Psalm 28:6-9; 2 Timothy 2:1-15
Deacon Ordination and Installation
There
is quite a telling television commercial out right now for Lowe’s Home
Improvement center. It strikes me as
being kind of like the parables we read in the Gospels -- simple, short, easy
to relate to, with a subtly profound message about the kingdom of God. After I
first watched it, the Holy Spirit inspired me to try my hand at describing the
commercial in this time-honored form. I’m
sharing it now so we can begin to consider together whether it’s enough to do our
best for God or if God expects something more from us …
After the religious leaders questioned
Jesus’ authority and ability to make changes to the house of God, he told them
this parable. A man once noticed that a
ceiling fan in his beautiful home had stopped working. He decided to replace it. After traveling back home from making this
purchase, he climbed a small ladder determined to install the new fixture. Yet he lacked the experience necessary to
make him an authority on such a project.
Proud of his abilities to take on
challenges alone, he went about the task the best he could. When it seemed he had successfully managed
the home improvement, he proudly flipped the wall switch to turn on the new
ceiling fan. But it immediately sparked
and then fell to the floor, also destroying a glass-topped piece of
furniture. The prideful man became very angry. He tossed the ceiling fan out of a nearby
window, trashing the beautiful landscape outside. At that very same time, a representative
from the home improvement center happened to come by the man’s fine home and
ask if the he needed help. When Jesus
had finished telling this parable, he immediately went to another region. His disciples later asked if the man had accepted
the help. Jesus replied, “What do you
think?”
When
we study the actual parables of Jesus as told by the four Gospels, we look for
the moral and spiritual truth within the simple story. A story about suddenly finding a treasure in
a field and being so joyful about it that you sell everything you own to buy
the whole field becomes the moral and spiritual truth that when we truly treasure
Jesus Christ, we give everything we dearly value to fully invest ourselves in
His kingdom (Matthew 13:44-46). The
Lowe’s commercial tells a simple story.
The moral truth of it seems to be that it is prideful and foolish to
attempt making home improvements alone, without accepting the help of experienced
and authoritative experts. How might
the Holy Spirit be using this to tell a moral and spiritual truth about the
kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven?
I suggest it’s to remind us that
it is prideful and foolish for any person to believe they can work on making changes
in the house of God if they are not active in faithful community that fully accepts
the help of Christ Jesus’ authority.
So,
is it enough to just do your best for God?
Not if doing your best means going it alone, feeding off of personal pride,
raging at your failures, refusing help from faithful community when it is
offered. And not if you or I believe any
holy changes to the church can happen without first constantly presenting
ourselves before our Lord in worship, service and holy study.
After
I returned from the national Presbyterian Church (USA) church growth conference
last fall, I prayerfully concluded that one of the changes that can help our
congregation today and in the future is to adopt and fully implement a fresh
vision statement. This is always the first step in any strategic
planning. A vision statement is an
uplifting, inspiring and timeless statement that clearly defines an
organization’s purpose.[i] The enormously successful online retailer
Amazon.com, for example, declares “Our vision is to be earth's most customer
centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover
anything they might want to buy online.”
So I followed up on the advice
presented at the conference and asked Session to authorize my putting together
a small, representative team to go about crafting a fresh vision statement to
help us all feel uplifted, inspired and focused on our central purpose for
being Fairmount Presbyterian Church.
With Session’s support, I’m delighted to say that the gifted team of
Dave Loth, Linda Wilkinson, Jim Engel, Kelly Brakewood, Cheryl Slegers has met with
me a few times over these past few months.
But rather than immediately jumping
into writing down what we think would be a good vision statement, we first
followed some other good advice I received at the conference. We have accepted that Jesus is the authority
on this matter. We’ve done so by
engaging together in a basic Bible study to prayerfully present ourselves to the
Lord. Only in this way can we hope to be able to
come together to craft a vision for FPC that is firmly, fully rooted in God’s
values. Makes good sense, doesn’t
it? It’s taken a good amount of
time. And it’s going to take more time
as we move from our small Bible study to further discernment through this
faithful community. We are only now
planning the next step of finding ways to listen to and write down what
inspires hope in all of you when you consider the future of FPC. I’m
convinced that by going about the process in this prayerful, Bible-centered, community
engaging way, what we come up with as a new and vital vision statement will be
the result of doing more than just our best for God … we will have been and
continue to be truly open to our Lord’s authority and help.
As
you can imagine, we wouldn’t be here if the folks of the first century church
didn’t have vision for the future of Christ’s kingdom. Let’s step
back in time to see how this came about by considering the faith journey of a
teenaged boy named Timothy. In the
company of his faithful Jewish mother and grandmother, he had heard the apostle
Paul preach. All three then came to believe in Jesus
Christ. Years later, Paul invited
Timothy to travel with him. He became
Paul’s trusted courier and close friend.
Together, they established three new churches.
Upon returning to visit one of these
churches, located in Ephesus, Paul and Timothy found it in turmoil due to some
false teachings about Jesus’ identity. Voices not in accord with the Lord had been crafting
vision. Paul knew he had to move ahead
with his missionary work, but didn’t want to leave the church members to just
do their best at resolving the tensions.
So he asked Timothy to stay there and teach the true Gospel.
What we read and heard in today’s
New Testament lesson is from the last letter Paul wrote to Timothy, who by that
time had become like a spiritual son.
He wrote it while in a Roman dungeon, very aware of his impending
death. In these touching last words, he
encouraged Timothy to persevere through suffering for the Lord, to avoid
wrangling over words, to not be ashamed of the Gospel, and to follow the
example of other faithful, disciplined, and hardworking believers. In all these things, Paul exhorted Timothy to
do his best to present himself as one called and approved by God. Another way we can say this is Paul wanted
Timothy to do his best as one ordained by
God. But Paul also made it quite clear
that doing one’s best is not enough. He
made it clear that the first step in faithfully presenting yourself is always
to remember and find strength in the grace of Jesus Christ.
What exactly is this grace of the
Risen Lord? It’s the freely given gift
of God's forgiveness and faithfulness to us when we act sinfully. It’s the powerful promise that if we endure
in the Lord we will share in God's good reign. It’s the Good News that when we die in the Lord (ultimately, and a little each day), we also live in
the Lord. This grace is the seed and
core of healthy church leadership. All of
our spiritual gifts grow around it. And
my goodness, did you notice the timeless, uplifting, and inspirational vision statement
Paul offered in this letter to help Timothy and the Ephesians in their church
life together? I find it right there at
the end of 2 Timothy 2:9 – “The word of God is not chained.” It is not chained by human pride and error
and anger. It is not chained by false
teachings about Jesus Christ. It is the
fixture that firmly remains in place every time it is prayerfully, faithfully
lifted up!
That Lowe’s commercial ended with
the words, “Never Stop Improving.” As
all of our spiritual gifts and efforts come together to support and improve the
ministry of this congregational corner in God’s glorious house on earth, may we
never stop trusting – trusting in
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to inspire, unite, teach, and strengthen
us. Amen!
1 comment:
Very appropriate for FPC in the present circumstances. I heard the Word of The Lord as I read through you blog. I appreciate what you are saying. "Bear one another's burdens and share each other's joys"
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