Psalm 8, 2
Thessalonians 3:6-13
How many times in your life have you
been asked what you do or what you did for a living? How many times have you asked this of
others? This is
generally a polite, comfortable way of making brief introductions. And, considered a little deeper, it’s a way
we gently judge one another concerning worthiness and social standing.
There was a time when Jenee Woodward
of Jackson, Michigan would answer, “I’m a pastor.” But despite having been well educated,
trained and having a go at this in various ministry settings, she ultimately
says she, and I quote, “bombed” at this career.[i] She
had come to realize that her spiritual gifts oriented her to more solitary work. Most especially, she nestled into the niche
of engaging in serious academic study of the Bible and early Christianity. So she
shifted and started planning a career as an academic.
This planning was paused, however,
when she and her husband Bob welcomed a daughter into their lives, followed a couple
years later by a son. The pause in doctoral
plans became permanent when, in her words, “her life-reality changed.” At the age of two, their son Phil was
diagnosed with severe autism. His care
brought about the enormous responsibility of 24/7 home intervention, managing
many personal frustrations, and dealing with social discrimination –
unfortunately even in their home church.
Yet she remained committed to
keeping her mind engaged in faithful study and to somehow developing a ministry
around her spiritual gifts.
This was in the mid to late 90’s,
and the computer internet as a tool for aggregating large amounts of information
was still a relatively new reality. Google
news, for example, wasn’t created until 2002.
But given her very limited time for personal space and study, Jenee
Woodward quickly realized this way the perfect way to read a broad range of old
and contemporary Bible studies side by side.
So Jenee Woodward cataloged links to these websites and created www.textweek.com. Then
she showed it to her pastor. He valued
it and spread the word. The people he
told about it told others. In this
organic way, it has today grown into a very popular and influential go-to
reference for many preachers and church educators getting ready for each Sunday
– myself very much included. She
single handedly continues to manage this site, grabbing time to do this work as
she can (which for a decade she received no compensation for), while
continuing, among other responsibilities, to help Phil get through each day.
Jenee Woodward’s planned work and
family life took some unexpected, very challenging turns. Have
you had that happen to you too? She
could have handled these by surrendering to overwhelming frustrations and
despair. She could have allowed her lively faith to slip
into an idle state. She could have turned
away from God altogether. But through
it all she recognized her full worth and standing before God. She kept engaging in her study of Scripture
and the early church. She kept using her strengthening, sustaining spiritual
gifts. By working things out in this
way, she kept her spirit from growing too weary. What does she do for a living? She labors on learning about and serving her
Lord. I’m grateful that she does. And I find
in her story an inspiring witness to someone who is steadfastly true to
Christian vocation.
Most folks hear the word “vocation” and
think about what they do or did in their paid work life. But for Christians it’s first and foremost a
biblical word.[ii] It has to do with God calling and equipping every
one of us -- in all stages of our lives -- to experience, embrace and gladly share
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Consider
the biblical figure Saul of Tarsus. He got
paid to work making goat hair cloth tents.
He continued this work even as he lived into his holy calling, his vocation as the Apostle Paul.
All of us have and have had various occupations. But we
all share in the one common vocation of “living into our baptismal identity” by
“answering the call to demonstrate the gospel in all we do and say.”[iii] As we pray to receive our daily bread, we
find ourselves blessedly busy being holy breadwinners!
By steadfastly loving and supporting
her family while also working to help millions of scholars, educators and
pastors through textweek.com, Jenee Woodward is fully living out her Christian
vocation. “It’s my ministry, what I do
with my life,” she says, giving “more than I take” and using “my gifts for
service to others … this is the heart of my own faith and of my task, as I see
it, in the world.”
In this morning’s New Testament
text, the Apostle Paul very strongly exhorts us to have an unwavering work
ethic with regard to our Christian vocation.
Come what may, we aren’t to ever become idle in our faith. He’s firm on this point because idleness had
befallen many of the early Christians of ancient Thessalonica (which is today
the second largest city in Greece and continues to be the capital of the
historic geographic region known as Macedonia). Paul knew well that East and West converged
in that city, knew that it was central to the culturally unifying success of
Alexander the Great. He believed it
would be the same for the kingdom of Christ.[iv] But Christians there encountered great
challenges. They faced crippling
persecution. Paul himself had once been
stripped, beaten with rods, flogged and imprisoned there. Alongside persecutions were misconceptions
about what to do while waiting for the Second Coming – “There were those in
Thessalonica who had given up their work and had abandoned the routine claims
of every day to wait about in excited idleness for Christ to come.”[v]
But this idleness and the idleness
born of fear allowed sin to fester in that important faith community. Instead of living in a blessedly busy way,
many became busybodies. Did you even know
the word “busybodies” is right there in the Bible? In its original Greek, it means what we
expect it to mean – to bustle about uselessly, to busy oneself with trifling,
needless, useless matters. It refers to
a person officiously inquisitive about other’s affairs.[vi]
Paul knew engaging in this kind
of work had caused people to become
unwilling to carry out their Christian vocation. Unwilling is considerably different from
unable. It’s an unhealthy attitude of
the heart that goes against God calling and equipping us to always labor on learning
about and serving the Lord. So instead,
following Paul’s own stellar example, each one of us is called to be a
blessedly busy body for our Beloved Savior.
“What is it to work with love?” once
asked the well-known universally spiritual poet, Kahlil Gibran. “It is,” he replied beautifully, “to weave
the cloth with threads drawn from your own heart, even as if your beloved were
to wear that cloth; it is to build a house with affection, even as if your
beloved were to dwell in that house. It
is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your
beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to
charge all things you fashion with the breath of your own spirit … work is love
made visible.”[vii]
The all-encompassing love of Christ is
indeed made visible through our working with the spiritual gifts bestowed upon
us all for God’s glory. I prayerfully
give thanks to God for the many blessedly busy bodies we have in our faith
community. Being by your side fills me
with gratitude, joy and hope. You respond to your Christian vocation in a
myriad of wonderful ways -- in what you give to and share with and through your
families; through the communities where you live, receive education, work,
volunteer and play; through this congregation, as you regularly worship and
offer yourself and your gifts in support of every facet of our ministry life
together; through taking care of yourselves so that weariness and the
temptation of idleness does not wear you down.
We are all, as Psalm 8 reminds us,
crowned with glory and honor and charged to help take care of all God’s good work. May, then, the majestic works of our Creator
and the redeeming work of Christ through the Cross be ever before us as our
constant call to common vocation.
Amen.
[i]
http://www.faithandleadership.com/profiles/the-woman-behind-textweekcom
[ii]
http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/kaleo.html
[iii]
http://oga.pcusa.org/section/mid-council-ministries/christianvocation/what-christian-vocation/
[iv]
William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Thessalonians introduction
[v]
ibid, p. 217
[vii]
http://www.katsandogz.com/onwork.html
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