I love our appointed New Testament reading for today from I Corinthians because it reminds me of the importance of not just living out our calling from God, but living out our “joyful calling.”
Hear the difference? I know that there are times when the church feels a little more joyful than at other times.
For example, I don’t always feel that joyful when the conference sends me the end of year church reports to fill out. They want to know specific information that isn’t that easy to find. And by the way, this report always arrives to the church with my name on it in the middle of December, thee busiest time of year for pastors. I try to see it as an early Christmas present, but honestly, it don’t feel a lot of joy when it arrives.
I also don’t feel that joyful during those weeks when I’m staring hours on end at the blank screen of my computer trying to prepare a sermon.
And then there are those times when a toilet in the church is leaking water all over the place fifteen minutes before a wedding is to begin. I don’t feel very joyful on those times either.
Relearning how to lead worship during a global pandemic has presented it’s share of ministry challenges as well, like realizing some camera angles are more flattering than others. In the first three months of the pandemic, our worship production crew included me, my iPhone, and a music stand which resulted in a lot of bloopers and out-takes.
There was one weekday sermon recording, where it took about ten out-takes because of someone running a jackhammer just outside our church building that same day. I did not feel very joyful that morning.
On a much more somber note, being a pastor to someone who is experiencing a crisis, or visiting with a family near the end of someone’s life, or officiating for a funeral, those are all challenging times where ministry can feel overwhelming. Even though I know that God is present with us in these times of great sadness, it can still be very challenging to feel any joy in those particular moments, holy as they may be.
And then, there are those little things about being a pastor that don’t rank very high on my joy list. I offer these in no particular order. Cleaning out the boiler room, sweeping up broken glass on the parking lot, preparing what you think will be an awesome sermon that doesn’t get preached because of a Level 3 snow emergency, attending a district or conference meeting.
But besides these exceptions, there truly is a lot of joy in living out our calling.
For example, there is nothing like that moment when the Holy Spirit leads you to the perfect sermon idea that you have been desperately seeking to find. It is a joyful moment when these breakthroughs happen and you know that idea came from above.
Here’s another one. I feel so much joy when people share a “thin place” moment with me. I totally love when you share how you experienced God in a very real way and what a difference it made in your life.
Another joyful moment is whenever I have the honor to officiate for a wedding or a baptism. These are special occasions that are filled with so much happiness and joy.
I must admit that playing with our church toys has filled me with a lot of joy over these past several months. Some of you might be worried that your pastor treats these toys as if they are alive, but it has been amazing how these toys have lifted our spirits and we even had “church toys to the rescue” t-shirts made which always bring a smile to my face when I see you wearing those shirts.
Receiving your words of encouragement and reminders that you are praying for me also brings me great joy as a pastor.
My experience over these many years has been that the joy of being in ministry far exceeds the challenges and struggles that happen along the way. And even during those more challenging times, God has ways of keeping our spirits lifted.
This is why I am so drawn to the Apostle Paul’s words to the Christians in Corinth. Here is a man who experienced great hardship and persecution for his faith, and yet he still was finding joy in sharing the good news of his faith with others. And he wants us to experience that same joy as we live out our calling.
So what was Paul’s secret? What kept Paul so joy-filled in living out his calling to share the good news of Christ?
In our I Corinthians reading, he offers us three important ways to keep our joy alive as we share the good news of our faith with others.
The first way is by remembering to see the people around us for who they are and not for who we think they should be. Everyone has been created uniquely by God and Paul was really good at meeting them where they were, not where he thought they should be in their faith.
I think this comes from Paul’s own personal experience. Before he encountered the Risen Christ, he had been persecuting the early Christians. Just as Christ chose Paul to become one of his followers and a key leader in his church, God also meets us where we are.
Ministry can get really discouraging if we are expecting the people around us to conform to who we think they should be. When we see people for who they are, it frees us to get to know them and they can get to know us.
So the first thing that Paul teaches us about having a joyful calling is to accept people where they are.
The second thing Paul teaches us is to empathize with others. We have heard of the phrase that we really don’t know another person until we walk a mile in their shoes. The comedian, Steve Martin offers this tongue in check twist on this popular phrase that we don’t want to follow…
“Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have his shoes.”
So let’s stick with the original quote and walk a mile in their shoes because that is what will help us to empathize with others. It’s easy to be critical of others when we don’t take the time to appreciate their unique experiences and what makes them who they are. Better yet, instead of just walking a mile in someone’s shoes, we probably should walk two miles or maybe three to really get to a point in knowing that person.
In our I Corinthians passage, Paul says that to the Jews, he became a Jew and to those who were under the law, he became as one under the law. Even though Paul was a Jew himself, he had this incredible ability to empathize with his own people as well as with those who were outside of the Jewish faith. He was able to say this because he actually was walking several miles with his own people.
Having genuine empathy for others is how we experience joy in our faith.
And this third way that Paul was able to live out a joyful calling was through his servant leadership. Paul even uses the language of being willing to be a slave to all. He uses this heavy language just to show that God has called us to be humble servants.
He also writes, “To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak.”
I think this sense of being a humble servant to others is needed more than ever in the church today because sadly, Christians are too often known for being judgmental, self-righteous, and narrow-minded. But when we remember that we are simply servants, we are more open to sharing the good news of our faith in a very genuine way.
A joyful calling is one that sees people for who they are, not who we think they should be, we empathize with others, and we remember that we are simply here to serve others. No other agenda, but to treat people with respect and share the good news of our faith with the people around us.
When these three aspects of our faith are present, it allows us to live out our calling joyfully and share our faith freely with others.
Our calling in being followers of Jesus is meant to be a joyful calling. It’s a joy to share the good news of our faith with others especially when we do so by seeing others as they are, showing empathy, and having the heart of a servant.
I know that not all of ministry is fun and we do face moments of sorrow and challenge along the way. But the good news that we have received from God and in turn share with others makes all the difference in the world.
Our faith is a joyful calling even during those more challenging and difficult times in living out our faith. And this is why Paul can say in the last verse of our scripture reading, “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”
No comments:
Post a Comment