Sermons

The Rest of Your Life

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  June 10, 2003                                           Acts 1:12-26  

The 215th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) concluded its meeting in Denver yesterday afternoon. Pundits are not yet sure what to make of this assembly. Ralph Carter and I will present a review of the assembly next Sunday following the 10:30 a.m. worship service. I wanted to provide a brief highlight here, however.

The first act any assembly takes is to elect its moderator, and this year’s election bordered on the historic. The Rev. Susan Andrews, pastor of the Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, was elected the moderator on the second ballot. A third generation Presbyterian minister, Susan is the first woman parish minister to hold this office.

Given several other choices, the commissioners chose to take a middle ground. Rather than accepting or rejecting a controversial report on families, the assembly referred it to a committee for further review. Rather than tightening or loosening our perspective on abortion and choice, the assembly maintained its current guidelines. Rather than clamping down, as requested, on compliance issues regarding our position or ordination and human sexuality, the assembly decided to issue a gentle pastoral letter.

And – in a decision that leaves our current prohibitive standards in place, the assembly voted to refer the entire matter of ordination practices to the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the church, whose agenda includes these and other matters, rather than call for a presbytery vote this year. This decision left many disappointed, for a variety of reasons. We will discuss this and other things much more fully next Sunday.

For many, the highlight of any General Assembly is worship, and this year was no exception. Worship on the opening Sunday is a mega-affair. This year’s welcomed more than 8000 people. It featured wonderful music, including amplified bagpipes (somewhat of a redundancy), the commissioning of mission personnel and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper for those thousands upon thousands, which makes what we will do this morning seem like a cakewalk.

Amidst the grandness of General Assembly worship, there are smaller, more personal moments. One includes a written report that fills the last several pages of the assembly worship bulletin. It is called the “necrology,” a listing of Presbyterian ministers who died over the past year. It is always a poignant thing to read that list, to read names that you know, people you’ve heard of, some whose books you had read, whose ministry, preaching, you had admired from afar. One day my father’s name will be on that list, and my name, I suppose.

This year, in a little “remembering the saints” ritual, I marked the names of those ministers I had known personally. There were a dozen or so. I said a little silent prayer of gratitude in the middle of it all, for their commitment and calling.

Later, after the service as we thousands of happy Presbyterians poured out into the bright Denver sun, I saw an old Chicago friend. The timing was poignant as well. One of the names on that necrology was her husband’s, who had died a few months before, tragically, much too soon. We smiled a little bit, got caught up, shed a tear, and then each of us moved on quickly to the business of the church.

We live in the post-Easter church, you and I, which has been given the momentum of 2000 years to figure out some things, even though we don’t always figure them out very well. The earliest church had no such luxury. They were presented with a challenge, in part because they thought that Jesus would return immediately. He did, as we will remember, and then he ascended to heaven, an event that the more liturgical of us remembered this past Thursday.

When Jesus ascended, the “now what?” church really had a “now what?” issue on its hands. It figured out what to do soon enough. Pentecost would happen. The Spirit would give energy and purpose and vision and mission. The question of “what” to do – share God’s love, proclaim the good news of Jesus – was clear. The “who” and “how” questions were a little less clear.

Following the resurrection and ascension, the disciples continued to provide leadership for this burgeoning faith community. And while it is not a clear-cut argument for anything, we are told that women were an integral part of the community.

And yet a cloud hung over them. Judas the betrayer. His death is reported in several ways, including rather gruesomely in the verses from Acts that the lectionary chooses to exclude. What to do about leadership succession? Who would provide leadership to this fledgling group, with no position description, no obvious income stream, a questionable benefit package, no clear advancement opportunities. Who?

The eleven disciples’ assumption still feels quaint to us, and somewhat foreign. They needed a twelfth. The assumption was that God had someone in mind. The field was narrowed to two – Joseph and Matthias. And then prayer was offered. And dice were cast. And Matthias was chosen.

