The Waking Dreamer: Service

Showing posts with label Service. Show all posts

Monday, February 16, 2026

The Common Good

1 Corinthians 12:1-11[1]

Over the course of about a thousand years, the work of the church evolved from being something that was primarily the work of the people to being something that was exclusively the work of priests. In fact, there were times when the priests were the only ones in worship. For centuries, most people actually went to church only on Easter Sunday. A typical Sunday in “church” saw the priests and their assistants working at the altar. If anyone happened to be sitting in the church to pray, the priests might not even have noticed, because they would have been facing the altar, with their backs turned to the rest of the church. You can see a remnant of this style of worship practiced still to this day in Orthodox Christian Churches. The priests do a lot of their “work” in leading worship facing the altar.

When the Protestant Reformation came along, the idea of the “priesthood of all believers” emerged as a foundational principle. Especially in the Reformed branch of the Protestant church under John Calvin, where the origins of Presbyterians lie, the idea was that the work of ministry belonged to everyone in the church. And those Reformers changed worship completely to focus on the reading of scripture, the singing of songs, hymns, and even the Psalms, and preaching. All of that was, of course, directed toward the congregation. Those who were doing the reading, singing, and preaching faced the people.

Today we’ve celebrated this aspect of our roots in the Presbyterian church. By ordaining and installing elders and deacons to serve the people of this congregation and this community with “energy, intelligence, imagination, and love,” we celebrate our belief that the work of the church doesn’t belong to some exclusive class of priests. Rather, the work of the church belongs to us all. But then that also puts us all on the spot, to some extent. Because in the Presbyterian church, we believe that we’re all a part of the work of this church. We all have a role to play, and unless we all play our roles, we cannot fully carry out our ministry as a church.

Some of us might object that we don’t have the skills or the training to do the work of ministry. In our Scripture reading from 1 Corinthians for today, Paul reminds us that we already have all we need to fully carry out the ministry of this church. He says it this way in our reading for today: “God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate [with the Lord Jesus Christ]. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all” (1 Cor 12:4-6, MSG). One of the reasons why Paul was addressing this topic is because some in the church at Corinth were claiming that their “gifts” were superior to the others. Paul made it clear that there’s no room for that kind of thinking in the body of Christ. In the body of Christ, every member is important.

Throughout his letters, Paul makes it clear that all of life in the church is the result of the work of the Spirit of God. When the church thrives, it’s because the Spirit of God is working among us and through us. When the church comes together in a way that unites believers from across all the lines that would divide us, it’s the work of the Spirit of God. When the members of a congregation like this one share in the serving one another and the community around us, it’s because the Spirit of God has enabled us to do so. For St. Paul, every aspect of the church’s life and ministry comes from the Spirit of God. And part of the point of this is to assure us, just like those early believers at Corinth, that God’s Spirit is indeed working among us and through us.

Perhaps the most surprising element in all of this is the fact that God has chosen to accomplish this work through people like you and me. And to do this, he gives us the “gifts of the Spirit,” which Paul says are given to each person “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). In The Message version we read together this morning, it says it this way: “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits.” In other words, every single person in this church has some “gift” from the Spirit that is to be used for the benefit of the whole church. But that also means that for the church to thrive all the members of the body have to share the gifts they have been given. We may have a variety of gifts, but all of them come from the same Spirit and are meant for one purpose: to build up the body of Christ.

I think one major mistake people make when they try to figure out what their “spiritual gift” might be is that they try to see where they fit into the lists of gifts mentioned in the Bible. But I don’t believe Paul ever intended for the gifts he named to be taken as the only ones out there. They are examples of the ways that the Spirit of God was working through people in the churches of his day. To be sure, some of those gifts are timeless. There will always be a need for teaching. There will always be a place for generosity. There will always be a call for leadership. But I would say that your “spiritual gift” might not even be in one of the biblical lists. That may make it a little harder to discern how you fit into the body of Christ, but it also gives you the freedom to be the person God has called you to be in building up the body of Christ.

One of the challenges facing most churches like ours is what might be called a “generational shift.” Many of the people who have been doing the work of ministry may no longer be able or available to be as involved as they once were. And the families who are mostly being served by the church are reticent to step up into leadership roles, because their lives are pretty hectic already. As a result, there are “jobs” in the church that may fall by the wayside. It may leave some of us wondering “whose job is this?” It seems to me that Paul gives us at least one piece of helpful advice: the Spirit of God has given us all gifts to be used “for the common good” in building up the church. If I may be so bold, it would seem to me that his answer to the question, “whose job is this?” would be, “It’s our job.” All of us. Today, we celebrated that aspect of our faith by ordaining and installing a group of people who stepped up and said “yes” when they were asked if they would serve. But whether or not you’re serving in a formal role, we all share the same calling: to serve one another and this community with the gifts God’s Spirit has given us.

Monday, September 22, 2025

Channels of Grace

1 Timothy 1:12-17[1]

We’ve been discussing some of the pitfalls of religion over the last several weeks. As hard as it is to admit, the Church has not escaped the flaws inherent in all human religion. I think it’s fitting to have this discussion this year because Luke’s Gospel focuses on these matters. A brief overview of history shows us that the Church has had a mixed legacy. In many cases those who follow Jesus have given sacrificially and have poured out kindness and mercy to those who are hurting. At times giving their very lives to serve other people. But in all too many cases, I’m afraid the Church has been responsible for inflicting harm. More than that, the Church has inflicted violence of many kinds on innocent people. At times it was just for being from the wrong religion. I think about the crusades. At times it was for being the wrong gender. I think about the “witch hunts.” There were sometimes when it was simply for practicing a different form of Christianity! I think about Protestants versus Catholics and vice versa.

Just like every other human endeavor, religion is flawed because it is practiced by human beings. Many others have observed that the roots of the problem are to be found in our own capacity for fear, hatred, and self-deception![2] As hard as it is for us to hear, our religion can turn into neurosis. The definition of neurosis is that what a person has repressed—fear of not being “enough,” self-hatred, excessive pride, unbridled desires—becomes what they see in others. But it’s all an elaborate (but unconscious) ploy to avoid having to face the ugly truth within themselves![3] This repression of one’s own insecurity and guilt inevitably leads to a rigid set of rules and authoritarian beliefs that are considered absolute precisely because they protect the guilty from having to face their own shame. Anyone who opposes, challenges, or in any way questions that system of religious self-justification becomes the target of vicious hatred and violent attacks. It’s happened over and over again in the history of the world! When religion originates with fear and hatred, it’s no wonder that people kill others in the name of God, as heartbreaking as it is to recognize!

By his own admission, St. Paul was such a man. His devotion to Judaism was so complete that he considered the message of Jesus about God’s joyful acceptance even of those who have lost their way to be a blasphemous insult. When confronted with the gospel, Paul’s initial response was violent. Anyone who preached Jesus’ message deserved a death sentence. What made Jesus’ gospel outrageous to someone like Paul was that it defines God as the one who loves everyone so much that he goes out searching for those who have lost their way, as our Gospel lesson reminds us.[4] But the fact that Jesus preached and enacted that good news contradicted Paul’s original view of God as a stern and unfeeling judge who doles out rewards and punishments in strict conformity to obedience and sin. Jesus’ message of grace and mercy to those who have lost their way was an intolerable upheaval in the image of God for Jewish zealots like Paul. It was outright blasphemy! And so he set about to eradicate it.

