In the name of God-
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
At the back of the Book
of Common Prayer, there is a catechism that lists several questions and answers
about the faith. One question is “What is the ministry of the laity?” The
answer is “The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church;
to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given
them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their
place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.” If that sounds like
a tall task, that’s because it is. Sometimes being a follower of Jesus can feel
overwhelming, as there are countless ministries that could benefit from our
support. There are always those in need, there are always things around the
church that can be done, and there are always causes that could use a financial
gift. And then there are systemic problems like racism and poverty that, quite
frankly, seem like insurmountable issues.
Today’s reading from Mark though is an encouragement in the
face of the daunting and hard work of ministry. It has been said that “Without
God, we cannot; without us, God will not.” Why God chooses to use us as the vehicles
for divine healing, salvation, and peace, I don’t know. But God has blessed us
with Creation and given us the task of taking part in the on-going creation of
God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
We can do this work. One preacher said that the “arc of
the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It takes time and
sustained effort for the fruits of our ministry to be seen. Another theologian
wrote, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore
we must be saved by hope.” God has trusted us with the work of ministry, and so
if the source of our creation and salvation trusts us, who are we to say “no”?
Let’s consider three encouragements for the work of ministry that are found in
this reading from Mark.
“And he could do no deed of power there.” The first thing
to consider in our work as followers of Jesus is the power of receptivity.
Prior to this event in Mark, Jesus has controlled the weather on the Sea of
Galilee, cast out demons, healed people of diseases, and brought a dead girl
back to life. That’s quite the résumé. And so he returns to his home town, and
people clearly have heard about his actions, as they say “What deeds of power
are being done by his hands!” But then in the very next sentence, they say “Isn’t
this the carpenter, Mary’s son?” and they dismiss him.
There seems to be a clear link between faith and power. If
we are going to do the Godly work of reconciling, healing, and peace-making,
then we are going to need faith. Without any faith in his hometown, it seems as
if Jesus’ power is restricted. What are you open to? Do you believe in the power
of God to calm the storms of our world? Do you trust that, through God’s love, peace
can be found? Do you proclaim that goodness can overcome evil? I know we want
to rush ahead and say “yes, of course” but, deep down, do we really believe
those things? That’s a question to take with you today.
I do want to caution though that we should not confuse
this linkage between power and receptivity to mean that we can control the
power of God with our wills. This isn’t about the strength of our intellect or
the earnestness of our prayers. This is not to say that if you just have enough
faith that cancer will be healed or the Middle East will find peace. Rather,
this is about being open to what God is doing in and through you. The prayer of
St. Francis starts with “Lord, make us instruments of your peace.” Are you
receptive to the encouraging idea that you are one of God’s instruments?
The second encouragement for ministry is that you already
have what you need. When Jesus commissions his followers, he sends them out
without food, money, or luggage. Many of you know that the General Convention
of The Episcopal Church took place over the last week and a half. One of the
biggest debates was around a series of resolutions intended to restructure our
church. The idea was to make us less top-heavy and less bureaucratic, and when
it came time for debate, parliamentary procedure turned it into a train wreck.
Someone has a great idea for a new ministry, and what’s the first thing we do?
We take it to a committee. We study the issue, we come up with plans and goals
and agendas and budgets. We say that we’re doing these things to make sure the
ministry finds success, but I wonder if we’re not really just avoiding the work
of ministry?
Talk is cheap, they say, and it is. We talk about wanting
racism to stop in this country. But that hasn’t stopped six black churches from
being burned in the two weeks following Charleston. Committees weren’t really
Jesus’ thing. Instead, he sends them out and just says “do some good work.” And
they did. Christianity is, without question, the biggest force in human
history, and it started with a small group of disciples who went out, taking
only the bare minimum for their journey. And we have more than that. St. Luke’s
is blessed with an annual budget of over $400,000. We have great campus on
which to base our ministries. We have hundreds of dedicated parishioners. I’m
not asking us to solve the global warming crisis or to eliminate income
inequality, but as Mother Teresa once said “We may not do great things, but we
can do small things with great love.” This is our second encouragement, that
with God, we have everything that we need to succeed.
And finally, there’s that old saying, that you can lead a
horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Notice how Jesus instructs his
followers to do their work- if you are welcomed, stay there; and if you are
not, move on. Jesus is redefining what success looks like. Success isn’t a big
win and hanging a “Mission Accomplished” banner. No, success is about planting
seeds. It’s like the parable of the sower that Jesus tells. A sower goes out
and sows some seed, and some falls on good soil, some on rocky soil, and some
in thorns. And in that parable, the sower doesn’t seem to worry about where the
seeds land. The sower knows that, at best, he or she can sow the seeds. The
sower doesn’t get to control the sunlight, the temperature, or the rainfall. Success
really isn’t dependent much on the sower at all. And that’s how ministry is for
us.
So often, the Church fails not because it does things
incorrectly, but because it isn’t daring enough. James Dyson, the inventor of
the Dyson vacuum cleaner, knows a thing or two about failure. Between 1979 and
1984, he successfully invented 5,127 versions of the cyclone vacuum cleaner that
didn’t work. During that time, the Dyson family lived only on his wife’s
income; today, Dyson’s net worth is $4.9 billion. Can you imagine what would
happen if we tried something more than twice and it failed both times? How long
would it take for the blame and shame to start?
Ministry is about daring greatly, it is about striving
for the dream of God, it is about doing something grander than we ever thought
was possible. Sometimes it takes a while to get things right, and sometimes our
idea of success isn’t what God’s idea of success looks like. So perhaps in the
work of ministry, we can avoid focusing so much on what success looks like and
more on what doors are opening for future possibility and grace. What does a
successful Sunday School program look like? Do we measure that with a head
count? Or, maybe, in 20 years when one of those children is grown and facing a
challenge in life and remembers the love of God that they learned about as a
child, we count that as a success. Is a successful welcoming ministry about getting
more members on our books, or letting people know that there is a place they can
come to find a community of hope and love?
What we see in this passage is that Jesus doesn’t tell us
to focus on the outcome, but rather simply offering ourselves to ministry and
not worrying about the outcome. People will either respond to our ministry, or
they won’t. But that outcome isn’t in our control. You can’t make the horse
drink the water- all you can do is offer. You can offer love, and peace, and
joy, and hope. Those are the gifts that God has given to us, and our ministry is
to offer those gifts to others.
And
that, at least to me, is an encouraging message when it comes to ministry. I
thank God that my sermons are not evaluated based on how many people read them
online or how much money you put in the offering plate after hearing them. The
best ministry that we can do is to be faithful witnesses to the love of God and
pray that the Spirit will take care of raining and shining upon those seeds of
faith that we scatter. If we dare to follow Jesus and worry about our journey instead
of the destination, we might more fully live into our work of ministry.
As the Body of Christ, ours is the ministry of making the
love of God known to the world. Our work as followers of Jesus is extremely
important and incredibility challenging. In the way in which Jesus’s ministry
is described in the passage from Mark though, we can take encouragement that in
being receptive to the power of God that God’s grace will flow through us. We
can be encouraged that we already have everything we need to succeed and we can
get to action right now. And we can be encouraged that the success of our
ministry will be based not on results but rather faithfulness. May God grant us
the ability to be receptive to God’s working in our lives. May we know that we
are chosen and equipped for ministry, even if we sometimes doubt ourselves. And
many God give us the grace to not worry about success and instead focus on
spreading the Gospel. Amen.
