My first sermon
My dad suggested that I share the sermon that I preached at Faith United Methodist Church about two weeks ago. The pastor asked that I fill in for her and I have to admit that the task seemed so daunting, but I did it. It seemed to go okay... I'm not sure that preaching weekly is my calling, but some of the other pastors have "promised" to provide me with more times to practice.
Here it is...
Note to my US-2 classmates: Look for how I incorporated our Book Club.
Note to Bible Study Girls: Keep reading you're in there too.
Several years ago I spent a summer working at a United Methodist Church camp in the North Georgia Mountains. It was there that I was introduced to a song called “The Summons.” In a format that reminds me of a searching heart, this song describes the call or summons that God compels every individual to answer when he or she chooses to become Christians or like Christ. Each verse I think has some important ideas and questions to consider and I would direct you to find the song online to study it in more depth. However today I would like to call your attention to the first verse of this hymn. It reads:
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Like our scripture today, this song questions our dedication to following Christ as we are called to as Christians. The young man at the beginning of the passage in Mark is disappointed by Jesus’ response to his question. What he must do to enter the kingdom is to leave his old life behind and follow Christ into a new one and for the rich, young man this seems like an impossible task. Likewise the voice of Christ in the song asks “Will you go where you don’t know and commit to never being the same?” This question is one that we find repeated throughout the Bible, especially in the New Testament. Each time a disciple is recruited, Jesus presents the eternal question; will you follow me and be changed?
I have recently finished reading a novel by Christopher Moore entitled Lamb. It is an account of the teen and young adult years of Jesus Christ recorded by a character reputed to be Jesus’ best friend. Moore’s work is fully fictionalized, but I found his description of the choice the disciples made to follow Christ insightful. He writes that “what set the disciples apart from the multitudes who would follow Jesus was that they had stepped off the path of their own lives to spread the Word.” I believe that Christ’s summons for us is to adopt a similar purpose. As Christians we are asked, I might even say commanded, to step from our comfortable, routine life into a journey radically dedicated to loving God and loving others. This journey is different from our human idea of what life is to be like and sometime may seem as impossible a task for us as it was for the rich, young man to obtain in the biblical passage.
My first realization of the direction in which God was calling me came during a chapel service I attended my sophomore year in college. I vaguely remember on what our chaplain was preaching, but I do remember the great peace that I felt at the end of the service. I felt assured that God was directing me toward some type of full-time mission work. Now I understand that a call to faithfully follow Christ was a persistent theme in my life and this incident was only the beginning of my comprehension of that which God had been summoning me to for a longer period of time. Still it was several years after I had this confirming moment that God lead me to the US-2 program. The US-2 program is one of the opportunities to pursue mission work offered to young adults by the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministry. Entrance into the program is regulated by an interview process for the potential missionaries and the potential placement sites. US-2s are then appointed to the placement sites that the program directors feel they will be most suited. When I applied to be a US-2 I had no idea that North Dakota or a job as a director of campus ministry was even a possibility. But it was in May that I learned this was where I would be placed, thus in August I moved from Georgia to North Dakota to direct United Campus Ministry.
Although for me choosing to follow God meant moving across the country, accepting God’s invitation to follow him does not necessarily mean that everyone will leave the community in which they live. During college I was blessed to be a part of a Bible Study. Several of us began it our freshmen year and ten of the “girls,” now young women, stuck with the Bible Study through graduation. I thank God daily for sending me friends like these women. Each is an amazing example of faith and of how God’s mission for each person is different. Each are doing the work God has called her to at this time. Several are teachers, one is a case worker at a battered women’s shelter, a couple are pursuing graduate degrees, and one of them even has a job with a campus ministry like me. Through them I have learned that individual responses to Christ’s call vary depending on the talents and passions God has given him or her, but included in every summon or call to follow is the commandment to love inclusively and radically.