It is an extraordinary story on so many levels. But here’s the bottom line. God chooses us; and God gives us gifts to do what God chooses us to do. It is a key contribution of our little corner of Christianity – Reformed and Protestant – to the bigger world. Vocation, we have sometimes called it, calling, the priesthood of all believers. The belief that God calls each of us, all of us, and gives us gifts to do God’s work.

And further, that most of that work falls well beyond the friendly confines of the church, in the complex give and take of culture, society, the real world. God is a sovereign God, a “seven day a week, every corner of the world” God. That means that God has work for us to do seven days a week, in every corner of the world.

Sometimes it is the work for which we get paid. Sometimes we get paid in order to do the work that we are truly called to do. It is a recent aberration to connect profession with vocation, our jobs with our worth. We are called to be so much more than what might or might not produce a paycheck.

Work is important, mind you. We are called to glorify God in all that we do – factory, courtroom, classroom, garbage truck. In every moment of every day we are given opportunities to reflect God’s love. What we need to know, and what we need to live into, what we need to discern each new day, is what God is calling us to do.

We pray and roll the dice, sure and confident that God has something in store for us. Perhaps it is work in the church. Perhaps not.

We would be mistaken to read the Acts story and think that the only calling, or most certainly the highest calling, is to the ministry, unless the ministry is defined as what we all do together. John Calvin, you might remember, asserted that public service was the highest calling. Ministers fall somewhere well down the list, a rather humbling notion for some of us.

We Calvinists have opposed gambling for several reasons. One is moral – what bad behaviors can lead us into. That’s why we have opposed legalized gambling in so many places, because it draws people in to an ever-downward spiraling lifestyle, not to mention building economies on somewhat shaky financial propositions. But that’s another conversation.

Another reason to oppose gambling is theological – that we have not trusted anything that places its faith in chance or fate or luck. God is in charge, not a roll of the dice or a pull of a lever.

But this roll of the dice is different. God is in charge, and God has a plan, and we are at our best when we are in a posture of discernment about the vision God has in store for us. Prayer. Openness. And then once we discern, we move forward with confidence and hope and purpose.

Sometimes such discernment will impact our professional choices, perhaps even a mid-career course change in a world where nobody retires from the career from which they began. Perhaps it will be a dramatic decision about how we spend our time, or our money even. Perhaps it will be a choice we make in retirement. Perhaps a need will present itself in the church, and we will respond out of curiosity, and the learnings and connections and experiences will be wonderful, and will bear fruit in surprising and unexpected ways.

Perhaps you read of the story of Diane Geppi-Aikens. She is the coach of the women’s lacrosse team at Loyola University of Maryland. She coaches from a wheelchair, because at the age of 40 she has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. It is a tragic story, except for the fact that it is not. “Seeing my players re-energizes me,” she writes. “The ups and downs of my illness have made for some emotional team meetings…my left side is paralyzed and my face is swollen from steroids. But I have one good arm and one good leg, and my mouth still works.”

She continues: “My team has given me enormous love and respect – I must be the only coach whose players kiss her on the cheek every day. In return, I’ve been candid about my illness…as I tell my players, you can find inspiration no matter what you’re up against.” (Sports Illustrated, April 28, 2003)

One might think that the roll of the dice for Diane Geppi-Aikens came up “lacrosse coach” or “brain tumor,” but I would argue that it came up something much more interesting than that. A witness to perseverance, the human spirit, what she calls “thanking God for one more day with the people I love.” That she is a lacrosse coach, and an accomplished one, seems to me to be secondary to the story and to the witness she offers.

That is the kind of disciples we are called to be, all of us, leaders and neighbors and citizens and saints, and ministers, all of us ministers. Listen. Discern. Do so in community. Take action. Work, and play, as if God has invited you to do so, because most surely God has. So that when the question of “what will we do with the rest of your life” comes up, we will have an answer that will make the world a better place, and bring joy to the heart of God. Amen.