WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 12th 2007
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Acceptable Worship”
Isaiah 1:1-20
God is really angry in this passage. It turns out that the people of God are acting like they don’t know God. The language is powerful. The donkeys and oxen are smarter than the people of God. The whole body, the whole community is sick. It is so bad that God finally says: I am offended by your offerings, weary of your worship, and sick of your festivals. God will no longer tolerate this and will not listen to their prayers or worship.
God’s anger has nothing to do with the ritual practice. In fact, it is clear that the people Israel took their worship very seriously. It takes six verses to list all of the activities. It appears that the pomp and circumstance of worship has taken center stage. The worship may please the people but God is not amused.
God’s indictment is this: You worship me with fine festivals bearing no expense but outside of worship you do evil and practice injustice. They have refined the ways of murder and war; they ignore the poor, and even take advantage of widows, and orphans. It turns out that there is enough money for elaborate worship but not for those in need. Finally, God says enough is enough.
It is a passage about the need for repentance. It is a call to return to the roots of their faith. You may worship me, but you do not know me. The repentance God seeks is; learn the ways of God. In doing this, you will remove evil, do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. It is an invitation to learn and practice God’s intention for life.
This passage is not a polemic against worship. Instead, it is an indictment of worship that is disconnected from the teachings of God. It is an indictment of worship disconnected from everyday life. In other words, what we do in worship must be connected with our lives outside of worship. Worship is not meant to be an escape, distraction, or even entertainment. Worship is to be the ground of our daily living.
My first reaction to passages like this is to ask: How is it that people, who are supposed to know better, end up doing such things? How is it that people who claim to worship God, who claim to follow the God we know in Jesus Christ, end up with hands full of blood, or in positions as oppressors, or more concerned with personal gain than the poor? The answer, I believe, is this; we have forgotten God and have chosen religious ritual and certainty over living faith.
Unfortunately, history is full of examples of how followers have forgotten what God expects. When this happens, people begin to believe that God is not concerned with events and actions outside of worship. This sort of amnesia has allowed Christians to willingly accept such horrors as; chattel slavery, Apartheid, the Jewish Holocaust, War, and even Genocide. And if they did not accept it, they were unwilling to take a stand in the name of faith.
But, in each horror there were those who were willing to do be witnesses. One such witness was Dietrich Bonheoffer. When many Christians embraced or refused to take a stand against National Socialism, Bonheoffer gave his life to say no to this evil. His witness is even more amazing in that he was sustained in his efforts, and even drawn to them through regular bible study, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper. It was in these regular disciples, in growing deeper in his knowledge of God, that he knew the only course of action was to take a stand, rooted in faith.
I believe there is a crisis in the church of Jesus Christ in North America. It is not a crisis on par with that faced by Bonheoffer. However, it is a crisis that I believe leaves the church unable to act should such a crisis arise. The crisis today is one in which church divide themselves into congregations which fall along racial, class, and political lines. Beyond that, we have churches for every taste of music, and style. In fact, many churches have become concerned with providing more and better programs to feed every need and whim so much so that we have lost sight of something very simple: Prayer, Bible Study, and Worship. As a result our corporate witness, in many places, has become enmeshed with ideology and personal taste.
I am reminded of an encounter I had just a few months out of seminary. Some of you may not know this but I was one of the organizers of the anti-war movement in Chattanooga. At the time it was not a particularly popular stance but through discernment in community I believe my stance with in line with my faith. It was my first call and I was just getting to know the congregation. Fortunately, I was supported by the senior pastor and the leadership of the church so long as I made it clear that my involvement was not on behalf of the church.
This arrangement worked well until a young reporter forgot my explicit instructions and included the church name in a story she was doing. Late that night I received a rather angry phone call. For the next thirty minutes I listened to a barrage of angry words. As I listened, I did not know how I would respond, since her explicit intention was to see me fired from the church. But when she finally finished her tirade, we both received what I believe was a gift from the Holy Spirit.
