How Much Is Enough?

When I started in ministry, twenty or so years ago, churches were studying Rev. Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church to redesign their ministry strategy. The basic premise is that church programming should be targeted to meet the spiritual needs of your audience. So, there should be some low-commitment, low-requirement events that are offered to the community, if we were to look at our church programming, Trunk or Treat would be one of those events. Then, the circle gets smaller as programming is offered for the crowd, those who come on special occasions, and then for the congregation, those who are members, and then for committed disciples, those who participate, and finally for the core of your church, those who serve. And this model of ministry was used in developing strategic plans and budgets, it was translated into the vernacular of different groups – baseball, climbing, canoeing, you were rounding third or leaving base camp or hitting the rapids. And there were graphics to show you what kinds of things disciples at each stage were involved in, so you could track yourself and your progress toward discipleship. Classes were developed and ranked like college courses: 101, 201, 301, 401. I heard people classifying themselves: I’m just in rowing, I’m not ready for the rapids. And I heard folks classifying other people as “not as far along the journey of becoming a disciple of Jesus” as they were as a way to discount the other person’s point of view. Most of this ministry strategy was aimed at church programming – is there something for everyone? Acknowledging the reality that not everyone is going to reach the summit, some will make it only to base camp.

At its core, the Purpose Driven Church model was not focused on the individual, on how a person develops as a disciple. And out of that environment, a new movement in church strategy arose: Worship + 3. Worship as a foundation for discipleship and then three G’s: Growing through small groups and Bible study, Giving of our time, talents, and resources to serve others, and Going into the world to invite others to know Jesus. It is a good model for discipleship. But like all models, it can only offer a place to start.

Discipleship is a relationship of master and student, shepherd and sheep, and no two relationships are alike. There is no formula for following Jesus, the sheep come to know the shepherd’s voice, trust the shepherd’s call, listen and follow. Every sheep has a few things that it needs: water, grass, a safe place to graze and sleep. Worship and growth, giving, and going into the world are a part of every disciple’s life.

But, it is all too neat. It is all too proscribed. It is all too establishment. Christendom has turned following Jesus into a chart with star stickers for attendance, a pin for completion, a certificate for participation – a checklist for discipleship does not exist.

Soren Kirkegaard, the Danish Christian theologian, said of Christianity in the early 1800’s that the church of his day was “playing Christianity.” “We are what is called a ‘Christian’ nation” he said of his native Denmark “—but in such a sense that not a single one of us is in the character of the Christianity of the New Testament.” “Most people believe that the Christian commandments (like to love one’s neighbor as oneself) are intentionally a little too severe, like putting the clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning.”

We don’t identify with the goats in Jesus’ story, going away into eternal punishment. We prefer to think of ourselves as sheep. We buy a few extra cans at the grocery or put that $2 card on the conveyor belt at the check-out. We donate our clothes when we are done with them. We sometimes have some spare change. Strangers? Surely the sociopolitical situation was different and he doesn’t mean modern refugee and immigration policies. Visiting the sick? Did he mean bringing casseroles to friends? He couldn’t have meant visiting elderly in one of those nursing homes that is too hot and smells like a combination of urine and hopelessness. And prisons are harder…maybe Jesus meant debtor’s prisons? Prisons are full of criminals…scary people. Again, surely this is a description of the elite disciple, the brightest and best, the prize sheep. Right?

Notice that Jesus says to both groups, you saw me. I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was a stranger, I was naked, I was sick, I was in prison. And notice that both groups ask “When? When did we see you?”

Rev. Dr. Tom Long points out that “the sheep had no idea whatsoever that, in their compassion toward people in need, they were providing ministry to the Son of Man, and, likewise, the goats had not a clue that, in their indifference, they were in fact neglecting the Lord of all nations.”
When did we see you?

The Presbyterian Church USA, of which Farmington is a part, has extended a challenge and an invitation to churches to commit to being Matthew 25 churches, actively studying and engaging the world around us to see Jesus and act boldly and compassionately to serve people who are hungry, oppressed, imprisoned or poor. Specifically, Matthew 25 churches are called to face and address the systems that perpetuate racism and poverty.

Why? Rev. Dianne Moffett, the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency says “We cannot fix what we will not face and we cannot correct what we will not confess.”

I have mentioned before that I have been actively working on my own implicit biases. Harvard University has online implicit bias tests at implicit.harvard.edu that you can take to understand what yours are. Several years ago now, a group of us studied Debby Irving’s Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race. I have been listening to Fuller Seminary’s podcast, Conversing, bringing the power of conversation to bear on the turbulence of our times. I am currently in a Zoom Book Club of PCUSA members and pastors reading and discussing Ibram Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist. I don’t pretend to understand how to dismantle structural racism or eradicate systemic poverty, and I find myself wondering at times, “Lord, how much is enough?”

Until you see. Until you see when you didn’t see me. Study your history of racism, chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, the Doctrine of Discovery, the myth of white supremacy, immigration practices, the origins of the wealth gap. Lord, how much is enough? Study until you see when your people saw me and did nothing.

Learn and listen, and then act.

“OK, when we act, Lord, how much is enough?” Is it enough to carry some McDonald’s gift cards and pass them out to the people we see in the medians? Is it enough to have some bottled water in my car to share? Is it enough to buy a coat for a child and some warm gloves and a hat and donate them each winter? Is it enough to send money to an orphanage in a developing country?

When we act how much is enough? Act until when you look, you can’t help but see Jesus.

Sheep are sheep. Goats are goats. It’s not about how much you do; it’s about who you are.

Act until you act because you know and follow the voice of the shepherd. When Jesus travelled, crowds gathered, people who were sick, people who were lame, people who were outcast. And Jesus had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. The path of discipleship leads us the same place.

How much is enough?

When we become so like the shepherd that we can’t look away from the needs of the sheep. When feeding the sheep, and leading them to water, and looking after them is just who we are. And we will ask, “When did we see you, Jesus?” And the answer will come, “As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” Amen.