Again, this isn’t propaganda hurled against Paul by his opponents. This comes from Paul’s own confessions about his life. In our lesson from 1 Timothy for today, we hear about how Paul had formerly been “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence” (1 Tim. 1:13). I can imagine that his heart broke as he authored those words. The book of Acts recounts that Paul was on his way to Damascus with the authority to seek out followers of Jesus and have them put to death! The sobering fact is that he did all of that on God’s behalf, as an expression of his faith. That may seem impossible to believe, and yet I think it was part and parcel of his version of that compulsive, neurotic religion. When confronted with something he could not reconcile with his own “sacred cows,” Paul didn’t hesitate to act in anger and violence. People of all faiths still do it all the time.

But something happened to Paul that changed him. He came face-to-face with the risen and exalted Christ. And as a result Paul says he received mercy and grace “poured all over” him (1 Tim 1:14, CEB). That was enough to convince him that he was headed in the wrong direction. So he turned his life around. But more than that, he received a commission: Paul says he was “judged faithful” and “appointed” to serve Christ. And so, as he says elsewhere, Paul began to proclaim the good news he had formerly tried to destroy (cf. Gal. 1:23). In a real sense, Paul became a channel of the very grace and mercy he had formerly sought to suppress and even to eradicate.

Some might be tempted to say that God made an exception for Paul. But our lesson for today suggests that the reason why Paul experienced such extraordinary grace and mercy was not only to make him a channel of that grace to others, but also to show that this is the way God deals with us all. As the Scripture lesson puts it, Paul’s experience was to demonstrate that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Since Paul could consider himself the “foremost,” or a “worst-case” sinner, our lesson says that he received mercy so that “Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16). Paul experienced God’s grace, mercy, and love so that he could become a channel of that grace to others, especially those who were considered a “lost cause.”

I think some of this might come as a shock to us. After all, it is “Saint Paul” we’re talking about, preacher and teacher of the gospel, founder and pastor of churches, and writer of about a third of the New Testament! He’s called “Saint Paul” for a reason. Most of us would consider ourselves much worse sinners than Paul! But I would say our lesson insists that the reason why Paul experienced such amazing grace and mercy was to show there is no one who is beyond the love of God. By his own admission he had blasphemed Christ and viciously attacked and even murdered Christians. If he could be forgiven for that, then there was no one who could not be forgiven their sins. Since Jesus came into the world to save sinners, that includes us all. Paul was the prime example of how God’s grace can transform even the most violent person into a channel of grace to others.

While our Scripture lesson for today comes from the end of Paul’s life, the message that God’s grace and mercy and love are for all people was an important part of the gospel Paul preached from the very beginning. In fact, this message can be found in Scripture long before Paul lived, even before Jesus died on the cross. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, God displays grace and mercy to the people of Israel again and again. Grace and mercy and unfailing love define God’s very character throughout the Bible. We might wonder how Paul and his compatriots could be so devoted to Scripture and be so completely wrong-headed about God. And yet, as I observed when we began, whenever anyone uses religion to cover up a fundamental sense of guilt and shame, their religion can become angry and violent.

As was the case for Paul, so it is still true today that God’s grace and mercy and love remain intact, even for those who use their religion to harm others. God’s grace remains for us all! And part of Paul’s point in our lesson from 1 Timothy is that the extraordinary grace God showed someone like Paul is for everyone. Christ Jesus came to save us all. That means there is no one who is ever beyond the love of God. This is the way God has dealt with people from the very beginning. But the purpose of God’s grace has always been to transform those who experience it into channels of grace to others. That was true with Abraham and his descendants. It was true for Paul and his compatriots. And it’s still true for us today.

There are things happening in our world and in our country that are troubling and discouraging. It may leave us wondering what we can do to make a difference in this big world that seems to be spinning out of control into violence and hatred. I’ve said it before: I believe that every time we act with integrity and compassion, it makes a difference. Every time we share the grace we’ve received from God with someone else, it makes a difference. It certainly makes a difference directly in the life of those with whom we share that grace. But I believe it also makes a difference in the bigger world. We may not see it. We may not see the path in front of us, but that’s because we’re living in a time when we’re forging that path by every act of integrity, kindness, or compassion. Every time we act as channels of God’s grace, we’re forging the path toward the light, toward goodness. We’re blazing the trail toward kingdom of God. The purpose of God’s grace has always been to transform us into channels of grace to others. That was true for Paul and it’s still true for us today. God shows us his grace and mercy and love, without restrictions or conditions, to make us into people who will rejoice with him any time anyone who has lost their way finds their way back home. He does so to make us into people who will become channels of that grace to those around us.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/14/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Keith Ward, Is Religion Dangerous?, 25-41. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 186-89.

[3] Cf. Paul Tillich, “The Yoke of Religion,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 93-103; Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason, 258-273; Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 236.

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 128-29, where he points out that Jesus “demonstrated God’s eschatological law of grace towards those without the law and the transgressors of the law, through his forgiveness of sins. By so doing he abolished the legal distinction between religious and secular, righteous and unrighteous, devout and sinful. He revealed God in a different way from that in which he was understood in the law and the tradition and was perceived by the guardians of the law.” Cf. also ibid., 142, where he speaks of this as a “revolution in the concept of God”: “God comes not to carry out just revenge upon the evil, but to justify by grace sinners, whether they are Zealots or tax collectors, Pharisees or sinners, Jews or Samaritans, and therefore, also, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.”

Monday, July 21, 2025

Free Enough to Serve

Galatians 5:1, 13-26[1]

I recently spoke about one of the reasons some people give for not being involved in organized religion. It’s because they see the church as “full of hypocrites.” And I suggested in that sermon that one reason for that criticism is that they hear us saying one thing while they see us doing something very different. I think another reason why people avoid religion is because, truth be told, we can come across like very selfish and self-centered people. Especially when it comes to salvation. When we make salvation all about “me, my, and mine,” what other people may hear is that we really don’t care about anyone else.

I think that’s a sad state of affairs. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ making the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life away selflessly so that we could all live together in the freedom, peace, and joy of God’s love. And somehow, someway, too many of us who profess faith in him do so in a way that strikes the people around us as so utterly selfish and self-centered that it turns them away from the community of those who claim to follow Jesus. To some extent, I can understand that. Too many in the church have focused on their own salvation to such an extent that it can come across as if they have no concern for anyone else’s salvation. Surely those of us who follow Jesus must share his concern for the whole human family!