The last thing she said before giving me an opportunity to talk was: “I am first and foremost an American and a Republican.” I believe those words were a gift from the Holy Spirit because it allowed me not to say what I was thinking which would have surely gotten me fired. Instead, without much thought I said to her: “Well, I am first and foremost a Christian.” To this day I give thanks for the gift of my response which I can only categorize as a gift of the Holy Spirit. These simple words allowed me to witness to her how my involvement in the anti-war movement was rooted in my faith in Jesus Christ. I did not convince her of my beliefs, but that was not the goal. But, it did defuse her anger and allowed her to hear me. I have always hoped and believed that it helped her to find the grounding for her beliefs and actions not in nationality or party affiliation but in the faith we shared in Jesus Christ.
As a people of faith our lives are to be guided by prayer, bible study, and worship. It is the way we come to have a deeper understanding of God. Unless we are rooted in these disciplines, we cannot be effective witnesses. No matter what way the wind blows we are always called to be first and foremost Christians. Our life of faith does indeed begin in worship. But acceptable worship is about being transformed so that when we leave this place we will be living witnesses to God’s truth in Jesus Christ. So let us commit ourselves to the simple discipline of prayer, bible study, and worship so that we will be active witnesses to God’s truth in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Monday, August 06, 2007
Missed Opportunities
WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 5th 2007
Jason Simons
Luke 24:13-35
“Missed Opportunities”
We, as Americans, are a divided nation made up of and defined by red and blue states and people. When asked to describe ourselves, one of the first things we say is Republican or Democrat, sometimes before American or even Christian. A popular social utility for college students, Facebook, with some 3 million users, lists political views as basic personal information, right behind birthday and hometown, and ahead of religious views. Politics has infiltrated almost all spheres of our public life and has become both a definer and divider socially. In my experience at Wabash, where 75 percent of students consider themselves to be conservative, there seems to be an unspoken that Republicans are friends with Republicans and Democrats with Democrats. The mixing of the two should be kept to a minimum. But this is not just an issue at Wabash. It is an issue at colleges and universities across the country, in the workplace, and even in the church. This is a troubling issue, as it appears that politics will continue to polarize and divide Americans in the future. Most alarming, though, is what the politics of a red and blue nation is doing to the Church. Simply put, it has created a black and blue church.
If we look at our own denomination, we can see evidence of this. The fights between interest, advocacy, or affinity groups as they are known (you pick your favorite adjective) like the Presbyterian Laymen and More Light Presbyterians has been going on for several decades (the Laymen trace their roots back to the fight over Sabbath laws in the early 1900s), but have been amplified in recent years by the politicization of the nation and its infiltration into the religious sphere. Currently, the biggest fight is over ordination standards. It is a fight that has already caused a number of churches to leave and could potentially cause a major split in the denomination. Fights such as this are causing great distrust among Presbyterians on opposite sides of the political and religious spectrum. A study of Presbyterians found that over 40 percent of members did not trust members on the opposite side of the spectrum, even though they were involved in bible studies together. The body of Christ is deeply divided. There is no unity to be found in the Presbyterian Church.
Sociologists and denominational leaders have debated and tossed around numerous explanations for the decline of our denomination and the larger phenomenon of mainline, which includes Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Disciples of Christ, almost since it began late in the 1950s and early 1960s. The explanations range from “they’re too liberal to grow” to “they are the victims of a seismic shift of American life and culture.” I’m convinced that none of the explanations offered have been very correct. While rightly describe cultural factors and other elements that contributed to the decline, they have missed the heart of what is going on—we, as a Church, have the wrong perspective. We have become too caught up in the fights, in instilling God’s true will (which he apparently has at least two of) in the church and in our larger society. We have become so confident in our knowledge and ability to reason that we do not let God be God. Drawing back to our Scripture from last Sunday, we have forgotten that Christ is the head and we are just the ligaments that make his will move. We forget that we cannot do our job without the head. We forget that gifts we are equipped with just aren’t good enough without the revelation that comes from Jesus Christ.
