Sermons

“Finding Life Amidst the Hassle”

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; John 17:6-21 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – May 17, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that our souls might be restored, our life renewed, and your name glorified. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

As I mentioned to the children, this last Sunday before Pentecost is usually referred to as Ascension Sunday, celebrating Jesus’ big good-bye to the disciples, before being taken up into heaven. But for whatever reason, this year the lectionary has us focus not on Jesus ascending into the clouds, but on this brief moment of bureaucratic necessity that had to be taken care of before next week’s Big Day arrived. An unfortunate bit of business, what happened with Judas Iscariot, but the important thing is that now there’s a gap, an opening to be filled. It was vital, after all, for the powerful symbolism if nothing else, that there be twelve apostles, so that it would be entirely clear that they’re reflecting the twelve tribes of Israel. And so, despite the post-Easter emotional hangover and its rude interruption by Jesus’ final departure into the heavens, the remaining eleven had to get themselves into Personnel Committee mode for just a bit.

And it got me thinking, about church business – what we sometimes call the ministry of administration – and the time we give to it. These verses from Acts are brief, and it seems they took care of the problem efficiently, but isn’t it interesting that the writer of Acts considered this bit of administrative action important enough to include in his story? These paragraphs read almost like meeting minutes. The chair announced the issue at hand; options were discussed – and here the writer names names, of course; prayer was engaged in; the decision-making method was engaged, in this case, the casting of lots; and the results were reported, namely that Matthias was added to the eleven apostles, making them complete again.

The time that we give to church administration sometimes gets a bad rap. It is often assumed that our priorities should be on feeding the hungry or visiting the sick rather than writing board reports or sitting in meetings. But I want to take a moment this morning to defend the ministry of administration. At its best, good church administration is about making the rest of the church’s ministry more effective and sometimes even possible. It’s about respecting the time of all those involved in leadership, and making the systems open and transparent, so that newcomers will be able to easily get involved.

We have meetings because, despite potential appearances, they are in fact a more efficient way of getting things done than trying to make decisions through convoluted, multi-threaded email, phone, text and/or facebook conversations. We write things out in reports so that we can all be on the same page about what the questions are and how we decide to answer them. We do our best not to let our eyes glaze over when financial reports are presented because it’s important that those who support our ministry know that we are accountable, responsible and faithful with the funds we receive.

It’s not that this stuff is fun; but it’s necessary. It’s the stable structure that enables a ministry to grow, like a sturdy trellis supporting a grape vine. Could Peter have just assumed someone would step up and fill that twelfth spot? I suppose. But it could have easily been the wrong person. Could he have just appointed someone himself? Maybe, but how would the community have received that? Could the writer of Acts have left this bit out, instead focusing on the spiritual growth of the early church? Certainly, but the power of the symbolism of the twelve would have been diminished, and the example of inviting God’s presence into all of our everyday decisions would have been lost. The ministry of administration matters. It matters because doing the church’s “business” well contributes to the overall ministry of the church. And it matters because the church’s “business” isn’t business; it’s ministry and should be carried out as a faith practice, continually invoking God’s guidance and following gospel principles.

This is something I feel fairly strongly about, and I could go on and on, but I’m pretty sure that would bore most of you, so I’m not going to. What I do want to do, however, is talk about the flip side of the church’s role with relation to bureaucracy, because I’m increasingly convinced that we have a vital role to play that we must name and claim and embrace for the sake of one another’s humanity. In Jesus’ prayer that we read part of from John 17, he draws a pretty dramatic contrast between “the world” and his people. In general, I don’t hold with portraying “the world” as some sort of global den of iniquity, given that God created it and called it good. But there are days. The writer of John was clearly referring to specific portions of human life when he has Jesus using that phrase, “the world,” not the whole thing.

