Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
The Worldwide Missions of Grace Lutheran Church
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ! Amen. In today's Gospel, Jesus instructs His entire Church on
earth to "pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into
His harvest."
Dear Christian friends,
The topic of missions is a wonderful way for us Christians to beat
one another up. It is not terribly difficult for any Christian to feel bad
about how little he or she does to promote or support the preaching of the
Gospel to the world. Quite possibly you feel a certain degree of guilt
yourself, not only because of the many opportunities you failed to take in
speaking God's Good News about Jesus (Acts 8:34) to others, but also
because of your lack of involvement or lack of giving to specific missions
endeavors. This feeling of guilt-that you are not doing enough-provides a
great opportunity for others to exploit you or manipulate you in their
effort to get you to do more (or at least, to get more money out of you).
Some church bureaucrats, for example, would visit our dear little Grace
Lutheran Church here in Versailles and have some very unbecoming things to
say about us.
· Looking at our annual budget and seeing how much we give to
missions, many people would conclude that we are not very "mission-minded."
· Looking at our falling worship attendance-which seems to get
smaller with each year that I fill this pulpit-these people would conclude
that ours is a dying congregation. (Maybe they are right.)
· Looking at our liturgical worship with its so-called formalities
and looking at our deliberate communion practice, these same people would
say that we do not even seem interested in having more people from our
community join us, much less aiding the proclamation of the Gospel to the
world.
Based on these and other possible observations, some church bureaucrats
would classify Grace Lutheran Church as what they call a "maintenance"
congregation, as opposed to a "mission" congregation. That is to say, we
would be placed into a general category of congregations that are not
terribly concerned with anything but our status quo. We would be classified
as a congregation that really just wants to exist and not be bothered by
reaching out to others. We would be told that we have a "bunker" mentality
or a "let's just survive" mentality, rather than having a generous, outward
looking, mission-minded and loving attitude toward those who are not yet
Christian.
I hate this false distinction between "missions" congregation and
"maintenance" congregations. This distinction is derogatory and it is
disastrous. I want very much to protect you from those who would beat you up
or exploit you by classifying you as a "maintenance" congregation, as if you
were second-class, backward congregation because of its supposed failures in
doing missions. (And I pity the guy who ever comes here talking that way.)
Do we fail to give as much as we could give-either individually or as a
congregation? You and I both know it is true. Is there a certain degree of
laziness or hard-heartedness among us that helps prevent some of our members
from being regular in their attendance? Undeniably so. Have our numbers
slipped over the years? The statistics do not lie.
Yet far be it from us to ever think of ourselves as failing in missions. If
we fall into the Satanic trap of thinking that we are not doiing missions,
that would be roughly equivalent to saying that God's miraculous Word
produces no miracles in our midst; that His Word of forgiveness and faith
and life is not being proclaimed in our midst; that we have succeeded in
doing the impossible by shutting God's Word up in our hearts and in our
bones (Jeremiah 20:9) and not letting it out.
Jesus tells us in today's Gospel, "pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest
to send our workers into His harvest." Dear Christian friends, you pray this
prayer each and every time you pray the Lord's Prayer! God your heavenly
Father has been answering that prayer for you, and He has done so by using
you to send out "laborers into His harvest."
· St. Paul commended the Romans, thanking God that their faith was
"proclaimed in all the world" (Romans 1:8) and I thank my God for you on the
same grounds. Your faith-the faith of the saints at Grace Lutheran Church in
Versailles, MO-is reported throughout the world.
· St. Paul rejoiced in his dear Thessalonians because their faith in
God "has gone forth everywhere" (1 Thessalonians 1:8), and for the same
reason I rejoice in you. Your faith has likewise "gone forth everywhere,"
though in a way most people could not detect with their eyes.
· St. Paul praised God for "the saints in Christ. at Philippi"
(Philippians 1:1) because of their "partnership in the Gospel from the first
day until now" (Philippians 1:5). In the same way I praise God for the
saints in Christ at Versailles, because they-like Paul's Philippians-have
partnered with me in the proclamation of the Gospel "from the first day
until now."
Think of the many ways that you, my dear saints, have played a great role in
proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ both to our community and to our
world:
· You do not have to do this, but since the day of my arrival here,
you have patiently and lovingly allowed me to spend huge chunks of time in
writing for GOOD NEWS, a journal that is now in seventeen languages and
distributed in 85 countries throughout the world. This is not my personal
mission work, but GOOD NEWS has your involvement in missions as well as
mine. You are my partners because you give up many hours of my time that are
rightfully yours. (Many congregations would not give so generously!)
· As you know, I now travel overseas on a nearly annual basis. (Today
I am leaving for Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia.) This, too, is your mission
as well as mine. You do not have to do this, but not only do you allow my
absence from this pulpit, not only have you given funding for some of my
travels, but you also continue to provide for me and for my family while I
am away. And you do this every year. As with the Romans, so also with you:
YOUR faith is "proclaimed in all the world" (Romans 1:8). On the eve of my
departure from the Sudan in July 2005, the president of the Lutheran Church
in Sudan declared to his congregation, "We must thank God for this man's
family and for this man's congregation. They have sent him to us." (Rest
assured, this president is not the only person who has spoken this way about
you.)
· Even more importantly than these things, you also "pray earnestly
to the Lord of the harvest to send our workers into His harvest." As I said
earlier, you do this each time you pray the Lord's Prayer: "Thy Kingdom
come; Thy will be done." Your heavenly Father hears this prayer that you
pray, and according to today's Gospel, your Father graciously sends out
workers into His harvest.
· Beyond this, you receive the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood
every Sunday, and this, too, is part of your role in missions. This is true
because St. Paul declared, "As often as you eat this bread and drink the
cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26).
That is to say, the Lord's Supper is your pulpit, from which you preach and
proclaim the rich forgiveness of sins that has come into the world through
the death of your Lord Jesus Christ.
What does all your involvement in missions mean? Does it mean that either
you or I have something about which we can boast! Not at all! But what does
it mean?
1. First, it means that God is doing His miraculous work, not
only for us, but also through us. As Jesus said to His disciples in today's
Gospel, He also says to you, "It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of
your Father speaking through you."
2. It also means that you are truly and undeniably connected to
the Living Christ, your True Vine, through God's adoptive act of your
Baptism. Jesus says that no one can produce good works and good fruit except
through Him (John 15:5). Here you are, doing the good works of missions.
This can only mean that Christ your risen Lord is indeed living within you
and among you. And this is God's continuing, never-ending promise to each of
you: "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day
of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).
Looking at our annual budget and seeing how much we give to missions, many
people would say that we are not "mission-minded." Looking at our falling
worship attendance-which seems to get smaller with each year that I fill
this pulpit-these people would conclude that ours is a dying congregation.
Looking at our liturgical worship and our deliberate communion practice,
these same people would say that we are not even seem interested in having
more people from our community join us, much less aiding the proclamation of
the Gospel to the world.
Let the would-be manipulators say what they want! You shall not be put to
shame! Christ your Lord fully and completely covers and forgives all your
sins-including your sins of missions. Christ your Lord is also doing a great
and mighty work in you and through you-a work that not many can see with the
eye. You are the children of God, whose lives and whose works are declared
holy by your Baptism. Each of you can, with a good conscience and with an
unblinking eye, confess before God and the world that you yourselves are
labors in the heavenly Father's harvest. You are faithful laborers because
God Himself has made you such.
___________________________________________________________________________
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