Our passage this morning speaks directly to the very real dangers of getting so caught up in our own fights and everyday lives that we forget who is really in charge and what and who life is really about. We find two disciples walking on the road on their way to Emmaus. They are trying to make sense of what has happened in recent days, and you can imagine the emotional roller-coaster they had been on. They had seen their leader, the one for whom they had sold all their possessions to follow in the hope that he would redeem Israel, be handed over to the authorities and executed for reasons they could not understand. They were no doubt questioning whether or not their commitment had been worth it. They had nothing to show for it—they had no money and were now outcasts in society, and they still weren’t sure just who this man was. As we find throughout the Gospels, they just don’t seem to understand.
And then a man, a complete stranger for all that they know, joined them on the road. Naturally, they began speaking with him and he asked them about the big news of the past few days. They were astonished that this man hadn’t heard of all that had taken place, so they recounted the story to him, again not knowing who they were speaking with. When they were finished, the man, a stranger in their mind, responds by reprimanding them and then explaining to them what had really happened. The Messiah, the Son of God, the Word Incarnate is sharing the whole of the Gospel with them. In many ways, this was the culmination of the story of Israel, and they missed it.
But, they don’t totally mess it up. When they reach their destination, they invite the stranger to stay with them and dine with them. They extend an invitation to this stranger for no reason other than that he is in need. They did not know at the time the significance of this simple invitation, this simple act of hospitality. For, as a result of their hospitality, their eyes were opened to the risen Lord through the simple act of breaking bread together. And then it all comes together in their minds. They realize just what had happened. They understood that they had not only missed God speaking directly to them, but that they completely missed God’s presence with them.
I shudder to think about all that we miss, and I wonder if we have totally messed it up. I often wonder if we see the Bible as more of a historical account of what God did some two thousand years ago than as a real and present witness to how God moves among God’s people. The United Church of Christ has launched a new marketing campaign with the operative phrase being, “God is still speaking.” That we must call the attention of Christians back to this very fact seems to suggest to me that we have, indeed, missed it. But here’s the good news—God is still speaking. Now, we must learn to listen.
Our faith tradition tells us that we celebrate God’s presence by breaking bread with one another, just like the disciples did with the risen Christ. And in the same manner, this meal calls us to hospitality. It begins by extending an invitation to a stranger, for it is in the stranger that we find Christ’s presence. As we come to the table this morning, we are reminded of the fact that God is still speaking and that we are called to set aside our fights and our burdens and to come to the table as one people, by virtue of our baptism. For, it is at this table that we find Christ’s presence, that we experience unity. Amen.
August 5th 2007
Jason Simons
Luke 24:13-35
“Missed Opportunities”
We, as Americans, are a divided nation made up of and defined by red and blue states and people. When asked to describe ourselves, one of the first things we say is Republican or Democrat, sometimes before American or even Christian. A popular social utility for college students, Facebook, with some 3 million users, lists political views as basic personal information, right behind birthday and hometown, and ahead of religious views. Politics has infiltrated almost all spheres of our public life and has become both a definer and divider socially. In my experience at Wabash, where 75 percent of students consider themselves to be conservative, there seems to be an unspoken that Republicans are friends with Republicans and Democrats with Democrats. The mixing of the two should be kept to a minimum. But this is not just an issue at Wabash. It is an issue at colleges and universities across the country, in the workplace, and even in the church. This is a troubling issue, as it appears that politics will continue to polarize and divide Americans in the future. Most alarming, though, is what the politics of a red and blue nation is doing to the Church. Simply put, it has created a black and blue church.
