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| Let Go of the Whale; (sermon 7/8/12) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 5 2012, 05:07 AM (246 Views) | |
| Dewey | Jul 5 2012, 05:07 AM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Mark 6:1-13 He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. ===== The scriptures tell us that Jesus was some kind of a carpenter, or builder by trade. Not a master builder, in charge of a whole construction project, but someone who was a woodworker, or maybe a mason of some kind. He was what today, we’d call a subcontractor. He was a regular blue-collar guy. A guy-next-door type that most of the people of Nazareth would have identified with. And just like today, when a small-town boy or girl makes it big, and all the people of their hometown like to point out that they’re “one of us,” the people of Nazareth must have felt that way about Jesus. When he was about thirty, after he closed down the workshop or left it to his younger brothers to run, and he started going from town to town picking up disciples, drawing big crowds, and doing some amazing miracles, word about Jesus must have gotten back to Nazareth, and with even more pride than we’d tell people that Urban Meyer’s wife is from Frankfort, they’d brag about Jesus. “Yep, he’s one of us. He grew up in that house right there on the corner. I remember him; he went to school with my older brother…” Jesus put Nazareth on the map; they must have been very proud of him. Until he came back to town, anyway. Preaching to other people was one thing. And the miracles were great. But when Jesus came home and started to speak in his hometown synagogue, and to teach *them* – and not with the second-hand nature of one of the regular rabbis, but with a claim to firsthand power and authority – well, that was something different. You could hear them mumbling to each other – “Who’s he to tell us this stuff? I helped his mother change his dirty diapers!... I hired him to put the door frames in my new house!... I remember TP’ing old man Eliezer’s house with him when we were kids!... I taught him how to write, and he wasn’t even the smartest in the class!... Who the heck does he think he is?...He went away into this “ministry” of his, and filled his head with all kinds of crazy ideas, and now he has the gall to come back here acting like he’s so much smarter and superior to all of us “little people,” and telling us all what God is really like and what God expects. He’s no better or smarter than any of us. Even his own family thinks he’s gone off the deep end!” It was completely predictable, of course. Jesus even quoted an old Hebrew proverb that prophets typically got about as much respect a Rodney Dangerfield in their own hometowns, and with their own family and friends. It happened all the time. Still, it had to be frustrating to Jesus. It had to make him angry. It had to hurt, really deeply, for the people he personally cared about the most to reject him and what he had to say. But even in the midst of his friends and family rejecting him and his words in no uncertain terms, and what must have been a strong desire for them to accept his word, ultimately, he just gave up. He quit trying to change their minds. Mark tells us that he half-heartedly did a few minor miracles there in Nazareth, the divine equivalent ofa few card tricks, and then he left town and moved on. And as did, he sent his disciples out to other towns, to do the same thing, too. He gave them instructions about what to take, and how to act. And with his own hometown rejection still fresh in his mind, he told them that if people rejected their message, to do the same thing - just move on. Shake the dust from their sandals, he said, and keep moving. There were other towns to visit, other people to meet. They’ll have done their part. The rest was up to God. Jesus knew that no matter what it is you’re doing, there comes a time when, if all you’re getting out of the efforts is rejection, opposition, or failure, you just have to let go, move on, start fresh. But that goes against our natural instincts. Isn’t that just quitting, giving up? We aren’t quitters! So all too often, when we find ourselves in a situation like that, we don’t quit. We just dig in and keep at the same stupid, fruitless exercise in futility, like Captain Ahab in the novel Moby Dick. His single-minded obsession with killing the white whale, who he thinks has it personally out for him, ends up costing him his ship, and his life, and the lives of all but one of his crew. So how do we avoid doing the same kind of thing in our own lives? How do we “know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em,” as Kenny Rogers put it? The key is to figure out your real mission in life. God has some particular mission, some purpose, for each and every one of us as part of advancing God’s kingdom, God’s rule, in this world. And once we know what it is, we need to keep it in focus and not get distracted by all the distractions