Geneva Presbyterian Church

Weekly Sermon

October 22, 2000 - "Going My Way?"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church; October 22, 2000

Mark 10:35-45

35) James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 36) And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" 37) And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38) But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" 39) They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40) but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." 41) When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42) So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43) But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44) and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45) For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." Prayer: Eternal God, you speak to us with clarity, but sometimes it is hard for us to hear your words. Bless us as we pause now that each of us would hear a word so moving, so uniquely tuned to our souls, so powerful that we might leave this time of worship ready to service you completely. Amen. If you were going to start a world religion, would you record this story, which clearly shows how clueless the disciples were? Would you record the whole tenth chapter of Mark, which we have been covering week after week as the disciples make mistake after mistake? I am fascinated by the early believers who made a point of remembering the most embarrassing stories about themselves. There is something amazing about it. And there is also something graceful about it. These stories of misguided disciples show us that no matter how far off the road we are there is still hope for us. On the way to Jerusalem when James and John ask Jesus to seat them at the head table it is not the final word on their faith. When James and John flee into the night as Jesus is betrayed in the garden of Gethsemane it is not the final word on their faith. The final word on their faith is how they were redeemed by the risen Christ. James was martyred and we know that John suffered, too, but they were faithful to the grave. The message for us is that with all our weaknesses and foibles, there is still hope for us. We may take some detours, but we are really all going the same way. I see myself in James and John. They approach Jesus with the words, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." I would hazard a guess that I pray a variation on that statement a hundred times a day. I want Jesus to do for me whatever I ask of him. I pray a lot and most of those prayers are supplications. When I'm not asking for something, I am busy earning a front seat in heaven by attending so many meetings. Then something happens, and I realize how hollow all my needy prayers are and how ridiculous it is to be so busy that I don't see the needs in the faces all around me. A couple of weeks ago, I was doing my usual running around approach to life. It was a Tuesday evening which means that my husband John was in class working to get certified as a high school chemistry teacher. I had a seven o'clock meeting of the nursery school board. I left the church at 6 o'clock. I had a simple plan: pick up Johnny, take him for a fast food meal at McDonald's, run to the grocery store (the lack of vegetables in our house was the reason we were eating fast food), take Johnny to the Moloznik home where Lindsey and Jake would baby-sit him, and get to the meeting. That is what I had planned from 6 until 7 o'clock. By quarter to seven, Johnny and I were next in line for a cashier at Giant. That is when Johnny announced that he had to go to the bathroom. Boy, was I irritated! By the time we returned to the check-out area, all the cashiers had long lines. The line I picked was the slowest. I looked up and recognized the nice cashier who always lets you know about the specials you missed and patiently waits while you run get the cheaper products. Finally at seven o'clock we reached her. She asked the woman behind us to put up the sign that she was closing. As she rung up our groceries, she said that she was beat and was so glad that she was getting off. I couldn't resist complaining that my work day was far from over; I had a meeting at seven o'clock. She asked the obvious question, "What do you do?" When I told her I was a minister, tears welled up in her eyes. She told me her mother had died unexpectedly of a heart attack two weeks before. She was with her mother when she died. She said she was having a really hard time and her father was, too. She asked me to pray for her. I quickly checked the name on her badge, "Christine." I have been praying for her and her father since then. I had been rushing full speed ahead, "doing the work of the Lord." I almost missed the real work of the Lord. Christine made me stop and realize that I was as misguided as James and John. I was looking for a seat of glory and that is a very different thing from seeking the kingdom of God. The model of faith that Jesus demonstrates is the suffering servant. The invitation to join in the glory of God is based not on status but on service. Today is dedication Sunday when we dedicate our pledges, but we are called on this day to dedicate more than our money. We are called to dedicate ourselves to God. 1. We are called to dedicate all of ourselves, including all our days, not just our Sundays. 2. We are called to dedicate all of our senses, that is to see with the eyes, hear with the ears, and feel with the heart of God. 3. We are called to dedicate all of our minds, to use our problem solving skills to make this a better world. There is an old story told about Sam Houston. It seems that he lived a rather rambunctious life, but eventually he decided to be baptized in a river by a Baptist preacher. The preacher was about to immerse Houston in the water, but then the preacher encouraged him to go to shore and empty his pockets. As he was about to reach the shore, he abruptly turned around, came back to the preacher and asked, "What's going to happen to me when I'm baptized?' The preacher replied, "All of your sins will go into the water, and they will be washed away forever." Houston replied, "Oh God, I pray for the people down stream." Then he indicated to the preacher that he wanted to be baptized with his wallet in his pocket. He said, "If I'm going to be baptized and give my life to God, I want my wallet baptized, too!" In a way today we have baptized our wallets by dedicating our pledges. It is hard to make a promise to give a good portion of what we have to the church. It is also hard to dedicate all of ourselves not just our wallets to the church. When the cashier Christine at Giant stopped me in my tracks, she reminded me that dedicating myself to the Lord's work meant being open to the people who might seem unimportant. What James and John wanted was to be