It's Not All About You

This message was first delivered at Cove United Methodist Church in Coleman Falls Virginia on October 6, 2013. It is based on the lectionary texts 2 Timothy 1:1-14 and Luke 17:5-10.

2 Timothy 1:1-14 (NRSV) “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.”

Luke 17:5-10 (NRSV) “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

I heard a story about a man who read this passage in the Bible and decided to put it to the test. There was a large tree in his front yard, so he went out to that tree and said, "In the morning when I wake up from my sleep, I want you to be gone." That night the man went to bed. When he woke up the next morning, he went to front door, opened it, and looked out into his front yard. "Just as I thought!" the man said. "It's still there."

Well, first of all, the man didn't have mustard seed sized faith, did he? In fact, he didn't have any faith at all. When he told the tree to be moved, he never expected it to happen. In the second place, I think that the man misunderstood what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples.

Jesus was not suggesting that you and I go around trying to move trees just to prove that we have faith. What Jesus was trying to teach his disciples -- and what he wants you and me to learn -- is that it doesn't take a great faith to produce great results. Why? Because the results don't depend on us, they depend on God. If the results depended on the size of our faith, I have no doubt that we would probably go around bragging about our great faith.

We have a tendency to make it all about us.

But it isn't all about us. There are two important points in what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples: the results don't depend on us AND the results aren't because of us.

I recently read this short paragraph that stopped me in my tracks: “It is interesting to ask ourselves whether Jesus ate with the tax collectors and sinners because he loved them for themselves or whether he did so in order to save them. (here comes the part that stomped all over my sensitive toes) When Christians these days befriend people in order to save them, it often doesn't work because the person feels that any love given has a price tag attached. The shepherd who searches for the lost sheep is indeed hoping to save an isolated and probably desperate sheep who has lost touch with friends and family, food and safety. Surely this is done out of love for that sheep rather than to simply ensure that the flock is of a certain size. It is a very subtle difference, but in my experience, those who we see as “lost” - the lonely, rejected, poor, or in other ways disadvantaged, have a very acute sense of whether they are genuinely loved or whether we are just trying to save their souls.”

Ouch. I had to step back for a minute and see what part of this statement was speaking to me. Was this familiar? Did this describe how I see evangelism? When I invited someone to worship at Centenary, was it genuinely because I thought they would be spiritually nourished or was I trying to tick that pesky “invite people to church” task off my To-do list?

Was it all about them? Or about me?

The parable that Jesus in today's Gospel lesson seems disconnected – what does having servants fix us dinner have to do with faith? In fact, when I read this passage in preparation for today's sermon, I was pretty uncomfortable with the whole “servant” thing. I think that if I had been out working all day in the field, when I came in from that labor I would appreciate the master fixing dinner for ME! But instead the passage tells us that the expectation is for the servant to not only prepare the meal, but to wait on the master while he dines – and THEN the servant gets to have his dinner.

But I've been working all day in the field! Where is my pat on the back? Where are my awards and accolades? Where is my dinner? Where is my foot rub?

Jesus is conveying an important message. It's not about you. The servant is doing what is expected of him. The servant understands this expectation. He is doing his job. In fact, servants in Jesus' time would have likely been confused if they came in from their work in the field and the Master had said, why don't you take a nice hot bubble bath – I'll fix dinner.

Jesus is trying to get the disciples to understand that sharing their faith and bringing people into the community of faith is what they are expected to do. It is just what they should do. And we have been handed the same job. But if we truly believe that our community of faith is important to us – it will just come naturally!

All of us can answer the question, “What is it that a community of faith does?” We can look at our own lives and say that our church has walked alongside us through this journey. I have a friend, who lives in another city and does not currently attend church, what do you miss about church? He says that he misses the fellowship and support. He misses the friendships with people of all ages. Misses having a place to share his joys and concerns.

But a community of faith is more than that, isn’t it?

It is more, because the community of faith points us not toward one another, but toward God, and specifically -- in the Christian church -- toward God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Sure, we go to church to see our friends and to comfort each other, and to be comforted by each other. But we also go there to be reminded of the eternal comfort and healing power of God. And that comfort that we find in God, that grace, that assurance, that balm, that which we call “FAITH,” is a gift.

The disciples asked Jesus for more faith – and he pointed out that they needed a different kind of faith. Do you know what mustard weed was like in Jesus' day? It was like the kudzu of Palestine. It grew wild. Birds ate it but didn't entirely digest the seeds – and the seeds were dropped everywhere. It would take over fields and crops. You could pull it up but more birds would eat more mustard weed and it would be back. It was persistent, irritating and fast-spreading. Jesus said that was the kind of faith that the disciples needed: small and contagious! Sincere faith, the “spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline,” as Paul puts it in his letter to Timothy, SINCERE FAITH, is a gift from God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to God’s own purpose and grace.

It’s a tough time to be a church leader. It’s hard to know what to do to attract people to church. A growing number of people don’t go to church and aren’t interested in church. They don’t see any need for church in their lives. Maybe they are just too busy, and Sunday is their only day with their family, and they don’t want to spend it in church.

How do we help people understand what it is that church offers them? How do we show people that churches aren’t just meaningless places filled with judgmental hypocrites? How do we share with others what it is that draws us here, what it is that fills us here? Will great programs and fellowship groups get people to come? Is it great music, or great preaching, or great friendliness that causes people to come back?

People need something much deeper and more sustaining than those things; but in the long run, people need a church to be a place where they can feel safe and secure, a place that helps them to experience the Spirit of God, a place that enfolds them and shields them, if only for an hour, from the demands of the world around them.

Timothy, a younger colleague of Paul, was responsible for a group of churches, for helping them preserve the faith and fight against destructive influences from outside the church as well as from dissidents from within the church. Timothy felt acutely the weight of his youth and inexperience in the situation he found himself. He needed shoring up. He needed a word of hope, a word of confidence. And he gets it, from his mentor, Paul, who reminds him of the strength of his faith, of its heritage and longevity, of its enduring quality that not only carries him now, but that carried his mother, and his grandmother, and all the saints who went before him. Paul urges his younger, less-experienced colleague to “rekindle the gift of God that is ALREADY within him, on which he has relied already for many years, and to not be afraid, but to be strong and be filled with hope, for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of POWER, and of LOVE, and of SELF-DISCIPLINE."

What is it that the church community does? Why, it does just what Paul did for Timothy. Members of the church encourage one another. They shore one another up. They help one another through the tough times and celebrate together the good times. They remind one another to rekindle the gift of God that is ALREADY within each of them, and tell one another not to be afraid, but to be strong and to be filled with hope. They offer Christ’s love to one another and to those who would come to worship with them. That’s what they do. That’s what they are about. That’s who they are.

It's what they do. It's what WE do. Jesus is in charge, not us. The faith does not spread like mustard weed if we think we've got all the strategies down just right, or if we think we control the mission and act like we do. The mission is God's, not ours. We get to help, even as we've been helped. We go and serve at the bidding of Jesus, like a family servant, not because we feel like it or because we want to make our own ministries bigger.

And if we remember that it's not all about us – that the results are up to God (we give up the responsibility) and that He is the one in control (ooh...we have to give up the credit too) then church growth isn't about what hymns we sing or which translation of the Bible we carry...

It MAY have something to do with the deviled eggs at fellowship dinners...

Then it becomes what we all should do. Step forward with our tiny little mustard seeds of faith – that God will see us through whatever obstacles we find (or create). We just go out into the field and do our job, make disciples of Jesus Christ.