Sermon 6/15/08
On Fire: Called - Matthew 9:35-10:8
(view lectionary notes for this text)
In a week or so, the lay leadership committee will again begin its work. The lay leadership committee is essentially a nominating committee – we work together to determine how best to use our human resources – that is, all of you – to accomplish the ministry and mission of this church of Jesus Christ. You may view it as the committee that tries to get people on committees. But really, in many ways, our work is much bigger than that. Our goal, our purpose, is to discern where God is calling people to serve in this congregation, and to discern the needs of each ministry area. What does God have in mind for the music ministry of the church, or for our Christian Education program? Who has leadership skills that they haven’t yet explored? Who might have a vision for our finance team that no one has realized or noticed? Sometimes our work can be frustrating and slow-moving, but it also excites me – there’s so much possibility, and sometimes, the sense that we have helped match just the right person to just the right ministry in this congregation so that God can do something really exciting through us.
Watching people find what God is calling them to do, figure out who God is luring them to be, realize what a wonderful person God has created them to be – watching this process unfold is one of the greatest gifts I get to experience as a pastor. To be there when a person finally understands that God has a purpose for there life, and to be there when a person answers “yes,” to that call – there’s nothing else quite like it. Many of you know that I work with the youth of my home conference in Central New York, and this same sense of watching a life unfold is why youth ministry has always been so important to me. Young people are perhaps still a little more willing than the rest of us to believe that God has something awesome in store for them, or to believe that God has some plan that they are meant to be part of. I love that I get to be even a little part of their journey to figuring out what that means for them.
Today, we read about a group of twelve disciples who Jesus calls and sends out into the world in ministry. They’re from a variety of backgrounds. Peter and some of them were fisherman. Some were tax collectors. Some were part of political movements. Some followed Jesus along with their brothers. Others left whole families behind. They bring different gifts, different experiences, different perspectives. But they bring one thing in common – a readiness to believe that God has a plan for them, a purpose for them, a use for them. Jesus calls and they answer. Jesus gives them authority and they take it. Jesus sends them and they go. Jesus gives them a message and they preach it. I wonder, sometimes, how they can be so confident, so quick to follow, so quick to go where they are sent. But I believe that no matter how they view themselves, they must have a deep conviction that God has a plan and purpose for their lives.
One of the greatest gifts my mother gave me was to drill into my mind and into my brothers’ minds that we are all meant to be in ministry. Whether or not I was called into the ministry was never a question for me – it was just a matter of figuring out what kind of ministry that would be. I’ve never doubted that God calls me, even when I’ve wondered about the details of that call. I think the disciples must have had mothers like mine, because they, too, despite other doubts and questions that arise, never seem to think they aren’t meant to be following Jesus, serving God.
Last week, we talked about bringing our brokenness to God, offering God our entire selves, as we are, broken, damaged, hurt, messed-up, sinful. We talked about offering our brokenness to God as a gift, as God offers us the gift of unconditional love. When we read about the healing and life-giving work that Jesus did, I reminded us that Jesus says it is the faith of those he encounters that makes them well, that allows God to be able to work in their lives. Today, I want us to consider more fully what this means. God looks for faith in us – we might readily agree to that. We’d probably describe this as God looking for our faith in God. We seek to have faith that God love us, faith that God will act with care and compassion toward us, and faith that God offers us grace despite our brokenness. But today, I want you to consider that God looks for faith in us in a different way as well. I think God also has faith in us. God has faith that despite our brokenness, we can be disciples. Despite our failures and sin, God can use us to accomplish God’s work in the world. Despite our humanity, God has faith that God can use us as the laborers in the vineyard, working to bring about the kingdom of God, here and now. God has faith in us. What else could explain God’s love of choosing such ordinary, faulty, inconsistent people like those we read about throughout the scriptures, and those we see ourselves to be. God chooses us, because God has faith in us. And if God has faith in us, God looks for us to have faith too – not just in God, but also in ourselves. Faith that we are called, chosen, gifted, precious, talented, needed disciples and laborers for the kingdom of God. Bishop Will Willimon, one of our United Methodist Bishops, says “It’s amazing that the Son of God, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace turns to ordinary folk like the 12 disciples, like us, and give us his work to do….People may believe in Jesus but they have difficulty believing that Jesus believes in us!” (1) But the evidence is there, right in our text. Jesus is asking for more laborers, more workers to be about the plans of God, bringing the good news of the kingdom to those who still need to get the message. God has faith in us – not because God can’t accomplish the work without us – but because God doesn’t want to do it without us. We, with all our faults and brokenness, are part of God’s plan of love for the world.
I’m still in my first year here, but today as we celebrate our church school children moving on to the next grade, and as we celebrate our graduates growing up, and moving on, and coming into their own, and as we prepare for three baptisms this summer (and counting), and as we begin our work as the Lay Leadership Committee for another year, I’m falling in love with watching a whole new set of lives unfolding before my eyes. How will God use Jeremy and Reilly and Madeline, who will be baptized in the coming weeks? What plans does God have for all of the children who gather on these steps every Sunday? What call to ministry will be answered by the students who will go through confirmation this fall? Where is God leading Kat and Joe? How will God use our new senior high students to shape the life of this congregation? What gifts will our college students unleash on a world in such need of God’s love? What gifts do you bring? How is God speaking to you today? So much promise awaits them and us and this congregation and this world when we realize that we are called, that God has faith in us.
What is God’s plan for you? I’m anxious to know. Because God is calling you right now. Not the person next to you. Not you once you’re ready. You. Right now. And I wonder how your call will unfold. Amen.
(1) Pulpit Resource, (Vol. 36, No. 2, page 46)