October 30, 2005 (Ministry By Faith: Does She or Doesn't She?)

Shirley Polykoff describes the scene. Two women are talking quietly about another nice woman they both know, the woman in the ad who was always playing with a child in order to downplay any sexual overtones.

Then (says Polykoff), smack in the middle of the conversation of middle class morality, we place the arresting question, the bombshell: “Does she or doesn’t she? Hair color so natural, only her hairdresser knows.”

Polykoff was the creator of the 1950’s advertising campaign, of which she says:

A seemingly non-acceptable question turned a non-acceptable commodity into the highly respected industry that hair-coloring is today.

(Shirley Polykoff, www.ciadvertising.org/studies)

The images for this year’s stewardship campaign are a flashback to the 50’s…reminding us that in a day when “Everything Changes, Some Things Never Change.” Last week, it was the 50’s Brylcreem for the men, so in deference to our commitment to gender equality even in tonsorial concerns, enter Miss Clairol, the radical 50’s woman who dared to suggest that hair-coloring was for respectable women, not just “fast women,” when she dropped the bombshell question: “Does she or doesn’t she?”

And James drops the same kind of bombshell question….

Side-by-side with St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and the theme of salvation by “grace through faith,” and in the midst of our “Have Faith” campaign, James asks: “Can you ‘Have Faith’ without works?”

Listen to the Eugene Peterson translation:

Dear friends, do you think you will get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? For instance, if you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend. Be clothed in Christ. Be filled with the Holy Spirit," and walk off without providing even a cup of soup...where does that get you?

He couples our call to “Have Faith” with the call to Bear Fruit, looking for the evidence of faith at work in and through us. Do we or don’t we? If we say we “Have Faith,” can it be seen in us?

1. The first distinguishing mark of faith at work in our lives is the coloring of love.

When Jesus was asked to sum it all up—all the law and the prophets, all his teachings and parables—when he was asked, “What’s the greatest commandment, that is to say, what matters most? Give us one sound bite we can take home with us”—he gathered up all of his own teaching and ministry:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.

“But Jesus, what about some kind of a litmus test? I mean, there must be something more than that, some list of dos and don’ts, some measurable criteria for determining who’s in and who’s out of the kingdom. Maybe smoking and drinking? That’s what it was when I was a kid back in the 50’s…back then we knew whether you were or weren’t by whether you did or didn’t.” And Jesus said:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and love your neighbor in the same way you love yourself.

“But Jesus, don’t we need to know where people stand on scripture—inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration? What if they don’t like the King James Version? Can they still be a real Christian?” And Jesus said:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and care about your neighbor as much as you care for yourself.

“But Jesus, what about abortion, or creationism, or where to put the Ten Commandments? Don’t we need to know where people stand if we are to know if they are real Christians?

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as much as you do your own life.

Now let me be quick to say that I do think it is important for the church to wrestle with the issues of our day. It is not that all these other things don’t matter; it’s just that they are not at the center. Jesus gives one clear litmus test for Christian discipleship:

Does she or doesn’t she love God with heart, soul, mind and strength; and love neighbor as much as self?

I’ve been reading Timothy Tyson’s wonderful book, “Blood Done Sign My Name.” He tells of growing up in the South in the 60’s, the son of a Methodist preacher in Oxford, North Carolina. His father was an outspoken advocate of racial justice and integration in a time when that was not popular. (With all the kind words spoken about Rosa Parks this week, remember that in the 60’s she was not loved, and was roundly criticized by many white folks, both north and south.) More than once, Tyson says, his daddy was confronted by angry parishioners who freely used a dreadful expletive to attack him. Tyson says:

In response to the inevitable “n-lover” epithet, I recall hearing my father telling a hostile critic, “Yes, I guess you’ve got a point there, because I really do try to love everybody.”

Daddy was patient and rarely showed anger toward his adversaries. He held his ground like a sweet-gum stump, trying hard to live in a spirit of love and action, not anger and reaction. Oxford might have been spiritually arid, but Daddy wasn’t drawing his water from an empty well.

Our theme for this campaign ends with the stirring vision which Jesus would say sums up all the law and the prophets: “Let everything you do be done in love” (I Cor. 16:40). That’s the first distinguishing mark…the color, the shade of Christ’s presence in our lives. It’s the color of love.