I think part of the problem is that we can get caught up in our own “stuff” so much that it’s hard for us to look past it and really care about those around us. It’s a natural thing. And it’s true for all of us. It’s part of being human. Our life experiences are what are most real to us. But we can get so bent out of shape about our malfunctioning cell phones (just for example) that we lose all sight of the fact that there are many people in the world who have to walk miles for clean water! Now, I don’t want to suggest that what preoccupies us is always as trivial as a malfunctioning cell phone. We have much bigger concerns that, very naturally, occupy our attention. But the “optics” of that mindset don’t make for a favorable portrait of the church and those of us who are devoted to it.

I think our lesson from the book of Galatians for today addresses this question. Paul emphasizes the freedom we have in Christ. A big part of that freedom is that through his faithful obedience to God even to the point of death on a cross, and by placing our faith in him as our savior and lord, we’re set free from all the guilt and fear and all the other “stuff” that might plague us. For Paul, the cross means that God has “justified” us. That’s the language of the Bible. It’s a theological word for the idea that God accepts us and loves us just as we are. Unconditionally and irrevocably. Paul was insistent that we don’t have to do anything to earn that love and acceptance. In fact, he made it clear that if the believers of his day thought they could do anything to earn it, it would cancel out the message of the gospel!

We can read a passage like this and think that freedom is simple: you don’t “do the works of the flesh” and you “do the works of the Spirit.” But in reality, true freedom is something that’s really quite complicated. For one thing, if you look at the vice lists in the New Testament and think that any one of those behaviors excludes us from God’s love and acceptance, then we’re all in that boat because we’ve all fallen short in some way. And if you look at the “fruit of the Spirit” and ask whether we consistently embody those characteristics in our daily living, the answer is “sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.” It’s a tough list to live up to. Freedom is something that’s quite complicated.

Many in our society think freedom means “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to.” But that’s not freedom. It’s just “license.” As in taking liberties that aren’t necessarily thoughtful, kind, or caring to others or to ourselves. License differs from freedom in that in that it means doing whatever we please without thinking about how it may affect anyone.[2] It’s a matter of indulging ourselves however and wherever we want. License means choosing to ignore that there are always consequences to our actions and choices. And such blatant self-indulgence never results in real freedom. We can do whatever we please whenever we want as much as we can get away with, and never feel truly loved, or accepted, or valued as a person. And when we lack that basic foundation in our lives, we are never truly free. Freedom is complicated.

I think that’s one reason why Paul insists that the gospel of salvation through Jesus is a free gift. It makes a difference in how we not only look at ourselves, but also how we treat others. Recognizing that the only “justification” that really means anything comes to us through Jesus and the unconditional acceptance God extends to us through him frees us from all that would bind us in this world. That also frees us from all the ways we might think we have to bolster ourselves by putting down others. Trusting the gift of God’s unconditional acceptance frees us to serve one another, all others, in love![3] The only way to truly find freedom is to give yourself away in love, and the only way to truly give yourself away in love is when you find freedom from all that can bind us in this world.[4]

If we truly find that freedom to love, we’re naturally going to extend that love to everyone. We’re naturally going to be concerned with the salvation of the whole human family, not just ourselves. We will be motivated to serve others in a way that truly brings “liberty and justice” to all, in a way that recognizes the dignity of every person, regardless of race, gender, ability, or class. Serving others in love starts with recognizing the dignity of every person. Now, I will be the first to admit that it’s incredibly difficult to live out this level of love and freedom all the time. We all have a variety of influences within us that get in the way of giving ourselves away to others in love. What St. Paul wanted the people of his day and ours to know is that what God has done for us in Jesus sets us free to explore what it means to share love in a community of people, like this one, who are committed to sharing God’s love with the whole world.

[2] John Paul II, in “The Gospel of Life,” 19.3, said that we have “a notion of freedom which exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and service of them.” See J. Michael Miller, C. S. B., The Encyclicals of John Paul II, 808.

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 188. He says that the church is the “fellowship of the justified, who no longer have to justify themselves” He goes on to insist that this freedom sets us free to serve others in love. As I have suggested before, I believe this is idea of freedom to love is a central theme in Moltmann’s understanding of the Christian life. It runs throughout his discussion of the church’s identity and calling; he begins the idea that Jesus establishes the freedom of God’s kingdom by sacrificing himself for others (117), by breaking the powers of oppression through the resurrection (98-99), and by assuring us that we are accepted by God, and therefore enabling us to accept others (188-89); therefore Moltmann understands the freedom of God’s kingdom as that which enables us to serve one another in the effort to bring freedom to others (84, 195, 278, 283-84, 292); he construes this life under the concept of “friendship” which Jesus models and we are called to emulate those who are “open for others” and who “love in freedom” (121, 316).

[4] St. Augustine said it this way: “love, and do what you will”; cf. Augustine, Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John; http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170207.htm.; See John Caputo, On Religion, 3-7, 24-28, 109-116, 134-36, 139; cf. similarly, John Calvin and W. Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, 160 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc): “He who loves will render to every man his right, will do injury or harm to no man, will do good, as far as lies in his power, to all.” See further, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.2:732-33.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Worthy

1 Corinthians 15:1-11[1]

The question of our personal “worthiness” can be a thorny one. Some of us may feel that we’re unworthy at the very core of our being. We may think we don’t even deserve to be here. Others may believe without a doubt that they are deserving, worthy of every opportunity, achievement, and accolade they’ve ever received. And perhaps more! It can be tricky navigating the middle ground between a basic sense of shame over who we are and a fundamental arrogance. Many of us have worked hard throughout our lives, and we have a well-earned right to be appropriately proud of our accomplishments. Others of us have worked hard and have seen all they hoped for slip through their fingers. The question of our “worthiness” as individuals is one that is complicated and fraught with pitfalls. But it’s one that we all must face.

Our scripture lesson from 1 Corinthians for today addresses this question from the perspective St. Paul’s life story. The lesson tells us part of the story of Paul’s calling to serve as an Apostle, proclaiming the good news of Jesus. We might find it strange to hear Paul talking about how he was the “least” of the Apostles, and didn’t even “deserve” to be called an Apostle. When you take a close look at what Paul says about himself in his letters, two things emerge.[2] First, he confessed that all he was and all he was doing was the result of a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. When he met the risen and living Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, it transformed his whole life. Using the language of our lesson, Paul could say that all that he was and all that he was doing was the result of God’s grace at work in and through him. That’s what made Paul’s zeal for following the way of Judaism give way to his conviction that Jesus Christ had chosen him to serve the body of Christ—from “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4)!

The other thing that Paul says about himself is that he was unworthy to be an Apostle. I think a part of this came from the fact that he was always very consciously aware of his failures and shortcomings. Several times he expressed his feeling that, because he had persecuted the church before being called by Jesus, he wasn’t fit to serve as an Apostle. And this wasn’t just initial reluctance on his part. Even toward the end of his life, Paul continued to see himself as unfit to be an Apostle because he had previously “blasphemed the name of Christ” (1 Tim 1:13-15, NLT). But I think the other side of this sense of “unworthiness” on Paul’s part was because he knew in the deepest part of his heart, that “whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his grace on me” (1 Cor 15:10, NLT). And he knew two things about God’s grace at the same time: there was nothing he could ever do to deserve God’s grace, and he would never have to try to deserve God’s grace. It was all a gift!

