Too Light A Thing
Sermon
Hope Beneath the Surface
Cycle A First Lesson Sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
Object:
A man by the name of Kevin Trudeau has marketed a memory course called "Mega-Memory." In the beginning of the course he quizzes the participants about their "teachability quotient." He says it consists of two parts. First, on a scale of one to ten "where would you put your motivation to learn?" Most people would put themselves pretty high, say about nine to ten, he says.
Secondly, though, Kevin asks the listeners of the tape to put themselves on a scale of one to ten in terms of his or her willingness to change! Ah hah! Now that's another matter altogether. Many of us want to diet, but we refuse to change our eating habits or begin to exercise. Many of us want to get better grades in school, but we simply are not willing to change the amount of television we watch and the amount of going out on the weekend. We want to be a better learner, but it just won't happen, because we refuse to change.
To give us a bit of summertime in the midst of our cold winter, let me tell you about an incident I remember my father relating in one of his sermons years ago. It was a hot summer night in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. All the windows were open in my parents' bedroom and they heard clearly two women who were walking down North Academy Street. Just as they were passing under the windows of our house the one said to the other, "Well, that's just the way I am and I can't change it!"
In our really honest moments don't we find ourselves often in that same bind? There are so many things we would like to change in ourselves, but, well, we just can't do it. This morning we're talking about a message from Isaiah and the Lord that would require some change in our whole approach to life, both church life and our personal life. Are we open to such change? We'll see ...
We've been getting to know Isaiah, the son of Amoz. He lived almost eight centuries before Jesus was born. He began his ministry in 740 B.C. He is recognized as the greatest of all the prophets. Isaiah said right in the first verse of the Old Testament book named after him, that he was active during the reigns of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He called a spade a spade and brought both warning and hope to the people of the southern Kingdom, Judah, in which Jerusalem was located.
In chapter 49 with which we are dealing this morning, the "servant" referred to means the people of Israel, at least those in Israel who still knew themselves as God's servants. The chapter begins with a call to attention:
Listen to me, O coastlands,
Pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
While I was in my mother's womb
He named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword ...
He made me a polished arrow ...
And he said to me, "You are my servant ..."
And as we read in verse 4, this servant of God, the people of Israel, felt discouraged, guilty and ineffective: "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity." Ever feel that way?
So the prophet Isaiah goes on to speak of Israel's persistent trust in God, in spite of their failures. Indeed Israel says in verse 5 "... my God has become my strength." One might add, "It is high time!"
We're approaching now the verse that will be our challenge this morning, but are you following the thought here? Discouraged Israel, who saw herself as called to be God's servant since before they even came in to existence, still felt like a failure in being God's servant, though some resilience of faith remained, in that Israel still saw God as her strength.
And now Isaiah quotes the message to God's failed servant Israel:
It is too light a thing that you should
only be my servant to your own
struggling people. I now give you
as a light to the nations, that my
salvation may reach to the end of
the earth.
Do you get it? God's servant, Israel, was called to preach to her own people, and failed in even doing that. God then said in effect, "Hey, it's too little a thing for you to just scurry around among your own people with my message. What I really need you to do is get the message out to the world, to people who haven't a clue of who I am and how much I love them."
"It's too light a thing." What a phrase! It really captures me every time I read it. What a challenge to those of us who call ourselves servants of God. We struggle with little things so long that they fill our lives and become the big things.
Isn't that one of the dangers of retirement? You spend your life wrestling with heavy responsibilities on a job, whether it's in the home with the impossible challenge of raising children, or out in the business world, where the bottom line looms as the be all and end all. And then you retire, and the little things can easily take over. The anxiety about the leak in the roof. The anger about the neighbor who splashes too much in the pool late at night. The frustration over the social security check that arrived a day late. Little things can take over and fill the available space in the mind and heart.
But followers of Jesus Christ can do the same. We are called to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, but we can end up worrying over whether the attendance is up or down from last year. We can find ourselves consumed over important institutional things, instead of passionately involved in the salvation of God's world, which is the biggest thing. Do we hear God calling?
"Church, I call you to more than this. It is too light a thing that you aim to pay all your bills. I call you to give away half your income.
"It is too light a thing that you aim to pay your apportionments. I call you to support the same number of missionaries in the United States and abroad as you have serving in your church office.
"It is too light a thing that you have 12 people studying the scriptures once a week in your Disciple class on Monday evening. I call you to have an intensive scripture study going every night of the week to counter the violent, cynical, faithless fluff that people are inhaling daily over the airways.
"It is too light a thing that you have one pastor and a few lay people trying to reach out to the membership of this congregation. I call your pastor to train 100 people who will reach out to thousands in your community and beyond.
"It is too light a thing ..."Do you get the idea?
Why do you think it is that a church can typically find it impossible to pay the normal bills, yet is able to organize, plan for and pay for a new building? Most churches would find it difficult to finance an outhouse for mowing equipment, but would have no trouble building a brand new sanctuary. The problem is not finances. The problem is the source of our motivation. And God knows that we respond to grand visions and important ventures for the Lord that make a difference in the world.
