trying to find me something

but i wasn't sure just what

Too many churches out there treat Jesus as the answer to any question or problem you’ve ever had and many others act like following Jesus is the most reasonable thing you could ever do.

The problem with that, though, is everyone knows better. We should stop doing that. We should quit pretending the folks who don’t believe are crazy. The truth is, those folks who don’t believe might just have a little more sense than you who are here today. Following Jesus is hard. 

In the early church, when outsiders would do all the work of coming to the church and asking to join; do you want to know what the church, in all it’s wisdom, would do?

The church would say, ‘that’s great. You can join us, anyone can. It’s going to take a year, though. The year is going to be hard, and you’re going to have to give up everything. In fact, we meet early Sunday,’ -which at that time, was a work day.

That’s how the early church did evangelism. Contrary to all the advice of every church-growth guru, that church grew.

The early church grew though nothing other than daring to respect the way God works, daring to honor God’s call upon people. The church grew, not through trying to make following easier, but because the church was honest about how hard it is to follow Jesus, and how impossible it is not to follow this Jesus, either.

One day in the church I served in D.C., the new pastor had a “get to know the pastor session.” He asked everyone in the room to go around and tell why they joined the church. Some said the church was welcoming, others said it’s where their friends went, others their family; things like that. Until it came to this one woman. ‘Well, I’m so glad this room is so full of happy Lutherans,’ she said. ‘Since I’ve been coming here, though, my life has only gotten harder!’

‘Oh, really?’ the new pastor asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, that lady over there, a few years ago she invited me to go on a mission-trip,’ she said. ‘When I asked her what a mission-trip was, I was told to, ‘just sign up, and once I was there they’d explain it.’ Well, when we landed I knew why she didn’t tell me; if she had, I’d never of gone! But there I was. That whole time, I couldn’t help but think that I didn’t have any business being there.’

‘So one day,’ she said, ‘I told the pastor it was a mistake that I was on the mission-trip, heck I wasn’t even sure I believed. Well, the pastor just said, ‘do you think you know better than God? Do you think you are you so in control of your own fate that you imagine you actually got yourself here? No, the only reason you’re here is because God has called you here. Stop this nonsense and get back to work.’

‘When the pastor said that,’ the woman admitted, ‘the bottom just kind of dropped out from under me. Suddenly I realized God had called me there. It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t random, it was God! Now, I show up to church, and folks avoid me. They know if I sit at their table, I’m going to ask them for one-hundred dollars to feed a family for a year.’

…Thankfully there are a few people out there who will be honest about it; following Jesus is hard. Jesus’ teachings are a challenge, calling us to forgive, be perfect, give up everything and follow. In fact, for as much conversion as Jesus evokes, he also seems to prompt just as many folks to walk away muttering, ‘this is a hard teaching.’

Those who can’t follow are honest, and we should stop pretending they’re unreasonable. This calling we’ve been called to, isn’t easy, is it? I know each of you can think of moments in your own life when following Jesus made everything harder. In fact, before it is anything else, Jesus’ call is an invitation to die with him.

My last year in seminary, the seniors were gathered together to talk about ideas for a final research papers. One student said they were interested in researching why people left the church. 

Then one professor who had, had enough of a bunch of students talking about writing papers that didn’t have anything to do with anything, cut in. ‘What a boring paper,’ she said. ‘I can already tell you every reason folks stop going to church; they didn’t like the choir, the pastor upset them, the pews are uncomfortable, they didn’t like the liturgy, their schedule was just too full, yada yada yada. That’s boring! Why don’t you try to figure out why people stay in the church? That’s the real miracle!’

That is a miracle, isn’t it? The fact that you ended up in this place, and that you keep ending up in this place, it’s a miracle; it couldn’t be the works of our own flesh.

That you would come here and listen to yet another hard teaching of Jesus’ when you could just as easily sleep-in and listen to some easy-listening radio-station; that’s a miracle. In spite of everything, here you are. Wow. 

I trust you know the product of your own works, I don’t think I need to remind us that left to our own, we’d be anywhere else than here; we began our service thanking God for rescuing us, so I trust you know where our own efforts land us. No, the only reason you’re here must be God; nothing other than God brought you to this place today, God choose for you to be here (isn’t accident).

This week I was praying. You all know I’m always praying for you, that I spend a little time each day in here praying. Well, I was telling God how this office stuff is just too much. That this transition is too difficult. That it’s taking too much time for something I don’t have an iota of passion for, and even less gifts for. I was telling God we already have enough trouble here at Trinity, that we don’t need this nonsense, too.

Then, out of nowhere, it was like the clouds opened, and God spoke. 

Do you want to know what God said?

It was like God said, ‘Who told you this would be easy?’

