The Urgency of Fun

Sunday was a glorious day in the life of The Episcopal Church and a particular joy for those of the Missionary Society in attendance.  If you have not already watched Bishop Curry’s sermon, I urge you to do so.  It is a word of hope.  It is a word of love.  And it was a lot of fun.  It was a word that will frame our work together for the next nine years.  It was a word about the Jesus Movement and how we as an institution might serve that movement. 

  

There is an urgency to the Jesus Movement.  Mark, the first story of the Jesus Movement to be written, uses the word immediately 27 times, almost a third of all the times that word is used in the entire Bible.  It is because there is an urgency to the Jesus Movement.  God has dreams for God’s people, all God’s people, and God is ready for those dreams to become a reality.  There is an urgency to the Jesus Movement.

Jesus himself preached with a sense of urgency.  The time was at hand.  There was no time to waste.   “And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.’”  (Mk. 9:1)   Maybe the Jesus Movement got off track when it settled in for the long haul, which is an institutional response and not a movement response.  From the perspective of Jesus, there was no time to waste.  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  (Mt. 9:37)  Proclaim, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”  (Lk. 10:9)  The message of the Jesus Movement is that the kingdom is near.  Now. 

There is a great Jesus Movement hymn (541 in our hymnal).  

Come, labor on.
Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear!
No arm so weak but may do service here:
by feeblest agents may our God  fulfill
his righteous will.

Come, labor on.
Claim the high calling angels cannot share;
to young and old the gospel gladness bear.
Redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly.
The night draws nigh.

(Words by Jane Laurie Borthwick, 1813-1897)

OK, I might change some of the words of this 19th century Jesus Movement hymn in the 21st century, but I know that Jane Laurie Borthwick knew something about a rapidly changing and uncertain world in which, if one was looking carefully, the kingdom of God was breaking in.  She was a part of the Jesus Movement of her day.  And her sense of urgency speaks to me, and I think to us, two centuries down the road. 

We have been given a great gift, the invitation to help lead the Episcopal version of the Jesus Movement in the 21st century, and we have been entrusted with great resources to do so.  No arm so weak that may do service here.  Claim the high calling angels cannot share.  Redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly. The night draws nigh.

Yesterday we had 3,288 days with this Presiding Bishop to continue the work we have been doing.  Today we have 3, 287.  There’s too much fun ahead to waste a single one.  So let’s look at this another way. 

Yesterday was Day 1.  Today is Day 2.  And there will be a Day 3, all the way up to Day 3,288.  And then there will be a Day 1 again.  Bishop Michael set our tone yesterday:  “Don’t worry.  Be happy.”  The urgency of the Jesus Movement is an urgency to have fun.

Peace,