A Family Living and Growing in Christ

A Mission

St. Anne's Episcopal Church in De Pere, Wisconsin is my home parish. It is the ninth parish that I have been a member of. It is probably the first that had a simple and clear enough "mission statement" that I could remember for more than five minutes, while still saying something worthwhile. That mission statement is the title of this post.

(A digression: the most effective "mission statement" I know of is "Less filling, tastes great!" Employees at Miller Brewing can measure everything they do against that standard).

For a mission statement to be useful, it needs to translate into action. That means, it must cause us to do things. Measurable, noticeable things. As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has said, we are the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement. So, what is it that this mission statement is telling us to do in "Moving With Jesus"?

Growing in Christ

In the Episcopal Church, our Sunday service always includes a reading from one of the four Gospels. The Homily (Sermon) follows, usually involving explanation or expansion of the words and actions of Jesus that we just heard of. Why do we do this, and is 20 minutes a week enough? If we are to be actual movers in the Jesus Movement, we must first know what Jesus thinks, says, and does. Last Sunday's gospel was Luke 16: 19-31, the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus. It's a very sad story of broken relationships and consequences of brokenness. (Some interpretation is needed. Casual reading may leave us thinking that wealth is a bad thing. Since Jesus had rich friends, we have to think deeper. This rich man's sin was the chasm he built between his riches and the community around himself). We learn from this the critical importance that Jesus lays on community, neighbor, compassion.

The future of this, and any parish, depends on the expansion and deepening of our intimate knowledge of Jesus, of his thinking, his sayings, and his actions. And the answer to my second question is, NO! 20 minutes a week is not enough. 5 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of sermonizing are not enough to fill our minds and hearts with the actual person of Jesus. Compare that to the amount of time we are spending lately in getting to know our candidates for office. (I wish I could hold that down to 20 minutes a week!)

The next step in our mission statement is not possible until we really know Jesus.

Living in Christ

Most of us are familiar with the WWJD bracelets. "What Would Jesus Do?" It recently occurred to me that a stronger and more useful question might be "If I were Jesus, what would I do?" There is where we find the bridge between "Growing" and "Living" in Christ. The temptation in WWJD is to remain a spectator on the outside of the Jesus Movement, evaluating the thoughts, words, and actions of those trying to walk the path of Jesus. When the question is "...what would I do?" there is not easy out for us. When we have done the work of "Growing" into the figure of Jesus, in thought, word, and deed, we will know what our next step needs to be. This "Jesus Movement" is not a Sunday morning retreat from the world. Jesus is the pattern of our Tuesday afternoon staff meeting at work, our Thursday evening bowling league, and our Saturday morning at our children's soccer match (What was that you said to the referee after last week's game?).

So?

Wrapping up, I'll say that any parish intent of spiritual growth will do well to focus their programming on these two thoughts:

• How can I come to better understand Jesus' thoughts, words, and deeds?
• How are my thoughts, words, and deeds today resembling Jesus.

Amen.

Minimum Wage Changes is the Tip of the Iceberg.

I started thinking about this a long time ago, but today's monologue started playing out when I saw this article posted on Facebook by The Christian Left:

http://news.groopspeak.com/fast-food-ceo-threatens-to-fire-everyone-if-a-democrat-wins-the-presidency/

In the next 5 years, economists estimate that another 6% of current American jobs will disappear, victims of automation. The advances in technology that are driving this will continue (or accelerate). Boycotts cannot stop this. Laws that require employers to use human workers will not work. Out future (50 or fewer years hence) will include a large and growing population of jobless people. It will include an even larger population of "almost" or "soon-to-be" jobless people. Our society (politically and economically) operates almost strictly in a capitalist fashion with small, decorative touches of socialism around the edges (Social Security, Medicaid, public schools).

It seems to me that there are only two directions that we can go: deeper into oligarchy or deeper into socialism. However, when the jobless population reaches a critical mass, the question will be "How much of society's resources will be directed toward the support of those jobless?" Since people in large masses haven't changed in a few millennia, the threat of violence by the 80% (say, the 40% jobless and the 40% soon-to-be jobless) will require an answer.

A rough estimate (purely back--of-envelope, SWAG) would put the current number in the neighborhood of 60% of the GDP. I get that from the 45% that goes toward wages and salaries, and a little over half of the 27% that goes into taxes. As the resources (GDP) that are directed into wages and salaries shrinks toward single digits, two things will have to happen. First, more tax revenue will need to be extracted from the economy. Second, the nature of joblessness will need to be reshaped into normalcy.

Many of the highly developed economies around the world are on this path. Recently, many employers in Sweden have gone to 6 hour work days. (Oddly enough, they find that total employee output remains as high as it was at 40 hours.) As the need for "employee output" shrinks, the rest of the social safety net will be more important. When it becomes a requirement for the majority of the population, it will morph from "safety net" to "lifestyle".

In the United States, conservatives have exalted the capitalist system to near religious levels. It seems almost as if the worship of "Mammon" has become the state religion. Coupled with that, the disdain toward the "losers", the "takers", those who are "dependent" on government grows. Interestingly, this election cycle features a larger than usual amount of rage by those who are being driven into being "takers". It seems that, as long as the "losers" could be characterized as lazy and irresponsible, the masses were OK with the economic losses. When too many of the masses found themselves to be driven out of the circle of winners (through automation, outsourcing, immigration, corporate failures, etc), they have reacted badly.

A significant portion of the resources of this country must be directed to support ALL the people of this country. When there are not enough jobs of sufficient quality to go around, we (that is, our government) will be forced to accomodate this new world of joblessness.