract new members, ” says Schaller, so that church didn’t grow.
The second church he cites is one where a merger is contemplated with a sister congregation of the same denomination. For the next twenty years the item which will dominate the agenda is the merger itself, the difficulty of simply getting along and getting it all together. What is the result? These merger congregations have a spectacularly poor record of attracting new members.
The third kind of church is one that is chronically understaffed. The church goes up and down depending on how much the pastor visits. One pastor tries to do the work of three, to personally touch each member, fails, burns out and another pastor is hired. Again, this kind of church does not attract new members.
Church in the new millennium is further complicated by societal factors. Society is rapidly changing all the time. Sunday for many folks is shopping day or flop day because they are so incredibly overworked and busy during the week. The pace of life has quickened and the concept of Sabbath rest is almost lost. In many marriages with children both spouses work, this means little time to spend with each other and the church is low on the list of priorities for many people.
Reg Bibby, author of Fragmented Gods, argues that people today are involved in religious consumerism. They select parts of the faith like baptism, the wedding, the funeral, Easter and Christmas like articles from a supermarket shelf.
Fragment religion has a very important bearing on the question today of what business are we in? Does the church then provide fragments such as baptism, weddings and funerals and leave the rest of the development of the faith up to individuals? The church has historically given much up that it used to do. We were in education, law, medicine and social services. We used to build hospitals and universities. What business are we in today? If we are to answer that question we must ask another. What can the church provide that no other institution can provide as well as we can?
Schaller writes that back in 1904 Mary Parker Follet suggested to a small company manufacturing window shades that they were really in the light control business, not the window shade business. Thus was born the Venetian Blind industry. It was the same with the railroads when they realized that they were in the transportation business and began to carry truck trailers on flatbed rail cars. Today we are seeing a similar thing happen to oil companies who have recently decided that they are in the energy business and can go green.
I believe that the church business today can be similarly broadened. The mandate of the original mission is very wide. It is this, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our mind our soul and our strength and our neighbor as ourselves.
I put to you that there is a great spiritual hunger out in the world today. People are asking the question what is the meaning of life? Is there life after death? Are we alone in the universe or can we reach a force or reality that can change things for the better? Will I see my dead grandfather or mother or father again, that little baby that died in my arms, that son or daughter who died in a war? Why is the world so messed up and so violent now? Why, if God exists, does God not fix the world?
The church can only answer these questions if we come to a new understanding. We are in the MEANING BUSINESS. How do we get into the meaning business? We must go after the meaning of life in sermons, in Bible Study, in prayer, in healing services, in missions to the community, in feeding the poor, caring for the homeless and befriending the friendless. We can do what others cannot. The school system can teach about religion but it cannot teach the heart the meaning of faith nor should it be in that business. We have an immense resource in the meaning business. We have been in it for two thousand years. We can say what we think life is all about. We don’t have to be silently politically correct when it comes to religion. We can celebrate Christmas in its entire splendor. We can get excited about Easter as the dawn of meaning in the world. We can celebrate life over death, resurrection and new life. We can talk about healing, practice it and experience it. When people come to Westminster they can find here, if we are in the meaning business, hope for this life and for life beyond the grave. We are in the business of healing human hurts and providing hope in the very face of despair. How exciting a business is that?
You remember that the great command behind our business is to love God and neighbor as the self. Many folks forget to love themselves and find that most difficult. The church can help in that area of ministry. If we find out why people take drugs and drink too much alcohol it usually boils down to lack of self-esteem, what better place to learn self-esteem than the church of Jesus Christ? Where are our seminars on self-esteem? Where is our speaker’s series on self-esteem? Where is our library of self help books on self-esteem that are for sale after services? Robert Schuler has a simple mission statement it is one word. What business are they in? Encouragement. That word drives the Crystal Cathedral and they are very successful as a growing church ministry. Why? They give meaning to people’s lives. They provide encouragement big time.
Another business that the church is in is successful relationships. The church that is in the relationship business cares enough to provide opportunities for friendships to develop, between people of all ages; doing things together always develops friendship. It is an active love. Thus projects, organizing things, concert planning and performing, seminar planning, providing special lunches and food for all occasions, meeting in discussion groups, going on special trips together, having dinners in our homes or out together in restaurants, caring for the sick by visiting in the hospital or visiting in the jails, taking meals on wheels. Church can mean coming together in relationships. Are we aware that our young people today put relationships very high on their values list along with their kind of music? We are in the relationships business. Do we recognize that?
As we all are aware there is another crying need that the church can give to society today and that is leadership with global warming as a moral issue. There are two facets to this issue. We need to get away from fossil fuels reducing our individual outputs by 70%. But because global warming is accelerating and cannot be stopped any time soon, we will have to get into the business of preparing early for what is going to happen to us and our children. It is smarter and less expensive to repair levees before a hurricane, like Katrina, than fix everything up after such a disaster. This principle all wise Christians know from Jesus who taught us in many passages of scripture, to be prepared. Where we work, we can lead both to reduce carbon and to prepare for what is inevitable. We can come to our church for inspiration, determination and find meaning and hope here with like-minded stewards of the earth. Last week I was preaching about moving from tenant status to steward status. This can be the heart of the meaning business, in everything we do. It is to reclaim the ‘Imago Dei’ present in us all. I believe that the days will soon come when people are in church because their hearts are failing them for fear about what is happening to the earth. Just as in time of world war or national catastrophe, the church is the ‘natural place to be’ and we, if we hold to our business, will fill the church rolls again here in Westminster and make a difference!
You see I think that it is all very simple really. Once we understand what business we are really in, there will be no need to die as churches. The business will dictate new priorities and the change will come naturally.
Lent is a time for reflection and contemplation. It is a good time to ask the question ‘what business are we in?’ When the Titanic was rediscovered on the ocean floor, many Titanic stories came back into the news. Here is one that directly applies to our question; what business are we in?
If we were on the Titanic about to get into a lifeboat what would we have considered as worth saving? What business would we be in?
One woman who had been given a place in a lifeboat asked if she might run back to her stateroom. She was given three minutes. She hurried along the corridors, which were already tilting at a precipitous angle. She crossed the salon. Money and gems littered the floor. In her own room, she saw her own treasures waiting to be picked up. She ran past them and snatched at three oranges, which she took back to the lifeboat!
Now one hour before that same woman would have behaved very differently. An hour before it would have seemed incredible to her that three oranges were worth more than all her diamonds. However, that iceberg changed everything. Funny isn’t it that the challenge in our day to the world ship is that the icebergs are melting? That will change a whole lot of values. In the church, day in and day out, we must search out our three oranges, for we too are in the lifeboat business.
When we fully discover in Westminster how to be in the lifeboat business we will be able to pick up many survivors who would otherwise be lost without the meaning they need for their lives. What an exciting business to be in. Lets get it on!