I think this applies to the issue I raised last week: how we find the strength and the faith to continue serving others in a challenging time. For myself, I must confess that, like Paul I don’t think I deserve the opportunities I’ve been given. But, like Paul I’m also grateful because I believe it’s all been through God’s grace. Many of the people I grew up with wouldn’t be surprised that I’ve spent most of my life working in ministry. They would consider it a natural outcome of who I am. But it was never something that I would have thought. I came from a nowhere town and a no-name family. Although I knew I was good at school, I never thought of myself as being all that special.

I “volunteered” for ministry at the ripe old age of 17. I’ve always wondered whether God really wanted me or he just “had” to take me because I stepped forward. And, truth be told, I never thought I had what it took to be a pastor. I was quite comfortable in the classroom as a Seminary professor. It was an environment that I knew well, and it was a task that I was confident I had the skills and expertise to carry out. Working as a pastor felt a bit too risky for me. To me it seemed like starting a business from scratch, and I wasn’t sure I wanted go out on a limb like that. In fact, when I was 40 I stepped away from ministry for several years. I tried to move into a parallel career, but only made it more clear to me that serving the body of Christ was where I belong.

When it comes right down to it, however, I would have to say with Paul, “whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his grace on me.” Like Paul, I have certain gifts and abilities that God has used in my service to the body of Christ. And like Paul I’ve worked diligently to serve to the best of my ability for decades, continuing to “sharpen the saw” to be as effective as I can at what I do. But I would also confess with Paul that “it was not I but God who was [and still is] working through me by his grace.” Like Paul, I would say that, despite my reluctance about whether I am worthy to serve the body of Christ, I believe God chose me from “before the foundation of the world.” God’s grace led me down the path of life that has brought me to this place and time. And, like Paul, “I’m not about to let his grace go to waste.”

I bring this up because I think there are others who may find themselves at places in life where they never thought they would be. And I think most of us would agree that we could never have imagined we would be facing the issues we are today. You may know that I’m a “Lord of the Rings” fan. Throughout the years, I’ve found myself agreeing with Frodo Baggins when, while talking about the rise of evil, he says to Gandalf the wizard, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” To which Gandalf replies, “So do I … and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”[3] The truth is that none of us gets to choose the backdrop against which we live our lives. We don’t always get to choose the direction our lives take in the circumstances we face. All we get to choose is how we will live our lives right where we are.

Again, if we’re trying to figure out how to keep on serving in circumstances that make it all seem futile, I think we can take our cue from St. Paul. What I didn’t say above is that he faced opposition and criticism of his ministry from the very first. Not just from “enemies” outside the church. Some of the believers in churches he had founded, some of the believers at Corinth, thought that Paul was unworthy to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ. In the face of that fierce opposition, Paul responded in a couple of ways. First, he admitted that he wasn’t worthy in and of himself to represent Jesus Christ. I think it may be healthy to follow his lead in that respect. Not one of us, and especially not me, deserves to serve the body of Christ in the ways we have open to us. But secondly, Paul confessed that all that he was and all that he did was due to God’s grace poured out in his life. I think each and every one of us can make the same humble confession today. We may not understand why we have been placed in this particular time and this particular situation. But we can trust that God will use our gifts and abilities right where we are. And we can draw encouragement from the community of faith that supports us as we seek to use our gifts and abilities where we are. But at the end of the day, God’s grace has called us, God’s grace has brought us to this place, and God’s grace is working in and through us. And that’s all the worthiness we need!

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.1.4, 196-211, where he surveys the story of Paul’s change of life from zeal for Judaism to proclaiming Jesus and serving the body of Christ as a prime example of the interaction between the knowledge and ignorance of “the accomplished alteration of the whole world situation” by God through Jesus Christ. Barth argues that this tension between knowledge and ignorance can arise only “to move to it’s overcoming” because “God is not God in vain” (ibid., 191). Of Saul/Paul’s conversion, he says (ibid., 202), “It was in the power of the self-witness of Jesus Christ that he passed from ignorance to knowledge. Jesus Himself met him before Damascus. … . This is the decisive element in the story.”

[3] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2004, p. 51

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

The Energy to Serve

1 Corinthians 13:1-13[1]

There are times in our lives when we are full of energy. Our work, our relationships, our hobbies are fulfilling to us, and we feel like nothing can stop us. There are other times in our lives when it seems like everything is against us. No matter how hard we may try, it seems like other people, or God, or perhaps even our own shortcomings conspire against us to make everything seem hard. In those times, it can feel like we’re trying to swim through molasses. Or perhaps quicksand. We just can’t seem to find the will, let alone the strength, to keep moving forward. Those are the times when we may ask ourselves why we’re going to so much trouble. We may do some deep soul searching to figure out whether we really want to keep pushing so hard.

It's those hard times in life that test what we’re made of. When we find ourselves running the gauntlets that life puts in our way, we may wonder what made us choose this path in the first place. We may wonder why we keep going. We may wonder whether we should change direction and just walk away from it all. But if we stay the course, we find that those hard times become the times in our lives when we do some of the most important growing we can ever do. Our ability to endure even the hardest of times may surprise us, as our faith grows strong and resilient. And the test of how strong our faith has become is, as always, how we respond to hard times. We can choose to respond in a wide variety of ways. We can feel hurt and decide to “pout.” We can get angry and perhaps nourish a grudge. But, as the Apostle Paul says it, faith “works” through love (Gal 5:6). When we respond to hard times with faith, it will clarify for us what keeps us going.

In our lesson from 1 Corinthians for today, the Apostle Paul is addressing a church that was badly divided. They were squabbling over just about everything, even who their “real” leader was—Paul, or Peter, or Apollos. While Paul had founded the church at Corinth, both Peter and Apollos had visited them, and had fruitful ministries there. I doubt that any of them could have imagined that the result of their work would have been a congregation fighting one another over which of them were most important. As Paul asks, “Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not!” (1 Cor 1:13, NLT). It was ludicrous to think that they had any other “Lord” than Jesus Christ!

One of the issues the believers at Corinth were fighting over was “spiritual gifts.” It was a time when spectacular displays of spiritual power were particularly valued. Perhaps like the “faith healers” of our day, many of the Corinthians believed that if your faith is real, you should be able to demonstrate it through obvious acts of spiritual power. Now Paul didn’t completely shut them down on this thinking. And the analogy of “faith healers” might not be the best one. For Paul, everything every one of us does in the name of Jesus Christ is a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit working though us. That’s one of the main points he wants to get across to them. The Spirit is at work in and through us most powerfully in ways that might not be so obvious.

