As I thought
about what I wanted to say this morning, it occurred to me that this
ending of a pastoral appointment is not like others in my past. In
these previous appointments I have come to my last Sunday thinking,
what are all those wonderful pearls of wisdom I haven’t had
a chance to share yet . . . or, what do I want to tell the congregation
that I can get away with now because I’m leaving? But this time
I’m not leaving the church, but only my staff appointment. This
is not really good-by. I may have other chances to preach or teach;
and you will have other opportunities to hold me accountable for what
I say. So this sermon marks a milestone, but not the end of the road.
It’s a chance to share a few thoughts I have on the journey
with you thus far.
And the first thing I need
to share is my gratitude to you for the privilege of journeying with
you these last seven years. There’s no segment of my ministry
that I’ve enjoyed more. You’ve given me a unique opportunity:
to do some of the things in ministry that I most enjoy, while sparing
me many of the organizational and administrative tasks that I’m
glad not to do. Patricia and Brad have carried most of that burden,
and I feel much indebted to them for that. You also have reason to
be thankful to them for carrying this responsibility and doing it
so well. But in addition to doing my favorite things, I am thankful
also to have been touched by your lives and your faith. You’ve
borne witness to me about what faith can mean, especially in difficult
life situations; and again and again you’ve shown me what faith
lived out in the midst of life can look like. I am the richer for
what I have learned from you. And I have been nourished and affirmed
by you in so many different ways. One of the things this congregation
does best is its personal caring for one another; and often I have
felt that I was receiving as much if not more care than I was giving.
To be a part of such a caring community is a great blessing; and one
of my fondest hopes is that more of our constituency might come closer
so as to find more of this blessing for themselves.
One of my favorite ways
of thinking about the church is that we are indeed “treasure
in clay jars,” as Paul put it in our reading from 2 Corinthians.
The “clay jars” part of that acknowledges that we are
imperfect and fallible human beings who can make no claim to dependably
“getting it right” and always doing good through our efforts.
We do not always live in love and charity with our neighbors. We stumble
and fall, even with the best of intentions. Yet despite our limitations
God has chosen to use us as instruments for carrying out God’s
purposes in the world. And the chief sign of this is that in the person
of Jesus God has come to us and given us light for making our lives
of some value. Because the light of Christ has shone in our hearts,
we have treasure to share and the power to count for good. But it’s
not our own light that constitutes treasure, but God’s. The
fact that from time to time we stumble and mess up and are confused
may well serve to remind us of our clay jar status and keep us humble
in the wonderful calling we have as treasure-bearers. To carry within
our bodies the death of Jesus as Paul puts it is to die to ego and
self-will as Jesus did in his crucifixion, so that God’s treasure
can indeed shine through us.
We never cease being clay
jars; but there are some things we can do to become more effective
treasure-bearers. I want to lift up a couple of them that have been
at the heart of my ministry with you—one of them a more personal
consideration, and the other more a community matter, yet closely
related to the first. Fostering personal growth has always been one
of the priorities and the joys of my ministry; and part of my special
joy here in Santa Monica is that I’ve gotten to do more of this
kind of ministry than ever before. And let me just say it straight
out: I think keeping on a growth trajectory as a Christian ought to
be everybody’s priority. I have two reasons for saying that.
The first is that growth is the process by which we come to understand
our faith in terms of life as we know it, and so growth is the pathway
to meaning—and meaning is what makes faith relevant and alive
and truly sustaining. If the problem of the church today is lukewarm
Christians, the reason for that in many cases is that persons have
not made the effort to grow in their faith, to go deeper and find
new meaning, and in effect have settled for being Christian couch
potatoes. At its heart the Christian message is a fairly simple one;
yet laying hold of that message in compelling ways is a lifetime learning
project—both because of how our individual lives evolve and
because of the depth of the message itself. It makes sense that older
persons often seem to have a stronger faith commitment; they’ve
been working on it for a lifetime. But whatever our age, whether we
maintain a growth edge is likely to correlate with the level of meaning
we find in our faith. Let me share another correlation I’ve
noticed: the persons involved in personal growth opportunities in
the church are most likely to be the persons most involved in carrying
on the church’s work and ministry. Well, we invest ourselves
in that which is most meaningful to us, don’t we? Surely our
faith merits our efforts to find a full measure of meaning in it—a
measure that is life-giving and makes us truly alive.
But along with what growth
in faith does for us, what it does for others around us is equally
important. Growth is the key to how effective we are as Christian
disciples in the world. What makes us true representatives of Christ
is understanding what our faith means for us in the give-and-take
of our lives so that it shapes our character and our actions. And
when faith is truly alive in us, then we find the motivational power
to follow the light we have. We live in a time when it seems increasingly
evident that Christian values and priorities do not equate with much
of what the society around us holds to. The world says, take care
of number one first, whereas our faith tells us, love your neighbor
as yourself, including your neighbor’s well-being. The world
tries to tell us morality is only what one makes it, while the Christian
gospel insists there are moral anchors in God’s creation. The
world often insists on power-over as the ultimate consideration, while
Jesus teaches us about the efficacy and power of love. So the question
is, which forces are shaping how we think and act—the secular
world which so permeates our everyday lives, or the light of Christ?
