We’ve been talking for the last two months about the spiritual issue of identity. The questions of “Who am I?” as a person. And “Who are we?” as a congregation.
Answering the individual identity question is an important part of putting together a coherent personal theology and developing a healthy spiritual life. And answering the corporate identity question, “who are we?” is an important developmental task of preparing as a congregation to search for and call your next settled minister.
From the spiritual issue of identity. I want to switch today, to the spiritual issue of purpose. From the question of “Who am I?” to the question of “What should I do?” That question, too, is one of the core spiritual issues. And “purpose” also matches well with the fourth of the five Developmental Tasks we are looking at this year: the developmental task of mission.
“What should I do?” is the spiritual question of purpose. Why am I here? Gifted with life, how do I pay back the gift in a way that fulfills my being and contributes perhaps to some larger goal of humanity, or of God?
Mission is closely related to identity, which is why it’s good to consider these two Developmental Task next to each other. Because, a good way to answer the question, “Who am I?” is to name what it is that you do. And a good way to at least to begin a conversation about what we should do is to answer by naming what it is you’re already doing. Maybe you’re doing what you should be doing. And in any case, what you’re doing is who you are.
What you do is who you are. Who you are, is, in large part what you do.
Doing is the expression of being.
As the old joke goes. One wise old philosopher says profoundly, “to be is to do.” And then another wise old philosopher reflects, “To do is to be.” To which, Frank Sinatra responds, “Do be do be do.”
It almost doesn’t make sense to talk about being, except in the context of doing.
If you agree, as we talked about back in January, that there is no permanent, personal “self”. That instead the “self” is created by a series of moments of experience that relate to the previous moment and set up the next one, but each begins and ends entirely in that moment’s experience. If you agree, as Process Thought tells us, that the basic components of existence are not material objects but occasions of experience, then being and doing are the same thing. What is, (beings) are experiences (doings) that move, act, and change through time.
So what you do is who you are. Who you are is how you’re living. Your “you-ness” is your doing-ness.
And a congregation’s identity, is their mission. Who you are, the character of this congregation, is best defined by examining what you do.
A house of friendships. A haven in trouble. An open room for the encouragement of our struggle. A house of freedom. A guardian of the dignity and worth of every person. A platform for the free voice, A house of truth-seeking. A house of art. A house of prophecy. A cradle for our dreams. The workshop of our common endeavor.
When we come to the Developmental Task of talking about the mission of this church, a good place to begin the discussion is not with abstract notions of what we want to be doing, or what we think we should be doing, or ought to be doing as a congregation, but simply, what are we doing?
We can certainly change our minds, or change our hearts. We can certainly do something else if we want to. If, what we are doing, after we examine it, we judge to be inappropriate, or insufficient, or misguided in some ways, we can always determine to do something different. But all of that would be the output of some mission-setting process. Whereas the initial input to the mission-setting process could be the much simpler question, “Well what are you doing?” What are you already doing? What mission has revealed itself in this church as a reflection of our true desires and capabilities? Because, what we’ve come to be doing naturally, with maybe not a lot of thoughtful process, is already, probably, a pretty good expression of who we actually are.
Again, you can change if you want. Part of church life is afflicting the comfortable, right? Part of church life is inspiration and encouragement to be something more or better than you are. Part of church life is growth and improvement. So setting an aspirational mission is entirely appropriate.
But to begin the process, let’s look at the mission we’re already living.
All of this discussion comes at a time in our church year, when, in the Christian liturgical calendar, we are about to enter the season of Lent.
Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday, March 6. On that day the season of Lent begins and lasts for 40 days (not counting Sundays). The 40th day will be Saturday, April 20. The next day, Sunday, April 21 is Easter.
Lent is a season focused on this work of examining who we are (identity) to the purpose of asking, “What should I do?”
The season of Epiphany, just after the first of the year, is the time to begin working on the spiritual issue of identity. Now the conversation turns to acknowledging who we are, honestly, humbly, toward the end of saying, “OK. Being the kind of being that I am, and that all humans are, what should we do?” Knowing this about our lives, how should we be living? Given this truth, what would be the best occupation for my days?
Now in Christianity, the answer is foreknown. Lent isn’t really an exploration of your character but a confronting of what Christianity already holds to be true about humanity but the individual Christian may be unwilling to admit. Lent is narrowly about acknowledging our mortality. Ashes on the forehead. Death is coming. Life is short. The question of “What should I do?” In the Christian context is amended to, “What should I do in the face of death?” And the answer, unsurprisingly, is: “be a Christian, believe in Jesus, go to Mass.”
For a non-Christian, but as a person who lives a religious life (as you do), and connects with the spiritual questions (as all people do), I appreciate the questions of Lent. And I find it useful, every year, to come back at Lent, to those same questions, and to ask them of myself again.
