Calling Everyone
Matthew 4:1-11
February 3, 2008
It has been called to my attention, in no uncertain terms, that I tend to apologize too much when I ask folks to do something. All I can say is, “I’m sorry.”
But seriously … it’s the first Sunday of Lent and I want to share with you my Lenten discipline for this 40 days. As I’ve mentioned in previous years, I tend not to “give up” things for Lent, but instead try to take on some practice during the season that deepens my faith, strengthens my spiritual life, or makes my Christian witness more effective.
This year my Lenten discipline is to stop apologizing.
Oh, to be sure, this does not include all those things that I will no doubt do during the next 40 days that will call for apologies. I’m sure that I’ll drop things in the next six weeks: I’ll drop something on the kitchen floor; I’ll drop the ball on something; I’ll try my best to drop no bombshells, but I am sure that I will make mistakes during Lent that I will apologize for.
But I’m not going to apologize for my faith. I’m not going to apologize for my convictions. I’m not going to apologize for my calling. And I’m not going to apologize for asking you to live into your own faith and conviction and callings.
For all kinds of reasons that we will not psychoanalyze together this is perhaps this most daunting challenge that I could possibly take on, and I will need your help to do it well.
But if we are to live fully into the faith that we claim we must ask of one another daunting challenges. After all, if all we ask for is the edges of our lives then that is all we will get.
Jesus did not ask for the edges of people’s lives; he asked for the whole of them.
My mom told me once of being at a Presbyterian Women’s national gathering at Louisville a few years back and hearing a woman call the offering saying, “Jesus don’t want your fives and tens, Jesus wants your twenties and fifties.”
Well, Jesus doesn’t want the edge of your life, he wants the whole of it.
That’s what call is all about. Authentic calling to Christian discipleship is not about the edges of your life. It’s not about what’s left over at the end of the day; it’s the whole of the day.
The essence of the temptations that Jesus faces in our passage from this morning is to cheat his calling; to offer up only the edges of his own life not its fullness as a gift from God.
When the adversary places before Jesus a series of temptations none of them involves doing anything that we would consider evil, sinful or even remotely bad. After all, eating is fundamentally necessary to human life, so bread cannot be bad. Being protected from harm is fundamentally necessary to human life, so being borne up when you fall cannot be bad. Leadership if fundamentally necessary to human life, as well, so having power cannot be bad either – especially if you’re a basically decent, all-around good guy as one can safely assume that Jesus was.
No, the temptation in each of these offers lies not in its content, but rather in its path. The tempter puts shortcuts to authentic human experience before Jesus – shortcuts to his calling. And Jesus says, simply, get thee behind me, Satan.
He says, “no,” to shortcuts and “yes” to the call for the center, the whole of his life.
It really is as simple as that; as simple as knowing the difference between “yes” and “no.”
Of course, therein lies the rub. It is all that simple, but it is also all that hard.
Take, for instance, my own Lenten declaration, and the temptations that lie in its way, in my way.
I am tempted to make everyone happy. On the face of it, what can be wrong with that?
After all, happiness is a good thing, right? And certainly part of my role as pastor involves your happiness, at some level and, of course, depending upon how one defines “happiness.”
On the other hand, however, I am utterly convinced that, at the deepest level, your happiness – human happiness in general – is essentially connected with call. That is to say, I do not believe that any one of us is genuinely happy – in the sense of the beatitudes – unless and until we are on an intentional journey of response to our several callings.
Thus, at a deeper level, my role as pastor involves helping you on that journey; and that involves, often, holding you accountable to all that is involved in that journey beginning with the simple conviction that God calls us to give our lives – the whole of our lives – to God’s purposes in the world.
And that’s not always an easy call to answer. It is certainly difficult for me – especially the part of my own calling that demands of me holding others accountable. I hate that part, because you might not like it – it might make you unhappy for a while. So I am tempted to apologize in advance, or to undersell what is asked, and that’s when I most need to recall Jesus’ own response to temptation.
Each of us has such temptations, and for each of us they are uniquely our own. What causes me trouble may not bother you a bit; what tempts you may not be a blip on my radar screen.
That’s why the community of faith is critical. We do bear one another’s burdens. We do bind one another up. We do love one another.
At their core, the temptations of Jesus were aimed at that essential human truth. The tempter says, “bear your own burdens, bind yourself up.” The tempter says, “turn your back on human community.”
And Jesus says, “no.” Jesus says, “to be fully human means to be in deep and interdependent relationships with every other human – to be responsible to one another.”
So, on this Lenten journey together, let us commit to being present to each other, to being responsible to each other, to hearing together God’s call and claim on our lives, and to sharing together the burdens and joys of responding to that call. No apologies necessary. Amen.
