"Faithfulness Wearing Work-boots"        2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10                   Romans 12:1-6

 

Jeremiah 1:4-10 (NRSV)

4Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 6Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 7But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, 8Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” 9Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

 

Romans 12:1-6 (The Message)   Place Your Life Before God

 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

 3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

 4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pride-fully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

 

 

One time during seminary, one of the professors,

            commented over lunch,   on how fortunate it was  

                        that he never had to serve as a pastor of a church,

                               or had to deal with the folks in the pews each week;

                                         who having not received a theological education …

                  … were in matters of faith,   bothersome and beneath him.

 

Now he certainly was a brilliant scholar and well known author,

            who had devoted his life to studying Scripture and theology.

                                    But he was denigrating the very church members

                                                whose hard labor and faithful generosity         à

     àhad enabled him to live a comfortable life of scholarship

             within the  protected environment of teaching at a seminary…

 

… and for their lack of biblical training    that they provided him,

            he assumed and defined their faith

                        as childish and underdeveloped,   and therefore inferior.

                                   

I couldn't have disagreed more, and knowing

            that I wouldn't be in any more of his classes,   I told him so.

To explain and illustrate my position, I told him about Bill,

            an elder I had served with on Session, back in VA Beach.

 

Bill was not well educated. I doubt he'd even finished high school.

    He'd worked his whole life at the Newport News naval shipyard.

 

And every day until retirement, for all those many years,

            every morning before sunrise he took the long bus ride to work,

                        to a dirty, physically demanding and grueling menial job

                                    that never paid him a whole lot of money.

                        And every afternoon he rode that bus back home again

                           to be with his family at dinner every night without fail.

 

Bill faithfully gave 10% or more of his income to his church.

            Every Sunday he was there with his wife and kids.

                        He sang and played guitar at our Bible study each week,

               and he served on committees or whatever else was asked of him.

 

His faith was not a vast accumulation of biblical knowledge

            or tracing through convoluted issues of theology or ethics.

In fact as I recall, he disliked and distrusted the word 'theology'

            and was very skeptical about learned biblical scholarship.

 

Bill's faith was vibrant.  His, a life well lived as a Christian man,

            of trying and striving to live as a Christian in the real world;

                    trying-striving to model faith and morals for his children

                           while confronting the challenges of our culture & world.

 

Bill's faith   wore dirty work-boots and sweaty dungarees,

            and not the bowtie and starched shirt of a seminary professor.

 

His faith was a lesson in steadfast endurance and tenacity;

       and his faith made all the difference in the living of  his life.

 

I learned a great deal from Bill,

            and came to respect and admire his down-to-earth wisdom.   

He epitomized Paul's instructions to the Christians in Rome, vs. 1

            So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

 

One of the great truths that emerged from the Reformation,

            was that the faith of "church professionals", such as

                        pastors, priests, nuns or monks,    is in no way superior,

            to those who live out their faith commitments in the real world

                        of making an honest living and raising a family

                          while taking up their cross daily to follow Jesus Christ.

 

Truly, the testing of our faith, and the place where faith grows,

            is not so much just here in the church    as it's done out there;

                        where we try to apply the lessons from worship & Scripture

                                    by letting God's love and grace influence & transform                                                                                  our ordinary lives according to God's purpose.

 

A faithful life lived well out in the world

            may be the best way to honor and  to glorify our Lord God;

                        which is every bit as valid, important and significant

                             as the holiest saint safely sequestered in church work,

                                    or any religious professional, including a pastor.

 

But as Paul warns us, there is a real danger, Romans 12:2      

            Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out.  Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of mediocrity, God brings the best out of you.

 

Being too well-adjusted to the ways of our world and culture

            refers to more than just the dangers

                        of materialism, greed, pleasure-seeking or other vices.

For today, I'd like to focus on a more subtle concern about becoming

            overly well- adjusted and enmeshed into our world and culture.

 

Our culture exerts tremendous pressure and stress to surrender

          our unique giftedness and become more like everyone else.

 

It is unfortunate, but through the harshness and traumas of life,

            like layer after layer of old paint and varnish covering

                        the natural wood grain beauty of a priceless antique,à

 

                        àour painful life experiences   can crush our spirits

                         concealing the priceless-ness and unique giftedness

                              that each of us receives from our loving gracious God.

 

Such as a child,  who is teased   or not picked to play on a team ----

    is left thinking maybe they're right, I'm not good enough to play.

Or still echoing such hurtful put-downs, even later on in life,

            thinking that maybe it's better not to try

                        than risk suffering embarrassment, failure or ridicule.

 

From our defeats and disasters, we may cringe in fear thereafter

            supposing that maybe I can't accomplish such a difficult task,

                        that maybe I'm not good enough to succeed,   even if I try…

            …and so feeling insecure, we fearfully hide our unique light.

 

We may allow our sense of human worth to be stripped away,

            letting others undermine and deny our dignity and value

                        based on no more than their wrong and shallow evaluations.

 

We may surrender the worth and value   that God has given each of us,

          by letting the world grind off our special uniqueness,

                 so fearing to risk, we use far less than our full giftedness…

            … and so we settle for less than the good God intends for us;

   and worst of all, we accept the destructive lie,

      the terrible  untruth   that our lives   don't really matter.

 

This perspective, that our lives maybe don't really matter

            is call nihilism,  as in the popular song lyrics of the 1970's:

"Dust in the dust, all we are is dust in the wind.

            Same old song, just a drop of water in endless sea,

                        All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see.                                               Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind."

