Risky Business
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series II, Cycle C
Object:
Su Xueling (pronounced ZOO-ling) is a different breed of entrepreneur, delivering instant noodles on her bicycle to satisfy fast-food appetites in central China. She wanted to use her business acumen to spread the gospel message in a land where religion has been controlled or suppressed by the government for decades.
Ms. Su's father is a communist revolution veteran, and religion has always been considered a leading threat to Communist rule. A Christian revival of sorts had already begun to sweep through China's peasantry when Ms. Su's life hit rock bottom.
Until she was thirty something, Su had never even heard of Jesus. Her husband, after months of suffering, died of brain cancer, leaving her with young sons to raise and astronomical medical bills to pay. She had sought peace of mind through several different avenues, when a nurse who had cared for her husband suggested that she explore Christianity.
While walking in the snow one day, she "heard a voice" calling her to church, where she experienced a conversion. She began attending the state-run Protestant church in her hometown.
Her newfound faith gave her great solace, in addition to enough self-confidence to step outside the box in one of the world's fastest emerging economies. She renamed her product "Gospel Noodles,"and fellow Christians began purchasing her noodles to the extent that she needed a production line for noodles and six vans to deliver them.
Ms. Su wanted to do something more for God, so she decided to invest her profits in a seminary to train leaders for spreading Christianity across China. This bold undertaking set Ms. Su on a collision course with Chinese government officials.1 There is nothing unusual about using private funds for religious purposes here in the United States, but it is risky business in China.
Chinese officials actually appreciate the contributions, financial and otherwise, that Christians have made to their communities, but they still eye Christians as a potential threat to government. They allowed the seminary to operate for four years before shutting it down in 2004. After its closing, students and faculty alike scattered throughout the country evangelizing.
On the back of Ms. Su's business card was printed, "Turn China into an aircraft carrier for spreading the gospel." God often chooses people to do God's work that others consider unlikely candidates. Throughout scripture, God selects the young, the weak, outcasts, the poor, single parents, and the sinful to carry out special tasks.
Scripture tells us that God chose and consecrated Jeremiah for ministry even before his birth. When God approaches Jeremiah as a young teenager, he thinks God had to be mistaken. "Me a prophet, God? Why, you surely must be joking. I can't do that. I'm not ready for something like that. I'll think about it for a few years, and you come back when I'm older."
Jeremiah wondered how anyone as young and inexperienced as he could be expected to influence powerful adult leaders. It seems that only a handful of people know what their life's calling is at an early age. Others are middle-aged before they discover what they want to be when they grow up.
Jeremiah was a P.K., a preacher's kid. He had been born into a priestly family, so there would have been a set of expectations awaiting him regardless of God's intervention. In today's more upwardly mobile circles, I hear that the children of clergy are referred to, not as P.K.s, but as T.O.s -- theological offspring.
However Jeremiah may have thought of himself, he still felt very much like a fish out of water. He learned quickly, though, that God does not call the equipped. Instead, God equips the called. God promises to be present and to supply Jeremiah with the words that will accomplish God's purpose.
The task before Jeremiah is frightful. As a youth, Jeremiah is charged to foretell the devastation of Israel, as well as to preach hope for a new way of life. His own words are to be as powerful and effective as fire, or as a pounding hammer. While his message will separate the prophet from family and friends, God will never leave him alone. In God's service, Jeremiah can be assured of God's continuing presence.
Jeremiah is not alone in his reticence to proclaim the Word of God. Many folks are terrified of public speaking. Surveys say that most people, if they have a choice between public speaking and death, will choose death. Janet was a card-carrying member of the latter group. During her college years, she somehow ended up with the assignment of giving devotions for her sorority. Never in a million years would she have volunteered for this.
Janet was so terrified, even among her peers, that when the time came for her to present her devotional, she passed out. Her sorority sisters thought she was on a starvation diet like some of them, and that was the cause of her fainting. Janet just let them think that, too. She felt that starvation was a much more respectable excuse than simply being scared to death.
Janet knew she was a person who deserved to be voted "most likely not to succeed" in the area of public speaking. But when God calls, God also equips us with the skills we need in order to answer that call. Today Janet is a successful pastor who gets up in front of her congregation every Sunday and preaches without notes.
