The Church Of The Servant
Sermon
Between Gloom and Glory
First Lesson Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany
Have you ever sighed at the end of a work day and wondered, "Did I accomplish anything today?" Maybe you have had months or even years like that. I have a minister friend who volunteers his time as a youth basketball coach.
He doesn't do it because he has lots of extra time. In fact, he has to wedge the time for practice and games into an already busy schedule. He does it though because it is the one place where he can at least measure what he has accomplished. He can look at the scoreboard to see if his team won. He can look at the league standings and see whether or not his team is doing well. He says that he doesn't mind losing because at least he knows, from the score, where he and his team stand. He says that in the ministry, in his congregation, it is not always easy to know whether or not they are ahead or behind. He wonders out loud at times about whether or not he is really doing any good at his church.
The servant in Isaiah 49 knows about this feeling. After receiving a marvelous word from the Lord, he responds, but "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity." I understand how he feels! Churches know this feeling, too. There is a church in the mountains of Tennessee that has been around for more than 100 years. Their numbers are dwindling though and they are filled with malaise. "Maybe we just need to close the doors," one of the long-time members said. "But if we do," she went on, "I don't think I'll go anywhere to church again. I'm just tired of running as fast as I can only to end up in the same place I started out."
There was a church in northern California whose pastor was a cocaine addict. He confessed his problem to his elders and they went into action. They sent him to a rehabilitation center. They covered 100 percent of his expenses. He became a new person. They were thrilled at the way their help had contributed to his turn around. Three months later he was back into the drugs. The call of his old lifestyle had proven to be too powerful. Undaunted, the elders sent him back. They paid all of the costs a second time. Again, he came home refreshed and ready for a new start. A few months later though, he had fallen off the wagon once again. After a few painful weeks of deliberation the pastor was finally let go. After all, the leaders reasoned, and rightly so, they needed a pastor and he was falling far short of his duties. "We just didn't know what else to do," was the remark of one of the elders. "It seemed like everything we did was fruitless. It is the single most frustrating thing I have ever been involved in as a church leader."
That is something of an extreme example, but it illustrates a quiet phenomenon that exists in many churches. Churches seek new ways to minister only to find that the new ways are just as ineffective as the old. New programs and ministries are introduced and a few months later they are just as dead as the programs they replaced. As a friend of mine in ministry said to me, "I'm running as fast I can and it feels like it takes me all day just to get across the street."
Part of the reason for this frustration may be found in the lofty goals that are set before the faith community. The text for today opened with a call to the "coastlands" and the "people far away" to "pay attention!" If we take that seriously, it means our work as a community of faith is important. God will be glorified in the work we do. Our commission is to go to the whole world.
This promise and call is appropriate for an individual, but it is also a model for the church. But it is also a frustrating one. The goals and lofty ideals set forth by the prophet only make it seem more difficult. They make it seem unreachable, impossible.
Maybe the real problem lies, not with the call and promise of the text, but rather with those of us in the church. Maybe the frustration we feel comes from our results-oriented society and its tendency to seek tangible and measurable results. When the management by objectives phase took over the business world, it found its way into the church. This was an exciting thing because it looked like the church finally had a way to measure its effectiveness. A church I know of bought into this idea fully. All of the ministers on staff would be evaluated according to the management by objectives model. Ministry teams and committees would be formed within the same criteria. Church leaders were certain that there would be a new day dawning for their congregation.
A funny thing happened. For three years the ministers all had excellent evaluations. The ministry teams were doing well, too. The evaluation marks were high for everyone except the evangelism and finance teams. The two that were easiest to evaluate before had both experienced decline. Worship attendance went down all three years. Their offerings were falling off, too. The leaders of the church realized they had become proficient at reaching their objectives but had lost sight of their ministry.
The church needs to be excited about something other than the immediate, quantifiable numbers and results that can be typed up in an evaluation. Churches must remember to sow. Churches must remember that what matters in the long run is not necessarily what looks important in the short haul.
