Good Call

The scriptures referred to are Romans 8:26-39.

In the 1989 movie Batman, there is a question asked by the Joker which is not answered until much later and in a different film. It is prompted by Batman rescuing Vicky Vale and escaping from the Joker by just happening to have on him one of those gadgets that is oddly specific in its suitability for the situation. The Joker muses, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” That line always gets a laugh but if you think about it, it is a valid question. Sure, Bruce Wayne is a millionaire but you don't just go into Home Depot or Sharper Image or to the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog and pick up bombs that drop from your hubcaps or sleeping gas pellets or ice skates that come out of your boots. Last I time checked Harley Davidson does not make motorcycles with fixed machine guns. Does Alfred build this stuff in his spare time? It wasn't until the 2005 movie Batman Begins, that we find out that Bruce has his own Q, so to speak, working in Wayne Enterprises' defense division.

And while he has specialized gadgets for, say, dealing with Mr. Freeze as well as Poison Ivy, they are all for fighting or protection. The Batcave does not have, so far as I know, a luxurious hot tub with robotic hands to massage his aching back and shoulders. Batman is essentially a soldier and he is equipped with everything he needs to carry out his mission.

The reason I bring this up is that there is a Christian heresy called the “prosperity gospel” and like Gnosticism did in the early church, even parts of the church that explicitly reject it are often influenced by it. Many believers feel that God will supply not just their every need, as it says in Philippians 4:19, but everything they want. Such people point to places where Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7) and “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:14). They think God is like a genie, duty-bound to grant our wishes provided we use the magic words “in Jesus' name.” But that's not what those passages mean. The context of those verses reveal that when Jesus tells us he will give us what we ask for in his name, he is using that phrase the same way we say an ambassador is acting in the name of his country. He is carrying out his mission, acting as a representative of, say, the United States, and not acting for himself. Just as when a person in command gives a soldier a mission and says he will provide whatever he needs, he doesn't mean sports cars or sexy companions. He means “What equipment do you need? Do you need air support? Do you need team specialists?” He'll give you whatever you need as long as it's for the mission.

This was easier to grasp when the church started out because it was a movement, not an institution. There were no church buildings; Christians met in people's houses. There were no worship books or hymnals. There were no Bibles, at least not any that were inexpensive, easy to carry and available to all. Your church group was started by a visiting apostle. When he left, one of his associates stayed behind to teach that church the faith. Eventually the apostle would appoint and lay hands on a group of elders, who organized things, and deacons, who took care of the poor and needy, and an overseer or bishop who presided over the Eucharist. If the bishop had questions he could write a letter to the apostle and get a traveler to drop it off, and then wait for a reply. There were no existing church supplies or manuals which is why they really did have to ask God for what they needed and trust him to supply it.

Today's churches take such things for granted. There are church publishers that offer Bibles and hymnals and Sunday school curricula and bookkeeping software. There are church supply companies from which they can get specialized items like podiums and choir robes and offering plates and communion vessels. Most local churches are part of an organized national church that can supply forms and training and clergy candidates. That's where we get our wonderful toys. But what the church can't supply is the call to mission. That comes from God.

Our passage from Romans says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” This is another promise that God will do good things for us, but Paul explicitly ties it to being called by God in accordance with his purpose. So this doesn't mean that God will make all things work together so that you win the Miss America pageant or that you win the lottery or even that you never get sick. It doesn't mean that God will see to it that a church gets what it wants in order to build a 10,000 person worship space or that the pastor will get a million dollar private plane to fly to venues where he can preach to stadiums of people. It means that God will supply what you need for the mission for which he has called you.

We tend to think that only clergy get called by God. That motivates them to get into the ministry. But if everyone thinks that way, the clergy will run into problems when they take on a church which does not realize it too has been called by God for a purpose, or if it is filled with people who don't think they as individuals are called by God for specific purposes. And that's odd because the Greek word which we translate as church is ekklesia, which literally means “those who are called out.” A church is an assembly of people called out by God for a purpose. And it's not just to sit in a building one hour a week, any more than a squadron of soldiers are simply to meet in the briefing room, or police officers in a muster room, and then just go about their ordinary lives. The church is where we get information from our Commander, where we get training, where we get equipped and where we get our marching orders.

In the Transitional Training webinar I have been attending all week, they have been emphasizing the proper relationship of God and ministry. We tend to think that ministry leads the church. But it's God who calls and leads his people which in turn leads to ministry.

Pr. Tom Weitzel, to whom I am indebted for a lot of this, points out that before we can do ministry, we first have to understand our identity. We need to know who we are and whose we are. If we take our identity from anyone or anything other than God, it will warp the church. Some churches think of themselves as holy businesses and use the same metrics of success that corporations do. Some churches think of themselves as clubs and try to bring in people like them and not attract those unlike them. Some churches think of themselves as organizations dedicated to promoting certain issues, sometimes to the point of feeling the ends they hope to achieve justify whatever means they deem necessary.

