"Stick to the knitting," is a phrase that I came across in that book by Peters and Waterman, In Search of Excellence. They outlined some successful businesses that emerged in this country following the Second World War. One of the characteristics they said successful businesses had in common was that they focused on what they did best. Peters and Waterman called that, "stick to the knitting."

There have been other studies of businesses since then, founded after America's rude awakening that it was no longer the most advanced industrial power in the world, and that other nations had emerged to compete with American products. Then came these new companies and their emphasis that to be a success, they must focus on one thing, do one thing well, "stick to the knitting."

I found it interesting that the mainline churches in this country had a similar rude awakening, and at about the same time, in the 60's and the 70's. Mainline churches are those churches that have traditionally ministered to the establishment. They are very often the old, big, downtown "first" churches. The adjective "first" is a very descriptive one, because they were here first. They were the churches that came over here at the time of the colonies. They are, for the most part, British in origin: the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Congregational Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church. The second wave of immigration brought the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics.

The mainline churches were the General Motors, and the Ford and Chrysler, the big corporations of the ecclesiastical world, big, powerful, smug and self-satisfied. Like those companies in the 60's and 70's, they discovered that they were no longer dominating the market. The world had changed. It has taken a while, but now the big denominations are beginning to change as well.

The debate in the Church is over what that change should look like. It has been controversial, because big, established institutions don't like to change. I remember a story about a woman who brought home a plaque that said, "Prayer changes things." She put it in her kitchen, above her sink. Her husband came home, and said, "Take that down, please." She said, "Why? Don't you believe in prayer?" He said, "Yes, but I don't believe in change."

That is the problem with big, establishment-type institutions. But recently there has been, in fact, a rush to change, almost a panic on the part of some churches. There have been some changes around here, too. I hope that you have noticed that. There will be more. But change should be determined by what our mission is. Mission is what ought to drive the change. We should not do things because other churches do them, not even if they are successful in other churches. Change should come only to enhance our mission.

We have a mission. We have a mission statement. I printed it as the Words of Meditation this morning. But on the occasion of a Charge Conference, I would like to have us look at another mission statement. This one could be called, the "second" mission statement of the Church. The first mission statement of the Church is called, "The Great Commission." It was given by Jesus to the apostles at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.

Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

That was the first mission statement for the Church.

The second statement, I suggest, is the one proposed by Paul to the Corinthians in the passage that was read to us this morning.

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Paul is saying to the Corinthians, this is what I think the Church ought to look like. It is about as tidy and succinct a mission statement as you can ever find. It "sticks to the knitting." It gets right down to the core.

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Let's start with that phrase, "stewards of the mysteries of God." Ironically it is the scientists in our time, and not so much the theologians, who are using the word "mystery." I heard this beautiful phrase somewhere, "The greater the shoreline of knowledge, the vaster the sea of mystery." What that means is, the more science discovers about the universe, the more mystery is revealed. The greater the discovery, the more humility on the part of the scientist.

Mystery in that sense refers to the creation, that part of the creation that eludes our reason. The more we study it, the more we realize how little we know. That is one understanding of mystery.

I like to work The New York Times crossword puzzles, especially the Sunday one. I got stuck this week on the word for, "the layers of the retina." If any of you know what that is, I would appreciate your writing it on the back of the "I am Here Card," so I can finish the dumb thing.

I went to the encyclopedia and looked under "retina," and it cross-referenced me to "eye," and I read in the encyclopedia the most fascinating article about the eye, about the cones and the rods, and about the retina, and about the chemical action that takes place and sends an electrical impulse to the brain so that we can see. It was just fascinating.

But what was particularly interesting to me was the number of times the author said about a certain action in this process, we don't know how this works. We don't understand it. It is as if we understand how things work, and then there are these gaps in our knowledge. That is what most of the advanced sciences have discovered, that there are gaps in our knowledge, wonders, mysteries. They are not something we will understand someday, but things we will never fully understand.

But there is another kind of mystery. It is the kind of mystery that Paul is talking about to the Corinthians. It does not refer to gaps in our knowledge. It's the news that confounds and contradicts our knowledge. That is why Paul, in the same chapter to the Corinthians, says it sounds like "foolishness to the Greeks and a scandal to the Jews," because it contradicts their understanding of who God is. He says we are stewards of this mystery, this strange revelation that has come to us in Jesus Christ, that has been hidden from the ages and is now revealed to us by the Spirit.

This is the mystery he is talking about: God loves us so much, that God came to us to be with us. The theological word for that is "incarnation." Incarnation means "in the flesh." That is how God came to us, as one of us. "Scandalous," that is what the Jews said. "Foolishness," that is what the Greeks said. Do you know what Paul said? "Then I am a fool for Christ, because I am compelled, commissioned, to preach the news that God has come to be with us, and to love us as we are." We are stewards of that mystery about God. In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul said, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."

It was "foolishness to the Greeks," because the Greeks believed the gods are detached, removed and distant from us. There was one word that they used to describe the gods: "apatheia," the source of our word, "apathy." Apathy means "without feeling." To be divine, the Greeks believed, meant that you couldn't have any feeling, you couldn't participate in the pain, sorrow and disappointment of human life. You were apathetic. You lived on Mt. Olympus, removed from the pain and suffering of human life. That is why it was "foolishness to the Greeks" to say that God became like us.

It was "a scandal to the Jews," because the Jews believed that God was holy, and to be holy means to be pure. To be pure means that you are untainted by sin and corruption of any kind. So God could have nothing to do with human life, because human life was sinful and the earth is corrupted. God, in Jewish thought, was removed from human life as well.

