I Corinthians 4.1-5                                                                                         

 “STEWARDS OF SACRED MYSTERIES”

 

Bishop Will Willimon recalls one grueling pastoral day of meeting after meeting. Ready to head home, he learned of yet one more appointment. Two elder ladies entered his study. “We’ve come from Cullman to Birmingham to tell you about our ministry,” Sarah said. “Gladys’ grandson was busted, DUI.  We went to the youth prison camp to visit him.  Sad to say, we had never been to a place like that before.  We were appalled by the conditions, the young men packed in there like animals.  We got to know them...Are you aware that only ten percent of them can read?  An illiterate 19-year-old and we wonder why the boy is in prison!”

“Well, we began reading classes,” the other one said, “Sarah taught school be-fore she retired.  That led to a Bible study group in the evening.  Now we’re up to 3 Bible studies a week. Two friends of ours who can’t get out bake cookies for the boys.  We’ve also enlisted two wonderful nurses to help with their social dis- eases. Some boys said that our cookies were the first gift they’ve ever received.”

Fidgeting like an administrator, Willimon asked if they were there because they wanted the conference to take over their ministry. Or because they needed more money.  “No,” they replied, “you would just mess it up. We don’t want conference help. And if we need any more money, then we’ll get some from our little church.”
”So….why have you come down here to tell me about this?” he asked.  “Well, we know that being a bishop must be depressing—too many things that we are not doing that Jesus wants us to do.  So Gladys thought it would be nice if we came here to tell you to take heart.  Something’s going right, at least up in Cullman.”

I begin here for two reasons.  First, in your ministry, John, I see faith like Sarah’s and Gladys’. Led by Christ, you connect with people and reach into their lives.  You bring a living grass roots sense of church. As people ask about you, I say we got life experience with the ideals and initiative of a 25 year old divinity graduate.  You haven’t yet learned the dispiriting lesson it’s impossible to make a difference because things will never change. May you never learn that lesson!  Then again, John, if you plan to present a copy of this sermon to Peter at the pearly gates as a voucher for your eternal life, think again.  We’ve both just started here, you’re even more raw than I. God has more hard work for us here than we can imagine.

Second, let’s notice how grace sometimes breaks the tedium of our days and intrudes through ladies like Gladys and Sarah.  In such moments it stuns us how much these invasions feels like the church. Do you know what I mean by saying it feels like the church?  They are the moments when we transcend the humdrum and find ourselves venturing into bold places where Jesus told us that we belong.

 

We experience in our bones what Jesus meant in saying, “Today the kingdom of God has come near you.” (Lk 10.9) We find our selves standing on holy ground. It feels like the church when God’s pure otherworldly light glows on ordinary folks like us as we venture forth to do extraordinary things, eminently within our reach.

When does God’s transforming light shine on us?  All the time.  As we walk the aisle after baptizing a baby whom doctors said couldn’t be born; as we march at midnight with city churches on neighborhood crack houses; as we depart our tenebrae service in stunned silence after its quiet, dramatic close; as we serve a Christmas feast with all of the trimmings, feeding 2000 homeless; as we dig a latrine with a Guatemalan family only to unearth pre-Columbian artifacts; as we glorify God weekly in a restored spiritual home that some feared as unattainable.

A good way to start a ministry is feeling the warmth of this light shining on us and seeing by a glow not always illuminating our droopy eyelids as meetings go late. For the strength of our witness to the Gospel is not how airtight our reasoning is or how well-run our organizational life is. It’s in the radiance of the discovery we share, walking with Jesus and making room for the Spirit in a cut and dried world.

So much of becoming the church starts with something so simple as how we see ourselves.  Maybe we are like Dorothy with her ruby slippers.  Maybe we have powers at our command that we strangely fail to call upon. Paul wrote to Corinth, as they forgot who they were, “Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.”  If that sounds too simple, it is worth pausing over: Christ’s servants and stewards of holy mysteries. We often settle for much less. 

Thinking of pastors, how many have I met who primarily see themselves as psy-chotherapists, activists, authors, spiritual directors, social workers, helping pro-fessionals, aromatherapists, weavers, or enablers of self-fulfillment.  Nothing is wrong with any of those roles.  Nothing except they’re all much less than what God meant by making us stewards of sacred mysteries.  As we replace the essence of our call as leaders with what’s merely nice or helpful, God’s angels in heaven weep.

Thinking of laypeople, how many have I met who primarily see themselves as social life coordinators, cost control experts, preservers of familiarity, dippers of offspring in religion, partisans for America, or advocates for morality.  And nothing is wrong with any of these roles.  Nothing except they are all much less than what Paul meant by calling us all stewards of sacred mysteries.  As we replace what is essential in our faith walk with what’s merely important, the angels in heaven weep.

What is essential is to live as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. That is not easy for us given our practical American nature of ever jumping quickly ahead to problem solving.  We distrust mystery, even God’s mystery, for we can’t control it. But isn’t that the point? Instead of living to use God with whatever agenda we bring, living to let God use our lives as sacred vessels in the pouring out of his Spirit. Ministry is not about management.  We want to get our institutional manage-ment out of the way as quickly as possible so we can get to visionary leadership.  That is where the awe and adventure are. Ministry is about wading into mysteries that usher us (with Gladys and Sarah) into possibilities infinitely bigger than we are. 