We get our identity from God. He tells us who we are—the body of Christ, those called out by God to spread the gospel or good news of God's love and grace as seen in Jesus. Which tells us whose we are. We belong to God, who, Paul tells us, chose us “to be conformed to the image of his Son,” or as J.B. Phillips translates it, “to bear the family likeness of his Son.”

If we are to be like Christ and act as his body, his presence in the world, what is our purpose? Well, what did Jesus say was his purpose? In the gospel of John, Jesus says more than 2 dozen times that God has sent him. And he says that he is sent to do the will of God. (John 5:30) This means he speaks and acts on God's behalf. He says, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” (John 7:16) He also does the work of the one who sent him. (John 9:4) And those works also testify to that fact that God sent him. (John 5:36)

So Jesus was sent not only to save the world through his death on the cross but also to speak and act as God's agent on earth. And then after his resurrection Jesus says to the disciples, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” (John 20:21) More fully Jesus says. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Our purpose is to go and make disciples and baptize them and teach them to obey all that Jesus commanded. And chief among those things he commanded is to love God with all we have and all we are and to love other people: our neighbors, our enemies, the outcasts of society, in whom we are to see and serve Jesus. And our ministry is to implement those things for which God called us.

When we forget our call by God, we forget who we are. And when we forget who we are, we forget out purpose. And when we forget our purpose, our ministry suffers or even ceases to be ministry. It can become merely activities we do, ways we keep busy, motions we go through because they are familiar and comforting. But they are not conveying God's love and grace as they should.

When the temple in Jerusalem existed, people thought that it was where God resided and for the high holy days, people would go there. The problem is that once people thought that Zion is where God is, then they thought anywhere else is where God isn't. But when Jesus came, some people realized that wherever he was, God was. And in Jesus God went where the people were.

Jesus foresaw the destruction of the temple. But that would happen decades after Jesus returned to his Father. And so he passes the torch of embodying the presence of God in the world to the church. It becomes the body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:27) As Paul says, “Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

The temple in Jerusalem couldn't go where people were, but Jesus could. Jesus could bring God into places where people thought God wasn't present: in places where tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners lived. As the body of Christ, we are called by God to bring his presence, his love and grace, his words and his works, wherever people don't think of God being.

I love church buildings. I've been to Canterbury Cathedral and St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and many others. And the buildings are huge and awesome. The art is beautiful. But I didn't get much of a sense of God there. As Stephen, the first Christian martyr, said, “the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands.” (Acts 7:48) Rather, as Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) In that vein, Paul writes, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:16-17)

It is only because Christ is in us that we can hear and answer God's call and take up Christ's mission to make disciples, baptize them, teach them and obey his command to love. And to that end, “...to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” (Ephesians 4:7) Through his Spirit he has given us all gifts and roles “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ...” (Ephesians 4:12) The Greek word for ministry can also be translated “service.” God is equipping us to serve one another.

Similarly the Bible is not given to us just to satisfy our curiosity about God, or about obscure references in the Old Testament, or to create a timeline of the last days. Instead, Paul says, “Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

The church is the assembly of those called out by God and sent out to love and to serve God and those created in his image by spreading the good news and doing good works. And God will supply whatever we need for his purpose. That means right now, we have what we need to serve God. Yet we don't have a building we can meet in. We don't have the physical presence of each other We don't have the means to physically share the body and blood of Christ. What do we have?

We have faith in God. We believe that everything is in his hands. We believe he is much wiser than we are. We believe that he loves us and makes all things work together for good for those who love him, according to his purpose.

We have hope in Christ. We put our hope in the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead, that he is at God's right hand and that he intercedes for us. We put our hope in God choosing us to be conformed to the image of his son.

We have God's love which has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5) This love for us has been shown in how he did not withhold his own son but gave him up for all of us. And we know that nothing, absolutely nothing, not even Covid-19, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As Paul spread faith, hope and love beyond his physical location through the technology of his day—pen and ink and papyrus and travelers—and as the churches spread these things during the flu pandemic of 1918 through the technology of the early 20^th century—newspapers and church newsletters and the mail—so we can spread faith, hope and love through the technology of the 21^st century—computers and phones and emails and social media.

After the 1918 pandemic, which killed half a million Americans, and between 17 and 50 million people worldwide, the churches reopened. And I hope that afterward, humbled by an event humans could not control, the churches rediscovered God's call and their identity, purpose and resulting ministries.

We will be different after this event. The world will be different. The way we minister will be different. But let us use this time, each of us, to listen to God's call in worship, in prayer, in studying his Word, and in what fellowship we can engage in under the circumstances. And let us ask ourselves “Where is God leading us in this time, in this situation? And what and who has he supplied us with to carry out the mission he has given us?”