If we look at our own denomination, we can see evidence of this. The fights between interest, advocacy, or affinity groups as they are known (you pick your favorite adjective) like the Presbyterian Laymen and More Light Presbyterians has been going on for several decades (the Laymen trace their roots back to the fight over Sabbath laws in the early 1900s), but have been amplified in recent years by the politicization of the nation and its infiltration into the religious sphere. Currently, the biggest fight is over ordination standards. It is a fight that has already caused a number of churches to leave and could potentially cause a major split in the denomination. Fights such as this are causing great distrust among Presbyterians on opposite sides of the political and religious spectrum. A study of Presbyterians found that over 40 percent of members did not trust members on the opposite side of the spectrum, even though they were involved in bible studies together. The body of Christ is deeply divided. There is no unity to be found in the Presbyterian Church.
Sociologists and denominational leaders have debated and tossed around numerous explanations for the decline of our denomination and the larger phenomenon of mainline, which includes Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Disciples of Christ, almost since it began late in the 1950s and early 1960s. The explanations range from “they’re too liberal to grow” to “they are the victims of a seismic shift of American life and culture.” I’m convinced that none of the explanations offered have been very correct. While rightly describe cultural factors and other elements that contributed to the decline, they have missed the heart of what is going on—we, as a Church, have the wrong perspective. We have become too caught up in the fights, in instilling God’s true will (which he apparently has at least two of) in the church and in our larger society. We have become so confident in our knowledge and ability to reason that we do not let God be God. Drawing back to our Scripture from last Sunday, we have forgotten that Christ is the head and we are just the ligaments that make his will move. We forget that we cannot do our job without the head. We forget that gifts we are equipped with just aren’t good enough without the revelation that comes from Jesus Christ.
Our passage this morning speaks directly to the very real dangers of getting so caught up in our own fights and everyday lives that we forget who is really in charge and what and who life is really about. We find two disciples walking on the road on their way to Emmaus. They are trying to make sense of what has happened in recent days, and you can imagine the emotional roller-coaster they had been on. They had seen their leader, the one for whom they had sold all their possessions to follow in the hope that he would redeem Israel, be handed over to the authorities and executed for reasons they could not understand. They were no doubt questioning whether or not their commitment had been worth it. They had nothing to show for it—they had no money and were now outcasts in society, and they still weren’t sure just who this man was. As we find throughout the Gospels, they just don’t seem to understand.
And then a man, a complete stranger for all that they know, joined them on the road. Naturally, they began speaking with him and he asked them about the big news of the past few days. They were astonished that this man hadn’t heard of all that had taken place, so they recounted the story to him, again not knowing who they were speaking with. When they were finished, the man, a stranger in their mind, responds by reprimanding them and then explaining to them what had really happened. The Messiah, the Son of God, the Word Incarnate is sharing the whole of the Gospel with them. In many ways, this was the culmination of the story of Israel, and they missed it.
But, they don’t totally mess it up. When they reach their destination, they invite the stranger to stay with them and dine with them. They extend an invitation to this stranger for no reason other than that he is in need. They did not know at the time the significance of this simple invitation, this simple act of hospitality. For, as a result of their hospitality, their eyes were opened to the risen Lord through the simple act of breaking bread together. And then it all comes together in their minds. They realize just what had happened. They understood that they had not only missed God speaking directly to them, but that they completely missed God’s presence with them.
I shudder to think about all that we miss, and I wonder if we have totally messed it up. I often wonder if we see the Bible as more of a historical account of what God did some two thousand years ago than as a real and present witness to how God moves among God’s people. The United Church of Christ has launched a new marketing campaign with the operative phrase being, “God is still speaking.” That we must call the attention of Christians back to this very fact seems to suggest to me that we have, indeed, missed it. But here’s the good news—God is still speaking. Now, we must learn to listen.