A minister was having lunch in a restaurant when he spied his high school English teacher sitting in a booth across the way. He had not spoken to her since he left school many years before, so he got up and went over to say hello. After reminding her of his name and the classes he had taken with her, he asked, "Do you remember the letter I wrote to you, thanking you for helping me get excited about literature? I would imagine that you get letters like that all of the time." She smiled and said, "Yes, Billy, I remember your letter. I have it right here." She opened her purse and pulled out the letter he had written years before. She said, "In thirty years of teaching I got three letters like this and I have them all here in my purse." The man who was thanking her is one of the finest preachers in the country. His sermons and columns have inspired and helped thousands. She was a teacher who loved teaching for the joy of doing it, not for the pleasure of the tangible rewards.
There is a little church in North Carolina that recently established an endowment fund. They had received a few thousand dollars in memorial funds and decided to put together an endowment and see if the funds for future ministry might grow. Their goals were modest but they were hopeful that with a policy in place people in the congregation would be encouraged to support the fund. A few weeks after the policy had been voted on and accepted, the church received a letter from an attorney representing the estate of a man named Gordon. It stated that Mr. Gordon had left a portion of his income to this congregation. The amount of the gift was not named in the letter. The attorney was simply informing them that this bequest would be coming soon. No one in the little church could remember this man. No record could be found pointing out that he was a former member. No name on a visitor list. Nothing.
A few weeks later a letter and a check arrived in the mail from Mr. Gordon's attorney. The check was for over $800,000. The letter explained the story behind the check. When Gordon was a young man he had attended a small junior college near the church building. He was a student there for just two semesters, but during that short time he had attended this little church. While attending there he had been adopted by one of the church families. The family was participating in an "adopt a student" program that the church had set up for that year at the little school. The family had him over for Sunday supper almost every week. They sent care packages to him at the school dormitory. They welcomed him into their family and into their church. The young man left and went on to earn millions, but he never forgot that little church and their ministry. When his life was over he wanted to help them continue in their work and their service.
The prophet tells us that God promises to give us "as a light to the nations, that (God's) salvation may reach to the end of the earth." There is nothing in there about how to measure that light. There are no directions as to how to run the annual evaluations of the ministries of our congregation. Just a promise that God will use us, you and me together, as a light to the nations. We are the Church of the Servant. God has called us to do this thing and has simply sent us forward with the knowledge that the good news of God's salvation goes with us.
We really do not have any idea about all of the people we are touching in our ministry. We have no way of knowing or measuring the final results of our work here in this congregation. We know only this: God has called us. There is ministry to be done. Let us begin today.
He doesn't do it because he has lots of extra time. In fact, he has to wedge the time for practice and games into an already busy schedule. He does it though because it is the one place where he can at least measure what he has accomplished. He can look at the scoreboard to see if his team won. He can look at the league standings and see whether or not his team is doing well. He says that he doesn't mind losing because at least he knows, from the score, where he and his team stand. He says that in the ministry, in his congregation, it is not always easy to know whether or not they are ahead or behind. He wonders out loud at times about whether or not he is really doing any good at his church.
The servant in Isaiah 49 knows about this feeling. After receiving a marvelous word from the Lord, he responds, but "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity." I understand how he feels! Churches know this feeling, too. There is a church in the mountains of Tennessee that has been around for more than 100 years. Their numbers are dwindling though and they are filled with malaise. "Maybe we just need to close the doors," one of the long-time members said. "But if we do," she went on, "I don't think I'll go anywhere to church again. I'm just tired of running as fast as I can only to end up in the same place I started out."
There was a church in northern California whose pastor was a cocaine addict. He confessed his problem to his elders and they went into action. They sent him to a rehabilitation center. They covered 100 percent of his expenses. He became a new person. They were thrilled at the way their help had contributed to his turn around. Three months later he was back into the drugs. The call of his old lifestyle had proven to be too powerful. Undaunted, the elders sent him back. They paid all of the costs a second time. Again, he came home refreshed and ready for a new start. A few months later though, he had fallen off the wagon once again. After a few painful weeks of deliberation the pastor was finally let go. After all, the leaders reasoned, and rightly so, they needed a pastor and he was falling far short of his duties. "We just didn't know what else to do," was the remark of one of the elders. "It seemed like everything we did was fruitless. It is the single most frustrating thing I have ever been involved in as a church leader."
That is something of an extreme example, but it illustrates a quiet phenomenon that exists in many churches. Churches seek new ways to minister only to find that the new ways are just as ineffective as the old. New programs and ministries are introduced and a few months later they are just as dead as the programs they replaced. As a friend of mine in ministry said to me, "I'm running as fast I can and it feels like it takes me all day just to get across the street."