If you want clear evidence of a vital faith, it is to be found in active servanthood, ministry in the name and spirit of Christ. James says, “Someone will say, ‘You say you have faith and I have works.’ Great. But I’ll show you my faith by my works. Because faith, without works, is dead.”

In the 1500’s there was little question about where ministry belonged—it belonged to the priests. The power to go between God and humanity, the authority to forgive sin, the might of the church aligned with the state, the weight of God’s work in the world…it all belonged to a set-apart priesthood. But when Martin Luther shook the foundations of the church with his rediscovery of the gift of grace available to all, it led to a whole new understanding of the work of faith—the ministry of all Christians. It was a rediscovery of the simple fact that the work of Christ belongs not just to the ordained, it belongs to the whole church.

While I was serving with the Board of Higher Education and Ministry in Nashville, our General Conference approved an entirely new ordering of ministry in the United Methodist Church. Our work as a board for the next four years would be to try to implement what the Conference adopted. In part, it created a new order of clergy, the Deacon in Full Connection—and currently we have three seminary students from our church preparing for that ministry.

But the real energy for that initiative had more to do with the ministry of the whole church. Bishop David Lawson described it:

Our vision was of millions of United Methodists, each with an identity of personal Christian ministry, moving in their spheres of influence in the name of Jesus Christ, enhancing the ministry of the whole church, helping every Christian to see his or her work and life as an avenue of Christian witness and service.

Not long after that, I was invited to preach for the Methodist Conference in Mexico. There in the large Methodist church in downtown Mexico City, there was a huge banner with the theme for the year: “Every Methodist a Missionary.”

And I thought, “Yes! That’s it!” What would happen if every Methodist saw him or herself as a missionary? What if every Methodist understood their daily work—in the classroom or the board room, on the assembly line or the checkout line, in the home or on the highway—as ministry in the name of Christ? What if, instead of the Lay Leadership Committee having to recruit, every member was clamoring for a chance:

John Ortberg, from Willow Creek Church, uses the phrase the “ministry of the mundane” (The Life you Always Wanted, page 129) to describe the work of every ordinary Christian for the sake of Jesus Christ. What if every Methodist saw even the mundane of their life and work as a ministry?

You say you “Have Faith”? Well then, let’s see it in works, active service in the name of Christ. Let everything you do be done in the spirit of servanthood. Let everything you do be done as a ministry for Christ. Let everything you do be done in love.

We are in the midst of our annual stewardship campaign. You know as well as I do that this church and its ministries depend on our faithful tithes and offerings. We have different slogans, gimmicks and give-aways each year, but the bottom line is still the bottom line. It’s a matter of the commitment of our financial resources that enable this church to carry out its mission.

But authentic stewardship is about time as well as treasure. It’s about my spiritual gifts as well as my material wealth. It’s about my prayers, presence and service as well as my gifts. And it’s ultimately about the commitment of my life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

As we prayerfully reflect on our stewardship, I encourage you to also think about your work, your service, your ministry as an expression of the love of Christ. And I ask it quite simply: Can the shades of the love of Christ be seen in our lives? Does the color of Christ’s love bring vitality and beauty to our life together? Can our faith be seen in our works?

One more story. The gospel writer says that once upon a time, there was a crippled man. The good news, however, was that this crippled man had four very good friends. This was the day before barrier-free design, so the crippled man’s friends packed him up on his mat and dragged him down the street to try to see Jesus. When they got to the house, the house was packed, so they climbed up on the flat roof and started tearing away the roof tiles and the plaster, the beams and the ceiling. And the turning point in the story comes, the Gospel writer says, “When Jesus saw their faith…” (Mark 2:1-12).

When Jesus saw their faith. More likely, what he saw was a mess! Plaster falling down on everyone, dangling phone wires and electrical boxes, IT lines and ceiling tile. The story says, “When Jesus saw their faith,” but what he saw were four friends who cared enough to drag their friend across town; cared enough to climb up on the roof; cared enough to tear the place apart to get their friend to Jesus. When he saw their faith, what he saw was the work.

Note: One of the books I mention in the sermon is the new book by Timothy Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name. In the light of the death of Rosa Parks and the ongoing struggle over racial equality, I would highly recommend it. Tyson gives great insight into the South of the 60’s and 70’s and the deep traditions surrounding the culture, but it also speaks to our nation as a whole and the North as well as the South.