A Noble Task; Sermon for Sunday September 25th, 2016 by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

It is in 1st Timothy that the author tells us: “…we must hold fast to the mystery of Faith with a clear conscience and be tested if we are to prove ourselves blameless so then we can serve.” For to truly serve as the Gospel is calling us to serve; it is by spiritually humbling one’s self to become a servant leader. Both of these words seem to create a chasm between themselves when we look at them through our Old Nature lens.  This is because we have assigned understanding a leader to be one who is served… but through Christ and our New Nature potential, we are to lead in serving others.  This is a spiritual task, a humbling, noble task that the Gospel is seeking for all of us to realize.

I believe we often put ourselves however, into exile to God when we are so invested in ourselves, we can no longer see the true pursuit of Justice. This then becomes our sins of commission and omission. We no longer see the mission of the Gospel to be about leading—going forth boldly empowered by the Living Word to serve our neighbor with love and compassion.  This is an exile truly created out of our self-righteousness and worldly concerns. True justice, in terms of the Gospel’s mission, is what our faith is calling upon us to do and become as disciples. 

There is a growing chasm between us and God and it's a spiritual one that we have built upon what we consider to be "progress." If we no longer hold hope in God and do not have the heart or harbor a heart to hold fast to His promises; how are we not like both the oppressor and the oppressed? Pre-packaging what the world deems as “justice” becomes agenda.  Agenda is just another word for angle.  What’s our angle or personal goal—what do we get back from what we do? This is human nature—this is our Old Nature to think is way, be this way…

Luke, the fellow sojourner with Saint Paul, the early church planter and Gospel writer has not only gifted Christianity with speaking to the journey of the Holy Spirit through the Book of Acts but with this Gospel text he preaches to the internal struggle and pain that we have with understanding what Justice and living into the lifestyle of Grace truly requires.  When Paul is discussing and instructing the various beginning offices in the Body, he is coming from an understanding we have lost.  Christ as the leader, the bishop as the pastor to the pastors or overseer and the priesthood of all believers—EVERYONE serving together with one vision given by Christ and one mission to have our hearts in sync to carry this out in service—our true purpose!

The love of money and greed in general, has created a bondage upon the soul in some senses, where it feeds that Old Nature beast. The distorted fruit born from this is indifference—politicizing the Gospel’s mission to develop and execute personal agendas, conquests. The Gospel writer Luke is right in sharing where Jesus is telling us truly what the reality of hell is. With Satan's help, we create our own hell and it could become a graceless wilderness, wantonly bereft of hope because of not understanding what God's grace and True Justice is and means, to our journeys.  Our sin here is that we have made the concept of justice, among many things, divisive to serve our agendas and missions… not God’s.

The rich man only held faith in the world and in himself and as the saying goes no person is an island. An island unto themselves, indeed, a very lonely place full of empty treasures and promises, this is the landscape of hell.  We are not to be living into our own world but sharing the world with others. This brings me to share a sad story of a person of faith who initially wanted to serve the Gospel but became consumed by the “wealth” of the power their position afforded them and wound up losing their friends, position and respect.

Jennifer was great at what she did in ministering to the other women she was in charge of in her fellowship circle.  In fact, you could say that at first she really did understand the role of “overseer” for her counseling sessions with the women she was aiding in spiritual formation, were growing in number and enthusiasm.  You could see and hear it from many of the women involved, how the Holy Spirit was working, how our faith was growing and how the Gospel’s purposes, you could say, were becoming crystal clear.

Jennifer started to notice how the fellowship circle was growing and even began sharing dreams of online group discussions, a unified time of prayer, group workshops, retreats and so forth.  Unfortunately at this peak of hopefulness and “prosperity,” the Old Nature won her over and encouraged her to seek separating from the very supportive community of faith that was allowing her to host this ministry.  Instead of connecting with the women who joined her and trusted in her guidance through this fellowship about this decision; she tried to manipulate them to “join,” her side on this matter, period.  When the Gospel truth was brought up about being one family on God’s mission NOT ours—she decided to force people to leave the fellowship circle.

This kind of behavior was beyond being disappointing, for I felt both sad and angry for some of the women affected by this self-serving mission that in essence destroyed a vibrant fellowship of women who merely wanted to grow and go with the Living Word through love and service to God and to their neighbor!  This is not what ministry is to be or do but this is what happens when we become consumed with our plans over God’s.  The key word there is consumed.  Why not substitute that word with humbled?  Becoming humbled by our plans in the sight of God our heavenly parent showing us a much better path and future to come!

My dear friend who has served alongside me for a couple of years now, always has a wonderful witness to share in how God has been working in, with and through her life.  She has been a police officer, nurse, travel agent and now a florist soon to be consecrated into the Lutheran Orthodox Church.  All of these experiences have not made her a worldly wealthy person by any means, but have made her a wealthy person spiritually in all that she has now to share with others.  In fact, out of the 48 years of life on this floating rock in space, I believe everything that God has you experience, become anxious and insecure about teaches you a prayerful lesson about both leadership and service.  We must fight those tears and misunderstandings to experience, realize God’s guiding Grace in everything we do and say—our lives as a whole—become ministry!

True wealth or nobility is one that harbors a poverty towards worldly “riches” (consumerism) and conquest and builds a faith through loving service that is beyond the self. A noble task is living intentionally faithful and prayerful in order to answer God's call upon your life to love and serve Him and neighbor.  A worldly task is one that adds more chains, oppresses the soul with emptiness and delusion.  When we begin to turn blind eyes towards the plight and suffering of others is when we see an uprising of evil taking place in the world in different forms.

Every day it seems lately, that we have been bombarded on the news with violence, crimes, unethical and amoral challenges taking place all over the world.  Perhaps it is a time of testing and darkness for humanity but we must not turn our backs upon what’s taking place.  Prayerful action is acting upon Grace through faith.  Which in today’s Gospel, the rich man was clueless even when festering in hell, he still lives into his indifference and self-concern by arguing with Abraham and wanting Lazarus to serve him.

The rich man, in Jesus’ parable was most likely addressing both the disciples and the Pharisees in ear shot of His delivery.  The roles we have in our lives whether they are jobs, skills or a calling, have to be lived out reflecting Grace.  Reflecting Grace is living with a humbling honesty into your faith.  It is being grounded in a genuine purpose that doesn’t serve the self but empowers the self when we selflessly share, love and care for others.  The beauty of this reality doesn’t make sense to our logic but it is God’s call to all of us to realize.

Realizing what God requires of us as His disciples is very hard for us.  We struggle all the time spiritually with what is the just thing to do.  Our selfishness, foolish pride gets us into a lot of trouble—the longer we willfully go down that road and feed and lead through the Old Nature’s divisive agendas, we grow in rebellion, lawlessness, and destruction.  We begin to lose the meaning and purpose of life—welcome to hell.   God has better plans for us, now is the time to reform.

Let us Pray,

Loving and Gracious God,

Let us truly become open

Open our hearts to be vessels

Of Compassion, selflessness and peace

Towards our neighbors for the Gospel’s mission

Which is to be acted upon in this world, but from a Kingdom of God perspective

May our lives be empowered to love and serve You and our neighbor

With a leadership that transforms the world

For Your purposes as we are Your children of Grace and Promise

AMEN

September 25th, 2016; Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 21; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins

Psalm 146; Amos 6:1-7; 1 Timothy 3:1-13; Luke 16:19-31

This sermon was delivered at the Grace Hub's House church service at 8am:
https://youtu.be/fQCO4GZEZCI