Nebraska Synod ELCA

“We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers,
constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith
and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
—1 Thessalonians 1.2-3—

Beloved in Christ,

I have a deep affinity for the 1999 indie movie “Office Space,” in which computer programmer  Peter Gibbons deals with a number of vocational and cultural issues that I’d wager are still problematic today. In one pivotal scene in the movie, Peter (played by Ron Livingston) meets with Bob and Bob, two efficiency experts who’ve been brought in to help the Initech company shore up its bottom line by identifying candidates for layoffs. Peter, who’s just been hypnotized and is in a short-lived state of utter and complete honesty, tells “the Bobs” about his lack of motivation at work:

“I’ve got eight bosses, Bob. Eight. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. My only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”

There’s a genuine sincerity in this scene that has always resonated with me. How long could anyone be able to work in an environment where there’s so little sense of purpose that their only motivation would be not getting fired? What quality of life can one have when there’s no sense that what they do makes a difference?

There’s a message for us to hear in Peter’s lament. Now is the time of year when many of us are looking ahead to 2025 in our worshiping communities. We’re planning budgets, assembling annual reports, looking for folks who are willing to serve as leaders in the coming year. I remember a number of years in congregational ministry when the work of the nominating committee was a struggle, and quite often the reasons people didn’t want to step up in leadership sounded a lot like what Peter describes: I’m only doing this out of obligation, I know I’m going to get hassled, and to be honest I’m only going to do it for so long before someone else should take a turn.

Church doesn’t have to be this way. Frankly, it should never be, but sometimes we fall into the pattern of sin that Luther called se incurvatus in se – the self curved in upon itself. We get so worried about our survival and continuation that we forget we are called to be making a difference outside of our buildings, that Sunday worship is a requisitioning activity meant to get us ready for a week of serving our neighbor wherever we find them. God’s church is at its most faithful when it is glad to be disturbed, to be interrupted, to be hassled for the sake of the neighbor. When he wrote to the church in Thessaloniki, the apostle Paul didn’t give thanks for their building, their committees, or their budget: Paul gave thanks for the labor of love to which they’d committed themselves, and the steadfastness of hope that accompanied that work. Paul gave thanks because the church had a purpose in their community, and I’m willing to bet that purpose was inspiring to the folks that gathered together for worship there as well.

Our theme this month is “Cultivating Love through Hope.” As we enter the season of Advent, we enter a time when we look with hope to the coming of Jesus, but we can also be agents of that hope even as we wait. Beloved in Christ, we have an opportunity in front of us:  to be agents of hope, cultivating love bestowed on us by the Hope above all Hopes – may that steadfast hope energize and motivate you all this Advent season. I look forward to being hassled in hope with you.

With gratitude and joy,
Bishop Scott Alan Johnson