February 3, 2008
It has been called to my attention, in no uncertain terms, that I tend to apologize too much when I ask folks to do something. All I can say is, “I’m sorry.”
But seriously … it’s the first Sunday of Lent and I want to share with you my Lenten discipline for this 40 days. As I’ve mentioned in previous years, I tend not to “give up” things for Lent, but instead try to take on some practice during the season that deepens my faith, strengthens my spiritual life, or makes my Christian witness more effective.
This year my Lenten discipline is to stop apologizing.
Oh, to be sure, this does not include all those things that I will no doubt do during the next 40 days that will call for apologies. I’m sure that I’ll drop things in the next six weeks: I’ll drop something on the kitchen floor; I’ll drop the ball on something; I’ll try my best to drop no bombshells, but I am sure that I will make mistakes during Lent that I will apologize for.
But I’m not going to apologize for my faith. I’m not going to apologize for my convictions. I’m not going to apologize for my calling. And I’m not going to apologize for asking you to live into your own faith and conviction and callings.
For all kinds of reasons that we will not psychoanalyze together this is perhaps this most daunting challenge that I could possibly take on, and I will need your help to do it well.
But if we are to live fully into the faith that we claim we must ask of one another daunting challenges. After all, if all we ask for is the edges of our lives then that is all we will get.
Jesus did not ask for the edges of people’s lives; he asked for the whole of them.
My mom told me once of being at a Presbyterian Women’s national gathering at Louisville a few years back and hearing a woman call the offering saying, “Jesus don’t want your fives and tens, Jesus wants your twenties and fifties.”
Well, Jesus doesn’t want the edge of your life, he wants the whole of it.
That’s what call is all about. Authentic calling to Christian discipleship is not about the edges of your life. It’s not about what’s left over at the end of the day; it’s the whole of the day.
The essence of the temptations that Jesus faces in our passage from this morning is to cheat his calling; to offer up only the edges of his own life not its fullness as a gift from God.
When the adversary places before Jesus a series of temptations none of them involves doing anything that we would consider evil, sinful or even remotely bad. After all, eating is fundamentally necessary to human life, so bread cannot be bad. Being protected from harm is fundamentally necessary to human life, so being borne up when you fall cannot be bad. Leadership if fundamentally necessary to human life, as well, so having power cannot be bad either – especially if you’re a basically decent, all-around good guy as one can safely assume that Jesus was.
No, the temptation in each of these offers lies not in its content, but rather in its path. The tempter puts shortcuts to authentic human experience before Jesus – shortcuts to his calling. And Jesus says, simply, get thee behind me, Satan.
He says, “no,” to shortcuts and “yes” to the call for the center, the whole of his life.
It really is as simple as that; as simple as knowing the difference between “yes” and “no.”
Of course, therein lies the rub. It is all that simple, but it is also all that hard.
Take, for instance, my own Lenten declaration, and the temptations that lie in its way, in my way.
I am tempted to make everyone happy. On the face of it, what can be wrong with that?
After all, happiness is a good thing, right? And certainly part of my role as pastor involves your happiness, at some level and, of course, depending upon how one defines “happiness.”
On the other hand, however, I am utterly convinced that, at the deepest level, your happiness – human happiness in general – is essentially connected with call. That is to say, I do not believe that any one of us is genuinely happy – in the sense of the beatitudes – unless and until we are on an intentional journey of response to our several callings.
Thus, at a deeper level, my role as pastor involves helping you on that journey; and that involves, often, holding you accountable to all that is involved in that journey beginning with the simple conviction that God calls us to give our lives – the whole of our lives – to God’s purposes in the world.
And that’s not always an easy call to answer. It is certainly difficult for me – especially the part of my own calling that demands of me holding others accountable. I hate that part, because you might not like it – it might make you unhappy for a while. So I am tempted to apologize in advance, or to undersell what is asked, and that’s when I most need to recall Jesus’ own response to temptation.
Each of us has such temptations, and for each of us they are uniquely our own. What causes me trouble may not bother you a bit; what tempts you may not be a blip on my radar screen.
That’s why the community of faith is critical. We do bear one another’s burdens. We do bind one another up. We do love one another.
At their core, the temptations of Jesus were aimed at that essential human truth. The tempter says, “bear your own burdens, bind yourself up.” The tempter says, “turn your back on human community.”
And Jesus says, “no.” Jesus says, “to be fully human means to be in deep and interdependent relationships with every other human – to be responsible to one another.”
So, on this Lenten journey together, let us commit to being present to each other, to being responsible to each other, to hearing together God’s call and claim on our lives, and to sharing together the burdens and joys of responding to that call. No apologies necessary. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
5:09 PM
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