I've been going to a physical therapist for the last month or so. I've been learning a lot. I first went for a gimpy knee, then, in doing exercises for that, threw out my back, which has been a problem for me over the last 30 years. And in the process of doing exercises for my back I came to be aware of problems in my neck.
You know what I found out? I found out that I've been doing a number on my body for most of my life through bad posture, and only now are the results beginning to show and take their toll. I'm having to think now about how I stand and how I sit. And I'm told that if I correct those things, I won't have these problems that have plagued me off and on for years. But that means change in my life, change of some very basic things, like posture.
I believe that disciples of Jesus have been plagued for years with doing things that are too light for us. We have enormous muscles, both physical and spiritual, and we haven't used them. We could move mountains and yet we are afraid to try, because we have been stymied for so long by focusing on how to move mole hills.
And that goes for church work and it goes for us personally. God has unlimited resources for us and calls us to reach out to the world with those enormous resources.
In what ways is God calling us away from lightweight things? To what ventures are we being led or called? What about in your own life?
I've always been intrigued by the story, supposed to be true, of a man who was so discouraged by his poor health that he decided to end it all by running until he dropped. So, he got his things in order and one day started to run until he dropped. He ran and ran and ran and ran, and, while he got exhausted, he didn't "drop." So he decided he'd do it again the next day, but this time he absolutely wouldn't stop until he dropped.
Perhaps you can guess the end of the story. The man ran and ran, pushing himself to his limit instead of pampering himself in an armchair popping pills, and his body became strong and the man had a new life. There is some truth in the story both for an individual and for Christ's church.
The last words Jesus' disciples heard from Jesus, when he ascended into heaven, were these, "... you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
People say "charity should begin at home," and that is surely correct. Our problem is that so often it ends there. The person or the church with the world view, with the cosmic view, is so filled with compassion for others, that the people close at hand end up being beneficiaries of that same compassion. It doesn't automatically work the other way around.
There are some of you here today who are feeling totally overwhelmed by life right now. I know that. And the issues for some of you are not light ones, they are bona fide heavy ones. Only you know the application in your life of the truth that Isaiah and Jesus were preaching.
All I know is that God is sure to bless with new energy and new options and new vigor and new joy the persons or the church that chooses to dare great things for people beyond themselves, to be, as Isaiah said, "a light to the nations" out of commitment to and gratitude for God's great love for us which we have seen and known in Jesus Christ.
Focusing only on ourselves and on easily reachable goals is simply too light a thing. It leads to un-health, dis-ease, and plugs up the flow of God's Spirit and power, so that even the "easy goals" are found to be unattainable.
What this might mean for you and me and this church might make great dinner conversation, church committee discussion and prayer time contemplation this week. May we be open to what God would speak to us.
Secondly, though, Kevin asks the listeners of the tape to put themselves on a scale of one to ten in terms of his or her willingness to change! Ah hah! Now that's another matter altogether. Many of us want to diet, but we refuse to change our eating habits or begin to exercise. Many of us want to get better grades in school, but we simply are not willing to change the amount of television we watch and the amount of going out on the weekend. We want to be a better learner, but it just won't happen, because we refuse to change.
To give us a bit of summertime in the midst of our cold winter, let me tell you about an incident I remember my father relating in one of his sermons years ago. It was a hot summer night in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. All the windows were open in my parents' bedroom and they heard clearly two women who were walking down North Academy Street. Just as they were passing under the windows of our house the one said to the other, "Well, that's just the way I am and I can't change it!"
In our really honest moments don't we find ourselves often in that same bind? There are so many things we would like to change in ourselves, but, well, we just can't do it. This morning we're talking about a message from Isaiah and the Lord that would require some change in our whole approach to life, both church life and our personal life. Are we open to such change? We'll see ...
We've been getting to know Isaiah, the son of Amoz. He lived almost eight centuries before Jesus was born. He began his ministry in 740 B.C. He is recognized as the greatest of all the prophets. Isaiah said right in the first verse of the Old Testament book named after him, that he was active during the reigns of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He called a spade a spade and brought both warning and hope to the people of the southern Kingdom, Judah, in which Jerusalem was located.
In chapter 49 with which we are dealing this morning, the "servant" referred to means the people of Israel, at least those in Israel who still knew themselves as God's servants. The chapter begins with a call to attention:
Listen to me, O coastlands,
Pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
While I was in my mother's womb
He named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword ...
He made me a polished arrow ...
And he said to me, "You are my servant ..."
And as we read in verse 4, this servant of God, the people of Israel, felt discouraged, guilty and ineffective: "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity." Ever feel that way?
So the prophet Isaiah goes on to speak of Israel's persistent trust in God, in spite of their failures. Indeed Israel says in verse 5 "... my God has become my strength." One might add, "It is high time!"
We're approaching now the verse that will be our challenge this morning, but are you following the thought here? Discouraged Israel, who saw herself as called to be God's servant since before they even came in to existence, still felt like a failure in being God's servant, though some resilience of faith remained, in that Israel still saw God as her strength.