Then Jesus came, not aloof or indifferent, but in the beautiful words of that Christmas hymn, "Once in Royal David's City":

...he was little, weak, and helpless, tears and smiles like us he knew; and he feeleth for our sadness, and he shareth in our gladness.

Not aloof, not indifferent, not separated from us because of his holiness. He did not come to us, and remain apart from those people who are sinners in this world. He ate with the sinners. He invited them to be with him. He touched and embraced the unclean of this world. He was crucified with thieves, and told the one thief, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

That is the mystery of God that Paul is talking about. We are stewards of that mystery, because we believe that He is what the world is waiting for. We are here in this place and in this building, and especially in this space, in the sanctuary of the Church, to guard the mystery, to proclaim it in word and in sacrament.

James Baldwin, in one of his novels, says, "There was a man in the world once who loved me, and because that was the case, I can dare now to continue the struggle to become a man myself."

For Christians there is a man in the world who loved us, everyone of us. His name is Jesus of Nazareth. The love with which he loved us is not just human love. This is the mystery. The love with which he loved us, in the words of Dante, was "the love that moves the sun and the stars."

Part of that mystery, also, is that we proclaim that while God was fully in Christ, Jesus was fully human. Therefore, Jesus is the pattern for our life. That's why the second part of Paul's formula is, we are "servants of Christ."

There is a formula that you can apply to all religions. It goes like this: "The description of the god determines the definition of the good life." For instance, in Judaism, God is described as "holy." In the Jewish life at the time of Jesus, there was a holiness code, as well as a moral code. The holiness code said you couldn't eat certain things, you couldn't do certain things, because you had to remain distant from those things that are contaminated in this world, and those people who are sinful in this world. You couldn't go near them. The good person in this world, according to that idea of the good life, is called holy and righteous.

In the Greek religion, the gods were characterized by one word, "apathy." The good life in ancient Greece was one that was detached, one that avoided the extremes of passion, because passion, feeling, loving, caring, reaching out to other people, always leads to disappointment and to pain, and eventually to sorrow. You love somebody, and someday you may get hurt. So the Greeks said, don't get involved. We have the word "stoic" in our vocabulary. It comes from Greek philosophy. A stoic in our language is a person who is detached, without feeling. That is the ideal life for the ancient Greek.

Now apply the same rule to Christianity. The one word that characterizes the Christian revelation is "incarnation." The Christian God revealed to us is a God who got involved with humankind. The motivation for God's involvement with human life was love, sacrificial love. Therefore, the good life for the Christian is a life of involvement, motivated by love, love for other people, the kind of love with which God loved us.

Notice in our day, there are still people who think like the ancient Greeks, religious people, who say that if you are going to be religious, then don't get involved in the world. In fact, probably the most consistent criticism that I get is that Christians shouldn't get involved in the world. Christians should just stick to things religious. When they say that, they are revealing that they are more "Greek," than they are "Christian."

The New Testament understanding of the Christian life is that we are involved, loving our neighbor. There are others, who are like the ancient Jews, who say that to be religious is to mark off a little bit of life and surround it with rules, holiness codes, morality codes, and say that those who do not live up to those codes are therefore not religious.

But if the essence of Christianity is simply to be a "servant of Christ," then one will live one's life the way Christ lived his life, being involved with other people, caring about other people, moved by the plight of other people.

This weekend is the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. I think, therefore, it is appropriate to look at his life in this regard. In the Union Tribune this week, there was an article about him, which included an interview with Vincent Harding, a professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a Methodist seminary.

Harding said that King's detractors like to point out that he was a human being, that he had faults, human foibles. He was certainly not a saint, Harding points out. He made mistakes in

judgment. He put his marriage to the test. He also suffered from human frailties, like anxiety and depression.

But Christianity proclaims a God who came to us as we are, accepted us as we are, forgave us and gave us new life, and thus revealed that we do not have to be righteous in order to be loved by God. We don't have to have a pure life in order to follow Jesus. We just have to be faithful.

He comes to us as he came to his disciples, and says to us, "Follow me." To "follow me" means, identifying with the poor and the oppressed, loving the sinner, and living sacrificially for others in this world, taking up your cross. That is the sole qualification for everybody to be his disciple, that you will take up your cross.

Martin Luther King understood that, I think, probably better than anybody else in our time. Like all historical figures, he will be interpreted from different perspectives. But the way he would want to be interpreted is that he was a "servant of Christ."

I suppose that will be the hardest for our age to understand, because in our consumer-oriented society, we look for those things that will help us. We look to Christ to support us. We look to Christ to help us be a success. We look to Christ to help us to be happy in this life. But Paul says the successful Christian is the one who serves Christ, who can say, ever since Christ came into my life, I find myself making these sacrifices for other people. I find myself reaching out to other people. I find myself dropping prejudices that I have had all my life, and looking at people in a new way. I find myself giving, instead of receiving. "Servants of Christ," that is how you are to regard us, and "stewards of the mysteries of God." Not a bad mission statement. Ours is a little longer, but what we say is encompassed by those two simple lines.

There is an old story about a church in Ystad, Sweden. It seems that in 1716, King Charles XII of Sweden announced to that little town that he was going to come and visit them, and that he would worship in the village church. The pastor of the church got all excited about the presence of the king in his congregation. He decided he would put aside the prescribed text for that Sunday, and he would deliver a sermon in the form of a eulogy on the greatness of the royal family. He did that.

Three months later, a gift arrived at the church, a big box. The pastor opened it up. It was a present from the king. Inside was a life-size crucifix, a life-like statue of Jesus on the cross, with this instruction: "Place this on the pillar opposite the pulpit, so that the one who stands there will always be reminded of his proper subject."

This is how we are to be regarded, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God revealed to us by Christ.