recognized as important people. We want that, too, but that is not where faith in Jesus leads. Faith in Jesus leads to servanthood. Faith in Jesus means taking the time to really see the people around us, our neighbors and our friends, and the strangers, too. Faith in Jesus means taking the time to listen and really hear the needs. Next Sunday, we will take time during the worship service to complete the revisioning survey. You might ask what a survey has to do with worship. And I would tell you that this survey has everything to do with worship, because this survey is the first step we take together to discern where God is calling us as his church. Worship and service go together, and the revisioning survey is meant to help us know how to worship and how to serve God. I read a story not long ago about a man who came from the Caribbean Islands. His parents were hard-working, honorable people who survived by raising tomatoes, but when the tariff laws were changing, his father lost his US market for the tomatoes. The family struggled to make ends meet and failed. With no education and no future, the young man came to New York looking for work. He could hardly read, but he made out an advertisement in the newspaper for actors. He had been looking for a dishwasher job, but this ad caught his eye. He went to the audition, but when they told him to read for the part, he could hardly sound out the words. As they threw him out, the director said, "Get yourself a job as a dishwasher or something." The young man did get a job as a dishwasher, but he spent his breaks trying to learn to read by sounding out the words. At the restaurant, there was an old Jewish waiter, who noticed the young man's efforts and became a tutor. Each night they sat in the same booth and the waiter taught the young man to read. When he had learned to read, the young man went back to the theatre that had thrown him out, and landed a part. That young man was Sydney Poitier. In his autobiography, he doesn't share the name of the waiter who taught him to read, but I think that man-a Jewish waiter-serves as a wonderful illustration of what it means to dedicate all your senses to God. He could have been blind and deaf to a young man struggling to learn to read, but he wasn't. He was paying attention and we must, too. We need all our senses attuned to finding and following the will of God. Finding the will of God takes our minds, too. We are all wonderfully trained problem solvers. Our minds are beautifully prepared to find answers to today's challenges. We need to dedicate our minds to God. We need to harness our minds to thinking as God thinks, solving the problems that hurt God's heart. I don't get to watch very much television, so I seldom know about the commercials that are running, but some time ago my sister Jean told me about one. The announcer said: "We brought together the best minds in the world, the most brilliant thinkers, the most creative artists, the true geniuses of our time. Did we ask them to work on solving world hunger? No. Did we ask them to work on ending violence and war? No. Did we ask them to find ways to shelter the homeless? No. We wanted the best minds in the world to work on a really big challenge: [big pause] VIDEO GAMES!!! What in the world is wrong with us that we would be devoting brilliance to video games and not using our minds to work on ending world hunger, violence, and homelessness? We need to dedicate our minds to serving not games. We are talented, trained problem solvers. We need to use our minds in the service of our Lord. Marj Carpenter is an institution in the Presbyterian Church USA. She has devoted her life to Presbyterian mission work on every continent. She is also a character. In her book, To the Ends of the Earth: Mission Stories from Around the World, she tells about her adventures. There is nothing pious or self-righteous about her and she tells a good story. Here is one about the things that can happen if we put our minds to God work: "One time when I was in Guatemala, I went along with a driver, two missionaries, and a staff person up a very difficult mountain and through a stream where it looked like we were going to wash away. We finally got to an area where there was a Presbyterian church… "The session of the church apparently knew we were coming. They were standing outside of that dirt-floor church, which had no electricity and no glass in the windows. The people had on their best clothes. Three of the men had on rubber boots…and the rest were barefoot. As soon as we got out of the jeep, they began to thank us. And they thanked us and thanked us. "I thought they were thanking us for coming, but then they brought three little sturdy children out and began to thank us for those children. I was trying to figure out what was going on, and it finally dawned on me. They were thanking us for ten goats that we had provided through a One Great Hour of Sharing offering, and the milk from those goats had saved those particular children. "They took us down the road to see their corn crop because we had given them seed corn. I thought it was pitiful corn, but it did have small ears and they were making tortillas from that corn. So actually, we had given them milk and bread. They thanked us, and thanked us, and thanked us until I was embarrassed to be thanked so profusely for those ten lousy goats." [Marj Carpenter, To the Ends of the Earth: Mission Stories from Around the World, (Louisville: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 1995), p. 92-93] When we dedicate our minds to serving the Lord, the little things we do become great for the Lord showers blessings on our small efforts and increases their value many fold. As I was preparing this sermon, I thought about Geneva. I thought about our identity and what we devote to the Lord. I sat down with the list of the active members on our rolls. There are 148 members. Now some people are retired and traveling; some people have been sick for a while; some are high school and college students; and there are some people who have moved or are not attending the church. But when I looked at the people who were left on the list, the people who could be realistically expected to be giving of their time and energy to the church, I found that an astounding 88% were involved in service of some kind through Geneva. That is an incredible number, 88%, a wonderful number. I realize that everyone gathered here is in that 88% and you probably don't need to hear again the call to be dedicated to God's work, but maybe it is good to hear the word anyway. Maybe hearing this sermon can be an affirmation of the work we are already doing and a call to go further. Next week we will take a step forward in discerning God's call for us as we complete the ReVisioning survey. The Lord has a vision for us to take us into this new century with energy and dedication! Amen.