John 10:22-30, Revelation 7:9-17
The Fourth Sunday of Easter: April 21, 2013
Blessing and honor and glory and might be to God forever
and ever! Amen!
The trends are disturbing.
If things remain as they are, most of the kids in Sunday
school and youth group today will not continue participating in church when
they are adults. Many who are in the pews today will marry a spouse of a
different or no faith and have to negotiate church participation and whether or
not they will bring up their children in the faith. Pretty much all of us have
friends and colleagues of another or no faith.
Thinking of those people adds a bit of sting to these words
of Jesus: “You do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” Ouch.
It’s hard to get past this. But what about those of us who do believe, who are
among the sheep? What is Jesus saying to us today? How do we nurture faith that
we might attract or bring back a few more sheep along the way?
Conventional wisdom tells us that belief shapes behavior,
that our actions are guided by our convictions. But look around: the opposite
seems to be far truer. Because our behavior shapes our beliefs. Ask people to
put a small political sign in their yard and their support for that candidate
rises dramatically. Get folks to recycle for a month and their commitment to
the environment goes well beyond what it was before.
In short, we tend to justify our actions by shaping our
convictions and even identity – often unconsciously – to explain and support
those actions. If we do things enough, we begin to buy into the premise and
conviction behind it. So instead of saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it;” we
should probably be saying “I’ll believe it when I do it.”
In today’s gospel Jesus talks about believing and following
in the same breath. We often try to separate these out, but it seems that these
two things are actually interwoven together; one doesn’t successfully exist
without the other.
This is huge: because in this we see that it is nearly
impossible to be an armchair Christian. We know plenty of people who try, but
their journey usually comes up incomplete, unfulfilling, and even empty. So
maybe volunteering isn’t about keeping the church going because, in fact, God
does a pretty good job of taking of God’s church. Volunteering and
participating—DOING—is the very nutrient that nourishes our lives of faith. So
being a person of action in God’s church is not just good for the church but
also good for an individual’s faith as well.
This isn’t easy. The great ordeal that the elder speaks of
in the revelation to John is what we are living in now. So we then too will
share in the same promise that all those in that great multitude are living
beyond the grave, that magnificent place where ones from every nation
continuously worship God in thanksgiving for being made perfect, hungering no
more, thirsting no more, crying no more, anguishing no more.
But this doesn’t have to be a promise of things to come.
It’s a promise for today as well. Of course you would have every reason to
throw me out of here if I led you to believe that all your earthly pains and
struggles and disappointments would suddenly vanish. We live in the world and
know that it is impossible not to gain a few scars and wounds as we navigate
this life.
Even in the struggle there is promise. Being guided to the
springs of water of life, you were found there at your baptism, and each day we
wake we are born anew, drowned to our sin and coming forth as new life. Our
robes are also made white by the blood of the Lamb, through the resurrection
our sins are taken away. We celebrate receiving Christ’s body and blood every
time we come to Jesus’ table.
And these are promises that lead us to do more than
believe. We really can follow Jesus by feeding the poor, caring for the sick,
accompanying the lonely, and loving one another. And we don’t do these things
because they somehow buy us frequent flyer miles to get to heaven, instead we
serve each other as our act of worship, our way of saying thanks to God, our
method of being in community with God and God’s people.
So what are these things we do? Let me bring back the
second most feared word in the Lutheran world today: stewardship. (Just so you
know, the scariest word is evangelism, but we’ll get to that later.) Now
stewardship; I’m not afraid of this word at all. In fact, I rather enjoy the
subject. Why? Because it’s a great way to keep our lives in order. You see,
stewardship isn’t just writing a check and tossing it in the plate or signing
up for automatic giving. Rather, it’s the way we share all of God’s gifts to us
to nurture our faith as well as the faith of others.
Stewardship is the thoughtful and appropriate usage of not
just our dollars, but even more importantly our time and talent, those precious
minutes in each day and skills and talents God has given us to share in that
time. This type of stewardship runs the gamut from sitting with someone who
feels alone to helping build a house for the homeless. Some organize and plan
while others work those plans to completion. Some speak before crowds while
others chat with their neighbors.
Stewardship seems to be a strength here at Christ the King.
There are many who give of themselves for God’s church and God’s people. It’s
one of the big things that attracted me here to be your servant leader. Can we
do better? Of course, and I look forward to working with you all on making this
an even stronger attribute of Christ the King-Sherwood through prayer,
encouragement, and even a little prodding at times!
I look forward to learning with you new ways to unleash the
Holy Spirit, new opportunities to unbind the gospel of Christ, and new ways to
serve the Lord with gladness. Because while someday we’ll join that countless
multitude journeying down the golden avenue, crossing the Jordan, and standing
on the other side, why wait? Let’s celebrate God’s love by creating a little
heaven on earth in the days ahead as we work, play, and worship.
What gift has God given you to share? Let’s use these gifts
to bring a little heaven on earth.
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