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Beyond Significance: The Discipline of Obedience Spencer C. Lawrence, Church of the Cross, Hoffman Estates, IL, March 4, 2007 I served a church in Columbus, Ohio, that had an extensive ministry with homeless people. We eventually ended up hosting anywhere from 50 to 100 homeless people for breakfast every Sunday. We began, however, by giving out free lunches near the office door. Homeless people – mostly men – would line up at about 1:00 P.M. and wait in line for thirty minutes for a free lunch. One day as I was passing out the lunches I asked the men their names. One man said his name was John Smith. I was naïve enough to believe him. He later told me his real name, . . . I think. He turned out to be a very interesting character – John did. He could do one of the best imitations of TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggert that I had ever seen. Over the years I knew John he actually began to help out around the church – making the lunches mostly. While he never became a member of the church he came to worship once in a while. He also joined us for a variety of social events including the annual church picnic. John’s biggest problem was, however, that he could never find or hold a job. Before I left Columbus I resolved to help him find work. We went to several different cleaning services to see if one of them would. After several rejections he finally found a company that would hire him. I felt proud that I had a hand in helping John get on his feet. A week later, he showed up at a worship service we sponsored at noon on Wednesdays. He looked tired and bedraggled. I asked him how things were going. He said that he’d been fired. It turned out that on the first night of his new job he and his supervisor had gone to the place he was to clean. While there he started going through the cabinets. When his supervisor asked him what he as doing, he said, “Looking for liquor.” With that the supervisor had sent him packing. When I left Columbus I felt a tinge of sadness that I hadn’t succeeded with John. He was no better off after ten years than he was when I first met him. He was still a homeless man unable to make his way in the world. I hadn’t made a difference in his life. I felt like I had failed. Toward the end of his ministry Jesus told a parable about a rich man who went away on a journey and gave money to three of his servants. To the first man he gave 5 talents – quite a lot of money actually. He told him to invest it wisely and earn him lots of money. To the second man he gave two talents – also a lot of money, but not as much as that given to the first man. The rich man told him to invest the money, too. He gave to the third man only one talent and told him to do the same. The rich man then left the three to manage his property. When he came back he called them in for an accounting. The one to whom he had given five talents had earned him five more talents. To him the rich man said, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in little things. Now I will give you responsibility for even greater things.” The second man reported that he had earned two talents on the two talents the man had given him. The rich man said the same thing to him: “Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in little things. Now I will give your responsibility for larger things.” The man to whom he had given only one talent reported that he knew that the rich man was a hard man and he was afraid, and he hid the money so he wouldn’t lose it. The rich man was very angry. He took away the one talent he had and gave it to the man who had five talents. One of the messages in this story is that what pleases God is not now much we achieve, but how faithful we are. David Goetz in Death by Suburb writes that a sign of superficiality is the pursuit of significance: “I want to make my life count. I want more from my life than investment banking. I’m weary of making money; I want to help poor people become suburbanites just like I am. I want to go on a mission trip and give money to help train church leaders worldwide.” The antidote to this error is “to move from the pursuit of significance in . . . life to simple obedience to the things of God.” It is normal to want to make a difference in the world. Most everyone – especially young people and many folks in middle age - wants to leave the world a better place. Are you saying that’s wrong? That we should be satisfied with just being our least imaginative selves? That we shouldn’t attempt something great for God? Is that what you’re saying? No, I am not saying that. I am saying, however, that serving Jesus Christ is not a competitive sport. It’s not about being able to say “I preached to over 10,000 people this morning and we had 12,000 children in Sunday school. How many did you preach to?” I recall a friend telling me about a small group of pastors he was in and which he eventually quit. It included pastors of very large churches, churches that make the national news today. I asked him why he quit; it all sounded pretty cool to me. His comment was that he had grown tired of “Steeple envy.” But it’s not just clergy that fall into that. I have known lay people who engage in it as well. I have talked to lay folks who have boasted at how much money their church receives, how big their budget is and how many mission trips they take to the Bahamas. (I have often thought it would be a really nice gig to be a missionary in the Bahamas.) The point is that their church is doing such great things for God and other churches aren’t. Then I have known people who boast about their personal involvement in the church or in the community. And it’s not just because they are grateful to God for the opportunity to serve. There’s a sense in which they feel they are doing more than everyone else, and that it should count for something. Doing good in Christ’s name is a wonderful thing, but serving Jesus Christ is not a competitive sport. It’s not about who’s doing the most and who’s doing it the best. Honoring Jesus Christ is not about personal significance. It is about obedience. It is about faithfulness. It is about doing what Jesus tells us to do and then hoping to hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” What does this mean then? What are we supposed to do? It’s really not that hard. The prophet Micah wrote (Micah 6: 8): “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly with God. That’s what God requires. Jesus told his disciples (John 15: 9 – 14): “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Obedience that pleases Jesus is not some extraordinary thing done in his name. For example, it doesn’t mean we have to change our jobs to do something more religious. But it definitely means doing our jobs in a more Christian way: doing them to the best of our ability, putting in the hours we’re supposed to, treating our fellow-workers with respect and honoring those who supervise us. It doesn’t mean that we do something unusual for or with our families either. It does mean that we be the dads and moms Christ has called us to be – loving each other and providing loving, safe and appropriate boundaries for our children. In the church it means serving in ways God has called you, looking out for the least and telling other people how God has helped you. Doing these sorts of things won’t get you written up in the Tribune, but, according to Jesus, it will get your name written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life. I told you once about my dad. I was teaching school among at risk children. He told me that he respected what I was doing. He went on to say that he’d often thought that he could have done something different with his life, something more than owning and running a farm implement store in our little town. I didn’t say it then – I wish I had, but I thought it later: that he had lived his life as a Christian. He loved my mother, and he loved my brother and me. He provided us with the best opportunities he could have . He trusted in Jesus Christ. He was active in his church – serving on the board of Trustees. He treated people fairly in his business. And he was a respected member in his community. No great shakes of a life, really. But it was consistent with what Jesus tells us to do. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Obeying God is better than seeking significance.
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