I want to talk today about the realities of living for God. The four passages selected for our reflection today deal with what it means to live for God. In a way, each passage deals with some aspect of being called to live as prophetic people for God in the world. When people hear of someone living out a call or calling for God, they often think about pastors, evangelists, missionaries and other people who we term ministry professionals. That is unfortunate and is also untrue to the religion of Jesus. The passages we've read show that living for God is a calling for people who sense that they are not here to live for themselves. Living for God is a calling for people who sense that God is determined to love the world, liberate the world and bless the world, and that they are in the world to be part of God's loving, liberating and blessing enterprise. People who realize they live for God are called to live differently. People who realize they live for God, see differently, hear differently and respond differently to the realities of living. They live, hear, see and respond differently to the realities of living because they belong to God.
At New Millennium church we affirm this notion each Sunday in the following words. We praise and worship God together, we petition God together, we proclaim God together, we welcome all persons in God's love together, we live for God in every breath and heartbeat by the power of the Holy Spirit as followers of Jesus Christ together. In other words, we affirm that each of us is called to live prophetically in every breath and heartbeat. The scripture lessons show that this is not a light matter. Many of us struggle with feelings of inadequacy similar to what we read about in the passage from Jeremiah one. In the passage from Psalm 71, someone who lived for God pleaded to God for rescue from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and the cruel. The Gospel reading from Luke 4 teaches that Jesus endured unpopularity even among the people of his hometown and St Paul did not end his uplifting message about love at first Corinthians 13 without confessing the truth that now, we see in a mirror darkly. The truth is that every person who lives for God does so knowing about conditions, circumstances and situations that threaten our sense of prophetic competence and confidence. In Second Corinthians, Paul referred to a thorn in his flesh that constantly caused him to feel inadequate, unworthy and unfit to serve God. It seems that Jesus was always an encounter away from critics and criticism about how he lived, how he interacted with others and how he understood God. Scripture points out what we find to be all too true. We are called to live for God even though our lives are shaded by temptations which seem, as Howard Thurman put it so well in the inward journey, quote,“To know us by name and face us at the point of our greatest weakness and challenge us where there is no strength and no protection”, end quote. We are called to live for God despite the fact that from time to time, each of us comes face to face with situations that leave us numb, exhausted and anxious, afraid and alone. We are each called to live for God. God's call to us doesn't start from us. The call to be people who love God fully and love others as neighbors of God's grace and hospitality unconditionally isn't based on how much we own, how much education we have, or anything else besides God's desire to involve us in God's business of loving, liberating and blessing the world. God calls us no matter what others think of us, or even what we think of ourselves.
God has living for us to do, even if we consider ourselves to this, that, or whatever, or not enough of this, that, or whatever else to be considered worthy of prophetic calling. We live for God because God has called us to be part of God's life and work in the world. What was true for Jeremiah is true for you and me. We are worthy of God's calling because God has called us to be prophetic people. We are worthy of God's call to love because God has called us to be loving people. We are worthy of God's mercy, because God has called us to be merciful people. We are worthy to stand up and challenge injustice because God has called us to be righteous people. What I'm really trying to say is that people who are called understand that God has us here to make a holy difference in the world. Being called means we are living and working for God. Being called means we are living and working with God and being called means we are living and working in the power of God to bless the world, heal the world, and liberate the world. The deep truth of this message is that God chooses to bless, heal and liberate the world working through people like us, ordinary people like us, frail and faulty people like us, people who fall down like us, people who are overlooked like us. God chooses to call people like us to bless, heal and liberate the world. We are the superheroes God has called. We are the leaders God has called. We are the healers, the teachers, the encouragers and the deliverers God has called in this place, at this time, to confront, condemn and tear down systems of injustice, and we are the healers, the teachers, encouragers and the deliverers God has called in this place and time to sow seeds of hope, plant crops of truth and build up systems of love, mercy, truth, fairness and peace. We are empowered by God to live for God as vessels of God's love, truth, mercy, justice, hope and peace.
Through Jeremiah, the psalmist, Jesus and Paul, we are reminded that living for God involves accepting ourselves because God has accepted us. We are reminded that living for God requires having the courage to be subversive. We are reminded that living for God means enduring unpopularity and opposition. And finally beloved, we are reminded that living for God means that God's love overrules everything, including our own tendencies toward pettiness, selfishness and yes, feelings of failure and inadequacy. God's love is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant and not rude. God's love is not only unlike us, God's love transforms us so much that God's love, working through us, transforms the world. How, you ask, can God's love transform the world. Paul answers the question in the final words of that wonderful lesson in First Corinthians 13 when he tells us that faith, hope and love are the supreme forces that endure, that continue and overcome all things, anything and at all times. By faith we love. In hope we love. Through faith and hope, we believe in God and hope for the world with God and love for and with God and overcome all things to the glory of God.
Living as called people means living by faith. Living as called people means living by faith that God's power, working on us, in us and through us, overrules our inadequacies, anxieties, disappointments and failures. Living as God's people means that we live in the power of God's love for the world and God's passion to liberate the world from everything that is unjust, unloving, hurtful and oppressive. Living as called people means that we live in the power of resurrection hope, resurrection faith and resurrection love. Beloved, this is our calling. Let us celebrate it, rejoice in it and embrace it with humble yet strong hearts and eager prophetic living as servants of God in this age. Amen.