And then, and this wasn’t so much like a voice, but I felt that I should go and look at the installation service. Do you know, nowhere does that service promise it will be easy for us. All God promises is we would be called together to get to proclaim and hear the Gospel, to get to learn and teach the Holy Writ together, to get to witness together, to get to pray for each other, to get to baptize and share the Holy Meal together. That’s it! And that is more than we would ever have ventured to on our own.

As I read those promises, I couldn’t help but hear dear, old Thomas. After Jesus tells the disciples they’re going back to Judea, although the folks there had already tried to kill him; Thomas, sizes up the situation, and in one of the greatest understatements in history says, “Well, let’s go with him, that we may die also.”

Perhaps that is the word that should always be on our lips, too. At least that word would be honest. Following Jesus is hard, and before it is anything else, Jesus call is a call to die with him.

That word, ‘let us go with him, that we may die also,’ should always be on our lips because the terrible truth is, most of the time when we talk about evangelism, we’re actually only talking about ‘member recruitment.’ Even more terribly, though, is that our methods of recruitment bear little difference from how a civic club might do recruitment. Worst of all, however,  is that our rationale for recruitment is no different, either. 

Our recruitment is all about our own little band, continuing our own little club. When we try to recruit a new member, there’s no mention of discipleship, not honest talk of how hard following is, and of course even less talk of Christ. And if we’re not talking about Christ, we shouldn’t be talking at all.

The truth is, folks who’ve felt the terrifying hand of the living God of their shoulder, have an idea of what it might mean to be called by this God. If we’re going to talk about this God, it had better be about more than just an invitation to join yet another club. 

Those who have felt the hot breath of this living God on their neck, either want to get as far away from this God as possible or to stop running from this God, and try figure out what God could possibly have had in mind by calling them. 

And my suspicion is, at the end of the day, that’s true for you, too.

You’re not here when you could be anywhere else, because you have nothing better to do. No, you’re here because one day when you were doing anything other than warranting God’s attention; God chose you. You’re here because one day, the God who is always on the prowl for God’s people, got ahold of you. You’re here because you’ve fallen into the hands of the living God, and you’ve at least figured out you can’t get away from this God. That work of God changed everything; it called you to more than you would have ever stepped up to on your own and it gave you more than you would have ever been on your own, too. 

That’s all evangelism is, at it’s best. 

Evangelism doesn’t have a single thing to do with meeting people’s perceived wants. Evangelism is being honest about the life-changing nature of Jesus’ call. Evangelism is knocking the floor out from underneath folks who are running from the living God. Evangelism is pointing over the shoulder of someone and telling them God is on the prowl, claiming them. Evangelism is proclaiming to folks that God has chosen them, and now everything is about to change. 

Perhaps that is what God is up to in all this office administrator transition difficulty. Maybe God is calling us, not to seek out our own survival, but to go with Jesus, to die with him even. 

After all, that’s what Paul is talking about in our first lesson. Jesus calls us and so we don’t live anymore, we’re dead and all that work of the flesh dies with us. The only life we have now, is hidden in the risen Christ, bearing the fruit of his spirit. 

Jesus has decided to call you, and ready or not; heck, welcome or not; Jesus has gotten you! You belong to Jesus, and now instead of all those works of the flesh, you bear the fruit of the spirit, life in Christ. 

The truth is, that’s what our community needs right now. In a week marked by four deaths, our community doesn’t need another club seeking it’s survival at the expense of those dying around us. Our community needs a people marked by Christ, not serving ourselves, but serving others. Our community needs a people who can go to those places where death seems to have won and say “No. Death has been swallowed up in the victory of God in Jesus Christ.”

That’s all we have to offer. We don’t have theater style seating, no big screen, no welcome trinkets, we don’t even have lapel pins. But guess what, what we do have, is more than enough. We have people who live in Christ, we have people who heard the call and couldn’t help but say the same words poor, old Thomas said so long ago, “let us go with him, that we may die also,” we have people who forgive not 7 times but 7 time 77 times, people who’s heart-beat is actually that of Christ’s.

Jesus’ calling is hard, and here’s the good news; you don’t do it alone.

Here you are, sitting there like a bump on a log, thinking of any else and God calls you. Here you are, when only a few hours before, you were considering sleeping in and skipping the service, and yet God calls you. 

In the midst of all the miserable works of the flesh, God calls us. This call of God gives us all we need to follow Christ, hard as it is. This call of God is the sweet Word that brings forth all the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In other words, this call of God gives us all we need to follow. 

That’s good news, and it isn’t just good news for us - although it is that, too. This is Good News for our community. Burlington is hurting right now, and only people who know, deep down, that death isn’t the end, can provide real healing; only people who have been pulled past death into life eternal with Christ. 

Amen