Mysteries of God’s abiding blessing over us as we live out our baptism; mysteries of seeing the face of Jesus in the face of the poor, the abandoned, the forgotten; mysteries of speaking the truth in love anywhere to distorting powers knowing that we are made deathproof by the Cross; mysteries of wholeheartedly sharing each other’s joys and sorrows, until our oneness is complete as a people of faith.

 

America is today officially secular and becomes ever more God-disinterested.  Churches like ours that used to run things are dismissed as quaint throwbacks. How do we to respond? Should the church whine for the good old days to return?  It is not going to happen. Besides nobody likes a whiner. Maybe our best impulse is like Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem, grieving our society’s growing preference of live apart from God. Lament, Walt Brueggemann says, differs from whining.  After we lament loss, joy rises anew in our hearts. The joy of a new day and fresh start.  As stewards of sacred mysteries rather than complain, it’s better to lament.

 

Sometimes as I preach a sermon, some say, “Well, that is an interesting set of ideas, a curious set of assumptions. Let us define our terms.” Just by the tone, I can tell they missed the point. In a day when society crumbles, people cry out for much more than intellectual distractions. We do not dabble in interesting ideas. Neither is the church peddling one more lifestyle choice in some great shopping mall of consumer options.  Things are far more urgent than that.  It’s a dark hour, our economy in a free fall and still fighting two wars.  The urgency of the moment compels us toward nothing less than the full stature of being remade in God’s image of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We seek no less than transformation. As stewards of sacred mysteries, it’s less about informing, more about transforming. 

We live in a glitzy, restless, celebrity-mad age. Our world amuses itself to death with bread and circuses like ancient Rome. As we settle into the pews on Sunday morning, our culture tempts us to look at pastor, liturgist, and choir as if to say, “All right, you guys, dazzle me.  Give it your best shot.  And it had better be good!” But we’re not performers to your audience. Instead we all gather together to perform before God’s watchful gaze, with pastors and choirs as prompters. God is the only audience here. Are all of our lives pleasing to God? That’s the only question that matters. As we worship in this Spirit, God’s Word rises in us, breaks forth afresh. And it’s a sustaining and hopeful word.   As stewards of sa-cred mysteries, it’s less about entertaining, more about equipping and sustaining.

 

I close with a story from my installation at my first church.  It echoes our Numbers lesson where the Hebrews approached Moses, fearing too many were getting too involved. “Make them stop, Moses!” Joshua complained. Moses looked at them like they were crazy and retorted, “Would that all of God’s people were prophets!”

 

Anyway, at the reception following my first installation service my mother sat at the head table next to an Illinois conference minister, the Rev. Art Bradley.  Be-fore departing, a couple stopped by. “We look forward to Dale’s ministry. We expect great things from him. He has a big job here.” My mother didn’t miss a beat.  “Dale is strong,” she said.  “He works hard.” (Of course, she’s not biased at all.)  Then she leaned into the couple and pointed. “Still, if you expect him to move mountains, you had better get behind and help him push.”  As they left, Art Bradley could barely contain his mirth, “Way to go, Mom! That’s telling them!” John, we do expect great things together, but get behind you to help you push. 

Jesus says that with faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, we can move mountains. I look around this church and I see faith the size of pumpkin, peach, and avocado seeds.  Together, by the grace of God, mountains will be moved.  And that will feel so very much like the church. We find our way forward together, seeing by the light of God, servants of Christ, stewards of sacred mysteries. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merciful God, we wait on your will and listen attentively for your voice as we hear scripture, offer prayers, and in a few moments discern as your gathered people. We know that you don’t shout at us, God, as much as sometimes we might need shouting.  Rather, you speak in a still, small voice that is too easily drowned out by the din of our frantic world. So in this cool morning, give us the quiet calm we need to be still, to know that you are God, and to act as you would have us act.

We are all fellow workers and servant leaders in this temple of your Spirit. We stand under your authority, seeking a future where you are honored and praised, where the ministry of this beloved church grows in wisdom and stature, like Jesus mounting up in his ministry. We are made in your image, O God, crowned with glory, and each day transfigured a little more into the image of Jesus Christ.  What great mysteries are these, of which we are made stewards and heirs.  Make us responsible in receiving and handing down such a rich treasure of gifts. Make us confident of your love, poured into us, and eager to put our gifts to use.

Today we thank you for the many unnamed faithful who labored for generations at DUC that it would be prospered for ministry and brought to a day like today.

We pray for the UCC, our wider church and local churches, that our witness would renew the land in a day that from all sides cries out for spiritual restoration.

 

We pray for the Search Committee of DUC, their unstinting commitment, their undying devotion, their glad faithfulness, and their hard work over many months.

We pray for members and friends who couldn’t be here today, but who hold us in their prayers, and who want to see us go next to that place where you destine us.

 

We pray prayers of thanksgiving for this moment to which you have brought us, a time when fears subside, hope resurges, and your Spirit rises to confirm our calls

 

We pray for all people in harm’s way with the latest hurricane meandering through the tropics taking more lives, destroying homes, and uprooting families.