God’s Servants
“For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.” — 1 Corinthians 3:9.
Many of you know that, as these things go, Bonnie and I got married late in life. I was 40. She was 39. It was the first marriage for both of us. You’ve probably heard me say that a dozen times.
Bonnie, of course, lived in Brunswick, Maine and I lived in New York City. We lived not just states apart. We lived worlds apart.
Whereas my motto had been, “If the Subway doesn’t go there, it’s too far”— I did not learn to drive until after I moved to Maine— if we were getting married, it was unlikely Bonnie would be comfortable with big city life. Yes, it was country mouse, city mouse, wasn’t it?
We got married in September but it was right around this time of year we decided we’d make that commitment. I was attending an Episcopal Church in New York City at the time and I remember when, in the course of the service, the request for joys and concerns for which to pray was made. I stood up and announced we would be getting married. And, needless to say, I asked for prayer.
The priest serving the church at that point was in interim, but I had become really, really friendly with him. After the service he took me aside and, in a some what fatherly tone (pardon the pun) he asked: “Are you scared about this?” I hesitated a moment and then said: “Well, yes. I guess I am.”
“That’s good,” he replied. “If you weren’t I’d take you to the woodshed and give you a good whoopin!” (Slight pause.)
Perhaps the surprise about marriage is so many are so willing to give it a shot. Why? Unquestionably, it is a life changing event. And, whether or not we realize it, as such, as a life changing event, it can be a time for growth.
Indeed, I’m not against marriage, but if we labeled the married state as an opportunity for growth, I’m sure a lot of people would stop and give the prospect of getting married some more thought before signing up. All of which is to say, both marriage and growth are very serious subjects— but especially growth. (Slight pause.)
Now, Mark Twain is reputed to have said (quote): “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones that you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
But we also need to understand that catching the trade winds in our sails requires something. It requires risk. (Slight pause.)
Here is a trick question. You have $1,000 to invest and a series of choices for that investment. There is one investment which says you are 100% sure you will lose that $1,000. There is another one in which there is some assurance— some but not total— that you will make back the $1,000, but nothing more— break even. And there is yet one more where there is a chance you will lose the entire $1,000 and a chance you will make the $1,000 back and a chance you will make $1,000 on top of the $1,000 you invested. Which one of these investments has the least risk? (Slight pause.)
If you are 100% sure you are going to loose that $1,000, your risk is... zero, nada, zilch, nothing. There is no risk involved. You know what is going to happen. You will loose the money.
When you know what will happen there is no risk. It’s only when you don’t know what will happen that risk enters the picture. (Slight pause.) And we don’t know what will happen when we get married, do we? (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work known as Frist Corinthians: “For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (Slight pause.)
When Paul writes about being ruled by the flesh or dominated by its way of thinking, as this passage indicates, what is being addressed is not an inherently evil flesh. Indeed, there are many church people who would like you to think a negative attitude toward the body is a central topic of Paul.
But what the Apostle is really addressing is the flawed perspectives that characterize human values and human decisions. Paul is, in a quite neutral way, simply referring to the fact that human beings are finite in their existence, as Steve said earlier. [1]
In short, the divide about which Paul speaks is not the divide between spiritual as in ethereal and human as in carnal. The divide is not between evil and good. And in a real sense, the divide is not even between finite and infinite. The divide is between perspectives— a perspective as seen from human eyes and a perspective as seen from the eyes of God. (Slight pause.)
We— humans— tend to be risk averse. We like to reduce risk. Indeed, I had a conversation with a friend this week and the topic of what happened in Egypt came up.
I suggested that, if truth be told and rumor to the contrary, the foreign policy of most nations, any nation including ours, has nothing to do with freedom or lack thereof nor with forms of governments from democracies to dictatorships. You can talk all you want to about ideals, but a sound foreign policy hates... risk. A sound foreign policy is risk averse. A sound foreign policy has everything to do with trying to ensure stability.
Is the fact that Egyptians may be on the road to freedom wonderful? Yes. Does that frighten foreign policy experts from Moscow to Washington from Beijing to Jerusalem from London to Riyadh? Yes— because that road involves risk. (Slight pause.)
So, what might it require for us to be (quote): “...God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building”? (Slight pause.) I think one of Paul’s main themes in this section of First Corinthians is growth. Indeed, Paul calls the Corinthians (quote): “infants in Christ.”
Paul understands that in order to strive to see things in a spiritual way, one must grow. In order to stop looking at the world in a limited, simply human way, growth is necessary.
Why? God is inviting us to participate in doing the work of God in the world. (Quote): “you are God’s field, God’s building.” So, what is the work of God? (Slight pause.)
This morning we read from Deuteronomy 30. One of my commentaries stresses that the 30th Chapter looks back on what has already been said in Deuteronomy and that between the 14th and the 25th chapters the following is outlined as being the work of God. It is a list which might surprise us all.
The sharing of feasts with the hungry; canceling the debts of the poor; organizing government to guard against excessive wealth; sharing hospitality with refugees; not charging interest on loans; prompt payment for those who work; leaving the residue of harvest for the disadvantaged; limiting punishment in order to protect human dignity. It’s all there in Deuteronomy.
That, my friends, is not just the vision God has. That is an invitation to us to see the world in ways we have never even tried to see it before. That is an invitation to growth. Amen.
02/13/2011
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York.
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “‘The sharing of feasts with the hungry; canceling the debts of the poor; organizing government to guard against excessive wealth; sharing hospitality with refugees; not charging interest on loans; prompt payment for those who work; leaving the residue of harvest for the disadvantaged; limiting punishment in order to protect human dignity.’ That’s quite a list. It should give us some notion of how different the vision God might have for our lives is from the vision humanity currently holds dear.”
[1] Steve Craig was the Liturgist and indicated this in the introduction to the passage.
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