May 12, 2002
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Vital Congregation: Pay It Forward (Leader Development) Mother’s Day Prayer: Come now to this moment, O God and pour out a fresh and fragrant anointing on your people. We want to feel your presence in this place. Come now, and let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God our strength and our redeemer. Amen. The series on vital issues facing the church concludes today as we consider what it means for a congregation to develop leaders generation after generation. That is what is meant by that movie title, “Pay It Forward”. You may have seen the film in which people who have had a good deed done for them or to them are encouraged not to pay the good deed back, but instead, to pay it forward by helping someone else. It seems to me that Mother’s Day is a good time to talk about paying it forward and leadership. As I say that, I am mindful that there are people who have not had the kinds of nurturing relationships with their mothers and so the life lessons they have learned have been hard ones. I pray that if that is the case for you, you can develop a good and nurturing relationship with a strong maternal figure, who can teach you and help you develop the best of who you can be. But many of us have had passed forward to us some wise advise from our mothers. Today I am especially mindful of a poem about paying forward hope and encouragement by Langston Hughes, a poet of the Harlem Renaissance, whose centennial is being celebrated this year. In his poem, “Mother to Son”, which can easily be called, parent to child, or mentor to protégé, he shows us how life’s lessons are paid forward, especially to those we love. “Well, son, I’ll tell you,
life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. The poem reminds us again that our parents and guardians are our first teachers and the first to be invested in us as leaders. As it happens, I have made a list of some things my mother paid forward to me, each of which has something to do with my sense of leadership. She taught me how to spell my first name (a matter of identity), how to read (a matter of literacy and appreciation for words and imagery), how to fry fish and bake a pound cake (a matter of hospitality and pure pleasure), to make my bed every morning (a matter of comfort). She taught me to pay attention, not to yield to bullies, and not to become one, not to beg, and with all due respect to Langston Hughes, she taught me, not to say “ain’t”, not to answer WHAT! when an adult calls to me, and to come running when she called me by all three names, and to pray for people who treated me badly. Both my parents taught me and my sisters the importance of education, that it is one of those things that cannot under any circumstance be taken away from us, or anyone for that matter. They taught us basic manners, like how to say please and thank you, and to speak to people when we enter a room. They taught us how to drive (Dad in the empty junior high school parking lot, and mother on the city streets). And they taught us that some things are worth dressing up for; dinner in a nice restaurant is, a formal occasion is, a wedding is, a funeral is, and church on Sunday morning is, not to show off the clothes we had, but to show honor and respect to God. That meant being neat, clean and decently dressed with our clothes ironed, hair combed, and shoes shined. But much more than the clothes it was important that we be in church regularly. Mostly they taught us to love and honor God, to trust God, to love and serve the church of Jesus Christ, and to face the reality that death is hard on survivors, and it is also entry into eternal life with God. We learn leadership lessons in our families, whether families of blood relationships, or families of other intimate kinship. Those lessons really are faith lessons, paid forward to us to prepare us to make our way in the world and to develop us as leaders. That’s what Jesus was doing in the two lessons we heard today. In Acts, as he gets ready to ascend to the right hand of God after the resurrection, and in John as he prays for the disciples prior to his crucifixion, Jesus is paying forward four things for them. In each of them there is a lesson about how to be a vital people and a vital congregation, committed to developing strong leaders. First, we develop the practice of patience. Will you now restore the kingdom? Is this the day everything will be put right again? They have been under the authority of the Roman government for a long time, and they are impatient for a return to Israel’s glory days. We have our own impatience. Is this the time we will see full Sunday School classrooms, Bible study so large we have to move into the sanctuary, pews so full on Sunday morning that we need an additional service? Is now the time when our outreach ministry grows so big that we need to call a pastor of outreach, and buy a building to house it. Of course we will be able to do it because our stewardship will have gotten so big that we have all the money we need to do all the ministries we are called to do. Is this the time? I know I pray that it is, but then I hear Jesus say, slow down. The time is coming, but it is not quite here yet. In the meantime, there is some preparation for us to do. Develop a vision and live into it, develop a strategy and follow it. Develop men and women who can lead us to the places we need to be. Be patient, the day is on the way. Wait, but don’t just