If it is to be Christ’s light, we must be intentional about
growing in that light, which means maintaining the kind of growth
edge in our faith that allows our thinking and feeling to be shaped
more and more in Christ’s image. I don’t need to tell
you, friends, that this goes to the heart of our Methodist heritage
from John Wesley. Wesley believed passionately that we are called
to go on toward perfection, by which he meant a life of continual
growth in faith that shapes us into worthy vessels of God’s
grace in the world.
One of the great strengths
of this congregation is the range of personal growth opportunities
it offers—Bible study classes, small groups, spiritual formation
classes, social issue seminars, opportunities for growth through service,
and of course worship. They exist for your growth. My prayer is that
more of you would take advantage of whichever ones will help you move
ahead on your faith journey, so that you will know more the meaning
and aliveness your faith has to give you.
But just as having a growth
edge is important to us as individuals, it is also vital to us as
a church in a corporate sense. We as a church also need to be growing
in our sense of mission and outreach if we are to experience the meaning
and purpose that can make us truly alive as a community of faith.
This is a congregation that has an illustrious past. We’ve been
here in Santa Monica for 132 years now, and during that time we’ve
been a significant force in the community and have touched the lives
of so many. Again and again I have been impressed by how deep our
roots go and by the strength of the glue that ties so many persons
to First Church—not only persons presently here but also many
who are now scattered. We have every reason to be grateful for such
a heritage. It’s a great source of strength for us. But friends,
however wonderful our heritage, it’s not what can give us meaning
and vitality today. That can come only through our involvement in
ministries and outreach that bring Good News to people here and now!
That means vital ministries to our own constituency within the congregation—and
it means meaningful outreach in the community and world around us.
Now friends, you know I
have a strong bias on behalf of missions. It’s been a part of
who I am for a number of years now. But I must say my years here at
FUMC have reinforced significantly my belief in mission outreach.
The times when we as a congregation have claimed mission ventures
and rallied in support of them have been times when we seemed most
alive and energized. I am thinking of our hunger walks and food drives,
our support of covenant missionaries and particular persons in mission
we cared about, our partnership with the Iware District in Nigeria,
our giving for UMCOR relief, particularly the tsunami and Katrina,
our various youth work teams, and most notably our partnership with
Bethany UMC in New Orleans. For those most closely involved these
have been life-changing experiences. But for all of us I sense these
have been times when we were inspired and had a sense of being the
church. We have reason to take pride in our achievements because they
have meant life to many in need. Once again at Annual Conference this
week, we will be honored as the highest-giving missionary supporting
church in the Los Angeles District for 2006. But friends, this outreach
is just as vital to us as it is to those on the receiving end. It’s
the point at which we sense we are doing the work Christ called us
to do. And let me hasten to add that this applies to outreach in the
broadest sense, not just to missions as we traditionally think of
it. It includes our service and ministries in the community, our music
outreach, our health ministry and the educational and social issue
seminars that are open to others. It embraces our efforts to offer
worship and spiritual growth opportunities, including to those looking
for alternative approaches.
So the outreach I’m
talking about is not a matter of just “keeping on keeping on”
with the comfortable and familiar. It’s pushing ourselves to
think beyond the box of church programming as usual and always consider
what other kinds of ministry and service we could offer that would
be “good news” to those around us, both near and far.
Then we’re called to invest the energy and resources that will
allow those ministries to happen. Again I think Paul’s words
relate to us as a church as well as individuals: we as a community
are called to carry in our body the death of Jesus—the dying
to our own wish for comfort and ease, so that the life of Jesus may
be truly manifested through us.
A number of years ago the
press reported the story of a group of men who were caught shooting
craps in a public place and were hauled into court. Now some of those
arrested were not actually down on their knees shooting but were bystanders
cheering on the players. Were they guilty too? The judge’s ruling
was, no, only kneeling counts. You have to be on your knees to be
a player.
And I believe that’s
true for us as Christian disciples and congregations as well. To be
authentic players means not comfortably standing back but getting
involved with our knees and hands and minds and hearts so that our
lives are shaped by our faith, and we in turn, individually and corporately,
become agents of Good News to others. Friends, that’s what it
means to be useful as God’s clay jars. That’s the adventure
of the Christian life. It’s been a joy to share it with you
these past seven years; and I pray that the adventure will continue
to grow and become ever richer for all of us in the years that lie
ahead! Amen!
©Larry
Young, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
Treasure
in Clay Jars