309 20/15 Vision

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “20/15 Vision” originally shared on May 1, 2024. It was the 309^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   How can we improve our vision? Today, we’re going to find out.

   We raised the money and built two buildings at the church I served in San Dimas. One of the many things that I learned through those processes was the importance of sticking with a vision. Especially when questions arose.

   We were building buildings. Our vision was to build the means to proclaim the already but not yet Kingdom of God, and to help people through repentance and forgiveness to the new life that is God’s desire for all people.

   So, why were we investing money in facilities? They were a means for ministry.

   Why were so many investing so much time? We saw the work that God was doing through us as a small contribution leading to a greater outcome.

   Why were we asking so many people to invest so much? We didn’t ask for equal gifts, we asked for equal sacrifices, in order for all to keep their hearts focused on what is important, the vision.

   We were, and we all are, called to keep our eyes on the big picture, the long-term plan, and live into what God provides.

   We see in Proverbs 29:18, in the New Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible,

    18      Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint,

    but happy are those who keep the law.

   Prophets bring prophecy, God’s message to the people.

   The author of Proverbs (some say it was King Solomon) tells us that all that is good comes from God.

   Proverbs 29:18 in the King James Version reads,

   18       Where there is no vision, the people perish:

      But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

   For a while, it was popular for Lutheran church growth consultants to say, “Where there is no vision, there is a Lutheran parish. 😊

   OK, yes. That’s funny, and a bit harsh. Lutherans don’t have a monopoly on having no vision. And there are many Lutheran churches that have a grand vision, doing what God has generally and specifically called, equipped, and sent it to do.

   That vision is at our foundation.

   One other of the things that I learned through those two building projects was not to panic when the foundation is poured.

   After the building plans are approved, and the land grading is done and approved, and the forms are set and approved, the concrete foundation is poured.

   And then the shock sets in.

   Both times, I looked at the concrete foundation of those new buildings and thought, “I/we have made a terrible mistake! It’s too small! We’re paying all that money for this? This is not what I had imagined the size of the building was going to be! Not even close!

   One contractor explained that this is because, when you are inside a building, your eyes go to a wall. But when there is no wall, your focal point is much farther out, and the foundation that you see looks small compared to infinity, or even to just the land around the foundation.

   You need walls to see things as they are.

   One of the reasons that we need the religious Law is to provide behavioral walls. Another is that it helps us see things as they are. The boundaries of the Law tell us that we are transgressors who need a Savior.

   Our sometimes lack of vision is a reminder of the importance of knowing and doing what God has called us to know and to do. Even when we don’t know where the journey might take us, to know is to do.

   I think that that’s why some people don’t want to understand much about Christianity or to grow in their faith. They’re afraid that they may change, that they might lose friends, that their lives might change, that they might know that it’s right to do something that, right now, seems hard. So, they chose not to know, in order not to grow.

   But the reality is that God only takes us to better places in life. It starts when we trust. It begins not just by seeing things as they are, but by seeing things as we, our transformed selves, have been created to be.

   My eyesight used to be very bad. 20/400 bad. In 4^th grade, I got glasses, and I could see things that I never saw before.

   Then, in my later years 😊, I got cataract surgery and a lens was placed in each of my eyes that enabled me to see distances. Without glasses!

   Except for reading. 😊 But, hey!

   My vision improved to better than 20/20, to 20/15! Better than normal. I could see things that people with normal vision couldn’t see!

   Likewise, when we are transformed. When we become a new creation in Jesus Christ, we see things that others cannot see. Our eyes are opened, and we are given the grand vision, the big picture. We see things as they are. And we, by God’s grace, live into God’s vision for us!

   When we held the kick-off fundraising dinner for our new parish hall at the Roman Catholic church up the street (because, well, we didn’t have a parish hall 😊), our main speaker was Marge Wold, a prominent and respected member of our Lutheran denomination.

   She was one of nine children. She told a story about how, when she was growing up poor on the South Side of Chicago, her mother was so obese that they weren’t really sure when she was pregnant and when she wasn’t. All they knew was that, every once and awhile, their mother was gone. And, when she came back, she would have a new baby boy or baby girl.

   Their mom would explain that, while she was gone, the stork brought the baby to her. But, that when the stork unwrapped the baby, it was so beautiful that the stork wanted to keep the baby for itself. So, mom had to fight the stork to keep the baby, and that’s why she was tired and needed to rest for a while.

   Marge said that, while we might think that that story was quite naive, for all most of us know about where our church buildings came from, the stork might as well have brought them.

