"Christianity Is a Full-Time Job"
Opening Worship Celebration
2014 Alabama - West Florida Conference
Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church
Montgomery, Alabama
June 1, 2014
Scripture Lessons: II Samuel 7.1-14a
Mark 6.30-34, 53-56
Tonight I am preaching about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Let us pray:
O Living Word, by whom all things are created,
bless all who work daily in home, field, and marketplace.
Labor with them until the creation of the new heven and earth.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
(Andy Langford, The United Methodist Book of Worship #540)
If your Saturdays and Sundays are like mine, you try to rest from the week gone by to prepare for the week to come. You try. To rest. Or if you are preachers, and your Saturdays and Sundays are filled with the things that...well...fill up preacher's lives on Saturdays and Sundays, I hope that another day or two is a time when you...try...to rest.
Jesus understands our need for rest. He needed rest to do his work. Of course, as we read throughout the Gospels, Jesus...and his disciples...keep getting pulled away from their rest by the crowd. Hop into a boat for a little R and R on the other side of the lake, and what do they find? The same crowd they had just left. When I read the story from Mark 6 -- which in its totality encompasses the Feeding of the 5000 -- I think of other stories about busy people interrupted from rest.
One story is about a divinity school classmate and dear friend of mine, the Reverend Ed Beddingfield, now the senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Fayetteville, North Carolina. Early in his ministry, long before he moved to Fayetteville, Ed looked up from his desk one Friday morning to see the chairman of his board of deacons who had "just happened" to stop by the little country church Ed was serving. Ed, as he tells the story, sat there silently stewing about not having time to sit quietly and ponder prayerfully what he was going to say in his sermon two days later.
After all, he had won every preaching prize in our divinity school graduating class. He had been told by the pulpit committee that his preaching was the deciding factor when they chose him to be their pastor. Sitting quietly and pondering prayerfully before writing his sermon were important priorities in young Ed's ministerial life.
When his head deacon finished talking about the weather and got around to asking how his work was going, Ed blurted out...before he realized what he was saying and just who he was saying it to: "I can't get any quiet time; I can't get any work done with everybody just dropping in." After a pregnant pause, the deacon looked straight at the newly-minted pastor and gave him a lesson from the laity on ministerial vocation: "Well, Preacher, excuse me for dropping in and interrupting you today; but, Preacher, I think the interruptions ARE your work." Thus was born Ed Beddingfield's considerably effective ministry of presence and patient listening which continues to this day.
Then there's the story about Mother Teresa. "Here we go again," I can hear you thinking. "Another story from another preacher about Mother Teresa. Who in the world can be a saint like Mother Teresa?"
Well, if it's impossible to be like Mother Teresa, what do we say to the Apostle Paul, who wrote the Philippians: "Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus"? And who wrote the Romans: "...be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect." And who commended the Thessalonians for "[becoming] imitators of us and of the Lord." If we cannot be like Mother Teresa, a disciple of Jesus, then what do we make of Jesus' command in the Sermon on the Mount to his disciples: "Be perfect...as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5.48)." As Methodists, what do we make of our doctrine of sanctifying and perfecting grace that we sing in the hymn?
Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Hold o'er my being absolute sway.
Fill with thy spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!
(Hymn 382)
And in the hymn:
To serve the present age,
my calling to fulfill;
O may it all my powers engage
to do my Master's will!
(Hymn 413)
And in the hymn:
Finish then, thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place.
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.
(Hymn 384)
So, yes, here's another story from another preacher about Mother Teresa.
Worn out and needing the rest that an old body was crying out for, Mother Teresa decided to retire. A reasonable decision, we would think. A just reward for life well-lived, we would think. Not so different from the way those of us who are approaching retirement age feel about retirement. But Mother Teresa's religious order would have nothing of it. There's a higher calling, a higher need, than your need to rest, her fellow sisters told her. And so faced with the higher call, Mother Teresa kept working until the day she died. For her, there was a larger purpose on which she did not get to vote: "Christ only, always, living in me."