stand there, receive what God has waiting for you. Understand that what has been paid forward to us is a promise and a commission. The seeds of growth have been planted, there are spirit filled, committed, gifted people here. And there is the promise of more. We shall have God-inspired power. The Holy Spirit has come and we are to be witnesses to the good news of Jesus Christ from close by and from far away. Our ministry begins inside these walls, moves beyond these walls to the area around our doorsteps and because we have joined some of our resources with those of others, it goes to the ends of the earth. It is a global ministry that begins locally and we are each commissioned by virtue of our baptism and membership in the church to be part of it. God has blessed and is blessing us right now. Live with the promise of God, and the Holy spirit’s guidance. Then we can do the second thing which is to understand that leaders pay forward perspective. They know where to look to see what it is that God would have us to do. After Jesus is taken up, the disciples are like we would be. They stand there with their mouths open looking up into the sky they are asked a question reminiscent of the one asked at the empty tomb. Then the question was, “why look for the living among the dead” (Luke 24. 5). At the place of the ascension, the question for them and for us is “why do you stand there looking up to heaven?” You worship is of the One who is savior of heaven and earth. The risen Christ has brought about a new day. Your ministry is still earthbound, your work is among people in need here. God has done a new thing in raising Christ, and wants to do a new thing in us. Get a new view. See things differently, embrace this new era God has brought you to and move into it. Every day in every way bear witness to the good news that in Jesus Christ, all things are made new, and that a new day has come into our lives. Can’t you feel the newness and the vitality in this place and in your spirit? I can feel it right here, right now because third, somebody who was called to lead us shared with us the good news that the living Christ is present in us and with us. That is what leadership is about. Leaders have a sense of what can be and a way of helping people claim the vision as their own. We all have leaders in our lives, sometimes we are the leaders in the lives of others and we pass along to the next generation the vision, the language, and the personality traits to grow into the best people we can be. Leaders inspire people by the power of their vision, to see farther, communicate and live passionately, things that are important to the group or organization. The same is true for us as individuals. Throughout John 17, Jesus prays that his disciples may be strengthened to witness to him and to be the revelation of Christ’s presence in the world. Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “I spelled out your character in detail to the men and women you gave me. They were yours in the first place; then you gave them to me, and they have done what you said” (The Message p. 225). Acts tells us that the disciples prayed while they were waiting. Christian leadership begins and is surrounded by prayer. The Disciples prayed, Jesus prayed, I pray, you pray, we are all called to pray, because we need the power and the energy that comes from praying regularly. Jesus prays that we stay in the world, which John believed was so utterly corrupt that only the intervention of God could save it. We are called to pray and wait and stand and tell the story and hang on and hang in there, so that by faith we can change the world, turn it upside down, pour out of the church and the world injustice, intolerance, and intense suspicion of difference. Then there will be room to pour into it the word of hope and life that it needs to hear and live. If we are disciples of Christ, we are followers of his not only because our denomination bears his name, but because we bear his presence deep in our being. It is so deep in fact that as words of hope, healing, and revelation are passed on to us, we cannot help but pass them on to those who will follow us. We become leaders when, in what ever way we can, we pay forward the good news we have received. The fourth point is that we are partners in ministry in service to Christ. He leads us and as our faith and confidence grows, we not only follow him, but we join with him in leading others in following him too. He belongs to us, and we belong to the glorified Christ, raised and seated at God’s right hand, raised and resident in our lives, raised and present in every act of hospitality and outreach, nurture and evangelism, education, and worship we offer here. Surely we can all pray to be united behind such a vision, because the one whose leadership we follow is able to accomplish all that we can ask or think. Then lifted up by patience, persistence, presence, partnership and prayer, we can translate all that we have into inspiration, into new life breathed into the church. We can live knowing that Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection has paid forward life triumphant and eternal for us. Because he has, we can keep climbing, “reaching landings and turning corners, going where there has been no light” because we carry the light of Christ’s eternal love and presence with us. And for that light and love we say, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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