    She said that we, however, are now privileged to participate in the struggle and the sacrifice of bringing a new facility into being. And, when it was done, we would forget the struggle and sacrifice and just marvel at what had been brought into the world through us.

   What if all that we knew about the world came from popular folk wisdom or from someone in authority? How do we know what we know?

   How do we learn the truth? Who do we listen to? Who do we trust to give us a vision, the bigger picture, and how could we improve our vision to be more than “normal”?

   It could only come from outside of us and of our experience.

   Our churches are communities. How can we find a common vision?

   There are a lot of points of tension in churches during normal times. Building programs can multiply the tensions that are already present, and we had some during those two projects, but not very many.

   How did we manage those projects, and many other large-scale ministries, in a time of gathering polarization across the political/ social/ denominational loyalty spectrum?

   The answer isn’t very complicated. It came from outside of us. We kept our focus on Jesus.

   We were united by much more than what divided us. And what united us was way more important than what divided us. It was Jesus. That’s where we kept our focus.

   I think that that focus can still be the key to church development today.

   We haven’t been living in normal times for quite a while now. But the answer to how congregations with members who hold widely divergent political and social views can work together to fulfill God’s call hasn’t changed.

   We see it in the Gospel text that will be read in churches all over the world this coming Sunday John 15:9-17, It’s a continuation of last week’s reading, and in some ways a parallel to it, starting with verses 9-11,

9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

   Jesus reminds us that the place where things come into focus and where we see things as they are is in Him. Jesus is who unites us. Jesus is where we see love in action and experience the bedrock joy that nothing and no one can take away from us. We may not always be happy. But nothing can take away our joy because it comes from God.

   To “abide” means to “live”. We live in the love of God freely given at the cross. That changes everything.

   Jesus’ commands, not suggestions, include the commandment to love one another, in verses 12-15,

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

   This is Jesus speaking, fully God and fully human being, and he shows the extremity of God’s love for us by dying for us on the cross.

   It’s a strange combination, isn’t it? For someone to give us commandments and to call us his friends at the same time. Would we call our commander our friend? Would we be friends with someone above us in the chain of command?

   Jesus has made known everything that he has heard.

   Jesus calls us His friends. Friends don’t keep secrets from friends. Friends don’t hide information or knowledge from friends. Friends have a relationship of trust. That is what Jesus gives us and what makes us His disciples, not a transactional relationship, like servants, but an organic relationship, like friends.

   Jesus concludes, in verses 16-17,

16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

   No one “makes a decision for Christ”. That’s an illusion. “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” is not a Lutheran hymn. That’s not how it works.

   God choose us. We are the adopted children of God.

   We can’t save ourselves. We can only acknowledge the gift of God’s salvation.

   We are naturally sinners, we are cut off from God. But God, as 16^th century Church reformer Martin Luther explains, in his Small Catechism, does this:

   “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him.  But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true faith.

   In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”

   Jesus appointed us to bear fruit, to naturally exhibit the characteristics of changed lives that Paul describes in Galatians 5:22-23 (we read it last week),

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

   That fruit grows from our connection to Jesus. When Jesus says, “And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”, he’s not giving us a magic formula, like in Harry Potter where you say the right words in Latin and you get whatever you want. It doesn’t mean that you can get whatever you want if you just add the words, “In the name of Jesus”. Jesus is describing what we do that is consistent with Jesus’ true self.

   The idea of the “name”, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament parts of the Bible, is that of the “true self” or the “reality” of that person. We might say our true self is our “soul” or our “heart” or our “whole personhood”. The people of the Bible would say it was in a name. That’s why God doesn’t give a noun to Moses when Moses asks God’s name, but a verb; it’s inconceivable that humans could know God’s true being. That’s why Jacob’s true self changes when he wrestles with God and is allowed to live and his name changes to Israel, and when Sauls’s true self changes when he becomes a Christian and his name changes to “Paul”.

   We also bear fruit in the new lives of others, people who God reaches through us with the transforming Gospel, in all nations.

   After we dedicated the second building project, the larger one, the worship and administration building, I was standing between it and the parish hall and a member of the congregation came up to me and said something like, “Isn’t this wonderful! This is your legacy.”

   And I remember thinking, “No. This isn’t my legacy. This is a building. My legacy is the lives of all the people everywhere who have been touched by God through me and through this congregation.”

   That is the fruit that endures. No one can take that away, because that is the work of God.

   Seeing that comes as the result of our 20/15 vision. It’s what enables us to see what others don’t see. It’s what enables us to see Jesus in everything that we are and that we do, and it’s what binds us together in love. That vision is a gift from God!