Our faith tradition tells us that we celebrate God’s presence by breaking bread with one another, just like the disciples did with the risen Christ. And in the same manner, this meal calls us to hospitality. It begins by extending an invitation to a stranger, for it is in the stranger that we find Christ’s presence. As we come to the table this morning, we are reminded of the fact that God is still speaking and that we are called to set aside our fights and our burdens and to come to the table as one people, by virtue of our baptism. For, it is at this table that we find Christ’s presence, that we experience unity. Amen.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Cerebral Living
Westminster Presbyterian Church
July, 29, 2007
Jason Simons, Pastoral Intern
“Cerebral Living”
Ephesians 4:1-16
One of my great interests and passions in my academic life has been the study of the life of the Presbyterian Church and its current and prolonged state of decline. I have written final papers for several religion courses that applied the concepts I learned in that particular course to the real problem of decline in our denomination. I even did an independent study last semester on the role of interest (advocacy) groups like the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the New Wineskins Initiative, the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, and a group called “That All May Freely Serve,” in the decline. I am convinced that these groups, while honestly seeking to faithfully follow God’s call, are causing tension, conflict, and polarization among Presbyterians. They are causing great distrust among God’s people opposite sides of the political and theological spectrum. Simply put, they are causing divisiveness among God’s people. They are causing great tension in the Church, the body of Christ.
In our passage this morning, the apostle Paul is writing from prison to the church in Ephesus, which is caught up in a number of conflicts, which in Paul’s mind, are unimportant to the task at hand. In fact, he doesn’t even take the time to name them. Rather, he is more concerned that people understand that they all are called by God. He wants them to understand just who they are—children of God. He is so concerned with making sure that his message of calling, identity, unity, and love is heard that he doesn’t even acknowledge the conflict in the church until the end of this passage. Even then he does so only because he seemingly has to. He says in verse 14 of the New Revised Standard Version, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” “But, instead,” he says, “speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
This passage is often used to offer a quick and easy explanation for why people are given different gifts and to explain the importance of different church offices. It is often read during ordination services for deacons, elders, and ministers. In fact, those of you who have been ordained to these offices may well remember being commissioned to service with this passage. No doubt, this passage provides important and valuable insights into the distribution of gifts and the importance of church offices, but I believe the heart of this passage lies in what it says about calling.
The term calling is often used to describe why we have pursued the careers that we have. There has been a great push in theological circles in recent years to extend the use of calling and vocation to explain non-clergy career paths. Now, we often speak of being called to medicine, law, business, or education, and speak of them as our own way of “doing” ministry, and rightfully so. We ought to see our careers as ministry. If not, we might want to consider different careers.
One of my professors at Wabash, Dr. Bill Placher, recently edited and published a book called “Callings: Twenty Centuries of Wisdom on Christian Vocation.” In it he compiled passages from great works on matters of vocation and calling from great theologians and philosophers like Calvin, Barth, and Kierkegaard. He explains his motivation for writing the book as being to help his students with what has always been a difficult dilemma, but that is becoming increasingly difficult as we move into a “post-Christian” era. He says that, like early Christians, “we are outsiders in a world dominated by non-Christian values and assumptions,” and knowing the right response to God is not easy. He say that “the values of our culture seem to have so much to do with acquiring the lifestyles of the rich and famous…Advertising surrounds us with images of pleasure and material wealth. Questions like, what is God calling me to do; or, how can I pick up my cross and follow Jesus?” are becoming stranger questions.” He offers this bit of advice- “simply living as Christians could be our calling.”
Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus describes this very sort of calling. Paul is speaking to the very innate and most basic calling that we all share—simply to be God’s children. But what does this mean? How is this a call and how does it shape our everyday lives?
I believe the most important question that we can ask as Christians in answering God’s call, and perhaps one that separates us from the rest of society is the question, “Why?” You may be shocked that this is the question I proposed. You likely expected me to propose a highly complex theological or philosophical question. (After all, that’s what we Presbyterians do best.) It’s such a seemingly simple question. Yet, it is incredibly difficult to answer, especially when phrased in the some of the following forms—Why am I here; Why is there evil in the world; Why do bad things happen to good people? These questions are without a doubt difficult to answer, which is why we often steer clear of them if we can.
