Sermon for May 03, 20 Covid
19 Crisis #6 Sunday Service
God of rest and renewal, still our hearts and minds with your Spirit. May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in
your sight. May we come to know you more fully, and follow you more faithfully.
Amen.
As we gather for worship this
morning in various places throughout our homes, perhaps sitting around the
table or reclining in a comfortable chair, we are mindful, once again, that we
are not gathering together for worship in our churches. As the weeks turn into
months in this Covid 19 crisis, new routines may appear to ever more familiar
to us. An email I received last Sunday
seemed to drive home this point and made me laugh. It read:
“We are home safe from church. We left the living room and are now in
the dining room.” It is certainly true
that we are doing so much more communicating through our electronic devices –
and all from inside the walls of our homes.
But whether we come together each
week in our church building or “virtually” in the comfort of our homes, we
gather together to worship as followers
of the Word of God. In worship we hear
God’s Word read and interpreted in ways that illuminate and inform our day to
day lives. We worship through music, through the holy sacraments and through
the liturgy, that is elements that can speak to our personal sins and struggles
in life as well as times of joy and thanksgiving. We gather together as the
body of Christ. We give special time to our children so that they may know that
God cares deeply for them and can offer encouragement, strength and a sharing
of life’s burdens with them.
This 4th Sunday of
Easter is called Vocations Sunday. It is a time when we think about God’s
calling to us. Vocation means call or summons. When the sign of the cross was
impressed on our foreheads, at our Baptism, where the union of Christ’ death
and resurrection meets us. As Romans 6:4 reads: “4 Therefore we have been buried with him by
baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life..” Baptism is the visible sign of an invisible grace, manifested as the New
Covenant between God and humankind. Our vocation from God calls us to live our lives in God. Many of us have specific jobs we fulfill in
order to make a
living, our inner office jobs that
could be nursing, teaching, electrician,
farming, domestic duties and so on. The outer office of our lives is our call
our vocation to God. In fulfilling our
day to day obligations you may wonder well how does this have anything to do
with God? They are two different worlds; 2 different spaces; no they are not.
We have one life on earth to live and wherever
& whatever that life demands of us, from the people we are responsible for,
the challenges of aging, the battles we tackle, through all of life our lives
are a part of the life of God our creator our redeemer.
The inner &outer offices or the
text & subtext of our lives intersect. We have to go through the outer
office to get to the inner office, & we take our Lord’s essence our Lord’s
teachings with us, wherever we go and whatever we do. We don’t just pick God’s
summons up on Sunday morning and put it down when we finish worship. We worship
to be nurtured and fed and clothed again with the Spirit, & to be
strengthened for the days ahead living in the fullness of life, that is in
Christ our Lord.
This understanding of our calling
has changed from the ancient vision of the church, which began as a priestly
people – where all people through the sacraments shared in the ministry of the
Church.
Then five hundred years ago Martin
Luther wrestled with the problem that had by then become the norm in the
church. The clergy now ruled the church, selling salvation alms and making a
great profit for themselves. If you wanted to be forgiven you must pay, and pay
you would according to the severity of your sins. The priests succeeded in
doing this through elevating themselves to a higher plateau with God, claiming
supremacy and authority leaving the laity to attend mass, in an experience
similar to a theatre performance, where they would only watch and listen. The
priest Himself alone would partake in Communion, the laity, only spectators to
it all. Leaving their offerings on their way out.
The church has been reformed in
many ways since that time, including the birth of the protestant church as one
example, but the church continues to have its challenges.
Today we have the minister who is
often ordained or commissioned or other recognized ministries. I am ordained to the Ministry of Word,
Sacrament and Pastoral Care. Being ordained makes my ministry more visible in
many ways but we share the same vocation to be God’s people in the world. One
ministry is not more important than the other. We share the same baptism of
being received into the household of God and to claim Jesus crucified and
risen. Together we are charged to share Christ’s ministry and the cross from our
baptism is still engraved on our foreheads rather we can see it or not.
For Christians, vocation is a call
from God. And one analogy in the Bible that illustrates the relationship of
Christ to His followers is the Shepherd and his sheep. “John’s
Gospel is not just about life after death. It is life that begins now; it is
knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent. It is knowing the
voice of the good shepherd who truly cares for us and offers the security, the
nourishment and the community of believers that is so important. In Christ,
life abounds in meaning and value and endures beyond death.
With so much
information and regular up dates coming at us about the virus, we desire honest
answers and clear speech. We long to hear definite dates and timelines, but
they will come. We long to hope that the virus is under control, but know that
much vulnerability still remains. Jesus
emphasizes something very important today.
Sheep know the voice of their shepherd. They recognize the voice of the
one who cares for them, a voice they trust and will follow.
The
more familiar we become with God’s word, the more we can recognize and know the
truth of His word in our hearts and so respond ever more faithfully to the call
of the shepherd.
J. V. FeskoThe Priesthood
of All Believers
Barbara
Brown Taylor – The Preaching Life, 1993 Cowley
Publishing, Chapter 3 Vocation.
Working Preacher John 10:1-10
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