PAST SERMON 2010 #6
by Reverend Judith Alltree, delivered on Sunday February 7, 2010,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit.
Saints Made by the Grace of God!
God does not always call us according to our abilities or our strengths. Sometimes he calls us because of what he can see, but what we cannot. Saints are not always born, many are made and this by the grace of God alone!
I’d like to dispel a myth about the church. Perhaps myth is too strong a word, so I’ll say ‘misconception’ instead. While I will agree that there are many very, very good people who are members of various churches, it is a misconception to believe that only if you are very good can you become a member of a church. Friends of mine have expressed their desire to go to church, but a fear that they are not ‘good enough’, or that they will make a mistake in the service, prevents them from doing so. “I haven’t led a very good life,” someone told me; “I think you should know that, in case you don’t want me to be a member of your church”. My immediate response was “the lineup for sinners begins behind me, and God lets me in His church every day.” Our pews are not filled with saints; they are filled with both ordinary and extraordinary people who love God and have come to worship Him, who bring with us all our faults, all our goodness and all our desires to serve Him.
Simon Peter was one of those. What was one of the first things he said to Jesus when they met? “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) What sins would these have been: the sin of being angry with one’s children or spouse; the sin of disbelief in God in times of frustration or fear; the sin of being human, the same as the rest of us? Simon was a Galilean fisherman, a devout Jew, we presume a husband and father as the Gospels have made references to his family — not long before this episode, Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, who was ill with a fever. Simon was an ordinary man, living an ordinary life as a fisherman, and yet he was not ordinary, something that only Jesus could see. It was Simon whom Jesus called to be one of his first disciples, and it would be to Simon, better known as Peter, Cephas in Aramaic, that Jesus said “you are the rock on which I will build my church”. This man who declared himself so sinful that his Lord should get away from him ultimately became one of the greatest saints of Christ’s church.
God does not call us out of our abilities or strengths; sometimes he calls us because of what he alone can see in us, what we are not capable of seeing. St. Paul wrote that Jesus appeared to him, even though, as he wrote: “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Cor 15:9) It was as Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, that Paul aided and abetted in the mass murder of innocent Christians in the very earliest days of the church, following the Resurrection. And yet it was to Paul that Jesus Christ revealed himself, and called him to be an Apostle, although Paul himself declared that he was unfit to be so called.
Isaiah wrote of himself “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips…” (Isaiah 6:5). Cleansed of his sin by the touch of a live coal to his lips, when the Lord asked “Whom shall I send” it was Isaiah who answered “Here am I, send me!” Cleansed of our sins by the “full and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction once offered” by our Lord Jesus Christ through his death on the Cross, we are capable, through God’s grace, of doing anything He asks of us. As Paul wrote: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” (1 Cor 15:10)
But it is the Psalmist that assures us: “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me…” (Ps 138:8) God is not the great puppet master, pulling the strings of our lives for his own edification or satisfaction. God makes use of each of us, in many ways, throughout our lives. Even our mistakes and our straying off into directions which, shall we say, are less beneficial to us, can be made good and purposeful if we allow ourselves to answer God’s call and place ourselves firmly in His grasp. Not that God’s path will always be the easy one, or the happy one, but it will be the best one. It is incredible how God makes use of us, warts and all, to serve God’s purposes for our lives and in the lives of others.
Another misconception: that when God calls it is only to the church. God’s first call to us is to be in relationship with Him, that is God’s greatest joy and desire for each of us, but God calls us to be many things: parents and politicians; doctors and designers; missionaries and musicians; teachers and leaders in government, research, sports, science, and yes, God calls us to be leaders in his church, both lay and ordained. God calls us to serve as wardens, and Sunday school teachers, sidespeople, readers and greeters, and to perform all the myriad of tasks that we do throughout the year which make our worship meaningful and joyful, and enable all of us to be in relationship not only with God in His Son, but to be in relationship with each other.
Next week, the new lay leaders of our parish will take their places and begin answering God’s call in their lives to serve you, God’s people, in this, God’s church. Each of us brings our own specific gifts and talents to the work that we do, whether it is in this church, where we work, or in our homes. Through whatever our work is, God’s purposes for us will be fulfilled.
Luke wrote: “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him”. (Luke 5:11) Their old way of life was now over, and a new way was about to begin. Let’s all of us take this same approach to our lives and our relationships in this, our parish. Neither Paul nor Simon was chosen for service by Jesus based on their past, neither were they rejected because of their sin. Having been chosen, they simply turned their back on the past and moved forward confidently into their new future as apostles of Jesus Christ.
We, too, can be confident that whatever our past was, we can leave everything that is negative behind in order to follow Jesus Christ: we can know that we are accepted by God, that our old way of life has gone, and our new life in Jesus has begun.
AMEN.