June 19, 2010

• In God’s Service

  Why are we here?  We are here to serve God with our worship, worship service.  The word worship literally means the work of the people.  Worship is not a passive form of entertainment, you are not here to observe worship, to critique the execution of worship, or to sit back and wait to see if you get anything of value out of worship.  You are here to work and serve and fully participate in worship.  In The Phoenix Affirmations, the fourth affirmation is about worship and it includes an assertion to the effect that pews should come equipped with airbags and seat belts to protect us from impact of our encounter with the Divine during the worship service.  Too often we come to worship with too low expectations and if we encounter something too high energy or too life changing we get frightened.  We become like the people of Gerasenes, we want the Spirit to move on, too much happening too fast, we are pushed outside our comfort zone.  It is easier for us to deal with one person acting crazy than to deal with letting God come and radically change our world and our lives.  If we truly enter into God’s service, our lives are no longer our own.  We belong to  God to be used as God desires.

   

  Being in God’s service is not like being in military service or civil service.  God’s service does not have standard work hours, vacation days, or a retirement plan.  Serving God is a twenty four hour a day, seven days a week proposition.  Elijah felt he had done enough in God’s service.  He wanted to just be done with it.  How often I have been there, how often I have told anybody who will listen how difficult being a pastor is, or how hard it is to keep going to new places to work with congregations on hard issues.  I want to just go to my home, my broom tree and lay down and rest.  Sometimes I feel like Elijah that I am all alone that all have lost sight of what it means to be child of God.  I will have my own pity party.  And, just like Elijah, God will say rest, eat, and we will talk a little later.  I have to be willing to listen for God, not let myself be distracted by the voice of the world that blow by me like a hurricane, or by the trembling voice of fear that shakes me like an earthquake, or the burning voice of my own desires but instead I listen for the still voice of God that speaks to me to reassure me that I am not alone, to tell me that I have the strength I need for the journey God is sending me on, and to trust God will give me the tools I need to do the work God has asked me to do.  Being in God’s service is not about what we bring that God needs.  It is about being willing to be used by God the way God sees fit.

   

  Some of us have been told we are not fit for or have limited potential in God’s service.  We have been told God can’t use women as preachers, God doesn’t call same gender loving people into ministry, or God doesn’t have a place for gender fluid persons in God’s service.  We have been told we aren’t the right type of person for God to use.  But God tells us we are just fine in God’s eyes.  God does not see a woman or a man, young or old, gay or straight, intellectually challenged or genius, citizen or alien, poor or rich, God sees a soul worthy to be in God’s service.  Humans get all caught up in appearances, labels, and rules while God cares only about what is inside of us.  It is a lot easier for us if we live by rules, we don’t have to think what is the right thing to do, we just cite the rule.  We don’t have to think about who a person is, we just put them in a box based on the labels we give them.  As Paul tells us, we were given rules to help us live until we were able to have a direct relationship with God.  Before we recognize God’s still small voice, we need some standards to guide us toward God.  But, when we mature and we can hear God’s gentle, quiet whisper, we need to drop the labels and the rules and learn to serve God in faith.  Part of what frightened the people of Garesenes and the religious leaders was that Jesus was doing things they had never seen before, he was doing things the rules said shouldn’t happen, he was healing on the Sabbath, he was eating without ritual cleansing, he was hanging out with people at the margins of society, and he was forgiving sins.  As I read in a Facebook conversation this week, living in God’s service sometimes means we don’t tie a knot at the end of our rope and hang on, sometimes it means we let go of the rope.  Living in God’s service not only means we not only live only in the present and trust the future to God, it means we are ok with not having any promises about what the future will bring other than the promise that God is in that future.  There is another big difference being in God’s service has from military or civil service, being in God’s service doesn’t end when this mortal life ends.  You’re God’s service now.  Amen.

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