There sure are a lot of thankless tasks to be done. There
certainly are a great many things that are immensely
frustrating, because they just won’t stay done. Do you know
what I mean? The kinds of jobs that you do and almost
immediately you have to do them again? These are
thankless tasks.
Weeding a garden, for example. I spent a good-sized chunk
of my alleged vacation pulling up unwanted plants. Frankly, I
thought that we were doing well to have anything green
growing, but she who is the mistress of the plantation said,
“No, the weeds will have to go.” And so up they came. Yes
ma’am, yes ma’am, three recycling bags full. I went out the
next morning to admire the results of my labors, and what did
I see? More weeds! Saucy little creatures, poking their
impertinent heads up through the mulch. Weeding is a
thankless task. Gardens will not stay weed-free.
Or feeding the household. That, ladies, is a thankless task,
isn’t it? Because he whose hunger pangs you satisfied last
night wants to know tonight, “What’s for dinner?”. And those
children for whom you labored over a carefully balanced diet,
properly prepared and proudly presented, scarfed it all down
in mere seconds and showed up at the snack table an hour
later! A thankless task, feeding the hungry. Even Jesus
found out after He had fed the five thousand that they came
back the next day for more! “How about another miracle
today?” You know the feeling.
Weeding the garden, feeding the household, or preaching to
the congregation. Did you know that what I am doing now is
another thankless task? Because the stuff that is presented
seems to go into the ether and evaporate, and you don’t
know whether it has accomplished anything at all. You know
the story about the new pastor who arrived at the church,
and gave his first sermon, which everyone applauded? The
next Sunday they all came back, and he gave exactly the
same sermon. They were a bit puzzled, but decided maybe
their new pastor had a case of the jitters, and they would wait
and see about the third Sunday. Came the third Sunday,
and there it was, once again, identically the same sermon as
the first two Sundays. So a delegation of deacons went to
his door and asked what was going on. The pastor’s reply
was perfectly clear and altogether logical. Said he, “When
you actually do the things I spoke about in the first sermon,
then I will get on to something more!”
I know the feeling. Sixteen years ago today I stood in this
pulpit as pastor for the first time. I spoke at some length
about what the Bible calls “speaking the truth in love.” I said
that we must learn how to deal with one another’s failings
with respect and love, and that we must not think that
suppressing what we feel is really a loving act. “Speaking
the truth in love.” Sixteen years later, I wonder whether we
have learned anything at all. Either we tell everything we
know about one another and do it in self-righteous criticism;
or else we say nothing constructive in the name of being
loving. I just have to wonder sometimes if it has meant
anything, these words tossed out into the wind. If you want
the statistics, today’s is the 666th sermon I have preached
here – and since 666 is the number of the beast in the Book
of Revelation, maybe that tells you something. But today
there is a part of me that wants, on this sixteenth
anniversary, to sing, with apologies to Tennessee Ernie
Ford, “You preach sixteen years, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in words. Saint Peter, don’t
you call me ‘cause I can’t go; I owe my soul to the church
routine ”!
Thankless tasks. Never-ending jobs that won’t stay done. I
have mine, you have yours. How do you feel when you think
about all that? Tired? Frustrated? I think the word is
“weary”. That’s a few steps deeper than tired: weary. You
load sixteen tons .. you preach sixteen years .. you feed
sixteen mouths .. you pray sixteen prayers .. you try sixteen
admonitions .. and what do you get? Weary.
So what’s the use? Why keep on trying? If all we do does
not appear to shape anyone, how can we hope to impact the
world outside? If we do not see lasting results from our
efforts in our homes and in our church, how can we expect to
conquer the burgeoning evil in the world?
Some people stay with the church out of superstition. They
just want a one-way ticket to heaven and figure that if they
keep showing up at the Lord’s house, the Lord will know who
they are when the time comes. They get weary of church,
but they keep doing it because they think they are paying for
their salvation. It’s an obligation.
But other people leave the church out of disillusionment and
frustration. They wanted something, not quite sure what, but
this wasn’t it. Not exciting enough, not satisfying enough, at
least not after Sunday morning. Too much work, too much
time, too much money, too many contradictions. They get
weary and they leave.
But others of us are here, and we keep on keeping on,
because our faith says that victory will come. Our faith says
that a breakthrough is on its way. John said it well, “This is
the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” Or as
the spiritual admonishes us, “Walk together, children, don’t
you get weary”. Victory is on its way.
I
Notice that John wants us to see that we won’t get weary if
we learn to live out of love and not out of obligation. When
you do something because you love it – or better, because
you love the one you are doing it for – then you won’t get
weary. But if it is just a job – if it is merely an obligation –
then it won’t be long before it’s a heavy chore and a painful
burden. John reminds us it doesn’t have to be that way:
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love
God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that
we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not
burdensome
Not burdensome. I think about people who carry tremendous
loads of responsibility, and wonder what keeps them going.
Here we are on the Day of Prayer for World Peace, and I
think about the thankless task of maintaining peace in a
world that does not intend to keep the peace. Our President,
our Secretary of State, our Secretary of Defense. When you
know just an inkling of what it means to ferret out worldwide
terrorism, well, there aren’t enough dollars in the world to
make it worthwhile to take that on. When daily Palestinians
and Israelis bomb one another into oblivion, you know you
are not going to succeed at peace-making. It’s kind of like
what happens at our place when Olivia’s Uncle Bryan comes
by and gets out a soap solution and blows bubbles. Olivia
tries and tries to catch a bubble, but every one of them
vanishes before she can get it. I don’t know really why
anybody signs on to work for peace. It isn’t to get rich. It
might be to exert power. Really, it has to be that a
statesman works for peace only because he loves his nation
and his world, just as countless men and women have given
their lives in the cause of peace and freedom. It wasn’t just
because they got drafted or the law required them to go. It
was out of love. “Greater love has no one than this, that he
lay down his life for his friends.” If you do what you have to
do out of love, it’s not a burden. It’s a privilege and a joy.
