"The Next BHAG" February 5, 2017

Isaiah 58:1-12 Matthew 5: 13-20 The point of the Superbowl is not watching how much pain one team can inflict on another, or whether we can fast forward through the program to the commercials as well as we fast forward through the commercials to watch recorded shows, but the competition to be your very best on that day. The Strength and elasticity of Christianity, is that while known for Heresy Trials, Witch Hunts, Church Discipline, we has encouraged, even demanded Critique and New Ideas. From the Preaching of Jesus on the Montainside on, there has been an internal tension between ritual and reform, being willing to risk question. The same cannot be said for Judaism or Islam, Orthodoxy or Evangelicalism. Religion has been critiqued by those outside, in other religions, in atheism, secularism, philosophy, but that is different; the Internal Critique is over whether salt has lost its savor, over whether the light shines. Isaiah 58 names the tension between formulaic ritual of fasts and standing up for others, challenging what you know to be wrong. This week at UC Berkeley there was a riot. 100 people, with their features hidden in Ninja Costumes and Masks, came onto campus to commit vandalism. These were not students, faculty or staff, they were not part of the University body, and did not come for debate or learn, they came only to disgrace. Challenge for the sake of challenge is short-lived and wastes energy. To try to shift from 5th Gear into first, or worse Reverse causes damage to the engine and everyone on board. When sailing, there is a planned moment of chaos, when shifting direction, it is a moment of danger, but that moment is anticipated, practiced and planned for, in order that everyone on board can work together to shift their mass as one and compensate as the captain cries “Hard-a-lee” to use the wind differently. Too early, too late, poorly executed can spell disaster, or being dead in the water. Jim Collins in his book Good to Great describes that he expected organizations that were the best to have adopted bold new vision, setting new strategies, with revolutionary technology; but instead, what he found was that FIRST, they selected the right people, making certain they were in the right seats, and that they shared where they were going. It always amazes me when on a plane that after locking the door, before all the Safety instructions, before getting into position to taxi, the Stewardess names their intended destination; even in this day of high security and computerization, people can realize they are going in the wrong direction and have to get off, and that is the time to do so. In the Church, getting the right people in the right places is what Baptism, Communion and Ordination are all about. Is there a reason we cannot work together? Are we willing and able to trust one another, especially knowing that this is the neighbor who drives you crazy, and beside you is the one whom you had a fight with? Is there aggregate grinding away at us? Can we forgive, or are we nursing that anger? Do we all endorse One Faith that we refuse to lose, despite everything else that may come? SECOND, we have to confront the curse of Competency. It is not enough to carry on tradition. Not enough to have perfect attendance. Not enough to have been elected to positions of authority, you have to strive to make faith your own. Due to the risk of fire/ known building materials, all houses, churches, factories and offices were limited to how high they could build, ordinarily two stories maybe as many as five. When suddenly at the 1889 World’s Fair a French Architect and Engineer built the Eiffel Tower, defying all the rules except that it be structurally stable, built to last, and taller than anything else. However, the Eiffel Tower inspired something within Americans, that by 1930 we constructed The Empire State Building, a taller structure, but more, one that provided useful space for offices and work to be done. In 1961 the Russians were the first to put a person into Space, and Gagarin’s taunt was that “Having visited Heaven God was not there.” The following year, President Kennedy pledged “We choose to go to the Moon.” And having had astronauts land on the moon and return safely, live in space stations, they have sent back visions of Earth that defy words, defy the imagination, one world in tranquility, is that not proof of the existence and power of God, a God whose ego does not need to be seen? In 2004, we shared a sermon, using Jim Collins’ Good to Great, emphasizing his concept of a BHAG, a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.” Inviting listeners to consider what we might do, how we might work to create something that was the best in the world. We were not complacent to accept worshipping God on Sunday morning. We did not accept having the prettiest building, or being free of Debt. Jack Howard and John Dau gathered people of differing gifts, all who cared, each who could give something of themselves. We set out to succeed, no matter the obstacle. Overtime, this has meant shifting tack, from providing a welcome to Refugees of Civil War, to re-uniting these same refugees with their families. Then to trying to do something to alleviate suffering for a people in poverty. I am a man whose own mother died because of medical complication during birth and delivery. Imagine what it means, to know that every woman who gets pregnant stands a 50/50 chance of dying, and we made a difference. I am a father of two, even more, I have carried many of you, and your children in my arms in baptism and because they wanted comforting, imagine what it means that 80% of all the children died before 60 months of age, and we changed that. I wear glasses, and due to age have the floating spots of Retinal detachment and hardening cataracts, and we have been able in 2 Surgical visits, to restore sight to over 600 people who were blind. Due to politics and fear, tribal war began again, and yet that only served to force us to consider both expansion into other places, and that due to war crops were not planted, food was burned and people were starving, so we began medical intervention for 190,000 who were dying due to poverty and malnutrition. Have we ended wars? No. Have we resolved poverty? No. But we have acted in faith. Now that that infrastructure is established, now that the reputation for what can be has been built, the question becomes, What is to be our next Big Hairy Audacious Goal? According to Jim Collins, organizations can sustain one of these in 20 years, but now is the time to consider where do we need to dedicate ourselves in faith? Rather than being complacent, how can we work together to do what no one else has ever done? What if, in this time of social dischord and distrust, where we are creating terms to explain away “Alternative Facts,” what if we demonstrated integrity and trust, forgiveness especially in brokenness. Strangers routinely ask, how do you pronounce Skaneateles or how do you spell Skaneateles, no one ever asks “Why would you want to live there?”