This brings us to our lesson for today. Paul was trying to help the believers at Corinth find a healthier perspective than trying to prove they were more “spiritual” than each other. And to do that, he called them to follow what he called the “way of life that is best of all” (1 Cor 12:31, NLT). And that way is the way of love. It is the way that Jesus chose for his life. And as Paul says elsewhere, our faith really works only as we put it into action through love (Gal 5:6). Here he puts it more bluntly: he says that even if he had the ability to demonstrate spiritual power in the most obvious ways, if what he did wasn’t motivated by love, he would only be making a lot of noise (1 Cor 13:1, NLT)! He says that even if his faith were such that he could “move mountains,” if it didn’t express itself through loving actions toward others, he would be “nothing” (1 Cor 13:2, NLT). He said that even he sacrificed everything he had, even his own life, if he didn’t do it out of love, it would do no good for anyone (1 Cor 13:3)!

For Paul, the measure of our service is the motivation that energizes it. From his perspective, our service has meaning only when it is motivated by love that actually cares about the well-being of another person, especially those who are different from us, and most especially those whom we may perceive to be “on the other side” from us. Again, as I mentioned before, in the Christian sphere of life, Paul could say that the only thing that matters is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6, NET). From one perspective, that’s how we demonstrate that our faith is real: by putting it into action out of love for others. Of course, there are other motivations for our service. We may serve out of a sense of leaving a legacy, or because we are grateful for the gifts we have been given. But for Paul, it all comes down to faith put into action through love.

Some of you know that one of my “heroes” of the faith is Henri Nouwen. He was a Roman Catholic Priest who lived with a great deal of personal pain, and he became a pioneer in the field of pastoral care and pastoral theology. Because of that, he became something of a celebrity in American Christianity. He taught at the most prestigious and influential divinity schools in the country. But all of that left him burned out and empty. After spending a year living in France at L’Arche, a community where intellectually challenged people lived with their caregivers, he came back to serve as the chaplain at the Daybreak L’Arche community in Toronto. Many of his friends urged him not to “waste” his talents, reminding him of how much more “good” he could do in the Academic world. But I think Henri had found the joy of serving others out of love for them, and he never looked back.

We’re all facing some of the most challenging days of our lives. The very fabric of society has become frayed and is unraveling before our eyes. Sweeping changes are completely transforming our whole way of life in ways that none of us could have imagined or dreamed, even ten years ago.That has implications for everything from families to work to the ability to even talk to people who have different convictions from us. We’ve become so “tribal” that we can’t even talk to people who have different views from us. What does that have to say about where we are as a people and as a society? It can leave us feeling like all our efforts for good in this world are useless, just making a lot of noise. The difficulties we all face right now can test our motivation. It can leave us asking ourselves why we are doing what we are doing. Especially when it comes to what we are doing in and through the church to serve others. If we take our cue from Paul, we may find that the only way we can continue to have the energy to keep serving in a way that truly helps other people is through love. Whether through “obvious” acts of service, or simple everyday interactions with the people around us. The lesson that Paul wants us to learn is that faith works through love! It always has and always will!

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Making a Difference

Hebrews 4:14-5:10[1]

I believe most of us want to make a difference in this world. As we’re growing up, we try to figure out a way to do that with our lives. We choose a career based on our interests. Whether our job takes us in a direction that we feel like we’re actually making a difference in others’ lives, I would say that we do so just by the way we show up and treat people. Even if our job isn’t one that seems to “make a real difference,” most of us get involved in other activities like sports leagues or community clubs so that we can give back to the people around us. I think one of the challenges we face is that we have a hard time recognizing all the ways we contribute to the lives of other people. It seems to be wired into who we are as human beings to want to make a difference.

The most fulfilling experiences of my life have come from the opportunities I’ve had to make a difference in someone’s life. That’s why I started down the path of ministry at the ripe old age of 17. That’s why I’ve worked all my life to learn all I can about the Bible, Theology, History, Philosophy, and life in general. And that’s what still keeps me going over 45 years later. What energizes me is making a difference in someone’s life. It may sound strange, but that’s why I find it fulfilling to be with those who are hurting. Especially at the end of a loved one’s life. Yes, those times can be challenging and hard, but those are the times when I feel like I’m truly making a difference.

Of course, not everyone is called to be a pastor. We need all kinds of people doing all kinds of things for the world to work. But I think we all want to make a difference. One problem with trying to make a difference, however, is that when we put ourselves out there to help others, we’re putting ourselves in a position to wind up getting hurt. We’re opening ourselves to criticism, some of which may not be so fair or kind or respectful. Those who have been in a position where you’ve put yourself out there to help other people know what I’m talking about. Any time we try to make a difference in the lives of people around us, we’re at risk of our motives or our actions (or both!) being misinterpreted or perhaps even misrepresented. The bottom line is that whenever we try to make a contribution to others, we are likely going to have to endure some kind of unfair or hurtful treatment.

I think this aspect of our lives relates to our scripture lesson from Hebrews for today. It talks about how Jesus made a difference for all of us by what he did. In giving his life for us on the cross, he shows us who God is: the one who’s willing to take all the suffering of the world into himself. More than that, what Jesus did shows us what God is doing in the world: God is in the process of restoring everyone and everything. By dying on the cross, Jesus was fulfilling God’s desire for the whole human family to be restored to him. And in so doing, our lesson says that he has become the source of “eternal salvation” for all who turn to him in “trusting-obedience” (Heb 5:8-9 MSG). All that sounds good to us. But the lesson also says something that may sound strange to our ears. It says, “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered” (Heb 5:8, NLT) That sounds more than strange. It’s shocking: why would Jesus need to “learn obedience”? Wasn’t his whole life, in fact his whole existence, one of obedience to God? So why did he have to “learn obedience”?

I think the answer has to do with what happened when the Son of God became a human being. It’s not like he was inherently willful and disobedient and had to be taught by the consequences of his actions how to obey God. The very act of becoming a human being was an expression of his obedience to God. But I think what Jesus learned was a first-hand experience of what it means to live as a fully human person.[2] And part of what that means is that anyone who wants to make a difference in the lives of others is probably going to suffer criticism, or undergo attack, or perhaps even in his case give up his life. There have been many who sought to make a difference in this world who have given up their lives because of it. In his obedience to God, Jesus had to learn what human suffering is like. And the ultimate expression of his trust in God as well as his obedience to God was to give his life for us all on the cross.

While it’s not necessary to restrict what our Scripture lesson says about Jesus to this one event, it’s natural to think of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. I find it wonderfully reassuring that, when faced with one of the cruelest methods of executing a person ever devised, Jesus asked God to deliver him from it! It’s hard to imagine Jesus being truly human and not facing the cross with feelings of anguish and praying “with loud cries and tears” (Heb. 5:7). And yet, the end result of his prayer struggle in that garden was that he decided to go through all of it in order to fulfill God’s desire to make a real difference in all of our lives.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the lessons for us to take away here is that the process of God becoming flesh in Jesus of Nazareth is not just about showing us who God is, it’s also about showing us that God is working to restore us all. Throughout the ages many have wondered why God went to all that trouble. Why not just “say the word” and make everything right again? I think one answer to that question is that the only way to truly make a difference in human life is to take the risk of getting involved that person’s life. The only way to truly help anyone is to enter fully into their experience and pour into it the love that can change them. That’s what Jesus was doing on the cross. As one of our confessions of faith puts it, he went into the abyss of human suffering in order to redeem all of us who have been trapped there.[3] There’s no depth of suffering in human experience that Jesus did not reach. And the profound love he poured out for us all at the cross changes everything! By entering fully into our experience, Jesus truly made the difference for us all.

