16 January 2011

“Beaming”
1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A
16 January 2011


In these days of email, text messaging, Facebook and Twitter, letter writing – and letter reading -- may well be a lost art. But here in worship … we continue to read letters nearly every Sunday … Paul’s letters to the churches he helped found. We call them Scripture because leaders of the Church hundreds of years ago deemed them worthy and faithful enough to include in what became our Bible … but they are still letters, written to people then and now, to read, to try and figure out the meaning, to take to heart the words that are written there.
This week’s letter is the first one Paul wrote to the church in Corinth … a city in what’s now Turkey, where he had preached about Jesus and helped found a church. He had made friends and fellow believers.
So how does he start his letter?
With simple enough words … “Paul, called to be an apostle.” An introduction. Who is writing this letter.
But like many other letters, there’s more here than just a simple greeting.
Paul.
We know something about Paul … a faithful Jew, a learned man, converted by Jesus himself as Paul and some friends were walking from Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest people who followed “the Way,” who believed in Jesus. Paul, the apostle who went to the world of the Gentiles … the Roman world … and told people about Jesus, people who were not Jewish and didn’t even have any background as to what this God was all about.
Called.
To call means to name, to invite, to summon.
Call is what happened to the prophets of the Old Testament … Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. Call is what happened to Moses. They had an encounter with God, and God told them that he had a specific plan for them to tell others something about him.
A word about repentance – turning their lives around and turning back to God; a word about judgment – stop doing what you’re doing or else;
A word about deliverance – though things look bad now, I, God, will deliver you from the evil and pain and suffering you’re experiencing now.
Those prophets were called – named, invited, summoned – to hear what God needed to tell them.
Call is what happened to Paul. On that road to Damascus, he had an encounter with the risen Jesus. Paul was in a full head of steam, off to arrest those troublesome Christians who were making a mess of his religion, and stop this Jesus movement right now. Until Jesus showed up in person … made him blind for a while … and then healed and converted him to spread his message of forgiveness and new life to both the Jews and the Gentiles … people who the Jews traditionally ignored and considered unclean.
And call is what happened to the disciples. In our Gospel reading today, we heard of an invitation extended, a direction offered, and the response of the disciples. John the Baptist initially points the way to Jesus. John’s two disciples follow Jesus. Then Jesus asks a question – “What are you looking for?” – and he immediately offers an invitation to the disciples – “come and see.”
Called to be an apostle.
An apostle is one who is sent with a mission. Sent out with the full authority and in the spirit of the one doing the sending. “Apostle” is not an office, like mayor or CEO. It doesn’t imply one who stays behind a desk, pushes paper, answers phones or otherwise just sits around. An apostle is one who is sent out to do something.
Originally, apostle was a military term – meaning someone who went out on a ship, on a seafaring military expedition. But eventually the word became associated with missionaries … religious missionaries… sent out to teach and spread the word about their religion.
But an apostle of whom? From whom? Who does Paul represent?
Jesus Christ.
The son of God. The one who came to earth, lived our life in all its stages, suffered as we all do, died as we all will one day … but rose again, putting death to death once and one day, for all time.
And how does he do this? What gives Paul the authority, the reason, the will to do this, to preach in this name, to spread this Word?
By the will of God.
God’s will makes it all happen for Paul. God’s will caused Paul to change course, to go from being the persecutor of the Christians to the great apostle, teacher and preacher.
In the words of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for God’s good and gracious will to be done. We pray that health and life and all good things would be preserved, and that evil would be restrained.
That’s what “the will of God” means here. It means that Paul’s authority, the power behind the Word he proclaims, comes from God.
To outsiders, this meant something. Paul could say, I’m not just preaching myself, teaching myself, doing this for my own glory or aggrandizement. No, I – Paul - am doing this by the will of God. And it also meant something to him, Paul … on those days when it would get rough, people wouldn’t listen or pay him any attention … when he would be arrested, and beaten, and suffer for carrying Jesus’ name and story into the world of the Gentiles … on those days, Paul could claim and hold tight to this promise of God, that it is by God’s will that he’s doing what he’s doing.
Paul, called to be an apostle by the will of God.
A big, meaning-full sentence to start this letter, for the people who originally heard it, those Christians at Corinth, who probably missed their founder and leader and looked forward to a good word from him.
But what good do these 2000+ year old words have for us, you and me? Do they have anything to say?
Yes they do.
First, you are called.
You have been named, invited, summoned. Someone, at some time in your past thought enough of you to tell you about Jesus. Just as John did for those two disciples, pointing the way to Jesus for them, so someone did that for you …
… they brought you to Baptism …
… they told you about Jesus and answered some of your questions …
… and you came to faith.
And through those same ways today … Baptism, personal one on one encounters – telling the story or simply, quietly living it out in everyday life, Jesus still says, “come and see.”
Second, you are also an apostle of Jesus Christ. Called, not to sit on the sidelines, behind a desk, in an office, but called to action.
God calls everyone to apostleship. Some, like me, are called to apostleship as a profession … but all Christians are called to apostleship as a vocation, a way of living. All of us are sent with a mission, in the full authority of the One who calls us, sent in and with and through his Spirit … sent to go and do, to live lives that reflect this Jesus who came and lived and died and rose again so that we might be restored to what we were created to be … living, loving, lasting people of God.
Third, you are called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.
Surprise! You may have thought it was guilt or habit, insistent parents or strong coffee that brought you here out of a warm bed this morning. Nope. It was the will of God.
It is by God’s will that we are here today. It’s by God’s will that there has been for 41 years, is, and will continue to be a Nativity Lutheran Church in Fairwood. It is by God’s will that I am called to be your pastor – servant – leader. And it is by God’s will that you are called to be fellow servant-leaders.
It is by God’s will. Think of that. It’s a awesome, sobering and freeing realization that what we do and are here isn’t just by chance … or a result of our whims and likes and dislikes … but that it’s done by and through the will of God.
You are here by God’s will. You have faith by God’s will. And – by God’s will – you are called to be sent in mission … sent to speak and share the Word about Jesus … in Words and Ways that God will give you to share.
So we need to be open … open to the Spirit’s movement in and among us.
And we need to be ready … ready for something to happen … and willing … open to the movement of God’s Spirit, at work, in and among and through us.
Paul sums it all up for us in those final verses of our reading. “You are not lacking in any spiritual gift … he will also strengthen you to the end … God is faithful.” We’re a diverse and gifted community here and not lacking in anything we need in being called and sent with a mission.
All that we need is right here. Word for hearing and growing. Food, bread and wine to strengthen and empower us. Gifts of proclamation and energy and enthusiasm, art and music, writing and thinking and sharing, technology and physical strength, intuition, social skills, cheerfulness and encouragement … I could go on and on!
But above all … we have the Word that our God is Faithful. In the end, it’s not all up to us. Things may not go the way we think or hope or plan them. And we won’t always be faithful. We’re human. We sin and stray. But God is faithful even when we’re not. And that is always a good Word for us.
By God’s will, you are called to be an apostle, called to be sent with a mission, called to Let the Son shine, the light of God’s love beaming through your words and actions for your friends and neighbors, family and loved ones, to hear, to see, to feel.
By God’s will, you are called. Called to be sent. Though these days of this season of Ordinary Time might be rainy, dark and gloomy … may we together live in and into them as extraordinary people of God … brightly beaming forth God’s love in Jesus, shining the light of faith and hope into others’ dark places, so that they, too, may see and feel the warmth and love of God’s son.
Amen.