"What Is Our Vision?"

What does it mean to be a faithful people of God? Disciples of Christ? What is the vision that shapes and guides us? (Biblically, historically, and presently.) What is the mission that draws us to commitment?

These are strategic questions, and our answers to them can be as diverse as there are different denominations, expressions of faith, and even among friends and neighbors seated here on the pews. There is certainly a lot of discussion today in our denomination about the vision, mission, and ministry of God’s people.

On the other hand there are certain universal core values God has set forth for people of faith, and for the essential ministry to fulfill such a vision. From the very early Biblical stories when God calls Abraham and Sarah, and promised that their descendents would be a blessing to the nations, God didn’t call just two persons, but God created a people – a people with a mission, a mission of blessing and mediating God’s presence to the world. How do we bring God’s presence to the world?

Given the nature of human life, with our sinfulness and pride, even those whom God has called have often strayed from the mission God has given. It seems that we need to be reminded over and over again about the purpose God intends for us to have with God, with one another, and about the mission to the world that flows from this relationship. The Bible has one prophetic voice after another calling people of faith to the covenant with God.

When Jesus shows up at his home synagogue his ministry was just beginning. He has just emerged from the wilderness temptations where he has come to terms with his identity and mission. Probably, there were few who even had heard of him or knew what he would be called to do. It was time to tell them, time to set forth clearly the vision he had from God and to fulfill their destiny as people of God. He was given the scroll of the great prophet, Isaiah, to read. Imagine being there.

What would he pick?

What words would he choose to define the mission that God had given to him?

Would he choose the passage describing Isaiah’s call and God’s unimaginable holiness? “The seraphim singing holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts….”

Would he pick a passage of judgment and rebuke… “Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who carry out a plan, but not mine.…”

Would he favor words of comfort and assurance? (Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and they who have no money, come, buy, and eat.”

What passage would Jesus choose to teach the people what God wanted most?

Everyone was eager to hear. Even the learned rabbis were waiting to see what this uneducated son of a carpenter would do.

The passage he picked is simple in text but breathtaking in its scope.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… that I might do specific things – bring good news to the poor, announce release to the captive, sight to the blind, and set those who are oppressed free. I am to tell everyone that God’s favor is upon him or her; God’s love is with them. The fulfillment of all these things is to take place in me, and it is to begin today.”

There must have been stunning silence. They must have realized that people of God from creation have not lived as God created them to live (think of Adam and Eve) and time and again the people have abandoned the mission of making God’s vision reality, bringing God’s love to life. Jesus reads the people clearly. And, their amazement quickly turns to anger for they feel judged and rejected; and they are set to throw him over a cliff immediately. Reform never comes easily. Neither did the Reformation. It wasn’t easy for those who took a stand against the Roman church in Europe nor for the church authorities.

The Reformation was fueled by a stewardship drive gone awry. The Roman church was selling “indulgences” and it particularly hurt the poor. It also followed on the heels of the invention of the printing press which enabled the scriptures to be available to all the people, not just the priests. Beginning in Germany, spreading to Switzerland and major cities of Western Europe it wasn’t long before it reached Great Britain.

John Knox was its driving force in Scotland where our Presbyterian roots are in the soil. His role and responsibilities form a dramatic part of the Protestant Reformation, and the spread of the Reformation in Scotland. Knox stepped up and took the lead in reforming the Church in Scotland along Calvinist lines.

And he was a character, to be certain. He wouldn’t make it in the 21st century. He was a total sexist, denouncing women in incredibly dishonoring ways. Knox was known for his fiery temper and outrageous remarks, even bringing Mary, Queen of Scots to tears. His first wife died from a long illness leaving him with two young boys, and later, at 51 years of age Knox married a 17 year old teenage girl. Together, they had three children, and she loved and cared for him until his death many years later. He is dramatic example of how God can use a person full of all sorts of personality quirks to be an instrument of grace.

Knox was born about the same year as the printing press was invented – around 1514 a few miles outside of Edinburgh. He went off to university at Glasgow but also studied at St. Andrews, and was there when the reformation theology was starting to play a critical role in the university.

He became a Catholic priest at about 26 years of age, but about three years later denounced the Catholic tradition and publicly professed the Protestant faith. Now, his life got really interesting. He became the body guard of a close friend, George Wishart, who was a real thorn in the side of the Catholic Cardinal responsible for the Church of Scotland. The story is that Wishart threatened the Cardinal’s life; and five hours after Knox left his side to tend to some personal concerns, was arrested, tried, and convicted, and three months later burned at the stake on the sidewalk in St. Andrews. I’ve stood at that sidewalk stone marked today with a simple memorial, and shuddered at the thought that someone was burned to death there. If you think the Sunnis and Shiites are bad today the Protestants and Catholics of the 16th century got so entwined in fighting each other that they lost the vision of mission and ministry

Yet, out of that time of great turbulence in the life of God’s people the church emerged in a new way calling people to faith once again… to a vision of personal and corporate commitment to discipleship in Christ.

From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he announced the vision, and encouraged persons who follow him to engage in the necessary work to accomplish it.

to bring good news to the poor.

to tell them of God’s favor and love for every human being and make that love tangible.

to labor for justice and equity for all people. And typically, we are inclined to say, “What can I do?”

We are to destroy all the things that imprison and enslave God’s children – all the things that hold us captive to suffering and sin.

We are to open the eyes of all people to the presence of God in their lives and to the person of Christ in their neighbor.

We are to set people free from the oppression of poverty, disease, hatred, prejudice, war, and the delusion that material possessions are the measure of one’s worth. We are, quite simply, to live in such a manner that the unconditional love of God is a reality to the world, not a dream.

At a time when the world, our nation, and churches seem so divided and polarized we must constantly be in the mindset of the reformers. As one scholar has observed, “We are reformed and reforming.” We need to be reminded that the vision which Jesus spelled out so clearly that day in the synagogue is his vision for our mission and ministry. We are the living, pulsating presence of Christ in the world.

Shortly after this synagogue scene Jesus begins his ministry of healing and transforming lives. Thomas Troeger captures the exquisite sensitivity of Christ to suffering, and calls us to commitment in his poem, The Leper’s Soul Was No Less Scarred.

The Leper’s Soul Was No Less Scarred

The leper’s soul was no less scarred
than were his face and skin.
the curse, “Unclean, unclean!” had marred
God’s image deep within.

No hands had grasped his hands for years,
no lips had kissed his own,
no greeting came his way but jeers
and looks of ice and stone.

Then Jesus stroked the leper’s cheek
and swept the sores away
but charged the man he should not speak
of what took place that day.

There was, of course, no way to hold
the news of what Christ did.
the man made sure the tale was told
instead of hushed and hid.

And we who feel Christ’s healing hand
can’t help but do the same.
the way we speak and walk and stand
will spell our savior’s name.

We are reminded now, in this brief ceremony of the Kirk ‘n’ of the Tartan, that we are a people with a rich history rooted in Scottish soil and western European traditions. The ministry and mission we share has long, long tentacles reaching back through the centuries even beyond the 16th century to Biblical days when Jesus, himself set out the vision. Thanks be to God.