One of my favorite things to do as a kid, and you all likely remember doing it too, was to ask the question “Why?” over and over again whenever someone would say something until that person got frustrated. It never got old (as long as you were the one asking the questions). In fact, I did so just last week, and had a lot of fun with it. In my recollection, the game always started with a valid question, but quickly got out of hand, and inevitably ended up with the standard answer of “Just because,” or “Because I said so.” To which, I responded, “Why?” Perhaps this is why our society avoids the question—we don’t like “Just because.” It’s not good enough. But, it is precisely these “Why?” questions that impel us toward faith and toward answering God’s call.
I read a great book recently called “Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road.” It details a three-month journey from Houston, TX to Oregon shared by two then-college-aged friends. The author, Donald Miller, describes his motivations for the journey saying,
I confess I wanted to believe life was bigger, larger than my
presuppositions. Out there, under the cosmos, out in the desert of
Texas, beneath those billion starts and the umbrella of pitch-black
eons of nothingness, on top of that hill. I started wondering if life
was something different than I thought it was, if there was some kind
of raging beauty a person could find, that he could get caught up in
the why of life. And I needed to believe beauty meant something, and
I needed God to step off His self-help soapbox and be willing to say
something eternally significant and intelligent and meaningful, more meaningful than the parroted lines from detergent commercials. I
needed God to be larger than our free-market economy, larger than
our two-for-one coupons, larger than our religious ideas.
Throughout the remainder of the book, he describes their journey and how the happenings on the trip- the van they were traveling in breaking down on several occasions, running into old friends, running out of money, and seeing the great beauty of nature- shape his understanding of the why part of life and his faith. Though it goes unspoken, it is clear that he is searching out his call as a child of God, and he finds it in nature and in the natural order. In it, he finds something bigger than himself that he hasn’t felt before. In the simplest forms of nature, he finds unity.
We all are called to embark on a similar journey. Paul tells us to go out and run on the journey, and he tells us to do it together. He says that we are called to travel the same road and in the same direction. We find the manifestation of this and justification of this fact in the Oneness of God. He says that we all have one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God. Now, if God is the epitome of Oneness, and we are called as children made in God’s image, ought not our most basic inclination be toward unity and should we not to seek it out in all that we do? Shouldn’t it be the core of our mission?
Frederick Buechner once said, “God calls you to the kind of work that (a) you most need to do; and (b), that the world most needs done. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” We, as Christians seeking to respond to God’s call, ought to think long and hard about what this means for us both individually and as larger body. In doing so, we must ask hard questions of ourselves and of God. For ourselves, we must ask the individual question of passions and interests, and examine our backgrounds and experiences because these shape the way we view the world and one another. We must ask questions of God like: Who am I; where do I fit in with your plan; who did you make me to be? Inevitably, the answers to these questions will lead us into a larger and more pure body of believers because we all are children made in the image of God.
Yet, we must still ask questions of what we are called to as a church, a denomination, and a larger, united body of Christians. We must look long and hard, and with some degree of suspicion, at our current sense of mission. We must ask questions like: What is it what God is calling us to? Is the work that we are doing the kind of work that we need to do? Is it something the world most needs done? Are we coming from the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s hunger?
One of my learning objectives for this summer was to gain a better understanding of calling. I expected that, through prayer and study, I would have a better sense of my future vocation at the end of the summer. I expected to know for certain whether or not I was supposed to pursue ministry. However, much of what I have learned about calling this summer has nothing to do with vocation. I have learned that God calls all of us, as children made in God’s image. However, God does not only call us to service. God’s deepest call is, in the words of the apostle Paul, to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. In doing so, we must grow up with one another into the spirit and body of Christ. We, as ligaments, must take direction from the head, in order to make the church move and grow in this world. The head of the Church, Jesus Christ, calls us to grow up, seek unity, and run on the journey. Now, we must respond as His people.