The choice to follow Christ in whatever manner it may be is inevitably accompanied by change. Having left my family, friends, and the comforts of a place that I know well behind, I’m learning that moving away was just the first step in an often uncomfortable journey of change. Perhaps more important than the change of physical location is the changes god is creating in my heart. Accepting God’s summons is not easy for anyone. Among the promises Jesus lists in the passage as rewards for service to the Word is struggle and persecution. But if accepting a call from God was easy then it would not be worth as much as it is. And though we are not promised an easy task, we are promised God’s help in accomplishing it. God will lead us in this journey of change if we let him. Essentially God’s summons for all people is this to choose to follow the Word and be changed by it.
The last verse of the song I mentioned earlier is written as our response to the summons of God in the previous verses. It reads:
I have recently finished reading a novel by Christopher Moore entitled Lamb. It is an account of the teen and young adult years of Jesus Christ recorded by a character reputed to be Jesus’ best friend. Moore’s work is fully fictionalized, but I found his description of the choice the disciples made to follow Christ insightful. He writes that “what set the disciples apart from the multitudes who would follow Jesus was that they had stepped off the path of their own lives to spread the Word.” I believe that Christ’s summons for us is to adopt a similar purpose. As Christians we are asked, I might even say commanded, to step from our comfortable, routine life into a journey radically dedicated to loving God and loving others. This journey is different from our human idea of what life is to be like and sometime may seem as impossible a task for us as it was for the rich, young man to obtain in the biblical passage.
My first realization of the direction in which God was calling me came during a chapel service I attended my sophomore year in college. I vaguely remember on what our chaplain was preaching, but I do remember the great peace that I felt at the end of the service. I felt assured that God was directing me toward some type of full-time mission work. Now I understand that a call to faithfully follow Christ was a persistent theme in my life and this incident was only the beginning of my comprehension of that which God had been summoning me to for a longer period of time. Still it was several years after I had this confirming moment that God lead me to the US-2 program. The US-2 program is one of the opportunities to pursue mission work offered to young adults by the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministry. Entrance into the program is regulated by an interview process for the potential missionaries and the potential placement sites. US-2s are then appointed to the placement sites that the program directors feel they will be most suited. When I applied to be a US-2 I had no idea that North Dakota or a job as a director of campus ministry was even a possibility. But it was in May that I learned this was where I would be placed, thus in August I moved from Georgia to North Dakota to direct United Campus Ministry.
Although for me choosing to follow God meant moving across the country, accepting God’s invitation to follow him does not necessarily mean that everyone will leave the community in which they live. During college I was blessed to be a part of a Bible Study. Several of us began it our freshmen year and ten of the “girls,” now young women, stuck with the Bible Study through graduation. I thank God daily for sending me friends like these women. Each is an amazing example of faith and of how God’s mission for each person is different. Each are doing the work God has called her to at this time. Several are teachers, one is a case worker at a battered women’s shelter, a couple are pursuing graduate degrees, and one of them even has a job with a campus ministry like me. Through them I have learned that individual responses to Christ’s call vary depending on the talents and passions God has given him or her, but included in every summon or call to follow is the commandment to love inclusively and radically.
The choice to follow Christ in whatever manner it may be is inevitably accompanied by change. Having left my family, friends, and the comforts of a place that I know well behind, I’m learning that moving away was just the first step in an often uncomfortable journey of change. Perhaps more important than the change of physical location is the changes god is creating in my heart. Accepting God’s summons is not easy for anyone. Among the promises Jesus lists in the passage as rewards for service to the Word is struggle and persecution. But if accepting a call from God was easy then it would not be worth as much as it is. And though we are not promised an easy task, we are promised God’s help in accomplishing it. God will lead us in this journey of change if we let him. Essentially God’s summons for all people is this to choose to follow the Word and be changed by it.
The last verse of the song I mentioned earlier is written as our response to the summons of God in the previous verses. It reads:
Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.
Choose to move, live, and grow in the mission Christ has called you, for to be different is great. And the rewards of following God into a new place or into a new frame of mind are infinite. Later in the passage in Mark, Peter says, look we have left everything and followed you and in response Jesus promises no less than to eternally live in the body of Christ. My prayer for you this week is that you choose to answer the summons of God this week in you life. Amen.
posted by Margaret @ 2:59 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Margaret, that is an amazing sermon! It is a great testimony to who you are! i hope all is well!
Post a Comment
<< Home