that are all around us. Jesus’ mission, and the mission of his disciples, was to spread God’s good news to as many people throughout the countryside as possible. Making sure that everyone responded favorably to that good news wasn’t their problem; it wasn’t part of their mission. Their mission was just to spread that message of the new kind of life that Jesus was proclaiming, by living it out in their words and in their actions. Of course, in the big picture, that’s really our mission too, as followers of Jesus. Each of us has some particular part of that mission that we need to focus on, with its own particular details and wrinkles, but in the end, we have the very same mission that they did. Craig Barnes is a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the senior pastor of the East Liberty Presbyterian Church just a few blocks away from the school. He’s a very gifted professor and a brilliant preacher, and he once said to never confuse your *job* with your *mission*. You job is a tool, and it’s really only important, and right, as long as it’s advancing the particular mission that God has entrusted to you. And it isn’t always necessarily a literal job that he was talking about; it could be whatever it is that we’ve invested the bulk of our time and efforts into. Whatever that is, whether we get a paycheck for it or not, whether someone else gave it to us or we gave it to ourselves - that’s our job. So today, I’d ask you: do you know what your part in God’s mission is? And if you do, is your “job” consistent with that mission? Is it helping, or hurting? Are you clinging onto something that’s holding you back from God’s plans for you, something that you should let go of? If your job is consistent with your mission, that’s great. But if it isn’t, maybe it’s time for some change in your life. Maybe it’s time for a few adjustments. Maybe it’s time to shake the dust from your sandals, let go of the harpoon, stop some banging-your-head-against-the-wall, self-destructive obsession or fear, and move on. To recognize and realign yourself more closely with your part of God’s mission. But how do you know it might be time to make some change like that in your life? I guess there are a number of ways that you might reach that understanding. But what might be the very best way might also be the simplest: does your job – whatever it is that you’re devoting most of yourself to – make you happy? Do you enjoy it? Does it give you some inner sense of fulfillment and accomplishment? If not – if that job is just constantly sapping the joy and energy out of your life, then that job is probably not consistent with God’s mission for you. I’m not talking about whether your job is hard work, or if it has periodic frustrations. God doesn’t shield us from those kinds of things, or times of suffering. But that isn’t God’s intent for our norm. It isn’t supposed to be our default setting. If your job – whatever that is – is constantly draining you, and you dread it, and you’re constantly envisioning yourself doing something else – something that would make you experience real joy in your life – then most likely, you’re just beating a dead horse. You’re missing your mission. Christ has more, and better, in mind for you than that. The first question of the old Westminster Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” What is the primary purpose, the primary mission, for human beings? And the answer is absolutely beautiful in its simplicity: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Joy, happiness, contentment, fulfillment, accomplishment – all those qualities wrapped up in the Hebrew word “shalom” – that’s part of God’s whole intent and purpose for us, in the future, and in the here-and-now. Do we live eternally after this life? Absolutely. But *this* is our one shot at enjoying life in *this* world, and all the wonders of this existence that God created and called good. If that wasn’t important to God, we wouldn’t live this life before the next one. Make no mistake – God hasn’t called us to a life of shallowness and just giving up on something at the first sign of any difficulty. And God certainly doesn’t say that we won’t have to endure suffering or frustration from time to time. But the good news, the *great* news, that Christ tells us, is that God’s main wish for us is to enjoy and live life to the fullest. That’s one of God’s greatest gifts, and it’s one of the best indicators of whether we’re really hearing, and following, God’s call for us. The best way to ruin and waste your life is to try to get everything just right and always succeed at everything. To latch onto some impossible obsession that you can’t succeed at and aren’t really supposed to, anyway. So let Ahab chase his own stupid whale. Sometimes, you’re going to have to just let go and move on. You are not in control; God is. And that good news gives you the freedom to enjoy this life, to be the light that God wants you to be in the world, and to enjoy the ride. Thanks be to God.
