Lectionary Readings (note, we are using a trial version of the lectionary in Eastertide that has an alternate first reading and Psalm)
In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.
A couple of decades ago if you would have asked someone in the record label industry what their business was all about, they probably would have said something like: “Well, we try to find talented musicians, then we record their music, and sell albums to you.” They misunderstood their business, which is why MP3s and eventually streaming became such a threat. In actuality, their business wasn’t selling vinyl, cassettes, and CDs, it was selling access to the music people wanted to listen to. But they struggled to figure out how to monetize a non-physical product.
The same thing happened for Kodak – they saw their business as manufacturing and selling film. When photography went digital, Kodak floundered because their real business was story-telling and memory making, but they weren’t prepared to sell that. Ditto for Blockbuster – they weren’t in the video rental business, they were in the at-home entertainment business; but by the time they realized it, it was too late.
This is known as “Marketing Myopia.” It’s when a company focuses more on the product than the purpose. It’s easy to overfocus on what we do while neglecting the reason behind the doing, and why people are interested in what we’re doing. Police might think they’re in the crime-fighting business, but their real job is to make people feel safe. Coffee shops aren’t about lattes, but creating a space to gather and work.
You might guess what this is about: What is our business at Grace & Saint Stephen’s? What are we for and about? And what things, while still important, are distractions from our true mission?
Historically, the Church has suffered from both mission creep, in which we do more than we really were called to do, and from marketing myopia, in which we’ve put too much energy into the wrong thing.
Our business is not morality – the purpose of the Church is not to tell you what to do, or what not to do. Now, to be clear, this doesn’t mean that morality isn’t in our purview or that it’s none of our business. No, not at all. It’s just that morality isn’t our primary business. But there are a lot of churches, perhaps you’ve attended one, that suffers from that sort of marketing myopia and offers sermons that are about “laying down the law.” Not only is modern world rejecting the product of behavior-modification, but it’s not founded on the Gospel.
Nor is our business about building community. Again, I’m not saying community isn’t important. Becoming the beloved community of God is integral to who we are. But that’s a by-product of our mission, not the main product. Because, truth be told, the Avalanche have better merch than we do; people enjoy hanging out at Reg Leg more than they do here; and running clubs are better at building relationships through shared experiences. If we make this our primary mission, we’re stuck always needing to innovate and convince people why they should spend more time, and money, here.
Others might be tempted to say that our main thing is service to the weary and needy And, yes, that’s very important. But the Red Cross, Springs Rescue Mission, and Habitat for Humanity are all doing far more than all of the downtown churches combined. So, if that’s our main thing, we’d do better to just merge with them.
If you’ve ever been to a newer non-denominational church, you know that their product is the Sunday morning experience – emotionally-evocative music, immersive worship experiences, bespoke coffee bars, and seats that are much more comfortable than our pews. Sometimes, churches like ours are tempted to look at them and say, “We need to be more like that.” And maybe we can learn something – but the Sunday morning experience isn’t our business; we aren’t in the hospitality industry.
What’s left? Giving people meaning? Sure, we can do that, but so can politics, art, career, and family. Yes, we certainly contribute to giving people a sense of purpose, but faith isn’t synonymous with “self-improvement” or “self-actualization.” How about worship? Don’t we connect people to the Divine? Yes, we do. But, as we all know, God is not confined or limited to the Church. Like community, worship flows from the main thing, but it is not the main thing. We exist for a purpose larger than an hour on Sundays.
Now that I’ve taken pretty much everything off the table in terms of what our business is, we can focus on the one thing that we must be about, the one thing that ungirds and supports all those other important activities, the thing that is our mission. And it’s something that the readings this morning are all pointing us towards: wisdom.
We heard in Proverbs, “I have taught you in the way of wisdom…Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.” Psalm 119 proclaims, “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not stray from your commandments.” The word there for “commandment” is not about ordinances or rule-following, it’s about precepts – the underlying logic or wisdom of God.
Wisdom is what 1 Peter discusses when comparing the wisdom of God to the wisdom of the world in the metaphor of the chosen cornerstone of Jesus, who the world rejects in its misguided and myopic perspective. And in John, we heard one of Jesus’ greatest hits: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” With “truth” and “life” being descriptors of “way,” which can be understand as wisdom.
Wisdom is our business. Wisdom is not knowledge – there are a lot of very smart people who are not very wise; a lot of wise people without diplomas. Wisdom isn’t just about knowing what, but also how, why, and when. Earlier in Proverbs, we read that wisdom in grounded in awe and reverence of God. Most plainly, we might say that wisdom is knowing and trusting the Good News that God is God, and that we are not. Everything else flows from that truth.
When we think of wise people, they are those who do all those other things – they are peaceful, humble, generous, community-oriented, worshipful – because they are grounded in the wisdom that comes from having God at the center of all things. And those who are not wise, who we might call foolish; well, they are those who put themselves, or money, fame, or pleasure at the center of all things.
I talk about relief a lot, because it’s what so much of our world is searching and desperate for. We want relief from anxiety, political division, emptiness. God’s wisdom is the relief that we’re after, and it’s what we’re all about as the Church. God’s wisdom is the alternative to the pettiness, smallness, fearfulness, and meanness of the world. Wisdom trusts our belonging and belovedness are secure in God and can never be taken away or lost. Wisdom knows that the greatest of all things is love. Wisdom is our connection to the peace that passes all understanding. Wisdom trusts that the weakness of the Cross is stronger than whatever might we can muster.
I know it sounds too good to be true, and, in a sense, that’s a working definition of the Gospel – truths that are too good to be true apart from Jesus. So how do we become wise? Well, paradoxically, we do all those things that I said aren’t our primary business, realizing they are not ends unto themselves, but opportunities to encounter and be encountered by the living God. By participating in what God is up to, we learn the way of wisdom, the way that stands in relief to the foolish ways of the world. So as we serve others, work for justice, gather across difference in community, orient ourselves to God in worship, we do so to walk the way of Jesus, which is what it means to be wise.
On this Youth Sunday, a day in which we celebrate the gift that our young people are to us, we pray that God would help us to learn from them what it means to belong to the Kingdom, for Jesus says that it belongs to them. And we seek the courage and grace to model for them what it means to be wise, to be a people who have God at the center of all things. Amen.
