1 Corinthians 4:1-5 (The Message)
Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ…We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them. The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge. It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don't even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless. I'm not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn't mean much. The Master makes that judgment. So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God.
Matthew 6:24-26; 30-34 (The Message--portions)
"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both. "If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. (And take a look at the flowers), "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think God will attend to you, take pride in you, give the best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you… to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God… fuss over these things, but you know both God and how God works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
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Please pray with me: God you have called and we want to answer in ways that bring glory to you. Teach us the deeper truths; teach us to be trustworthy with all that we have been given. Teach us of You. Amen
Our Corinthians passage today begins like this in the King James translation: “Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.” I like the notion of trustworthy stewards and I am awed by the idea that what we are stewards of are God’s mysteries—so, it is with the call to be trustworthy stewards of all that God has given that we end our current sermon series on God’s call and our answer.
Today, we celebrate another milestone of sorts for Open Circle. We have our first of what will be many annual congregational meetings. And because I take very seriously the call of this church to be trustworthy stewards, I want to think together about all that means. Most of the time we look at these passages as calls to individuals, but I believe that they are just as valid as calls to specific communities. People often ask me why I think Open Circle has succeeded when other church plants have not and what do I think makes this community so incredibly wonderful. There are long complex answers—most of which are not worth the paper they are written on—because only one answer tells the story. God wanted this church to happen exactly when, where, and how it happened. And every week when we gather for worship, when S.P.I.R.I.T. gathers to rehearse, when Bible and book studies happen, Jesus is in our midst. Our lived commitment to allow God to work among us and within us makes possible the moving of the Holy Spirit, not just occasionally, but every time we gather. Most of us waited a long time for Open Circle to happen, not just in The Villages, but in our lives. And God honored and continues to honor that deep down inside we trusted that God would make a place for us to call our spiritual home.
But our passages today call us away from mere satisfaction to deeper paths of thinking about the future and how we will learn to rely on God not just in this crazy, happy place of beginning to the places of sustaining what God has already done, moving on in new ways, and listening for more challenging calls of the Spirit. In Corinthians, Paul addresses the leaders of the church, and as we are about to elect our leaders, I bring this challenge to you who have made the commitment to serve and to all of us who will open ourselves up to be the means by which God’s will is to be made known. On this day we do not just “vote”, we allow God to speak through us with each decision for the good of this church. Paul says, and we must listen with open hearts, “Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ…We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them. The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge.” This day we are calling out servants of Christ, guides, if you will. And, my greatest prayer for myself and for all our leaders is that we will continually find the courage and the grace to put aside our own thoughts and wants and enter into a covenant with all of you that we will seek, and only seek, God’s will for this church. I believe that God has honored and will continue to honor this seeking of the divine will for every question we, the church, may ask along the way. And we are called to be faithful, trustworthy stewards of the wonderful knowledge of God’s will for us.
And then, along comes Jesus, still standing on the side of a mountain preaching to all who will listen. And he is calling us to decide, as individuals and as a church. Who and what are we going to follow? The lure of the worldly greatness or the will of a faithful God who cares and has always cared about our well-being—every aspect of our well-being. Think of the last time you stood in a field of wildflowers, or at the ocean, or at the foot of a mountain…"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think God will attend to you, take pride in you, give the best for you? “ It seems to me that we answer as individual people, but also as the corporate body of Christ—the church. Jesus says that we are to stop worrying about how things are going to work out because it distracts us from noticing what God has given. In the simplest of words, if we focus on what we are trying to get, there is no room in our field of vision for simply resting in the wonder of all that God has given. Look how God has provided for us, even here, even now.
You will remember that I spoke of Parker Palmer last week—this week I believe that his words shed much light on our journey here. He speaks eloquently of five distractions that we as leaders, or in this case, we as a church, can get caught up in and, then, become unable to see all that God intends for us to be. I want to mention each of them very briefly. Although he calls them “shadow-casting monsters”, I will use the less intense word “distraction”. The meaning, I believe is the same.
First, Palmer lists “insecurity about identity and worth” as a distraction; noting that many people are unable to be secure about who they are unless they minimize who their neighbor is. Avoiding this distraction calls us to be so clear about who we are as a people and as a church—to have an identity about which we feel secure and confident—to find our identity in our vision and to know, beyond doubt that this is the identity to which God has called us. So come along as you are invited into our visioning process.
Second, Parker lists the “belief that the universe is a battleground” as a potential shadow or distraction. He notes that our language is full of examples of win-lose vocabulary. Keeping this distraction from coloring our interactions calls us to move away from seeing our struggles as battles where one group will win and one will, unfortunately, lose. Thirdly, Parker notes that many people and institutions operate in a “functional atheism”—that is the belief that if anything is to get done, we, ourselves are responsible for the doing of it. How sad, indeed, that churches and church leaders seem especially prone to this distraction—and we must always remember that the work at hand is ours to do only after God shows the way and opens the door, prepares us for our journeys and upholds us along our way.
The fourth element of distraction from the reality of our dependence upon God, Palmer identifies as “fear, especially the fear of the natural chaos of life”. Our need to organize ourselves away from any anxiety-producing chaos limits our ability to live fully and freely into the abundance of all that God has in store for us. I don’t know about you, but I feel more fully alive in a field of wildflowers, where the wind has blown the seeds everywhichaway, than I do in a neatly planted botanical garden where everything blooms in accurately planted rows with colors that “match” each other planted accordingly. Think about it—the fullness of God’s love and the invitation of all to receive and enjoy may make for some delightful “messiness” along the way.
Finally, Palmer says that the fifth shadow or distraction is “the denial of death itself”—not just the death of people, but the death of programs, ideas, leadership tenures. He notes that this refusal to let things die a natural death keeps us from seeing the new and exciting things that God has for us coming over the horizon. I have seen this many times in groups of all sorts and sizes when “because we’ve always done it this way” takes precedence over a creative spirit just waiting to explode.
And so, my friends, I invite us to rejoice in what God has done in and among us—to stay alert to those things which would distract us from the joy of participating in the unfolding of God’s will for this church and for this people. Take a look at the flowers and find joy and peace. Amen and amen.
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