What’s amazing is that these were people who didn’t even have to deal with HMOs, or filing taxes, or recorded phone menus, or glitchy software updates! I’m sure there was bureaucracy in biblical times, but I’m quite sure it hadn’t evolved to the omnipresent, suffocating level it enjoys in our times. Our lives are caught up in multiple, faceless systems like never before. We have more “identity” numbers and secret passwords than we can keep track of. We talk to people on the phone – once we can get to an actual person – whose names are forgotten the moment they’re spoken, and they require us to answers questions to prove that we’re really ourselves. So much of our time is eaten up by “hurrying up and waiting.”

We have a record number of young people graduating this year – from high school, college and grad school. They worked hard to do that. But I’m guessing they also spent uncountable hours dealing with forms and requirements and authorizations, so their hard work would be suitably credentialed. Many of you are dealing with health issues. Pain and illness are bad enough, but then there’s the paperwork, and again, the requirements and the authorizations and the forms! And if you have the misfortune to be poor and need a helping hand, good luck getting through those systems! Last week, Nancy Chiquete from the La Mesa Methodist church and I were planning our recent training for our new Housing for Homeless Students ministry. We were talking about how our volunteers can be helpful when they follow up with families that have received assistance. Sometimes the best thing we can have, as we negotiate systems that seem intent on reducing us to the number, is a friend who reminds us that we’re not just a case number; we’re a beloved child of God! In our modern times, I believe this may be one of the church’s most vital missions: to help all of us hold onto our humanity in the face of the banality of the bureaucracies trying to “process” us. Having someone walk with us through not just the actual issues of our lives, but the accompanying paperwork, can make all the difference.

And here’s what I’ve noticed. You know how unpleasant it is to deal with your own insurance company, so you may assume it’s equally unappealing to help someone else deal with theirs. But there’s an important difference. When the paperwork is your own, it’s just a hassle. When you’re walking with someone else, it may still be a hassle; but it’s also service! It’s helping someone remember that they are a beloved child of God, not just a number, that the particulars of their situation are important, and the details of their lives do matter. Reminding someone else of that is not at all the same as having to insist on it for yourself. This is something we can do for one another.

It doesn’t always require actually being there with the adjuster or going to the registrar’s office. Sometimes just listening to the story of the hassle can be an important outlet for people. Sometimes just visiting and hearing the story of the incident that the bureaucracy wasn’t interested can help restore someone’s humanity. As church, we are not here to turn into gods, but to help one another remain human. For our humanity is precious; God made us who we are, each of us, all of us, and we are precious. In the face of complicated systems that don’t have time for our unique individuality, we as church are here to insist upon it.

Now I started this sermon defending bureaucracy, so let me be clear that sadly, I do believe most of our systems – staffed as they are with human beings who get tired of saying and doing the same things over and over – most of these systems represent us humans doing the best we can to manage the complexity of modern life. But on their own, they tend to wring the joy and zest out of life. They need us to complement them with continual affirmation of one another’s specialness. That is where the church comes in. We are here to break through the soul-crushing banality of authorization forms and triplicate forms and numbers that try to replace our identity, in order to, as the psalmist says, restore our souls.

We can even think of church bureaucracy this way, if we dare. When we commit our ministry to paper, we are making it more accessible to newcomers, to whom our structures may seem mysterious and hard to break into. When we explain what we might assume “everyone knows,” we are respecting the need for introduction for those who may have just arrived. When we announce something week after week before worship, we are including those who just got here. When we spend hours and months and years revising bylaws, it’s because we care enough to build a system that is functional and accessible to all. We may not make our decisions by casting lots any more, but my hope is that our church business is carried out with just as much seeking of God’s guidance as the early disciples had. We may feel that there are more important things for us to be doing, but then again, the likelihood that our situation is more dramatic than the disciples who just witnessed Jesus being carried up into the heavens, with the anticipation of Pentecost on its way is not very high. Surely, as they did, we can take the time to make sure we’ve covered the bases with faithfulness and integrity. Despite the oppressive presence of bureaucracy in so much of our lives, the truth is that at root much of this structure is what makes it possible for the rest of our lives to be as full and rich as they are. By giving care to the details, we free up the space for the flourishing of the Spirit in our midst! May we always keep God’s love and love for our neighbors at the center of all we do! Alleluia and Amen!