And now Isaiah quotes the message to God's failed servant Israel:
It is too light a thing that you should
only be my servant to your own
struggling people. I now give you
as a light to the nations, that my
salvation may reach to the end of
the earth.
Do you get it? God's servant, Israel, was called to preach to her own people, and failed in even doing that. God then said in effect, "Hey, it's too little a thing for you to just scurry around among your own people with my message. What I really need you to do is get the message out to the world, to people who haven't a clue of who I am and how much I love them."
"It's too light a thing." What a phrase! It really captures me every time I read it. What a challenge to those of us who call ourselves servants of God. We struggle with little things so long that they fill our lives and become the big things.
Isn't that one of the dangers of retirement? You spend your life wrestling with heavy responsibilities on a job, whether it's in the home with the impossible challenge of raising children, or out in the business world, where the bottom line looms as the be all and end all. And then you retire, and the little things can easily take over. The anxiety about the leak in the roof. The anger about the neighbor who splashes too much in the pool late at night. The frustration over the social security check that arrived a day late. Little things can take over and fill the available space in the mind and heart.
But followers of Jesus Christ can do the same. We are called to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, but we can end up worrying over whether the attendance is up or down from last year. We can find ourselves consumed over important institutional things, instead of passionately involved in the salvation of God's world, which is the biggest thing. Do we hear God calling?
"Church, I call you to more than this. It is too light a thing that you aim to pay all your bills. I call you to give away half your income.
"It is too light a thing that you aim to pay your apportionments. I call you to support the same number of missionaries in the United States and abroad as you have serving in your church office.
"It is too light a thing that you have 12 people studying the scriptures once a week in your Disciple class on Monday evening. I call you to have an intensive scripture study going every night of the week to counter the violent, cynical, faithless fluff that people are inhaling daily over the airways.
"It is too light a thing that you have one pastor and a few lay people trying to reach out to the membership of this congregation. I call your pastor to train 100 people who will reach out to thousands in your community and beyond.
"It is too light a thing ..."Do you get the idea?
Why do you think it is that a church can typically find it impossible to pay the normal bills, yet is able to organize, plan for and pay for a new building? Most churches would find it difficult to finance an outhouse for mowing equipment, but would have no trouble building a brand new sanctuary. The problem is not finances. The problem is the source of our motivation. And God knows that we respond to grand visions and important ventures for the Lord that make a difference in the world.
I've been going to a physical therapist for the last month or so. I've been learning a lot. I first went for a gimpy knee, then, in doing exercises for that, threw out my back, which has been a problem for me over the last 30 years. And in the process of doing exercises for my back I came to be aware of problems in my neck.
You know what I found out? I found out that I've been doing a number on my body for most of my life through bad posture, and only now are the results beginning to show and take their toll. I'm having to think now about how I stand and how I sit. And I'm told that if I correct those things, I won't have these problems that have plagued me off and on for years. But that means change in my life, change of some very basic things, like posture.
I believe that disciples of Jesus have been plagued for years with doing things that are too light for us. We have enormous muscles, both physical and spiritual, and we haven't used them. We could move mountains and yet we are afraid to try, because we have been stymied for so long by focusing on how to move mole hills.
And that goes for church work and it goes for us personally. God has unlimited resources for us and calls us to reach out to the world with those enormous resources.
In what ways is God calling us away from lightweight things? To what ventures are we being led or called? What about in your own life?
I've always been intrigued by the story, supposed to be true, of a man who was so discouraged by his poor health that he decided to end it all by running until he dropped. So, he got his things in order and one day started to run until he dropped. He ran and ran and ran and ran, and, while he got exhausted, he didn't "drop." So he decided he'd do it again the next day, but this time he absolutely wouldn't stop until he dropped.
Perhaps you can guess the end of the story. The man ran and ran, pushing himself to his limit instead of pampering himself in an armchair popping pills, and his body became strong and the man had a new life. There is some truth in the story both for an individual and for Christ's church.
The last words Jesus' disciples heard from Jesus, when he ascended into heaven, were these, "... you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
People say "charity should begin at home," and that is surely correct. Our problem is that so often it ends there. The person or the church with the world view, with the cosmic view, is so filled with compassion for others, that the people close at hand end up being beneficiaries of that same compassion. It doesn't automatically work the other way around.
There are some of you here today who are feeling totally overwhelmed by life right now. I know that. And the issues for some of you are not light ones, they are bona fide heavy ones. Only you know the application in your life of the truth that Isaiah and Jesus were preaching.
All I know is that God is sure to bless with new energy and new options and new vigor and new joy the persons or the church that chooses to dare great things for people beyond themselves, to be, as Isaiah said, "a light to the nations" out of commitment to and gratitude for God's great love for us which we have seen and known in Jesus Christ.
Focusing only on ourselves and on easily reachable goals is simply too light a thing. It leads to un-health, dis-ease, and plugs up the flow of God's Spirit and power, so that even the "easy goals" are found to be unattainable.
What this might mean for you and me and this church might make great dinner conversation, church committee discussion and prayer time contemplation this week. May we be open to what God would speak to us.