And now a story from my life. Twenty summers ago, in June, I was called to my father's hospital bedside several hours away from where I was vacationing with my wife and baby daughter. I jumped in the car intending to reach the hospital in Raleigh by lunchtime, to keep Dad company and to feed him; but a wreck on I-77 delayed me. My sister-in-law, who had been sitting with Dad all morning and who had to get home to relieve a babysitter, called the one person she knew would come sit with Dad until I arrived -- Mabel Harrington -- a member of our home church, HighlandUnitedMethodistChurch. Mabel had sat just the summer before with my Mom, by Mom's deathbed, in that same hospital. Mabel was resting at home after a busy morning; but she dropped everything when my sister-in-law called, she went to my father's bedside, and she fed him lunch. When I arrived at the hospital long after lunch, Mabel was sitting beside Dad, waiting for me, keeping watch.
"When the Son of man comes in his glory...[he] will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, O blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink...I was sick and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?...And when did we see you sick...and visit you?' And he will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me'." (Matthew 25. 34ff.)
Three stories from real life about three disciples of Jesus doing what Jesus requires of us in the here and now, where we live. Where we live. "To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill." A Baptist preacher living in the rural Sandhills of North Carolina, a worn out little Catholic nun who until she died lived in the inner city, a United Methodist laywoman living with her veterinary professor husband in a middle-class neighborhood of Raleigh. From reading about Mother Teresa's life, and from knowing personally Ed Beddingfield and Mabel Harrington, I know these three Christian disciples understood and understand the importance of sabbath rest. If we do not retreat now and then from the daily pace, if we do not spend time alone listening only to God, there is no inner core, nothing of substance to give to people around us. These three disciples were and are mature enough to know the very thing Jesus believed essential for his life of faith -- sabbath time spent with God.
And yet, these three disciples knew and know -- as Jesus knew -- that we rest in order to be at work. In the Christian life, in a life lived following Jesus' footsteps, work is a GOOD word. Active work is at the heart of being a Christian person, if by active work we mean living out in concrete, specific ways the love of God. In the Feeding of the 5000 story, Jesus does try to rest because he needs, physically and spiritually, to rest. But faced with the desperate needs of those people who come to him looking for direction, for care, he leaves his rest. Mark writes that though Jesus was tired, he had compassion on the crowd "because they were like sheep without a shepherd" (Mark 6.34). Jesus saw from his boat, his place of rest, that his higher purpose was to move from his place of rest and become -- in his very person -- a place where the sick come for rest.
Why is Christianity a full-time job? Why is it unthinkable for a disciple of Jesus -- a member of the Church -- why is it unthinkable for you and me to divide life into one compartment where we care for those around us and another compartment where we put out the sign: "Do Not Disturb"? Well, simply put, it's unthinkable because Jesus never hung out the "Do Not Disturb" sign. And in giving his love full-time, Jesus took his lead from God who -- as we read in the Old Testament -- is a God of "steadfast love," whose love endures forever. Because God stood by Israel and gave Israel rest from all its enemies (II Samuel 7.11), Jesus saw it as his purpose to give rest. Jesus left his rest...to provide rest...for those who needed rest: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Christianity, being a disciple of Jesus, is a full-time job. We do not get to vote on the job description. Christianity, being a disciple of Jesus, is a full-time job, a calling which now and then requires rest because rest is necessary for work. A children's hymn reminds us of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and speaks the theme for this 2014 Annual Conference, "Engaging Disciples":
Jesus' hands were kind hands, doing good to all,
healing pain and sickness, blessing children small,
washing tired feet, and saving those who fall;
Jesus' hands were kind hands, doing good to all.
Take my hands, Lord Jesus, let them work for you;
make them strong and gentle, kind in all I do.
Let me watch you, Jesus, till I'm gentle too,
till my hands are kind hands, quick to work for you.
(Hymn 273)
I close tonight with a prayer which has been a part of Methodist services since 1784, a prayer based on the 51st Psalm and known as the Collect for Purity. Traditionally this prayer has been a prayer opening worship. May it serve tonight as a prayer which opens the way for all the work we will do this week in holy conferencing:
Almighty God,
unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hid.
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love thee,
and worthily magnify thy holy Name,
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
J. Cameron West
President, HuntingdonCollege