God has brought Jeremiah and each of us safely through birth, and rebirth. Our psalmist declares, "I depend on you, and I have trusted you since I was young. I have relied on you from the day I was born. You brought me safely through birth, and I always praise you" (Psalm 71:5-6).
Jennifer was being ordained into pastoral ministry when she told her congregation that she was in utero a quarter century earlier when her mother was ordained. Therefore, she considered herself to be "preordained," just like Jeremiah. Each of us is called to ministry and "ordained" for that ministry by virtue of our baptisms.
Jeremiah is called to be a prophet against his will, given a message he does not want to deliver, and is sent to a people who are not going to take his advice seriously. He will be punished and persecuted, risky business indeed. In spite of the odds, he becomes a courageous and passionate proclaimer of God's message.
At the age of eighteen, Tom was shocked when Miss Lucy, the Sunday school superintendent, asked him to become a teacher, and horrified when she told him which class she had in mind for him. The fourteen-year-old boys! Tom knew all about that class. After all, he had been one of its ringleaders four short years ago.
No teacher had ever stayed with that class more than a month, and most didn't last that long. He told Miss Lucy, "No," several times, but she was persistent. Finally, Tom gave in, becoming a Sunday school teacher against his will and against his better judgment.
Tom began the task with more stamina than wisdom. During the first class, he literally picked up a defiant student and sat him in a chair so forcefully that the chair shattered into a pile on the floor. The boys laughed uproariously. That chair had been broken previously, and pieced back together. The boys had planned to offer that very seat to their new teacher.
When the joke backfired, even Tom joined in the laughter. The boys accepted him immediately, and the class came under control for the first time in years.
Erik Weihenmayer (pronounced VI-en-mai-er) was about Jeremiah's age when he also found himself facing insurmountable odds. Erik was born with an eye disease that gradually unraveled his retinas, resulting in total blindness by the time he was thirteen. His mother died in an automobile accident around the same time.2
After a brief pity party, Erik was determined to rise above his disability, and to dream big. He struggled to overcome the limits visual impairment placed on him and "see" the world with different senses. His mother had always prayed for him, and his father encouraged him to set sky-high goals, striving for mountaintops.
Through perseverance and hard work, Erik became a school teacher, acrobatic skydiver, skier, marathon runner, bicyclist, ice climber, rock climber, and wrestler. Even more amazing, he was the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. At an altitude of 13,000 feet on Mount Kilimanjaro, he married his childhood sweetheart, Ellie.
Young people such as Jeremiah and Erik are a powerful inspiration to those who are older. Jeremiah delivers God's message to a people who had not kept covenant faith with God. God wants his people to repent, to turn from their evildoing, and return to the ways of the covenant. Jeremiah has a message of doom, which is followed by hope. The Hebrew people will be defeated and carried away to Babylon, but a remnant will return to rebuild the promised land, with God's help.
The prophet Jeremiah was called to address an audience that thought of itself as religious, even though it had failed to apply its faith to issues of justice and honorable living. Jeremiah noted that the leaders and people had placed more trust in gaining prosperity than in seeking justice in their land. He is concerned with helping them replace their old values and taking on the new standards that a godly life demands.
Even in the midst of disaster and defeat, Jeremiah speaks a word of promise to the people. Their troubles will end, and God will make a new covenant with them. The law will no longer be an external set of rules on tablets or scrolls, but an internal set of values and directives. The people will know in their hearts what is right, and want to be obedient. The coming of the promised Messiah will bring about still another sweeping change in the rules.
Being chosen by God is an awesome responsibility. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo asks Gandalf, "Why was I chosen?" Gandalf replies, "Such questions cannot be answered. You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."3
God created you and walks with you from birth to death, reminding you that, "I was there to hear your borning cry." God has prepared a destiny for each of us. We may feel overwhelmed and inadequate, just as Jeremiah did. We are chosen and called to carry out God's mission and ministry here in this place at this particular time.
Making and marketing noodles is certainly an unusual form of ministry, but God can use your God-given talents and abilities in marvelous and remarkable ways. When you step out in faith in response to God's call, God will direct your steps, no matter how difficult the path we are to follow.
__________
1. Charles Hutzler, "Mixing Religion and Noodles Lands Ms. Su in Hot Water,"The Wall Street Journal, 245:107, June 2, 2005, A1.