Part of the reason for this frustration may be found in the lofty goals that are set before the faith community. The text for today opened with a call to the "coastlands" and the "people far away" to "pay attention!" If we take that seriously, it means our work as a community of faith is important. God will be glorified in the work we do. Our commission is to go to the whole world.
This promise and call is appropriate for an individual, but it is also a model for the church. But it is also a frustrating one. The goals and lofty ideals set forth by the prophet only make it seem more difficult. They make it seem unreachable, impossible.
Maybe the real problem lies, not with the call and promise of the text, but rather with those of us in the church. Maybe the frustration we feel comes from our results-oriented society and its tendency to seek tangible and measurable results. When the management by objectives phase took over the business world, it found its way into the church. This was an exciting thing because it looked like the church finally had a way to measure its effectiveness. A church I know of bought into this idea fully. All of the ministers on staff would be evaluated according to the management by objectives model. Ministry teams and committees would be formed within the same criteria. Church leaders were certain that there would be a new day dawning for their congregation.
A funny thing happened. For three years the ministers all had excellent evaluations. The ministry teams were doing well, too. The evaluation marks were high for everyone except the evangelism and finance teams. The two that were easiest to evaluate before had both experienced decline. Worship attendance went down all three years. Their offerings were falling off, too. The leaders of the church realized they had become proficient at reaching their objectives but had lost sight of their ministry.
The church needs to be excited about something other than the immediate, quantifiable numbers and results that can be typed up in an evaluation. Churches must remember to sow. Churches must remember that what matters in the long run is not necessarily what looks important in the short haul.
A minister was having lunch in a restaurant when he spied his high school English teacher sitting in a booth across the way. He had not spoken to her since he left school many years before, so he got up and went over to say hello. After reminding her of his name and the classes he had taken with her, he asked, "Do you remember the letter I wrote to you, thanking you for helping me get excited about literature? I would imagine that you get letters like that all of the time." She smiled and said, "Yes, Billy, I remember your letter. I have it right here." She opened her purse and pulled out the letter he had written years before. She said, "In thirty years of teaching I got three letters like this and I have them all here in my purse." The man who was thanking her is one of the finest preachers in the country. His sermons and columns have inspired and helped thousands. She was a teacher who loved teaching for the joy of doing it, not for the pleasure of the tangible rewards.
There is a little church in North Carolina that recently established an endowment fund. They had received a few thousand dollars in memorial funds and decided to put together an endowment and see if the funds for future ministry might grow. Their goals were modest but they were hopeful that with a policy in place people in the congregation would be encouraged to support the fund. A few weeks after the policy had been voted on and accepted, the church received a letter from an attorney representing the estate of a man named Gordon. It stated that Mr. Gordon had left a portion of his income to this congregation. The amount of the gift was not named in the letter. The attorney was simply informing them that this bequest would be coming soon. No one in the little church could remember this man. No record could be found pointing out that he was a former member. No name on a visitor list. Nothing.
A few weeks later a letter and a check arrived in the mail from Mr. Gordon's attorney. The check was for over $800,000. The letter explained the story behind the check. When Gordon was a young man he had attended a small junior college near the church building. He was a student there for just two semesters, but during that short time he had attended this little church. While attending there he had been adopted by one of the church families. The family was participating in an "adopt a student" program that the church had set up for that year at the little school. The family had him over for Sunday supper almost every week. They sent care packages to him at the school dormitory. They welcomed him into their family and into their church. The young man left and went on to earn millions, but he never forgot that little church and their ministry. When his life was over he wanted to help them continue in their work and their service.
The prophet tells us that God promises to give us "as a light to the nations, that (God's) salvation may reach to the end of the earth." There is nothing in there about how to measure that light. There are no directions as to how to run the annual evaluations of the ministries of our congregation. Just a promise that God will use us, you and me together, as a light to the nations. We are the Church of the Servant. God has called us to do this thing and has simply sent us forward with the knowledge that the good news of God's salvation goes with us.
We really do not have any idea about all of the people we are touching in our ministry. We have no way of knowing or measuring the final results of our work here in this congregation. We know only this: God has called us. There is ministry to be done. Let us begin today.