I think it’s part of our identity as human beings that we all want to make a difference. But making a difference will very likely cost us something, just as it cost Jesus. When we doubt whether Jesus makes a difference in our lives, I think we should remember the friends and loved ones who have made such a difference in our lives. While we may not be able to relate to Jesus as directly as we can to them, we can remember what he went through, and that he did it precisely to make a difference for us. It’s a bit like the way the friends and loved ones we’ve lost still make a difference in our lives today. And when we doubt whether we’re making a difference in anyone’s life, we should also remember the friends and loved ones we’ve lost and how much we miss them. No less than they did when they were with us, we all make a difference in the lives of others just by being who we are.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.2:158: “the New Testament has treated the vere homo [truly human] so seriously that it has portrayed the obedience of Jesus throughout as a genuine struggle to obey, as a seeking and finding.”

[3] The Study Catechism, 1998, q. 45.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Grounded in Love

Matthew 22:34-40[1]

I’ve mentioned before that one of the challenges we face these days is that there are so many people who believe they can live their lives without any need for God. The fact is that this isn’t a new development. It started over two hundred years ago, in the age known as the “Enlightenment.” For centuries the church had focused so exclusively on God as the only “true” reality that it stifled most of what we would see as a healthy appreciation of what it means to be human. That may be hard for us to grasp because the shift that took place then has become the foundation for our way of life. Most of what we occupy ourselves with these days focuses on some facet of human life. It’s hard for us to imagine that being any different.

To some extent that shift was a good thing. The repressive policies of the church in the Middle Ages made God out to be someone to be feared, not loved. We needed to rediscover a healthy appreciation of who we are as human beings. Unfortunately, as with many good efforts to effect change, the shift of attention from the creator to the creature as the measure for how to live opened the “pandora’s box” of problems we’re dealing with now. In a very real sense, what we are seeing today is the unintended result of well-meaning efforts by thinkers like Immanuel Kant to locate our motivation for living within ourselves. And the result is that we live in a time when generations of people exclude God from their lives altogether.

We’ve all heard the rationalization: “Church people are all hypocrites. I can be a good and kind person without the church.” It’s true that those of us in the church fail to live up to the faith we profess much more frequently than we would care to admit. And it’s also true that there are people in the world who have become good and kind human beings without any significant influence from organized religion or even a belief in God. I would say, however, that in my experience that is the exception. For many people, what they call “love” is motivated by what they can get out of it, not by what they can give. In my experience, for us to become truly loving human beings, our love has to be grounded in God’s love.

I think that’s one of the lessons from the interaction between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders in our Gospel reading for today. At the end of a debate that the religious leaders had been carrying on with Jesus, hoping to make a fool out of him in front of the people who followed him, one Torah scholar asks him which of God’s commands was “great,” or most important. The first part of Jesus’ answer would have come as no surprise to anyone present. The commandment Jesus identified as the “first” came from the Shema, which was and still is the heart of the Jewish faith (Deut 6:5): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). What may have been surprising to those who were questioning Jesus is the fact that he added a “second” commandment that he said was “like” the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39; Lev 19:18). It’s very likely Jesus was the first one to bring these two commands together and link them to one another in this way.

These days, we assume they go together. Since the time of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago, we’ve been taught that the command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” summarizes the first part of the Ten Commandments. And we’ve been taught that the command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” summarizes the second part. And I would say this is consistent with the general framework of faith in the Bible: everything begins with God’s love for us. We who have the joy of experiencing God’s unconditional and irrevocable love for us respond by loving God with all our hearts. And we demonstrate our love for God by the love we show others, treating them with respect, fairness, and kindness. For those of us who have been raised in biblical faith, this is the bedrock of our lives: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Unfortunately, in practice it’s not as simple as that. So much of life these days revolves around “self.” In fact, many people write an orientation toward “self” into these two “great” commandments. The line goes something like this: “You can’t love someone else unless you love yourself, so ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ means you should love yourself first.” While it’s true that we can only give love to the extent that we have a healthy sense of self, that is most definitely not what Jesus was talking about here. And in practice, while I know this point of view is well-meaning, and there is some truth to it, I’m afraid that all too often it becomes just another excuse for making our lives all about getting what we want.

That’s not what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about a way of life that involves caring for the “least of these,” even (and especially) when it means going out of your way or stepping outside your “comfort zones.” If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve actually done that, you know that it takes more than a “healthy sense of yourself” to motivate you to make the sacrifices it takes. Most of us in this culture have very little firsthand experience with helping people living in the crushing poverty that oppresses so many people in this world every day. Those who do have such experience know that it involves exposing yourself to disease, unsafe drinking water, the danger of theft or even kidnapping, not to mention the exhausting pace of trying to do all you can for so many needy people in a relatively short time.

“Loving yourself first” can’t motivate you to love others like that. Only God’s love for us can do that. I’ll be the first one to admit that the church is an imperfect place to learn about God’s love. And the way some churches operate can leave you wondering whether God is loving at all. But churches full of flawed but caring people are the places where most of us come to experience God’s unconditional and irrevocable love for us. In my experience, only God’s love has the power to motivate, and keep on motivating us, to love the people around us in the way that Jesus modeled for us. And not just the people who are like us, but all the people around us. Particularly the ones who are difficult to love. And even more so those who push us outside our sense of safety or comfort. We need a way of life that’s grounded in God’s love for us to be able to love other people the way Jesus taught us to love.

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

On A Mission

Matthew 9:35-10:16[1]

When I was growing up, there were only two avenues for those who felt “called to special service” in the church: either serving as a pastor or a missionary. At least that was all I knew. When I “surrendered to the call” at the age of 17, I’m not sure I had a very clear idea of what my path would look like. When I was a freshman in college, I knew I wanted to earn a Ph. D. degree and teach in a college or seminary. And I pursued that path for 13 years. After finishing my degree, I taught at the Baptist seminary in Fort Worth for 9 years. I wrestled with feelings of being pulled toward pastoral ministry, but I didn’t think I had what it took to be a pastor. The truth is that I knew what to expect in an academic environment, and I had no idea what to expect in a pastorate. I would say that’s still the case, and it’s one of the things I like about my role. The one thing I (thought) I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be a missionary, because they were supposed go to an impoverished country in Africa or Asia.

As it turns out, during my time at the Seminary, I also wrestled with feelings of being pulled to serve as a missionary. The head of the Baptist mission agency was a persuasive speaker, and I found myself gripping the arm rests on my seat on more than one occasion when he was sounding the call to serve on the mission field! And, at one point I actually volunteered to go live overseas to teach in a mission seminary in Prague. Unfortunately, the details didn’t work out. But as many of you know, I’ve spent some time in a variety of places. I taught at a mission seminary in the Philippines for 2 months in 1994. I visited Pastor Manuel in Nicaragua in 2000. And I met the Presbyterian nuns in Cameroon in 2011. As those of you who have served on the Membership and Outreach committee or on the Session know, I still have a keen interest in supporting mission partners both here and around the world.

