“Business As Usual Is Out of Business”

Isaiah 43:18-21

Some quotes, and then a word about this sermon’s title. From Ben Campbell Johnson, retired professor at Columbia Theological Seminary: “…we would be wise to think of this era as a period of transition from ‘what is’ to ‘what is to be’.” [and] “We [must be] careful to honor the past while moving into new ways of ministry.”

From William Easum in his book Dancing with Dinosaurs: “… God doesn’t care if [our] congregations survive; but God passionately cares if they meet the spiritual needs of those whom God sends their way.”

I could go on and on with quotes and notes dealing with post-modernism, the changing paradigm in which the American church now finds itself, and the whole notion of being a missional rather than maintenance church. I’ll end with the title of a book by Lyle Schaller, The New Reformation: Tomorrow Arrived Yesterday.

And now the promised word about today’s sermon title. I first heard the phrase “business as usual is out of business” at a Presbytery meeting in 1989. The speaker was dealing with the changing nature of church camp and conference ministry, but those words apply to the entire church in North America and Europe. Business as usual is out of business.

Related to that is this definition of insanity: “When you always do what you’ve always done you always get what you always got.” You can beat your head against a brick wall all you want to, but each time you do you’ll get the same old headache.

What does all this have to do with God’s Word to the captive children of Israel almost 2,500 years ago? What’s the common denominator? The common denominator is a time of major transition. The children of Israel were facing a major transition in their history, a new paradigm if you will. Change was coming, and it was coming fast.

The God who had delivered them from Egypt was now going to deliver them from Babylon. God was preparing to do a new thing, provide a new exodus, and this new exodus was going to be more wonderful than the original. This time there would be no Red Sea standing between them and a pursuing army. This time there wouldn’t be forty years of wandering in the wilderness. There would be no stop along the way to changes buses. This time they would be riding on the Jerusalem Express.

This was difficult for those captive people to hear and believe. Fifty years before their world had been turned upside down. All the institutions in which they had placed their trust had failed them. They didn’t even trust God anymore; after all, it was God who had allowed this tragedy to befall them. Maybe they understood all of this to be the righteous judgment of God that it was. Maybe they didn’t. Whatever, the old life had passed away, and while their new life in Babylon didn’t seem all that great, none of them could foresee how things would ever get better.

But what did God say to them? First he reminded them of the original exodus. That reminder can be found in the verses immediately preceding today’s reading from Isaiah. Then he said this, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” And soon thereafter God did exactly what he said he was going to do.

To some extent Protestant Christianity, especially of the so-called mainline variety, finds itself exiled in a metaphorical Babylon. Some, such as Ben Johnson, believe this to be a sign of God’s judgment. They’re probably right, but that’s another sermon for another day.

The issue before us in our time of transition is the need to come to terms with reality. The good old days, if they ever really existed, are gone. The church is no longer a major player on the national stage. More and more we’re being shoved to the fringes of cultural importance. No longer are our wishes seen as the government’s commands.

What are our options? We can bury our heads in the sand and deny that anything has changed, or keep believing that when the next generation grows up they’ll start thinking and acting just like folks did in 1956. We can do what a lot of us are doing, jumping up and down and screaming bloody murder about our right to have the symbols of our faith displayed in the public square. We can keep trying to elect officials and get judges appointed who will work to make the United States the great Christian nation that once it was considered to be.

Such beliefs and behaviors are not in themselves wrong. The motivations behind them are good. Good motives, however, don’t necessarily translate into realistic outcomes. Even someone as theologically and politically conservative as Cal Thomas thinks that all our efforts to make things the way they used to be are, in some ways, much ado about nothing.

If I understand him correctly, his opinion is that the Church of Jesus Christ needs to be about the business of being the Church of Jesus Christ. If we expended as much energy living out the Ten Commandments as we do protesting their absence on courtroom walls, we’d be much more effective in carrying out our God-given commission: proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A plaque on a wall eventually becomes just another piece of decoration. A life lived in obedience to Jesus Christ is a living witness on behalf of the Kingdom of God.

Yes, we are living through a time of metaphorical exile. Yes, things are neither the way they used to be nor the way we would prefer them to be. We are in a major period of transition. The paradigm has significantly changed. In terms of the rapidity of change in today’s world tomorrow really did arrive yesterday. It got here way before we expected it.

Does this mean that God has abandoned us? No. God is working now just as he was working 2,500 years ago to do a new thing. As Dr. Johnson wrote, we must honor the past, especially those mighty acts that God has accomplished in that past: creation, the exodus, and the deliverance of Israel from Babylon; the more recent Protestant Reformation. Those acts of God are part of our Christian heritage. We celebrate this heritage. We don’t let it harden into meaningless tradition.

Above all we celebrate that mighty act of God that was Jesus Christ. What God accomplished in and through his Son Jesus can never be undone. It is eternal. It is forever. Jesus himself declared that the gates of hell would never prevail against his Church. No matter how irrelevant the church becomes to a society the message of Jesus never loses its relevance. Times change. Situations change. God never stops being God. He is always capable of performing his mighty acts.

What mighty act is he in the midst of now? What kind of deliverance is he offering us? Maybe God is working to free us from our cultural bondage. Maybe he is offering the Church of Jesus Christ an opportunity to be the church rather than an agent of a watered down civic religion. Maybe he’s giving us an opportunity to put our full trust in him instead of governments, politicians, and other idols.

Bill Easum wrote about God not caring about congregational survival. He was clear about God’s passionate desire that the local congregation be a place where people can come to know Jesus, a place where it is obvious that the proclamation of the Gospel takes precedence over maintaining traditions. Just as an aside, he wrote another book titled Sacred Cows Make Great Hamburger. We all know that we can’t have the hamburger until we’re willing to kill the cow.

Business as usual is out of business. Congregations must move toward becoming distribution centers of the Gospel instead of remaining warehouses for church members, or in some cases museums for sacred cows. Maintenance minded congregations die due to their lack of flexibility and imagination in meeting the spiritual needs of those God sends their way.

Those needs haven’t changed in 2,000 years. Nor has the Gospel. But the world has changed, and it will keep on changing. We can either sit back and lament the passing of the good old days, or we can seek to discern what new thing God is doing, and then join him in it. Amen.