Who am I? Who am I really, honestly, and humbly? What am I doing with my life? And is that what I should be doing?
Another one of my favorite philosophical/theological jokes is this:
A man asks his rabbi, “Rabbi, should I buy a Cadillac?”
The Rabbi answers. “I can’t answer that question for you. I’m a Rabbi. I can only answer moral questions.”
So the man thinks for a minute and then he asks, “Rabbi. Is it right for me to buy a Cadillac?”
That’s the question of whether what we are doing, is what we should be doing.
Is it right, to live this kind of life? Is it right to do what we’re doing as a congregation? Is it right in a moral way, like right and wrong. Or is it right in a more subtle way, such as, is this the mission that we should be doing, or are we doing someone else’s work? What’s our purpose? Should we do something else? Do we want to do something else? And then, of course, can we do something else?
You may have guessed by now that I’m not going to answer any of these questions for you.
I know. I know. I’m like the Rabbi. You’re going to have to decide for yourself whether you should buy the Cadillac.
Partly, I’m side-stepping the question because I’m your Interim minister, not your settled minister. I’m here to get you ready to hand-off to someone yet to come. That’s the person you need to work with, not me. And so it wouldn’t be right for me to put too much of my preferences about the work of churches into your mission-thinking, and then leave you to do the work with someone else, who may have very different ideas. The mission of this church is your work, and your decision, not mine.
And I’m also side-stepping the question, for today at least, because mission-thinking deserves more of a process than can be accomplished in a single sermon. It wouldn’t be appropriate to start the thinking at quarter to the hour and finish at five after. For now, today, it’s enough to raise the questions and leave them hanging.
“What should we do?” What are churches for? What should this church, do? For whom? Where? And to what end?
The Lenten question in the Christian context comes with a built-in answer. Be a Christian. Believe in Jesus. Go to Mass. And the Lenten season moves toward a goal where all of those answers come together. Easter.
So Lent is framed as a journey. And a mission is also a journey. A mission is what you do, on the way toward a goal. Often an organization’s goal is formulated as a Vision statement.
We walk. From Ash Wednesday through a challenging and difficult spiritual landscape. Toward a destination. A path. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: spend 40 days in honest self-examination, so that you arrive at Easter purified, humbled, and ready to accept the sacrifice and gift that the resurrected Christ offers you.
That’s not the goal I walk toward. But symbolically, spiritually, I appreciate Easter Sunday, as this vision of the new life I could claim if I want it. There is a chance, coming on April 21 this year, to be someone different, to do something different, if I feel I need it. If I can be clear, here, before Lent begins, of where I want to end up, then I can give myself the task, and the timeline, over the next 7 weeks, to do the work of getting there.
If who I am isn’t the me that I think I should be. If I’m not doing what I think I should be doing. If I have a vision of a different identity, or a truer identity, fulfilling a different purpose, or my “true purpose” then I could place that vision of that possible new life out there in April. And then, over the next seven weeks, I could start to walk toward it. I could walk deliberately. I could walk with intention. I could keep my eye on the prize. I could let go of those things in my life that don’t match the vision of the person I want to be. And over seven weeks I could find places along the way to pick up those things that do belong to that vision of that person.
Oftentimes people think of Lent as depressing. Who wants to spend 40 days thinking about death and mortality and how hopeless we are, and weak and sinful and so on? Well not me, for one.
It’s because Lent is such a downer that people spend the night before in a big blow-out party: Mardi Gras, or Carnivale. So have fun on Tuesday.
But there’s a flip side to that sense of Lent that I experience as affirming, and invigorating, not depressing.
Lent calls for an honest self-examination. And the truth is, I like myself pretty well. I’m not perfect. But I’m not a monster. I’m not a failure. I could use some improvement, no doubt. And I don’t mind spending some time looking at those things, naming them, putting together a plan to try to be better. But there are some other things I think I do pretty well. Parts of my life I’m pretty happy about. Choices I’ve made that I’m proud of.
So when I do an honest self-examination, I want to list the plusses in column A, along with the minuses in column B. And I can feel pretty good about that. When I compare the person I am today, this near side of Ash Wednesday, with that vision of myself I aspire to be that far side of Easter, I’m going to note those parts of my identity that already look like that vision, as well as those parts that need some adjustment.
When we work on a mission for the church and we start with what we are already doing and then compare today’s reality to the future we think we should be doing, or want to be doing, we should also celebrate the many positive features that we’re already doing well, today.
We’re pretty good, I think. You’re pretty good. We aren’t perfect. And there are some things we are never going to do well. Or even do at all. The needs of the world are great, and we are, few. But we do some things. And we do some things very well. And some of the things we do very well are also very good.