A funny thing happened along the way. The mission field moved! Most observers of our culture would say that this country is now just as much a “mission field” as anywhere else. And you can find all kinds of outlets for mission, from working with impoverished communities, to helping victims of violence, to sharing God’s love with those who have never had much of a meaningful relationship with a church. I personally think this is a golden opportunity for the church in our day. There’s another shift that’s taking place in our culture. Most people under 40 aren’t satisfied to simply “send a check” and let someone else do the work. They want to “get their hands dirty” by getting involved directly in mission projects. I think that makes this post-pandemic era an exciting time for the church in our society. If our churches are going to thrive, everyone is going to have to step up. We can no longer expect the “paid staff” to do the work of ministry. We have the opportunity to reclaim the fundamental Presbyterian conviction that “every member is a minister”!!

It might not seem at first glance that our Gospel lesson for today relates to this idea. The gist of the lesson is that Jesus was sending the Twelve, his hand-picked ministry apprentices, to go out and extend his ministry of preaching and healing. Since they were the “Apostles,” we might think that our lesson only applies to “special” people serving in “special” roles. But a closer look at the lesson in the context of Matthew’s Gospel as a whole makes it clear that Matthew presents this story in a very different way. Like the other evangelists, Matthew was writing his gospel for a particular Christian community. And the message he wanted to convey in this passage was that Jesus not only commissioned the “Twelve” to extend his ministry. That commission was also intended for the church of Matthew’s day, and in fact for the church of every day! From this perspective, the church that seeks to follow Jesus faithfully has always found itself to be “on a mission”!

We see this reflected in our Gospel lesson in some subtle ways. For example, both Mark and Luke report Jesus’ commission to the Twelve Apostles, and they report something about them carrying out their work. On the other hand, Matthew, who has the most developed account of this episode, says nothing whatsoever about the Twelve carrying out this commission! It would seem that Matthew was directing Jesus’ original commission to the Twelve to the early church community for whom he was writing his Gospel. They were the ones he wanted to encourage to follow Jesus’ original instructions. Again, I think the point is that the church of Matthew’s day, and every day, is meant to carry out the original commission to the Apostles.

We see this also in that Matthew takes some of the traditions about Jesus’ teaching and connects them to this “sermon” to his church about carrying out the mission of the kingdom of God. For example, Jesus’ admonition that “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops” (Mt 10:26) in this setting serves as an encouragement to bold proclamation of the gospel. In Luke’s Gospel, this same teaching serves as a warning against hypocrisy: “whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops” (Lk 12:3). It might seem confusing at first, but in a very real sense both Matthew and Luke were using Jesus’ teachings much like we would read Scripture today. They were taking them and applying them as they were led by the Spirit to the life situations of their respective church communities. Pastors everywhere continue to do the same thing every Sunday! Matthew has interpreted this saying as an encouragement to believers of that day, as well as every day, to carry out the mission Jesus gave us without fear.[2]

I could go on, but I think you get the point. In Matthew’s Gospel, this passage was meant not just to reflect the call to mission of a select few. Rather, Matthew saw everyone in the church as called to the “mission” of extending Jesus’ work. We’re all called to take part in sharing the good news of God’s love. We’re all called to take part in offering care to those who need it. That’s true regardless of how “actively” we carry out that work. Whether we go overseas or across town, whether we preach and teach or serve behind the scenes, we all share the same joy. To this end Matthew quotes Jesus’ promise that even the ones who simply offer a “cup of cold water” (Mt 10:42) get to see themselves as equal partners in the mission.

I think this perspective is going to be crucial for the church in our day. We live in a time when many people prefer to go and do rather than sitting back and watching. I think the more we can orient our ministry as a church toward “going and doing,” the more we will thrive in this strange new world. As we create opportunities for everyone to take part in the mission of sharing God’s love, we encourage more people in our congregation and in our community to step up and join us. When we do that, we will be reclaiming the conviction that we’re all “on a mission.”

[2] M. Eugene Boring, “Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible IX:260: he says Matthew makes this a “foundational principle of Christian discipleship.”

Sunday, January 22, 2023

Building Together

1 Corinthians 3:1-11[1]

Anyone who has ever taken on a home renovation project knows that it’s rarely a job for one person alone. Most of us simply don’t have the skills to do everything that needs to be done once you started pulling up the linoleum and tearing down the sheetrock. There’s always something underneath the surface of things that winds up taking three times longer than you thought you’d need for the whole project! For me it was trying to turn a “Texas Lanai” into an indoor room. For those of you who don’t know what a “Lanai” is, it’s a kind of enclosed sunroom that actually sits on the ground. It was only after we had started the demolition that we discovered the concrete slab underneath was sloped toward the middle, like a drain. What a headache!

I think that we’re always involved in some form of “renovation” in the church.[2] The way things keep changing in society makes it a challenge just to keep up, let alone try to grow. These days it can feel like everything we do is vital to the survival of our church. That’s a lot of stress for anyone to take on. It’s a good thing that we in the Reformed tradition believe that ministry is something we all share together. I shudder to think what would happen if everything we did as a church was my responsibility. But even more importantly, it’s not even our responsibility together. Because, at the end of the day, building this or any other church isn’t something we do at all, it’s God’s work. We are all called to be partners in that work, but any growth that may come will be the result of what God is doing in and through us.

I think Paul was addressing shared ministry in our lesson from 1 Corinthians for today. As I mentioned last week, the Apostle Paul had founded the church at Corinth. After he had moved on, other teachers came and some of them were helpful, while others were not. A teacher named Apollos was one of the helpful ones. There were others who apparently thought they had more authority than Paul because they claimed to come from Cephas, or Peter. As a result, people in the church became confused about how they were supposed to live their lives together in Christian community. They were divided by their loyalties to different teachers, and the factions troubling the congregation. They seemed to be arguing among themselves about who was following Christ best!

But Paul redirected the conflict. He embraced Apollos as a partner in ministry, although we don’t know whether they ever actually met in person. But Apollos worked with Priscilla and Aquila, who had worked with Paul. For that reason Paul could embrace the ministry of Apollos among the Corinthians as a fellow-worker. And so he could say to them, “After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants who helped you to believe” (1 Cor 3:5, CEB). They were both equally serving the church by carrying out the role that had been “given to them by the Lord.” By embracing Apollos as a partner in ministry, Paul was modelling the kind of shared ministry he encouraged them to practice among themselves.

But Paul made it clear that the real basis for growth—any growth—in the church is the work of God. That’s why Paul could say that “I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6 CEB). He was careful not to take any credit for the work that God had been doing through him and Apollos in the church at Corinth. He says, “neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow” (1 Cor 3:7 CEB). It comes as no surprise then, when Paul addresses this issue later in 1 Corinthians, that he emphasizes that what matters is working “for the common good” of the body of Christ, the church (1 Cor 12:7). One facet of “shared ministry” is that we work together for the good of the Body of Christ.

