Sermon for May 24 (Pentecost)

Pentecost 2015 (May 24) 

The reading

 

Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,Cretans and Arabs--in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.  The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

The message

In 1960, A professor named Theodore Levitt wrote an article entitled “Marketing Myopia” for the Harvard Business Review.  For the next 50 plus years, the ideas in this paper have shaped the way that businesses have defined their strategic plans, marketing, innovation and work.  The main concept in the paper is the question “What business are you in”?  It is a challenge to leaders to broadly define the purpose of their businesses and asks if you are product centered or people and need centered.  His argument is relatively simple. Businesses that fail focus all their attention on refining and selling a particular product. At the same time, businesses that survive and thrive focus on anticipating and meeting ever changing customer needs.  He uses the example of railroads to illustrate his point.  For decades railroads were the only real option people had for traveling.  After dominance for many years, the rise of phones, cars, trucks and airplanes destroyed their business.  Some companies who insisted that they were in the railroad business continued to offer only rail related services through the change and they collapsed. Other businesses who thought of themselves as being in the transportation industry branched out into air, cargo, shipping and other modes of transport. Those are the ones who thrived.  

This article was a large part of several college classes that I took on Consumer behavior and Marketing.  It was fascinating to see how this idea could be applied to all different businesses and used to understand why some companies have succeed while others have failed.  For weeks after the first encounter with this article, it ways always trendy to comment that a particular company “was being myopic” to explain any sort of downturn or bad decision.  I never really thought about applying this question of how widely or narrowly we define the purpose of a business to the church.  This morning, for Pentecost, I want to explore that question. I do not love the idea of thinking about church as a business; God’s message is not a product and the church should not cater to people, telling everyone what they want to hear so that they stay around.  At the same time, I think we can learn a lot from wondering how we define our purpose.  

First, Levitt’s work can help us understand where the church is today. In the article, he highlights some of the flawed ideas that cause otherwise good leaders to define their businesses too narrowly and fail to grow through change.  These include the belief that growth can be assured by an expanding and more affluent population, the belief that there is no real substitute for your product and a preoccupation with mass production, efficiency and price reduction (that you can ensure grow by making things cheaper for customers).

I believe we can see these things happening every day in the church.  Despite booming population increases and growth throughout the developing world, we have all heard about the decline in Christian faith around Europe and the US (many of us have witnessed it amongst our own friends and family.)  For decades churches have assumed they would grow along with growing populations but that has not happened.  People have assumed there would be no real substitute for church but today people believe they are living complete (and even faithful) lives without it.  In church, we also hear a lot about efficiency, saving money, sharing space, closing buildings and laying off or just not paying pastors.   All of these indicate that we have fallen into every one of Levitt’s mistakes, we are defining ourselves too narrowly.  Our business has become the exhausting work of keeping buildings open, budgets balanced, bank accounts in the black, attendance up and worship service conducted on the appointed days.  Following Levitt’s argument about purpose and pitfalls, the church as an institution has a very narrow definition of our purpose and is in deep trouble.   

This morning, in the story of Pentecost, we are given a much different vision of the church, we see 

the start of an organization with a much wider purpose, it’s not about staying open, growing, or turning a profit, the church is nothing other than a group of people, possessed by the Spirit, comforted by grace and telling others, Christ is Risen from the dead.  Our purpose can be found in Acts 2:42 when all those baptized on Pentecost, the new faithful, devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer

To foster that sort of community is not the matter of giving people what they want. It is a matter of asking what are the spiritual and physical needs of our community and considering how we can address them in faithful ways.  On the first Pentecost, Peter notices the crowd of confused, curious and frightened people and he knows they need to hear that Christ is Risen from the dead, they need to hear the story of what God has done and be invited into God’s grace.  Peter stands up and shares the first Christian Sermon, walking the crowd through the scriptures, announcing that God’s promises are kept and explaining what they were seeing and hearing.     

That is a part of the history of our church. In the very beginning, around 1860, St Jacobus started because people in the community needed a church that was centered on good teaching, preaching, true fellowship and proper worship.  Throughout our history, seeing the needs of the community and trying address them has always been part of our church, 30 years or so ago, St Jacobus started the preschool, in response to the growing community’s need for quality, faith based education.  Today, in response to the needs for places to gather, play, worship and celebrate together, we share our space with 5 churches, 6 or 8 sports groups,  4 anonymous meetings and many special events.

Spiritual needs can be difficult to see but they are there.  The people we know, work with and live near, need to hear the Spirit that came to the word as violent wind and tongues of fire has never left. They need to hear the comfort of God’s saving work though Jesus death and resurrection. They need to come to this place, feel they are welcome with us and with God, Like each of us, they need to feel the joy of worship, praise and giving thanks, They need to witness the power of prayer to change things,  They need to know we are here to walk with them in faith and life. That work is our business.