2. Erik Weihenmayer, Touch the Top of the World: A Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther than the Eye Can See (New York: Dutton, 2001), p. 72.
3. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), p. 60.
Ms. Su's father is a communist revolution veteran, and religion has always been considered a leading threat to Communist rule. A Christian revival of sorts had already begun to sweep through China's peasantry when Ms. Su's life hit rock bottom.
Until she was thirty something, Su had never even heard of Jesus. Her husband, after months of suffering, died of brain cancer, leaving her with young sons to raise and astronomical medical bills to pay. She had sought peace of mind through several different avenues, when a nurse who had cared for her husband suggested that she explore Christianity.
While walking in the snow one day, she "heard a voice" calling her to church, where she experienced a conversion. She began attending the state-run Protestant church in her hometown.
Her newfound faith gave her great solace, in addition to enough self-confidence to step outside the box in one of the world's fastest emerging economies. She renamed her product "Gospel Noodles,"and fellow Christians began purchasing her noodles to the extent that she needed a production line for noodles and six vans to deliver them.
Ms. Su wanted to do something more for God, so she decided to invest her profits in a seminary to train leaders for spreading Christianity across China. This bold undertaking set Ms. Su on a collision course with Chinese government officials.1 There is nothing unusual about using private funds for religious purposes here in the United States, but it is risky business in China.
Chinese officials actually appreciate the contributions, financial and otherwise, that Christians have made to their communities, but they still eye Christians as a potential threat to government. They allowed the seminary to operate for four years before shutting it down in 2004. After its closing, students and faculty alike scattered throughout the country evangelizing.
On the back of Ms. Su's business card was printed, "Turn China into an aircraft carrier for spreading the gospel." God often chooses people to do God's work that others consider unlikely candidates. Throughout scripture, God selects the young, the weak, outcasts, the poor, single parents, and the sinful to carry out special tasks.
Scripture tells us that God chose and consecrated Jeremiah for ministry even before his birth. When God approaches Jeremiah as a young teenager, he thinks God had to be mistaken. "Me a prophet, God? Why, you surely must be joking. I can't do that. I'm not ready for something like that. I'll think about it for a few years, and you come back when I'm older."
Jeremiah wondered how anyone as young and inexperienced as he could be expected to influence powerful adult leaders. It seems that only a handful of people know what their life's calling is at an early age. Others are middle-aged before they discover what they want to be when they grow up.
Jeremiah was a P.K., a preacher's kid. He had been born into a priestly family, so there would have been a set of expectations awaiting him regardless of God's intervention. In today's more upwardly mobile circles, I hear that the children of clergy are referred to, not as P.K.s, but as T.O.s -- theological offspring.
However Jeremiah may have thought of himself, he still felt very much like a fish out of water. He learned quickly, though, that God does not call the equipped. Instead, God equips the called. God promises to be present and to supply Jeremiah with the words that will accomplish God's purpose.
The task before Jeremiah is frightful. As a youth, Jeremiah is charged to foretell the devastation of Israel, as well as to preach hope for a new way of life. His own words are to be as powerful and effective as fire, or as a pounding hammer. While his message will separate the prophet from family and friends, God will never leave him alone. In God's service, Jeremiah can be assured of God's continuing presence.
Jeremiah is not alone in his reticence to proclaim the Word of God. Many folks are terrified of public speaking. Surveys say that most people, if they have a choice between public speaking and death, will choose death. Janet was a card-carrying member of the latter group. During her college years, she somehow ended up with the assignment of giving devotions for her sorority. Never in a million years would she have volunteered for this.
Janet was so terrified, even among her peers, that when the time came for her to present her devotional, she passed out. Her sorority sisters thought she was on a starvation diet like some of them, and that was the cause of her fainting. Janet just let them think that, too. She felt that starvation was a much more respectable excuse than simply being scared to death.
Janet knew she was a person who deserved to be voted "most likely not to succeed" in the area of public speaking. But when God calls, God also equips us with the skills we need in order to answer that call. Today Janet is a successful pastor who gets up in front of her congregation every Sunday and preaches without notes.
God has brought Jeremiah and each of us safely through birth, and rebirth. Our psalmist declares, "I depend on you, and I have trusted you since I was young. I have relied on you from the day I was born. You brought me safely through birth, and I always praise you" (Psalm 71:5-6).