Paul also emphasizes in that section of 1 Corinthians that the only way that will happen in any congregation is if everyone is working together. And so Paul teaches the people in Corinth that each member of the church has a “gift of the Spirit” with which to serve others (1 Cor 12:4-6 GNT). He says that “there are different kinds of spiritual gifts,” but they all come from the same Spirit. He says that there are “different ways of serving,” but it is the same Lord that we serve. He says that “we all have different abilities,” but it is the same God who works in and through all of us. Another facet of “shared ministry” is to recognize that we are all called by God to share in the work of this church by using the gifts that the Spirit has given us. I know some of you may be thinking “I don’t have any gifts that can be useful to the church.” But St. Paul the Apostle insists that you do. I think it’s just a matter of recognizing that what you can do for the church is your “gift of the Spirit”!

Paul went further and instructed the believers at Corinth that if they wanted to join in the work of building up the Body of Christ, they had to build on the right foundation, and they had to do it carefully. The foundation upon which to build up any church is Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor 3:11). After all, he is the only true head of this or any other church. And only as we align our designs with his purpose will this church thrive. A further facet of “shared ministry” is that we are all following Jesus Christ, who said “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). The only “agenda” that will enable this or any other church to thrive is the one set by Jesus Christ.

We are all working to build up this church together. That’s important. The more people we have helping out, the more this church will thrive. Today we recognize that by installing new elders and deacons. But you don’t have to serve on a committee, a board, or even on the session to help with the work of building up our church. This church will grow as we all join together, doing what we can do to the best of our ability, recognizing that we are all “God’s coworkers,” using the gifts and talents God has given us to build this church. But ultimately the growth of this church is a bigger job than any one person can accomplish. At the end of the day, if this church grows, it will happen because Jesus is building his church. We will grow because God, who is able to do “far more than we could ever ask for or imagine” (Eph 3:20, NIrV), has given the growth!

[2] In fact, that’s the “motto” of the Reformed tradition: “the church reformed, always being reformed according to the word of God.”

Monday, January 16, 2023

Results

Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9[1]

I think we all want to make a difference in this world. We want to know that what we’re doing with the time we have in life has meaning, that it makes some kind of contribution. That doesn’t mean that we all want to be in the “spotlight.” Some of us thrive there, and that’s a wonderful thing. Some of us don’t, and that’s wonderful too. Whether we’re “front and center” or working behind the scenes, what counts is that our lives “matter.” One of the challenges with wanting to make a difference in the world is that, at least in my experience, more often than not we never get to see the results of our efforts. We just don’t have the ability to see all the ways our lives may be impacting the lives of those around us. And that can leave us wondering whether we’re really making a difference in this world at all.

The sometimes frustrating truth is that this is particularly the case when it comes to what we do in the service of our Lord Jesus and the body of Christ, the church. I’ve served the church in some way all of my adult life, and I’ve found this to be true countless times. We do our best to “plant seeds” in the lives of the people we try to help, but we rarely get to see the results. As St. Paul observed, some plant, others water (and I might add that still others tend the field), but it is God who “gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:7). At times this can be frustrating, especially if you’re the kind of person who is “results-oriented.” At times it can be downright discouraging.

Two of our Scripture lessons for today give us some help with this. The first one from the book of the prophet Isaiah speaks about the work of the “servant of the Lord.” The servant, the one who chosen to proclaim God’s word to the people of Israel, begins by giving voice to his grief over his lack of success. He was given the ability to speak clearly and effectively to the people, and yet they remained closed off to God’s message and God’s ways. And so the “servant” of the LORD says, “my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose” (Isa. 49:4, NLT). He was frustrated and discouraged by the lack of results from his efforts.

In response, the prophet reminds the “servant” that God was doing something bigger through him than he could possibly imagine. The Lord says to him, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob” (Isa. 49:6, NIV). That was not enough. He was called to a bigger task: “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” In the face of frustration and discouragement from a lack of results, the prophet speaking in the name of the Lord reminded the servant that God’s plans were much bigger than he could even dream. Despite frustration and discouragement from the lack of results, the Lord was reassuring the “servant” that his mission would succeed. And it would succeed so well that God’s salvation would reach to the ends of the earth![2]

In our second lesson from 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul was dealing with problems in one of the churches he had founded. After he had moved on in his service to Christ, they became confused about how they were supposed to live their lives together in Christian community. They were divided, and the factions were pulling the congregation in very different directions. Ironically, the situation at Corinth came about from the fact that the mission of shining a light to the nations was well underway, and it was causing some big problems! One of their questions was how Christians with so many differences could live together in one community of faith.

But the Apostle began his instructions to them with the assurance that they already had everything they needed. He reminded them that all they did was built on “the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:4). He told them that they had already been fully equipped by the Spirit to carry out their work: “in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind ... so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift” (1 Cor. 1:5, 7). And just in case they had any lingering doubts, Paul reminded them that God who is always faithful would strengthen them to the end (1 Cor. 1:8).

I’ve said before that it’s a tough time to be the church. The sweeping changes in our world have certainly not left the church untouched. And while many of these changes are directly related to recent events, they are also due in part to deeper, more fundamental changes in our whole society. Churches everywhere in this country are facing the same daunting challenges that we are. And as is true here, so in most churches, we’re all working harder than ever to serve our Lord Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. But you couldn’t tell it by the results. At least not by the results that are obvious. And that can be frustrating and discouraging. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not making a difference! Because one of the lessons we learn when we choose to serve God’s kingdom is that while we may not be able to see the result of our efforts, God can!

That’s one of the lessons we learn when we serve God’s purpose. Later in 1 Corinthians St. Paul reminds us all that “nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (1 Cor 15:58, NLT). We may not always be able to see the results of our efforts, but then perhaps it’s not for us to see. It’s God’s business. What keeps us going, as Henri Nouwen reminds us, is not the results we can see, but rather the hope that is firmly grounded in Christ’s victory over death itself, which demonstrates “that there is light on the other side of darkness.”[3] The cause we are all working for is nothing short of the transformation of this world so that all our lives reflect God’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven.” That’s a bigger task than anyone can wrap their heads or their hands around. And yet we all continue to contribute to the final victory of God as we continue to serve him faithfully. And as St. Paul reminds us, God will do his part: he will faithfully give us the strength to continue serving him.

[2] Cf. Christopher R. Seitz, “The Book of Isaiah 40-66,” New Interpreters Bible VI:433: “To witness to the God of Israel is not to share information with others but to be faithful to God in such a way that confrontation will occur but will not be an end in itself. The witness leaves the final accomplishment to God, assured that affliction and hardship will be the means through which ‘my salvation shall reach to the ends of the earth’ (49:6).”

[3] Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer (1979), 76: “A Christian leader is a man [sic] of hope whose strength in the final analysis is based neither on self-confidence derived from his personality, nor on specific expectations for the future, but on a promise given to him. … Leadership, therefore, is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness. Every attempt to attach this hope of visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. … Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory.”

The Waking Dreamer