Christ United Presbyterian Church
October 6, 2013
World Communion Sunday
Communion Meditation
Scriptures: Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 [NRSV]; Psalm 37 [NRSV];
II Timothy 1:1-14 [MSG]; Luke
17:5-10 [MSG]
“When you’ve done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact
and say, ‘The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.’”
We are
the vehicle, the means, the channel through which God’s blessings are to be
brought to the world. We are. You and me.
We have a job to do. Much has
been given, and much is expected. We
have been given all the tools and resources we need to accomplish the job. It’s expected that we will carry it out
humbly, with a sense of duty and gratitude for the opportunity to serve God.
Unlike
many Christian sisters and brothers around the world, we know little of
suffering for our faith. We know little
of physical privation and genuine hunger.
We have been equipped to bring God’s message, the Gospel of Jesus, the
good news of humanity’s reconciliation with God, the very love of God itself,
to all the world.
The four
scripture lessons this morning seem to fit together in an unusual way. The prophet Habakkuk says: “Look at the
proud!
Their
spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.”
The Psalm
says: “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not
fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil
devices.”
Paul says: “We can only keep on
going, after all, by the power of God, who first saved us and then called us to
this holy work. We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long
before we knew anything about it.”
And in the Gospel lesson Jesus is responding to his apostles who
want Him to give them even more than they have already received – more power,
more recognition, more faith
– and he tells them that they have all that they need. All that he is asking them to do is to do what
they ought to do. The unspoken clause is
“Just do what you already have the strength and the faith to do through the
grace of God.”
Don’t worry about the proud or the powerful who seem to prosper
through evil devices. Join together in
ministry, relying on God’s power that you have received and work out God’s
revealed purposes by grace through the gift of Jesus. And when the task is done remember humbly
that you have simply done your job.
A long time ago I had a boss who was passionate about
performance reviews. There were mostly
check-off evaluation statements on the form he dearly loved. When it came to the actual performance
summary, there were three choices: does
not meet expectations; meets expectations; exceeds expectations. He almost never checked that box “Exceeds
expectations.” It didn’t seem to matter
how great a job you were doing. In his
eyes, if you were doing a great job you were meeting his expectations! He believed that if you were actually doing
your job well then being told that you met expectations was a very high
compliment.
Each of us has been called to do our job. All of us have been called to share God’s
love with one another and to encourage one another in working out God’s purposes. Each of us has been given all the resources
we need to do the job. WE HAVE BEEN
GIVEN THE RESOURCES WE NEED TO DO THE JOB!
So when we complete the job, Jesus advises us that in humility what we
should say is: “The work is done. What
we were told to do, we did.”
Here we
are in Marshall, Minnesota. There’s no
war waging on our doorstep. Despite what
some people like to repeat, Christians here in the United States are not under
attack or persecution. Well, actually we
are under attack, but it’s an attack mounted by the materialism and greed that
our society nurtures and that all too often enlists us as its soldiers. Perhaps it would be more accurate to simply
admit that what we are facing is constant seduction and temptation. That’s the attack that we face.
It’s not
easy giving Christian witness in the face of those temptations and seductions
that the world places in our way. It
means going against the grain of the world.
It means standing up for justice, righteousness, charity and forgiveness. It
means showing the world that the love of God has made a difference in our lives
and we want to share that difference with everyone. It means recognizing that the only society
truly based on Christian values is described in the Beatitudes not in political
slogans.
Sometimes
acting that way, doing those things can be embarrassing. Even Paul recognized that possibility and so
he advised Timothy: “So don’t be
embarrassed to speak up for our Master.…”
This is
World Communion Sunday, a day on which Christians throughout the world come
together to share in the feast which God has prepared for us. The divergence that exists among Christians
worldwide is mind boggling. We don’t
even realize how much of what we think is “The Faith” is shaped by our culture,
our society, our regional ways of thinking, not by faithful interpretation of
Scripture.
The
Lordship of Jesus Christ, the love and mercy of God and the forgiveness that we
have received from God and the gratitude with which we respond to God’s blessings
are the essence of Christian faith.
It’s a
very large family that is invited to God’s feast. We are invited to that feast to nourish our
faith and to see that we are all one before God, all in need of God’s love, all
loved and forgiven.
But being
at the table is not a destination: it is
a place of respite and nourishment and encouragement. A place from which God
sends us back into the world to do the job that is expected of us. To meet God’s expectations. We don’t have to exceed His expectations, we
just have to try to meet them. We all
want to come and sit at God’s table, but when the meal is over God still
asks: “The work is not done. Who will go
and work for me today?”
He has
given us all the tools, all the resources, all the strength, all the faith that
we need. They have all come to us in
that gift of amazing grace that is the person of Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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