Jennifer was being ordained into pastoral ministry when she told her congregation that she was in utero a quarter century earlier when her mother was ordained. Therefore, she considered herself to be "preordained," just like Jeremiah. Each of us is called to ministry and "ordained" for that ministry by virtue of our baptisms.
Jeremiah is called to be a prophet against his will, given a message he does not want to deliver, and is sent to a people who are not going to take his advice seriously. He will be punished and persecuted, risky business indeed. In spite of the odds, he becomes a courageous and passionate proclaimer of God's message.
At the age of eighteen, Tom was shocked when Miss Lucy, the Sunday school superintendent, asked him to become a teacher, and horrified when she told him which class she had in mind for him. The fourteen-year-old boys! Tom knew all about that class. After all, he had been one of its ringleaders four short years ago.
No teacher had ever stayed with that class more than a month, and most didn't last that long. He told Miss Lucy, "No," several times, but she was persistent. Finally, Tom gave in, becoming a Sunday school teacher against his will and against his better judgment.
Tom began the task with more stamina than wisdom. During the first class, he literally picked up a defiant student and sat him in a chair so forcefully that the chair shattered into a pile on the floor. The boys laughed uproariously. That chair had been broken previously, and pieced back together. The boys had planned to offer that very seat to their new teacher.
When the joke backfired, even Tom joined in the laughter. The boys accepted him immediately, and the class came under control for the first time in years.
Erik Weihenmayer (pronounced VI-en-mai-er) was about Jeremiah's age when he also found himself facing insurmountable odds. Erik was born with an eye disease that gradually unraveled his retinas, resulting in total blindness by the time he was thirteen. His mother died in an automobile accident around the same time.2
After a brief pity party, Erik was determined to rise above his disability, and to dream big. He struggled to overcome the limits visual impairment placed on him and "see" the world with different senses. His mother had always prayed for him, and his father encouraged him to set sky-high goals, striving for mountaintops.
Through perseverance and hard work, Erik became a school teacher, acrobatic skydiver, skier, marathon runner, bicyclist, ice climber, rock climber, and wrestler. Even more amazing, he was the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. At an altitude of 13,000 feet on Mount Kilimanjaro, he married his childhood sweetheart, Ellie.
Young people such as Jeremiah and Erik are a powerful inspiration to those who are older. Jeremiah delivers God's message to a people who had not kept covenant faith with God. God wants his people to repent, to turn from their evildoing, and return to the ways of the covenant. Jeremiah has a message of doom, which is followed by hope. The Hebrew people will be defeated and carried away to Babylon, but a remnant will return to rebuild the promised land, with God's help.
The prophet Jeremiah was called to address an audience that thought of itself as religious, even though it had failed to apply its faith to issues of justice and honorable living. Jeremiah noted that the leaders and people had placed more trust in gaining prosperity than in seeking justice in their land. He is concerned with helping them replace their old values and taking on the new standards that a godly life demands.
Even in the midst of disaster and defeat, Jeremiah speaks a word of promise to the people. Their troubles will end, and God will make a new covenant with them. The law will no longer be an external set of rules on tablets or scrolls, but an internal set of values and directives. The people will know in their hearts what is right, and want to be obedient. The coming of the promised Messiah will bring about still another sweeping change in the rules.
Being chosen by God is an awesome responsibility. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo asks Gandalf, "Why was I chosen?" Gandalf replies, "Such questions cannot be answered. You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."3
God created you and walks with you from birth to death, reminding you that, "I was there to hear your borning cry." God has prepared a destiny for each of us. We may feel overwhelmed and inadequate, just as Jeremiah did. We are chosen and called to carry out God's mission and ministry here in this place at this particular time.
Making and marketing noodles is certainly an unusual form of ministry, but God can use your God-given talents and abilities in marvelous and remarkable ways. When you step out in faith in response to God's call, God will direct your steps, no matter how difficult the path we are to follow.
__________
1. Charles Hutzler, "Mixing Religion and Noodles Lands Ms. Su in Hot Water,"The Wall Street Journal, 245:107, June 2, 2005, A1.
2. Erik Weihenmayer, Touch the Top of the World: A Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther than the Eye Can See (New York: Dutton, 2001), p. 72.
3. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), p. 60.