 

Though we are formed by God from the dust,

            let us never forget that we are precious and loved by God,

                                    and that as God said to young Jeremiah in vs. 4:

                        "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations … the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”

 

Each one of us           is special and unique – we are like no other.

        Every single person created by God throughout all human history

                        has always been special and unique –   none like any other.

 

Our loving God has never made the same person twice;

            but each one is different – uniquely special, gifted and loved.

                        The Lord God makes no mistakes and there are no accidents.

 

God promises, before you were even formed in your mother's womb,

            you were already entirely known and loved by God.

 

Even before birth

            you were already gifted and chosen by God to serve usefully

                        and to live an abundant, meaningful and joyful life.

That is an incredibly amazing and wonderfully important truth

            that also shows up in the New Testament, Galatians 1:15,

   But God, … set me apart before I was born, he called me through his grace  …

 

God knew and loved each one of us, even before our birth.

            God wasn't surprised or caught off guard when we sinned, andà

                        God already knew that we would say and do hurtful things.

 

            God already knew that we would rebel against His will and Law,

                        and that we would reject both God and His loving grace…

                                    AND though already knowing all that, yet God still                                                    chose to love us & to bless us, to make us His own.

 

God's love for us does not depend upon our goodness or faithfulness

            but upon God's steadfast mercy and eternal faithfulness;

                        for we were already and always infinitely loved,

                                    while yet in our mother's wombs.

    And though God already knew all the mistakes that we'd ever make,

          yet God refuses to let that determine our worth or our future.

 

I am greatly comforted by that truth,

            that  regardless of whatever trouble or situation we're in,

                        no matter how fallen, damaged or broken we are,

          we do matter;  we are not just dust in the wind,  here  then gone.

 

No matter our circumstances or the mistakes we have made,

            our lives do matter, they matter very much,

                        and not just for what we may usefully accomplish in life,

                                    but because Our Creator  values and loves us ----

                                                         and that is our ultimate and infinite worth.

 

God formed us and our lives beginning before we ever were,

            like a potter, an artist hand-shaping a glob of clay.

    God didn't just form us, shaping our bodies,

            but God also arranged the circumstances of life that shaped us,

                  all the people & the events that helped us to develop & grow.

 

   God uses it all, every bit of our lives, 

          and despite all appearances       it's all for our benefit

                   that may know the limitless love and blessings of our God.

 

So all of that being true,

            what does that mean to us as a church, as the people of God?

I love the way Paul answers that question in Romans, vs. 6

            So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pride-fully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

  I wonder if Paul may have had Jeremiah in mind in writing this,

            as an answer to any

               who think God must have made a mistake, when called to serve.     

 

* The critical point is that God has already got it all worked out;

     * God has been getting things ready even before we were born.

               * God doesn't ask us to do anything or give us any tasks to do,

                          without also providing all the resources we need.

 

As God said to Jeremiah, it really doesn't depend upon you anyway

            for I am your God, I love you and I will work it out for you.

                     If I ask you to do it,

                             then surely I'll also equip you and bring you through.

 

  So you see, we've got this church, this body of Christ;

            and all along God has been blessing us beyond abundance.

                        God has brought some amazing people here

                           with a vast  array of gifts, skills and life experiences.

 

People whom God has been preparing to be right here

          for all their lives and before;

                and in fact, there is far more here than we have been using.

 

 I think this is a great blessing,   but it's also a problem.

      There are people here with incredible gifts & blessings to offer

                 that no one has yet managed to discern, encourage or affirm

                                    or figure out how to put them to work,   not yet.

            I believe that is a problem,

                actually it's a big problem we need to address and resolve.

 

You see if people and their gifts are being left standing idle,

            or if gifts and ideas are held back, denied or ignored,

                        then they may wither away and rust away with disuse,

                               and of course some task, God's will  doesn't get done.

 

   Most concerning to me  is that

            that such a person does not experience and delight

                 in the blessed satisfaction of doing what they can,

                                       and at truly being excellent as God so intends,

                                                and planned for them before they even ever were.

 

They are not receiving the joy and the delight

    or the sense of fulfillment & purpose that God intends for them…

            … and I doubt that humans can ever truly know peace and joy

                        until we let God use us, for it is

                             through our faithful service that God blesses us.

So obviously we need for each one of us

     be doing the right job, in the right place and at the right time.

 

The Church is a lot like a stained glass window ---

            where each of us is just one tiny shard of colored glass

                        that has been cut to fit into a particular ideal spot.

 

            Each piece equally contributes to the overall picture

                        by each uniquely refracting-reflecting the glory of God's light;

 

            each helping depict the full beauty and  wonder

                        as God's love shines through us, 

                                    all shining outward toward a darkened troubled world,

                                                so very much   hurting,  anxious   and in need.

 

This is an incredibly hopeful day, a good day for us to dream,

            and just consider what all   that we could be doing together

                        if we'd each become increasingly faithful to God's call;

 

            if we'd each just do whatever  God sets before us

                        and seek to receive the blessing and joy

                             of fulfilling that purpose God intends for each of us

                                     no one doing it all, and no one left out from the work…

-each flexing & exercises their gifts to strengthen the whole body.

                                               

So let us covenant that we will listen for God's call by asking:

               How can I help this church, to be more inviting and welcoming,

                        and to better reflect God's love and grace to our world?

            How can my gifts be used in what special way for serving others?

                        How can I help this church be the sort of faith-communityà

                                    and family that God has called us to be and to become?

 

As Paul wrote to Timothy:  (1 Timothy 4:14, 2 Timothy 1:6) 

            Do not neglect the gift that is in you, … Put these things into practice … I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you.