2011-2-13 Living and Sharing Jesus
Eric Lemonholm
February 13, 2011
Epiphany 6A
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
“For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Corinthians 3:9
What a journey this congregation has been through in the past year and a half!
What a journey has led me to this pulpit today!
What a journey has led my family to this community!
Two weeks ago today was our last Sunday at Grace Lutheran Church in Detroit Lakes, MN.
Two days later, we moved into our new neighborhood in Rockford.
Last Sunday, we worshiped with you here at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd as guests, and we were warmly welcomed.
I am humbled and honored by your call to be the pastor of this congregation, starting on the 10th anniversary of my ordination as pastor.
And, what a great Sunday to start!
The word from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth is a word for us today.
As we’ve seen in previous weeks, the church in Corinth was a divided and diverse congregation.
Corinth was a culturally, ethnically, and religious diverse metropolis of the Roman Empire.
The members of the church had different social and economic stations, different ethnic backgrounds, different political and religious beliefs, different ethical perspectives, different personalities, from different neighborhoods.
Different factions followed different leaders – Apollos, Peter, Paul – and argued with one another.
Does that sound familiar?
Does that sound like the church today?
If there is one thing we can count on in the future, it is that Rockford will look more like Corinth, rather than less.
Rockford will continue to grow in diversity.
This neighborhood will continue to diversify.
The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd will also grow more and more diverse ethnically, culturally, politically – even generationally, with all age groups represented.
How we accept and even celebrate those growing diversities will make all the difference in the health and growth of our church community.
Our challenge, our opportunity is to join together as the body of Christ in this place and time for the sake of our mission, “Living and Sharing Jesus.”
In the word from 1 Cor. 3 today, Paul asks,
“5What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.8The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.9For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
I could also ask: “What then is Pastor Eric?”
Even the title pastor is problematic.
Pastor means shepherd.
In truth, there is only one shepherd in the church: the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Christ.
We are all sheep who follow our Good Shepherd Jesus.
We are all members of the one body of Christ.
We are all called to follow Jesus, to be and to grow as disciples of Christ.
So, when I am called a pastor, I am conscious that it is a broken symbol: I am a pastor insofar as I lead the congregation as a servant, imperfectly modeled on the perfect servant leadership of Christ.
Each one of you can shepherd one another, and me too, at times.
Each of us can be, in Luther’s terms, “little Christs” to one another.
Each of us is called to some level of servant leadership in Jesus’ church.
I love the image that Paul uses here in this passage:
- Paul had planted the Christian message in Corinth like a garden;
- Apollos had watered the garden with the good news;
- but God’s Holy Spirit was like the sun, shining on the garden as the source of life and growth.
So maybe you should call me Gardener Eric instead of Pastor Eric– or better yet, Sprinkler Eric!
Of course, Sprinkler is still an imperfect title, since I am also planted in the same garden, and I grow from the same light of the Son and the same watering of the Word.
We water one another with the Word of the Gospel; we reflect the light of the Son to one another.
Paul writes, “For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
We have a common purpose. Each of us, in fact, is a servant of God; working together, we fulfill God’s mission for us.
Good Shepherd’s mission is clear and simple: “Living and Sharing Jesus.”
And yet, it takes a lifetime and more to discover the ways God calls us to live Jesus together and to share Jesus with our neighbors.
As I understand it, living Jesus has to do with our spiritual lives: how we grow closer to God through prayer, reading and studying Scripture, and worship.
Sharing Jesus has to do with how we work love and justice and peace for the sake of our neighbors.
Living Jesus has more of an inward focus, while sharing Jesus has more of an outward focus; although in practice, they are interconnected.
You cannot have one without the other: you cannot live Jesus without sharing Jesus, and you cannot share Jesus if you are not living Jesus.
In his little book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The goal of all Christian community is to encounter one another as bringers of the message of salvation.”[i]
As a Christian community, our goal is not to be perfect.
Our goal is not to be holier than our neighbors.
Our goal is not to have a monopoly on the truth.
Our goal is not to be always happy and warm and cozy and have no problems and no differences and no conflicts or challenges.
Rather, our goal as a Christian community is to encounter one another as bringers of God’s message of salvation, and to pass the message along.
So we invite one another and our neighbors:
“Come, be planted and nurtured in Christ’s garden.
Come, with all your baggage and imperfections and sin.
Come, whether you are happy or sad, rich or poor, energized or weary, lifetime church members or brand new churchgoers.
Come, live and share Jesus with us.
Come, be watered by grace and grow in the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
Come, join in God’s mission of faith, hope, and love for creation.”
As the pastor of Good Shepherd, my essential job is to be a keeper: a keeper of the vision of what it means to be Christ’s church in this place, a keeper of the mission that God has for us to do through the power of the Holy Spirit.
As a keeper of the vision and mission of Good Shepherd, I won’t keep them to myself; rather, like the keeper of a lighthouse, my calling is to shine the light of God’s Word to guide each of us as we live and share Jesus together.
Pastor and theologian Eugene Peterson writes,
“The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does [the Spirit’s] work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God.”[ii]
As the sinner called “pastor” in this place, that is my responsibility. And I need your prayer and your help to fulfill it as together we follow our Good Shepherd.
So, join together in pursuing God’s mission for us: Living and Sharing Jesus.
A prayer by Walter Brueggemann: “Holy God who calls the worlds into being, who calls us into Christ’s church; we thank you for the church that is our home, for the mission of the church that is our true joy, and for the ministry of the church that is our proper task.”
Amen.
[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.
[ii] From the introduction of Working the Angles, quoted in http://www.provocativechurch.com/2006/08/pastor-chief-of-sinners.html
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