Amen.
July, 29, 2007
Jason Simons, Pastoral Intern
“Cerebral Living”
Ephesians 4:1-16
One of my great interests and passions in my academic life has been the study of the life of the Presbyterian Church and its current and prolonged state of decline. I have written final papers for several religion courses that applied the concepts I learned in that particular course to the real problem of decline in our denomination. I even did an independent study last semester on the role of interest (advocacy) groups like the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the New Wineskins Initiative, the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, and a group called “That All May Freely Serve,” in the decline. I am convinced that these groups, while honestly seeking to faithfully follow God’s call, are causing tension, conflict, and polarization among Presbyterians. They are causing great distrust among God’s people opposite sides of the political and theological spectrum. Simply put, they are causing divisiveness among God’s people. They are causing great tension in the Church, the body of Christ.
In our passage this morning, the apostle Paul is writing from prison to the church in Ephesus, which is caught up in a number of conflicts, which in Paul’s mind, are unimportant to the task at hand. In fact, he doesn’t even take the time to name them. Rather, he is more concerned that people understand that they all are called by God. He wants them to understand just who they are—children of God. He is so concerned with making sure that his message of calling, identity, unity, and love is heard that he doesn’t even acknowledge the conflict in the church until the end of this passage. Even then he does so only because he seemingly has to. He says in verse 14 of the New Revised Standard Version, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” “But, instead,” he says, “speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
This passage is often used to offer a quick and easy explanation for why people are given different gifts and to explain the importance of different church offices. It is often read during ordination services for deacons, elders, and ministers. In fact, those of you who have been ordained to these offices may well remember being commissioned to service with this passage. No doubt, this passage provides important and valuable insights into the distribution of gifts and the importance of church offices, but I believe the heart of this passage lies in what it says about calling.
The term calling is often used to describe why we have pursued the careers that we have. There has been a great push in theological circles in recent years to extend the use of calling and vocation to explain non-clergy career paths. Now, we often speak of being called to medicine, law, business, or education, and speak of them as our own way of “doing” ministry, and rightfully so. We ought to see our careers as ministry. If not, we might want to consider different careers.
One of my professors at Wabash, Dr. Bill Placher, recently edited and published a book called “Callings: Twenty Centuries of Wisdom on Christian Vocation.” In it he compiled passages from great works on matters of vocation and calling from great theologians and philosophers like Calvin, Barth, and Kierkegaard. He explains his motivation for writing the book as being to help his students with what has always been a difficult dilemma, but that is becoming increasingly difficult as we move into a “post-Christian” era. He says that, like early Christians, “we are outsiders in a world dominated by non-Christian values and assumptions,” and knowing the right response to God is not easy. He say that “the values of our culture seem to have so much to do with acquiring the lifestyles of the rich and famous…Advertising surrounds us with images of pleasure and material wealth. Questions like, what is God calling me to do; or, how can I pick up my cross and follow Jesus?” are becoming stranger questions.” He offers this bit of advice- “simply living as Christians could be our calling.”
Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus describes this very sort of calling. Paul is speaking to the very innate and most basic calling that we all share—simply to be God’s children. But what does this mean? How is this a call and how does it shape our everyday lives?
I believe the most important question that we can ask as Christians in answering God’s call, and perhaps one that separates us from the rest of society is the question, “Why?” You may be shocked that this is the question I proposed. You likely expected me to propose a highly complex theological or philosophical question. (After all, that’s what we Presbyterians do best.) It’s such a seemingly simple question. Yet, it is incredibly difficult to answer, especially when phrased in the some of the following forms—Why am I here; Why is there evil in the world; Why do bad things happen to good people? These questions are without a doubt difficult to answer, which is why we often steer clear of them if we can.
