The Spirit's Work Continues

The one thing we cannot do is carefully bury Jesus in a book or a box and only bring him out as a spectacle or object of curiosity at a special hour on Sunday.

The judgment is ominous: the treasure would then be taken from us, because we have not treated it like the unique treasure Jesus is.

He is to be given away, and comes back doubled.

So, what have each of us been doing with the treasure which is Christ himself?

An outside observer would likely give a mixed report about us: he might say that there has been lots of digging and burying going on, even while there has been some wonderful giving-away also.

Our ongoing task is discerning which is which, repenting of the burying, and rejoicing in the giving-away.

I'm thinking first of the mentors who are serving with our catechetical students, taking the time to be giving away Jesus to kids not their own.

What a wonderful and positive effort!

I'm thinking of our July 4^th event.

Some may think that we're only giving away popcorn, but there is more than that happening.

We're giving away Jesus in the attitude of hospitality that permeates the event.

We're giving away Jesus in the printed materials, devotional books, and more.

We're giving away Jesus in providing the opportunity for those who are so included to give a contribution for the work of St. Anthony's Center in response to our hospitality.

Yes, it is more than the popcorn which we use to catch people's attention.

On the other side of the ledger, I look around at the vast majority of the congregation who avoid Christian education, either for a claimed lack of time or thinking that it is kid's stuff.

How will we be able to give Jesus away if we don't allow God's word to wrestle with us, and get to know Jesus better for ourselves first?

Several months ago we included in the bulletin an introductory brochure about the congregation for us to use in conversation with friends, neighbors, or whoever.

Did some of them get used, I wonder?

Fortunately Jesus keeps on giving us blessings of all sorts, so that we keep getting opportunities to give him away.

We'll have another copy of the flyer for us to use, and another opportunity will come along for us to engage in a conversation where it might be useful.

This process of giving Jesus away will profoundly change us from the inside out.

A bishop from Alabama recently told of a visit he made to a thriving suburban congregation.

He struck up a conversation with a man whose name he recognized from the news media, a prominent lawyer.

In the course of the conversation, the lawyer said that he continued to be a member there was because of how his faith was exercised and strengthened in a program that they had been doing for some years.

On Friday nights, a small group from the church drives to the inner city.

They set up shop on a street corner and give food to the hungry, clothing to the shivering, and through their nurse, offer on the spot medical evaluations.

“When we first started going there, we would pull up, hand out stuff, and head back home,” he said.

“But as time passed, we would linger.

We engaged people in conversation.

Some of those folks became my friends.

We talked about families, current events, and whatever they wanted to talk about.

I look upon that gathering on the sidewalk on Friday nights as a kind of preview of the promises of God.

God says that one day there won't be crying, sorrow, or hunger.

One day we will all be together.

when we talk, I feel a deep kinship with them. Our differences melt.

They don't know that I am a big successful attorney;

they don't know that I live in a big fancy house.

They just know me as the guy they look forward to having coffee with on a Friday evening there on the street corner.

It is like I'm standing on a street corner of heaven.

I get a glimpse of the way it is going one day to be forever.

In those two hours I really get the encouragement that the ultimate promises of God are actually true.”

That man is coming to know Jesus even as he is giving Jesus away on the street corner in Birmingham Alabama.

It sounds a little like what we discover as we work together in Family Promise here in Williamsport, doesn't it?.

When budgets are tight, it is a very human tendency to think only about ourselves.

The best antidote for that poison is to get busy giving Jesus away even more than we have already.

Whenever we do so, the kingdom of heaven is breaking in a little more each time.

Several folks in the congregation are hatching a new idea for a way to give away Jesus.

You'll be hearing about it soon, I think, as the details are worked out.

But don't wait for that to happen; come up with your own approach to giving away Jesus.

There are as many approaches as there are people in this room.

And we have the chief impetus for this in our celebration each Sunday,

when Jesus gives himself away to us in bread and wine.

It is a sample, a foretaste, a first installment on the complete promises of God.

Hoarding that investment which Jesus makes in us would be pointless and disastrous.

In Jesus' parable, the one-talent man refused to invest the treasure in anyone.

If he had, he might have failed and incurred the disappointment of the master; but he might have succeeded.

But by refusing to invest, he did the one thing that was sure to displease the master!

The lesson to us is clear:

All who would valiant be

'Gainst all disaster

Let them in constancy

Follow the Master... [LBW#498.1]

and give away Jesus at every opportunity.

That peculiar investment is

the one which pleases Jesus the most,

the one which those of every age and every station can make,

the one investment most heavenly indeed.

Let all the people say, Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.