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Kincaid | Jul 5 2012, 12:32 PM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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That's the only thing that gave me pause in an otherwise excellent message. Maybe your congregation knows you well enough not to read into this, but at my church that would shake a bunch of hurumphers violently awake and it would overshadow the rest of the message and probably the rest of their day. So, maybe you want to soften that somehow. The message also brought to mind your own journey, Dewey. I know it's already a longer message than many you post here, but I see a great parallel to your call to ministry here. Maybe you want to make that connection - or maybe you don't. I guess if you did you would run the risk of people focusing on that, saying that they can't afford to become ministers themselves and just shut their minds to the idea of pursuing their call in life. Thanks for posting! Edited by Kincaid, Jul 5 2012, 12:33 PM.
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| Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006. | |
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| Dewey | Jul 5 2012, 01:52 PM Post #3 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Thanks, Kincaid. I really have no problem with stirring the pot and waking up the harrumphers, but as I re-read that particular sentence, it might need some theological clarification regardless. How about something like this:
That's a few more words, but is probably a little more theologically sharp, while also softening the card trick analogy for the harrumphers, without taking the carbonation totally away from them, either. As for the parallel to my own journey, if that came to your mind, then I used exactly the right amount of words. Nothing more is needed. ![]() There is some parallel there. I expect people will pick up on that - and I want them to - but only to a point where it is a helpful "bridge," without the whole sermon being about me. It isn't; it's really about them. It's about their personal lives, and the questions and doubts that they have. It's about the direction of the congregation as a whole, also, which is struggling to know how, or even if, they'll continue into the future. And keyed in with that, of course, is the elephant in the sanctuary that people are perfectly aware of, but don't want to discuss out loud: the fact that I'm graduating soon, and am not going to be there ("here," actually, as I type this), working for peanuts, and half-time peanuts at that. That reality is already causing some anxiety and tension to set into our relationship in various ways (coming and going in both directions, to be honest). So I'm concerned that as I start into this sermon, someone is going to jump ahead, thinking that I'm about to announce that I'm moving on right now. In one sense, it is an explanatory sermon that would be relevant whenever that time occurs, but it isn't here yet. My other concern is that my music director/choir director/pianist, a life-long member of the church, is expressing concern - and not for the first time - that she doesn't know how much longer she can keep it up. Like the pastor, the person in that position has difficulty with the worship service being *their* worship, as opposed to their job, making it possible for other people to worship. I've had an outlet for that problem by attending seminary chapel during the week being my personal worship time, but she hasn't had that. She's been to other churches and has enjoyed the idea of not having to worry about all the added hassle and "production" every week. Plus, it's discouraging to her to see the congregation smaller and less stable than when she remembers it as a little girl, or even a younger woman. I'm actually about to propose that we have periodic "services without music," or strictly a capella services - maybe simple Taize services; anything that would create little, or ideally no, input from her, to enable her to just sit and worship, on a regular basis. The idea of a service without music could also instil in the congregation how lucky they/we are to have her ministry. I worry that this sermon might help her to let go of the whale, if you will, of being the music director. That would be an absolute tragedy for the congregation. We're blessed by having her. She's a graduate of a pretty impressive music school, and to have her talent in our little congregation has made my job a treat, compared to pastors of similarly sized congregations. The idea that this sermon may make her quit terrifies me. But that's the message that I'm getting out of this text, and as much as I may not like it or worry about it from a selfish standpoint, that's the message I'm going with. Ultimately, if she decides to quit because it's draining all the joy out of her life, then it's the message she needs to hear for her own spiritual good. I hope she doesn't get that message, and we can find ways to keep her from burning out and leaving, but at the end of the day, the message that the text speaks - the message that I preach - isn't just something I feel like saying. It's what I sense God is trying to say with that text, in this time and place. That's what I'm called to say - and I have to remain true to that calling, however the chips may fall. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Kincaid | Jul 5 2012, 08:27 PM Post #4 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I hope your "music director/choir director/pianist" finds fulfillment and stays. |
| Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006. | |
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| Dewey | Jul 5 2012, 08:30 PM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Boy, me too...
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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