One of my favorite things to do as a kid, and you all likely remember doing it too, was to ask the question “Why?” over and over again whenever someone would say something until that person got frustrated. It never got old (as long as you were the one asking the questions). In fact, I did so just last week, and had a lot of fun with it. In my recollection, the game always started with a valid question, but quickly got out of hand, and inevitably ended up with the standard answer of “Just because,” or “Because I said so.” To which, I responded, “Why?” Perhaps this is why our society avoids the question—we don’t like “Just because.” It’s not good enough. But, it is precisely these “Why?” questions that impel us toward faith and toward answering God’s call.
I read a great book recently called “Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road.” It details a three-month journey from Houston, TX to Oregon shared by two then-college-aged friends. The author, Donald Miller, describes his motivations for the journey saying,
I confess I wanted to believe life was bigger, larger than my
presuppositions. Out there, under the cosmos, out in the desert of
Texas, beneath those billion starts and the umbrella of pitch-black
eons of nothingness, on top of that hill. I started wondering if life
was something different than I thought it was, if there was some kind
of raging beauty a person could find, that he could get caught up in
the why of life. And I needed to believe beauty meant something, and
I needed God to step off His self-help soapbox and be willing to say
something eternally significant and intelligent and meaningful, more meaningful than the parroted lines from detergent commercials. I
needed God to be larger than our free-market economy, larger than
our two-for-one coupons, larger than our religious ideas.
Throughout the remainder of the book, he describes their journey and how the happenings on the trip- the van they were traveling in breaking down on several occasions, running into old friends, running out of money, and seeing the great beauty of nature- shape his understanding of the why part of life and his faith. Though it goes unspoken, it is clear that he is searching out his call as a child of God, and he finds it in nature and in the natural order. In it, he finds something bigger than himself that he hasn’t felt before. In the simplest forms of nature, he finds unity.
We all are called to embark on a similar journey. Paul tells us to go out and run on the journey, and he tells us to do it together. He says that we are called to travel the same road and in the same direction. We find the manifestation of this and justification of this fact in the Oneness of God. He says that we all have one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God. Now, if God is the epitome of Oneness, and we are called as children made in God’s image, ought not our most basic inclination be toward unity and should we not to seek it out in all that we do? Shouldn’t it be the core of our mission?
Frederick Buechner once said, “God calls you to the kind of work that (a) you most need to do; and (b), that the world most needs done. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” We, as Christians seeking to respond to God’s call, ought to think long and hard about what this means for us both individually and as larger body. In doing so, we must ask hard questions of ourselves and of God. For ourselves, we must ask the individual question of passions and interests, and examine our backgrounds and experiences because these shape the way we view the world and one another. We must ask questions of God like: Who am I; where do I fit in with your plan; who did you make me to be? Inevitably, the answers to these questions will lead us into a larger and more pure body of believers because we all are children made in the image of God.
Yet, we must still ask questions of what we are called to as a church, a denomination, and a larger, united body of Christians. We must look long and hard, and with some degree of suspicion, at our current sense of mission. We must ask questions like: What is it what God is calling us to? Is the work that we are doing the kind of work that we need to do? Is it something the world most needs done? Are we coming from the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s hunger?
One of my learning objectives for this summer was to gain a better understanding of calling. I expected that, through prayer and study, I would have a better sense of my future vocation at the end of the summer. I expected to know for certain whether or not I was supposed to pursue ministry. However, much of what I have learned about calling this summer has nothing to do with vocation. I have learned that God calls all of us, as children made in God’s image. However, God does not only call us to service. God’s deepest call is, in the words of the apostle Paul, to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. In doing so, we must grow up with one another into the spirit and body of Christ. We, as ligaments, must take direction from the head, in order to make the church move and grow in this world. The head of the Church, Jesus Christ, calls us to grow up, seek unity, and run on the journey. Now, we must respond as His people.
Amen.
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