Good Advice from God's Good Example
The Rev. Mark Sherwindt, Pastor
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
Pentecost 19: October 7-8, 2006
With our service this weekend, our focus shifts to pillar #3 in the Membership Covenant: I will support the ministries of our church. I must admit that I do not know how I can top our focus on camaraderie last weekend, with the Men of Zion sharing in the leader-ship roles at worship, and giving away those Men of Zion shirts to newer members! It was a great weekend. Today we focus on something every bit tangible. It's not shirts, but blankets. We're not giving them to you, but asking for them so that we can give them to others - here at home through the Clothing Closet, and around the world through Lutheran World Relief. They are certainly more colorful; and what is even better, they highlight the theme of ministry, translating our love of God into service to others.
I'm glad that we have the Women of Zion to help in organizing our efforts to help others. The Comfort Givers spend Thursday upon Thursday sewing quilts, making comforters, and with Blanket Sunday putting together School Kits and Health Kits for Lutheran World Relief. They also add to the festivities of family night during Vacation Bible School when their comforters decorate Luther Hall, and our Vacation Bible School quilts are auctioned off for charity. These aren't the only contributions they make to our ministry of service, but our celebration of Blanket Sunday at least provides an occasion to notice what they do, while also learning from what their efforts teach us.
We focused on a similar dynamic this past Friday with the Memorial Service for Chuck Heller. Helen's brother, Ken Johansen , made reference to the connection between giving good advice and being a good example. Ken had passed a church on his way to Ohio which had a sign that read, A Good Example is more important than Good Advice. Ken then turned this adage around to say, Good Advice is better when it comes from a Good Example. His point was that Chuck was a good example, which is what made his good advice so valuable. The truth is that Chuck was, indeed, a good example.
In fact, he was a great example of how important it is to connect our worship of God with our service to others, he and Helen both, and add the Women of Zion to this mix. That is exactly what our focus on pillar #3 calls us to do in supporting the ministries of our church. This pillar in our Membership Covenant is about making the connection between our service of worship and our service to others. In Friday's Memorial Service, I called our attention to Jesus' words in Mark 12: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all you soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And don't stop there. Here's part two. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That's the essence of Jesus' teaching. Love God, and serve others. Worship and Service: these actions complete each other, like giving good advice and serving as a good example, like getting your faith active in love.
I've retrieved this poster that Council endorsed with last year's Congregational Meeting in June. For Chuck Heller, Leadership, Activities, and the Building were all crucial legs in the three-legged stool that made for a healthy church, for turning our church into a LAB, a laboratory for the kingdom, an experiment in growing in love and service by grace. Chuck worked with our Steering Committee in putting together our plan to focus on leadership, activities and the building. When it came to our focus on the building, Chuck didn't just say it's important to present ourselves well through good facilities and a well-kept building. He climbed the roof in the fall to clean out the gutters, and he climbed up the roof in the winter to make sure the ice and snow melted through the down spouts rather than through the roof and into buckets in Luther Hall. He didn't just advise others on what they might do better. He rolled up his sleeves, often without opening his mouth, and got to work: loving God through serving others.
Our Membership Covenant identifies five planks under pillar #3. We can support the ministries of our church by discovering our gifts and talents. We often call this filling out our Time and Talents sheets, which are intended to identify our skills and interests. There are all sorts of approaches that congregations can take in trying to encourage members to become involved in the life of the congregation. The Apostle Paul used the image of our being membranes in Christ's body. Cell biologists would use this image to encourage us to connect with the blueprint written into each cell, directing its activities precisely where it is needed, doing what it was designed to do. This may be a little abstract for many, so let' simplify the message. This plank in the covenant encourages us to sense God's call, to discern God's gifts, and to share them with the rest of us.
At Chuck Heller's Memorial Service, I focused on the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, where a man in whom his master had invested five talents produced much more by putting those talents to good use. Chuck was a man in whom many others had invested a great deal of trust - starting with his parents, Charles and Lillian, and his teachers at Mount Herman High, the faculty at Rutgers, and at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Add to this the trust invested by his fellow servicemen in the Air Force, by executives at AEP and Ohio Power, and it becomes clear why our Celebration of Life Service celebrated the life of a man who had received this trust, relished it, and then returned a good deal more on this investment of trust and its call to service. We talked about the accolades that were heaped with praise for the man and fellow member that we love.
Then we talked about God's accolade in Matthew 25: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter in the joy of our Lord.” Wouldn't we all want to hear this accolade spoken by God as we take that final turn on the journey home? The truth is that we will! That's the Good News of the Gospel. God's grace makes it so. We have a gracious God who delivers on the promises he makes in Jesus Christ. God has promised salvation to all the baptized. God has promised that all who are in Christ, all who have been clothed in the righteousness of our Lord and Savior, all of us will hear the same words spoken to Jesus, “Well done!” That is the Good News of the Gospel. We are saved. Believe it! Rejoice in God's grace, in God's gifts, in Christ's presence, in the Spirit's power. This is why we should feel free to share the talents God has given us. Actually, that is why we should feel a compelling urgency to share our talents, so that we can contribute to the good health and the vibrant life of our church, and serve as a witness of good will to the world.
“You are the light of the world!” Jesus says in Matthew 5. “Don't hide your lamp under a bushel basket, but put it on the stand, to give light to everyone who needs it. In the same way, let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and glorify the God we call our heavenly Father.” This is the first verse we will take up in our Membership Class, which focuses on pillar #3 in the Membership Covenant. Some of the other planks in this pillar invite us to be equipped to serve by expecting our church to offer programs that use your talents, along with the training to develop them. Once again, we see that the obligations of membership obligate the church to deliver for our members. We are also called to develop the heart and mind that was in Christ Jesus, namely, the heart and mind of a servant. Now would probably be a good time to pass out the “Skills and Interests” forms we created several years ago as a way to help us figure out how to connect our servant's heart with servants' hands engaged in the ministries of service. That, however, would be too systematic of a development for this sermon. Instead, I'd like to diverge a bit, and talk about the wedding we celebrated at Zion yesterday, adding to the full schedule of services on the calendar for this weekend.
The bulletin cover connects two classic texts that raise the issue of marriage. Another text, often used at weddings, connects love and marriage by telling the story of love embodied in the example of Jesus. It's from 1st John 4:9-11. “In this is love, not our love of God, but God's love for us. God's love was made manifest in the way, namely, he sent his Son, who gave his life in death, so that we might find true life through his love.” This fits right in with what Ken Johansen was saying about how good advice increases in value and substance when it comes from a good example. God doesn't just talk about love. He lives it. God doesn't write a treatise on love. He tells a story, a very personal story. It is the story of His Son, who teaches us about love by living it, even to the point of dying for us. That's what love means. Look at the example.
Our Second Lesson begins with a very memorable line, “In many and various ways God spoke to his people through the word of the prophets. In these last days, God has made his will known through the life of His Son." [Hebrews 1:1-2] Good advice is so much better when it comes to life in a good example; and Jesus is the best example. In his life we see the meaning of God's love. With his death we see the measure of true love. Through the resurrection God makes His love known in a new way, through the form of Christ's Body we call the church, through us, membranes in this body. And it still holds true that Good Advice is far better when it comes from a Good Example. So, let's be that example. Let's hear the call and seize the opportunity, by discerning our gifts and then sharing them generously, which is sure to make our church healthier and the world better … in Jesus' name. Amen.