Luke 4:16-30, 1 Corinthians 13, Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6
It’s that time of year when we put the holidays behind us and sally forth into our year’s work. You can tell as the readings are all about service, which is ministry. It is God whom we serve and we serve God by ministering to people. We serve in word and deed – that is, we speak God’s words and we do God’s deeds. Thus we convey God’s love.
Luke 4:16-30 – Mission
In our reading from Luke, Jesus shared his mission statement. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people.”
The people of Nazareth thought this sounded pretty good – they’d like that – but when Jesus told them they would be unlikely to get in on it they got angry and tried to throw him off a cliff.
I’d like you to note that Jesus would operate in the power of the Holy Spirit. We must do likewise.
Let’s remember our congregation’s mission statement – To grow in Christ and serve Him in love.
Jeremiah 1:4-10 – Call
The Lord called Jeremiah as a youth to prophecy, that is to tell people God’s messages. It was a powerful ministry that he was called to: “To pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Who here has had a call that clear and that powerful? Nor have I.
My first application to train for the Presbyterian ministry was stopped when the committee told me “We don’t think you have a clear enough call.” Mine wasn’t a Jeremiah-like call to ministry. In fact, I was called to ministry 18 years before that, for a call to discipleship is equally a call to ministry. So the call to parish work was a call to a particular avenue of service – a focusing of the ministry context.
This was spelt out clearly in a recent blog from Donald Miller. He wrote, “I talked to a friend of mine who serves the poor in Mexico. Starting 30 years ago, she began helping families and doing community empowerment by working in an orphanage. She is for the poor, about the poor, and speaks on behalf of the poor. It is what she is known for.
However, she makes a strong distinction between her calling and her vocation.
She said, “I am not called to the poor. I am called to Christ and he has led me to the poor.””
So any of us can say of our ministry, “I am called to Christ, and this is where he is leading me.”
Not alone
For Jeremiah, for me, for you, God does not say ‘Become a prophet, become a preacher, become a … and leave us to it, never to talk to us again. God continues to lead us in living out our calling, giving us directions, pointers, hints and helps as we go along. Just as the Spirit was on Jesus (and on Isaiah whom Jesus quoted) so the Spirit is on us. We are not alone and part of our task is to learn to hear and heed his voice in the everyday.
We are not alone. In fact we are integral to God’s plans. God knows all people and sees us as part of an intricate design for salvation. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” is a reminder that God is in charge. He loves and wants each one of us.
1 Corinthians 13 – Motivation
Speaking of love… 1 Corinthians 13 is a song or poem celebrating divine love, the heartbeat of every gift of the Spirit.
Love is the reason for serving; love is our motivation for ministry.
Love is not soppy, sentimental feelings. That kind of stuff is here today and gone tomorrow.
Love is commitment to the best for the one loved.
Martin Luther King Jnr. said, “When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response, I am speaking of that force which is … the supreme unifying principle of life”.
Consider how we love God and how we love people in everyday life.
Love speaks
My last word to you at the end of last year was to the effect that a messenger must sooner or later actually say something. To convey a message speaking is necessary.
Indeed, love speaks.
Love speaks on behalf of those who do not have a place to voice their suffering. Love speaks words of affirmation and hope to those who can’t see past the darkness that keeps the light at bay. Love speaks in light of personal cost and discomfort. Love speaks truth. Love speaks hope. Love speaks joy. Love, very simply, must speak.
So think again of that familiar first verse of 1 Corinthians 13: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
It could be that the Holy Spirit would re-word it as: “If I have the love that is the fullest expression of man’s earth and God’s heaven, but do not speak, I am only a hollow drum or a silent cymbal, made for celebration and dance but sitting in silence, never used for its intended purpose.”
What is love calling you to say, and to whom?
Ministry for us
I have committed us to some ministry in the last full week before Easter. The third booklet in the Hope Project series is out then and we are going to deliver them to homes in Bayswater. At least I hope that some of you will help me do this as I would rather not deliver them all myself. Other local churches will be delivering the books in the Devonport and Narrow Neck areas. Deliveries start from 13 March. Early in March I will call for volunteers.
I want to highlight three benefits from doing these deliveries.
One is the exercise from walking the streets.
Two is the opportunity to pray for all the recipients.
Three is the potential for meeting people, talking about the books, and engaging in spiritual conversation. I anticipate that this third one might be a bit scary to some of us. How do we do that? I will, in the next 8 weeks go over some of the things we learned about conversations so that we can brush up our skills and lift our confidence.
The Spirit of God is with us and this is well within the scope of our mission statement.
Questions to Ponder:
What encouragement is there is today’s readings for us?
What warning is there in today’s readings for us?
What is God asking you to do and what excuses are you using to not do it?
If you are serving God you are a minister and if you are a minister this prayer is for you:
We give you all glory, praise and thanks, Lord God our Father, for you revealed your tender love for all people in sending Jesus, your beloved Son, to redeem those who call on you in his name. And those you redeem you call to follow him in service of you and our neighbours to tell the message of your grace. You call us to ministry; lead us to and in the particular service you have chosen for each of us.
We dedicate ourselves to grow in Christ and to serve him in love and we ask that you work to develop the the gifts of your Spirit in us that we may, by what we say and by the example of our lives, share the grace of the Lord Jesus. Give us understanding, sympathy and patience. Protect us body and soul. Be our strength and joy. Cheer us with your continual presence and make us glad with the fruits of our work.
May we be pray in love for one another, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.