Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from October 23, 2004

“Keeping the Faith”

Rev. Patricia L. Liberty

Scriptures:

Joel 2:23-32

Psalm 65

Luke 18:9-14

II Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

A church was looking for a new pastor.  In the box for the search committee was this letter:

“I understand your church is looking for a pastor.  I should like to submit my application.  I am generally considered to be a good preacher.  I have been a leader in most of the places I have served.  I have also found time to do some writing on the side.  I am over fifty years of age (no children), and while my health is not the best,  I still manage to get enough work done to please my congregation. 

As for a reference, I am somewhat handicapped.  I have never served in any place more than three years, and the churches where I have preached have generally been pretty small, even though they were located in rather large cities.  Some places I had to leave because my ministry caused riots and disturbances.  When I stayed, I did not get along too well with other religious leaders in town, which may influence the kind of references these places will send you.  I have also been threatened several times and been physically attacked.  I have gone to jail three or four times for expressing my thoughts.  You will need to know that there are some men who follow me around undermining my work. 

Still, I feel sure I can bring vitality to your church.  If you can use me, I should be pleased to be considered.   I would appreciate hearing your reply soon, as I am currently under house arrest and believe my release could be secured more easily if I could assure the authorities that I have a job.”

The committee was dismayed that anyone would think that their church would desire such a minister.  A trouble-making, absent-minded, ex-jailbird could not possibly be an effective pastor let alone be accepted by the community.  “What was his name?”  they asked.  The chair of the committee said,  “The letter is simply signed, ‘Paul’”.

It would be a stretch for most search committees today to consider Paul for a leadership position.  He was a complicated, enigmatic kind of character who made enemies just about everywhere he went.  His beginnings with Christianity were less than stellar.  You may remember Paul spent much of his early life ratting out Christians to the authorities.  It wasn’t until God knocked him for a loop and finally got his attention that he changed his tune and became one of Jesus’ biggest fans.

Still, it wasn’t easy for Paul … convincing people he really had changed his tune was a tough sell for a while, but, eventually, Paul’s authentic faith and true conversion became apparent to the early church.

Now, as he nears the end of his life, he is reflecting on his life and giving some final words of advice to his young friend Timothy.  And he says:  “I have fought the good fight.  I don’t know about you, but it’s not an image of Christianity that immediately inspires.  Anyone who’s been in the midst of church fight, or any other kind of fight for that matter, knows that it’s not the kind of thing that most people seek out for sport.” 

But Paul is careful to specify, the good fight, not just any fight, but the good fight.  Here’s the difference:  A garden-variety fight is about us being right; the good fight is about God being right.  So much of what we fight about is of little consequence, if any at all.

One of the churches in my past had a perennial fight about the communion cloth.  It was linen with about a zillion threads per square inch and needed a steamroller to get the wrinkles out. 

Each month at the Deacons’ meeting the proper way to get the wrinkles out was discussed and occasionally cussed.  Pages of instructions were generated for those who tended the cloth, complete with competing strategies.  “Iron it when it is dry.”  “Iron it when it is damp.”  “Use spray starch.”  “Use liquid starch.”  I’m not making this up. They about flipped when I asked if had ever occurred to them that perhaps God really didn’t care about the communion cloth.  Apparently it had not.

Churches, couples, companies, friends, nations—wherever people come together there are power struggles, arguments and fights.  The good fight is what matters at the end of the day or the end of our days.  The good fight is about the right people getting mad at the right stuff at the right time for the right reason. 

Have we spent too much time bowing at the wrong altars?  Have we stuck our necks out for the poor, the lost and the lonely?  Have we planted ourselves as an outpost of God’s realm?  Have we fought the good fight and not just any fight going by?

Paul joins the notion of fighting the good fight with finishing the race—another metaphor of faithfulness.  I find it comforting that Paul didn’t say he won the race, but rather that he finished it.  It’s a different image than the one valued by our culture where being first and winning is all-important

Sometimes just finishing is enough.

Consider this:  Can you name the five wealthiest people in the world?  How about the last five Heisman trophy winners?  The last five winners of the Miss America contest?  Name ten people who have won the Nobel Prize or the Pulitzer prize.  Name the last five winners of the Academy Award for best Actor or Actress.  How about the last decade of World Series winners?

Unless you are a sports, movie or trivia buff, you probably don’t know many of the ones our society calls winners.

Try this instead.  List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.  Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.  Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.  Think of a few people who make you feel appreciated.  Name five people you enjoy spending time with.

It’s not about coming in first, but about being faithful in big stuff like fights for goodness and truth and the small stuff like caring for one another. 

Fred Craddock, in an address to church leaders, caught the practical implications of it all when he said, “To give my life for Christ appears glorious, to pour myself out for others, to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom—I’ll do it.  I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.  We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1000.00 bill and laying it on the table.  Here’s my life, Lord.  I’m giving it all.”

But the reality for most of us is that God sends us to the bank and has us cash in the thousand dollars for quarters.  We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there.  Listening to the neighbor’s kid’s troubles instead of saying, “Get lost, kid.“  Going to a committee meeting when you’d rather stay home.  Giving a cup of water to an old man in a nursing home. 

Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious.  It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time.

So, in our fifty cent faithfulness we discover the dailyness of living … pouring ourselves out not as a gusher, but as a steady stream; not winning the race but finishing in the fullness of time; not taking the bait for every fight so we can be right, but parceling out our passion for the sake of something larger than ourselves.  And by God’s grace and design it is enough.

Amen.