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18th Sunday After Pentecost, 3 October 2004 |
Luke 17:5-10 [Translation from Eugene Peterson’s THE MESSAGE] ‘Suppose one of you has a servant who comes in from plowing the field or tending the sheep. Would you take his coat, set the table, and say, ‘Sit down and eat’? Wouldn’t you be more likely to say, ‘Prepare dinner, change your clothes and wait table for me until I’ve finished my coffee; then go to the kitchen and have your supper’? Does the servant get special thanks for doing what’s expected of him? It’s the same with you. When you’ve done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact and say, ‘The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.’” THE JOY OF SERVING In Luke 17, the Lord Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, the home of God, Inc. Jesus is going into the belly of the beast, the city of death. As with the church of today, Jesus’ disciples neither fathom what they’re up against nor to what Jesus’ faithfulness (and theirs) will lead. The previous four verses in Luke 17 have presented the disciples with two hard sayings of Jesus about teaching the faith and practicing forgiveness. First, in a word that seems regularly to escape many pastors and lay people alike, the Lord Jesus warns against disciples becoming a stumbling block to those young in their faith. Politically-correct pastors are constantly depicting a reimagined, emasculated Jesus that is far-too-loving to demand anything of anyone – unless, of course, someone holds a political or ethical view that differs from the pastor’s. Country club Christians are constantly depicting a middle-class Jesus that seems delighted to affirm their lifestyles just as they are – as if discipleship were one extracurricular choice among others. Meanwhile the biblical Jesus, the only one we can reliably point preach, is not an on-demand Lord (Cable television operators notwithstanding). He has no problem saying that it’s a damnable offense (hear that as a sin against the Holy Spirit) to teach and preach to those young in their faith any Word other than that which demands disciples to “follow me” – even if that means letting the dead bury the dead! Secondly, just prior to today’s Gospel lesson, the Lord Jesus has also told his disciples that they must forgive a penitent brother or sister even seven times in the same day. No way! How frustrating! Impossible! And so we begin with Jesus’ third hard word in six verses. Our Lord says that gift of faith, however slight it may seem to us, is enough to empower the kind of discipleship that spells radical change for lives enslaved by sin. His image of the sycamore tree is a word about how firmly rooted us sinners are in the terra firma of this world. Bible scholar David Tiede says, “The roots of that tree were known to be so extensive that they were not to be planted within 12 yards of a cistern” (Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: Luke). Think about what the Lord Jesus is saying. When the Holy Spirit creates authentic trust in us, we can be transplanted despite an extensive root system that drinks deeply of the draughts of sin. We can be uprooted from any addiction (relational, material, chemical, or even sexual). We can be uprooted from any aberrant lifestyle. (But the hip church of today responds, “What’s that?”). We can be uprooted from the mere dabbling in discipleship typical of country club churches. We can be uprooted from cultural Christianity. We can be uprooted from the kind of naiveté that thinks getting our favored political candidates elected will somehow conquer evil. We can be uprooted from pastoral burnout or compassion fatigue. We can be uprooted from obsessing over past failures and pointless resentments. To hell with all of that! We may be in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves. But God the Holy Spirit can take the tiniest bit of yearning and the slightest hint of submission and work change in any life that will abandon ersatz messiahs for the one true Lord Jesus Christ! Finally, we arrive at the hardest saying about discipleship. Serving God is a thankless task. We follow a Lord that dies on a cross. He doesn’t get thanked for His faithfulness. He doesn’t get commended for telling the truth. He doesn’t get affirmed for saying that God, Incorporated, is as naked as the proverbial emperor in his new clothes. The Lord Jesus gets dead at the hands of religious leaders, because they finally worship their building, their traditions, and their privileges more than the one true living God. Three decades of serious Bible study have convinced me of two things. First, I will always have a lot more to learn about what it means to follow Jesus. And secondly, there is no hall of fame for living Christians. I can’t tell you how often I hear comments like: “I used to be in Bible study” or “I have read the Bible all the way through” or “I used to be real active” or “when I was a child, we were in worship and Sunday School almost every week” or “I got real disgusted with the church and stopped attending.” Whenever I hear comments like that, I know that the speaker is clueless about what it means to follow Jesus. Sign them up for the Crossways Bible Study program (www.crossways.org) and hurry! The goal is not to get everyone to join a congregational committee or to look and dress alike. The goal is to get everyone to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in a life of humble service! Christ Jesus died that we might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom. He died to destroy the power of sin, death, and evil. He died to set us free for service to God and neighbor. Does it matter if people are baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection? Absolutely! Does it matter if people are regularly studying the Bible? Absolutely! Does it matter if people are in worship every week? Absolutely! Does it matter if they are giving their lives away sacrificially? Absolutely! That’s the Christian faith. One of my favorite people in the whole world is a man by the name of Jimmy Newkirk. When he tells his story to kids, Jimmy tells them that he used to be a hell raiser. He doesn’t tell them everything stupid that he ever did. He simply says that he was living a selfish and self-destructive life. And he tells them that he didn’t like himself very much. He also tells them that his Mom continued to love him and pray for him. She continued to believe in him. And finally by God’s grace and mercy Jimmy’s life was uprooted from the old life and transplanted in a life lived for God. Jimmy works for a large utility company as an electrical supervisor. He spends his days driving a truck over a wide area checking on electrical substations. He spends his nights and days off as a devoted husband, father, and servant of Christ. In March of this year, Jimmy gave up a week’s vacation to lead a mission team to Honduras. This was the sixth time Jimmy helped to organize and lead a team devoted to building a neighborhood for some of the poorest people in the world. Once each year for the past six years Jimmy has given up a week of vacation. And this past summer he gave up a second week of vacation to chaperone high school youth on a mission trip to inner-city Chicago. His wife and daughter hate it when he is gone, but they are so proud of the man that he is and so proud of his devotion to the Lord Jesus. Jimmy begins each morning with 20 minutes of centering prayer. He reads and studies the Bible. He doesn’t miss worship and loves to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion. He is frequently a worship assistant. During a congregational building program, Jimmy set up folding chairs for Sunday worship every Saturday morning for 10 months. When called upon to serve in church leadership, he agreed to do so – although the pettiness of a country club church, the childishness of church staff, and the dearth of action often drove him nuts. (The local church still remains the best proof of the doctrine of original sin.) Jimmy Newkirk is one of my heroes, because he hears the call of the Lord Jesus and he goes. Whenever I look at Jimmy’s face and see him in action, I know that he knows the joy of service. There is a joy in following Jesus, a joy in giving your life away, that the undiscipled just don’t get. Those that aren’t yet disciples can only see a foolish waste of time, effort, and money. They see Jesus nailed to a cross and say, “What a tragedy!” The Lord Jesus is still calling us to follow him into the belly of the beast. No matter where you have been, no matter what you have done, no matter what has been done to you, no matter how you have failed, and no matter how much you have been disappointed in the past – the Lord Jesus says, “Come, follow me. Give your life away. Give it away sacrificially.” Are you a joyless church member? Are you a joyless person in general? It doesn’t have to be that way. There is joy in serving as Jesus serves. There is joy in losing the old life – joy in abandoning yourself to God’s love and mercy. You can hang on to all your tired old excuses. You can hang on to your cheap grace and Christless Christianity. You can hang on to all your silly notions that you are in control of your life and that everything revolves around you. You can hang on to all your little boy, little girl toys and games trying never to grow up like Peter Pan. You can hang on to your narcissism, your so-called intellectual elitism, and even your chasing after the Golden Calf. But you’ll never find joy. All you’ll find is an addiction to power or pleasure that grows more difficult to satisfy. And none of that will ever give you life! There is a joy in serving as Jesus served. It looks like a cross. It looks like death. And do you want to know why? Because until we let go of the old life, we can’t imagine the wonder and joy of the life that God has always wanted us to have! With just the tiniest yearning, the slightest confession of weakness, God the Holy Spirit can find room to do the impossible with us today. He can uproot the worst sinner. He can forgive the worst sins. He can renew the worst backslider. He can raise the deadest churches. He can plant us firmly in the living water of life that flows from the cross of Christ. Or we can stay in our stinking cesspools and pretend they’re the Fountain of Youth until we finally rot away. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Zumwalt
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