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"Come as you are, but don’t leave as you came."
--that is a saying chiseled over the front door of a chapel in Scotland.
We would do well to have that saying chiseled on our hearts each time we approach holy scripture or attempt to
worship.
Change is unavoidable but not always willingly embraced. You clean a house so that it is spic and span,
but the dust returns even to the rooms we do not enter. You look at photographs of yourself from five, ten or
fifteen years ago and try to pretend that you haven’t changed all that much, but you know that isn’t true. We
look around the room for faces that are no longer there, and see the new ones of people who we still haven’t gotten
to know despite the fact that they have been here now for three years. There are new stores, with new products,
and the movers and shakers continue to come and go as quickly as the advertisements.
We are all changing, some for the better and some for the worse.
Today we address issues of "calling," what it means to be commissioned by God for a particular task.
Not long ago the subject came up in an adult education meeting that we hear a lot about "call" within
the church, but never really go into any depth of explanation about what that means. Not all of us will go into
ordained ministry, though we are all "called" or directed by God to minister for Christ in the world
today. In terms of the continuing "signs" of Christ’s epiphany among us this fourth one would be the
recognition of and response to the inner voice that guides and challenges us each day to change in accordance to
what is best for the Kingdom of God. To "change" in other words in accordance with God’s plan for
us.
Our story as "God’s people" begins with an affirmation that we have been important to God from the
moment of our conception. We find it in both the psalm and the lesson from Jeremiah where words like "from
my mother’s womb," and "before I formed you" directly imply a foreknowledge and purpose for our
existence.
There is within the Judeo-Christian understanding a purpose for life that goes beyond personal choice; one that
has been ordained by a higher power than we can ever contradict. If one believes that God has some desire to
involve us in the work of creation then it seems reasonable to say that our greatest task in life, our reason
for being if you will, is to come to an understanding of that purpose. Augustine said, "That I must speak,
this I know. But how and when, and to whom?"
Where do we begin to explore the reason for our being?
Mother Teresa, in A Simple Path, (Ballantine Books, 1995, p. 99) wrote: "We must grow in love and
to do this we must go on loving and giving until it hurts---the way Jesus did. Do ordinary things with extraordinary
love…..You must give what will cost you something. This, then, is giving not just what you can live without but
what you can't live without or don't want to live without, something you really like. Then your gift becomes a
sacrifice, which will have value before God."
One does not grow by remaining within the comfort levels we have established for ourselves. If it is easy then
change will not happen, but the kind of love or sacrifice described above will change us in ways that are not
always comfortable.
Last week we ended our Gospel lesson with Jesus having closed the scroll and taken his seat after reading a passage
from Isaiah about the year of Jubilee, the restoration of all good things to God’s chosen people. And all spoke
well of him. Today’s gospel repeats those final verses and then has Jesus expand on those ideas to include blessings
to outsiders as well. He shares "the other side of God’s love", and it is too much for his orthodox
audience to endure.
The focus of the passage is not upon the potential beneficiaries of God's grace in Christ, but upon the potential
losers. Where lies the danger for us? We know that it is never easy to stand up for what is right and truthful,
but avoiding it is to sacrifice our connection with the ministries of peace and justice so central to the message
of Jesus of Nazareth.
We too often err on missing the truth all together, not because it isn’t spoken, but because we choose not to
hear it by focusing on something more relevant to our own way of thinking.
What sort of sermon would you have to preach in order for your parishioners to have the rage to want to kill you?
What do you have to do to so offend them?
Tony Campolo, a former professor and good friend of mine like to tell this story which I think is a very good
illustration of who we miss the point. A preacher got up to preach and said "My sermon today is about the
problem of world hunger and why it continues. It has 3 points."
It was obvious from the approving nods throughout the congregation that this was a subject they found acceptable
and not too threatening. After all world hunger is an important problem and something we should focus our attention
on from time to time. He then continued:
"Point #1 - 55 million people in our world today are suffering from starvation. 1 million will die of starvation,
many during the very preaching of this sermon. "
Again, approving nods and even some attempt at compassionate facial expressions.
"Point #2 - Most of you don't give a s***." With the use of that offensive expletive jaws were clearly
dropping throughout the congregation.
Without skipping a beat, he continued: "Point #3 - You are now more concerned that your pastor said 's***'
than you are about the 1 million people who will die today."
The pastor then closed his noted, turned, and took his seat. Before the organist could even begin to play the
final hymn, some people walked out saying "I don’t need to come to church to hear language like that!"
Everyone was still pondering whether they had heard correctly or not, and it was clearly the topic of conversation
in the parking lot following the service. Some were so incensed they went home and actually wrote their bishop
for the first time, complaining about the appointment process and the person who had the nerve to occupy their
pulpit. Other withdrew their financial support, and some their membership. For months and years to come some
still referred to it as the "most divisive moment" in their church’s history.
But…if you asked them "What did you ever do about world hunger?", they would have said " About
what?…Oh, world hunger….well, nothing. We were so preoccupied, and that really didn’t effect us very much did
it?"
Consider too the fate of Paul’s words in our Epistle lesson today. The 13th chapter of First Corinthians has become
an almost universal choice as a reading for weddings, as if these words were meant to convey the depth of commitment
to be found in the most intimate covenant of marriage. We hear them as pretty, tender, and an almost prayerful
wish for the happy couple who are embarking on a new chapter in their lives.
But these words were not written to a couple, they were written to a congregation, and not even a happy, warm
fuzzy congregation, but a more typical dysfunctional one. In fact these words were written in response to sexual
immorality, indifference to the needs of the poor, arrogance on the part of the educated and titled, and as an
address to the gross misconduct in the celebration of the Lord’s supper involving drunkenness and greed. One can
be fairly sure that many who really heard those words were incensed at being criticized, and may have missed
the challenge to pursue the more excellent way of love altogether.
Scripture has a critical function for us at times. We must listen to it whether we like it or not. We cannot get
by in the Church if we discount the word of God by calling it relative or outdated. To ignore the scripture is
to open the gate to blessing the values and prejudices that are purchased wholesale from the merchants of a secular
culture. And that only leads us to the kind of spiritual, emotional and physical violence we see around us everywhere
in the world today!
It is good to hear about the things we are doing right. It is equally important to hear the other side. To evaluate
our ministry on the basis of "Where are the converts? Where are the people whose lives have been claimed
as servants for the Kingdom? Who has been called to pastor? To teach?" These things are far more important
than how much money came in the collection, or how many cars were in the parking lot.
It has been suggested that in the more typical worship setting this story in the synagogue at Nazareth might have
ended very differently. Perhaps something like: "All the people in the synagogue sat silently as they heard
this and stirred not at all. Then they got up at the end of the service and passed by him, shaking his hand and
saying, "Nice sermon, Rabbi," and "Wonderful sermon, Rabbi," and "You are quite an accomplished
speaker, Rabbi" and "So good you could be with us this morning, Rabbi" and "You must come
again sometime, Rabbi"; and from thence they hurried to the parking lot and on to the restaurants at which
they ate after the service, thus they walked right through Jesus and went on their way, untouched by him.
Jesus was driven by their response to run by himself to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, where
he briefly considered throwing himself down from the cliff, wondering "Does anybody really listen? Does
anyone really care?"
May we hear and respond in accordance with the true challenges of God, no matter which side they place us on,
for clearly that is where our authority is to be found.
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