Now do you know people who consider church just an
obligation? Do you know people who are weary of church?
It’s all such a chore. Attending worship – what a bore!
Participating in Bible study – takes too much time!
Wednesday night prayer meeting – I don’t need that, I can
dash off my thirty-second prayer at home. For too many
people, church life is burdensome. It takes time, energy,
effort, money, too much.
Years ago I was something of a church organist, and in the
summertime filled in for vacationing church musicians. One
of the places I went regularly was St. Matthew’s Episcopal
Church just outside Louisville. At St. Matthew’s the choir and
the organist were partly hidden behind a carved wooden
screen. You could sort of see through it, but you weren’t
obvious. So I could sit at the organ bench and see what the
minister was doing even when others could not. My lasting
memory of the rector of St. Matthew’s was that each Sunday,
when it came time for him to lead the prayers, he would go to
the altar and with a great heaving sigh and a world-weary
voice would sink to his knees to pray! It may not have been
true, but it sure looked as though to him, church was a great
big burden!
He is not alone. He has many clones. I am sorry for them.
They are missing a great deal of joy. I do not scold them; I
simply wish for them a new experience. I do not preach
church involvement; I preach loving God, who, after all, first
loved us. And when we respond to what God has done for
us, when we sense what the love of God has meant to us,
then it is not burdensome to follow His commands. Love
God, love one another, and everything else will fall into
place. “Walk together, children; don’t you get weary.” And
do it out of love.
II
But that still leaves us with the question as to whether all this
frantic activity makes any difference, in the end. Suppose I
do decide that I am going to be a faithful disciple out of love
for God and not out of duty. Suppose I do choose to be
engaged in Kingdom business not because it is a burden, but
because it is a privilege. Does it matter? Will it make any
difference? Or am I just spinning my wheels, getting tired
and worn-out and weary for nothing?
Brothers and sisters, we know someone who had every
reason to ask that question. We know someone who must
have felt at one point that His life had been futile and that His
words had burst like bubbles on the landscape. We know
someone who tried to give the people a message, but they
rejected it so often He called them a wicked and perverse
generation. We know someone who worked intensively with
a leadership team, and you would have thought that they, of
all people, would have understood, and yet one of them
denied, another betrayed, and a third doubted. We know
someone who took special pains with an elite inner circle, but
when it came down to the crunch, they preferred to take a
nap rather than to do Kingdom business. We know
someone who went to His death disappointed with His
followers and distanced from His God. We know Jesus,
stretched out on a cruel cross, looking mighty weary. Weary
indeed and worn. He had every right to wonder if any of it
made any difference.
But the cross was not the last word. For God – oh, you
know – God did not let Calvary stand as the last word.
There is more than death, defeat, and disappointment. One
bright morning, Jesus burst forth from the tomb, not weary,
but full of power; not dead, but saturated with life; not
defeated, but victorious! And that is all I need to tell me why
I can keep on keeping on. John says it so much better than I
ever could:
And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it
that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the
Son of God?
Are you weary, children? I tell you, there are no guarantees,
humanly speaking, that anything we do will have lasting
success. There are no warranties that our lives will achieve
anything. Dr. Adrien told me this week that according to one
African theologian, because I now have two grandchildren,
the memory of my name is guaranteed. But I’m not even
certain of that. I do not depend on memories or skills or
statistics or anything human to assure me that my life has
meaning. I go to one and only one place, and that is to the
empty tomb. I go to the empty tomb, which reminds me that
out of death, God brings life; out of defeat, God creates
victory; out of frustration, God makes fulfillment; and out of
weariness, God offers refreshment.
I go to this table and to the empty tomb and remember that
there was one who made Himself of no reputation, and took
upon Himself the form of a servant .. and who for the joy set
before Him – for the joy – endured the Cross, despising its
shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of
God.
I go to this table and to the empty tomb and remember that
there was one who suffered the loss of all things, for me, but
who in God’s good time is to be made the Lord of all things.
In Him there is victory. If I did not believe that I could not
continue another year, another Sunday, another word. Faith
is the victory that conquers the world. I go, I must go, to this
table to be reminded and refreshed. Else I will be weary. I
go, I must go, to the empty tomb, again to know that doing
God’s will is all that really matters.
We celebrate this Day of Prayer for World Peace – and
remember that peace-making is a thankless and wearisome
task – we celebrate on the first Sunday of August because it
is the Sunday nearest the anniversary of the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6th and 9th, 1945,
America used nuclear weapons to annihilate thousands upon
thousands of people, but presumably to avert the deaths of
thousands more.
August, 1945, was not, however, the first time American
planes had attacked the Japanese home islands. The first
time had come in April of 1942, Jimmy Doolittle’s raid. The
Doolittle raid was designed to answer the attack on Pearl
Harbor, led in December of 1941 by a Japanese aviator
named Mitsuo Fuchida. Under Doolittle, sixteen planes --
there’s that number again -- sixteen B-25’s headed for
Japanese territory to unload their punishment. Because in
those days bombers could not fly long distances, several
crews had to ditch their aircraft in the sea, and a number of
Americans were captured. One of them was Jacob
DeShazer. DeShazer was imprisoned, interrogated, and
tortured. Just as he was about to give up hope, truly weary
of what was being done to him, someone gave him a Bible.
DeShazer says that when he read and believed that trusting
in Jesus would give him salvation, suddenly he felt free. He
felt as though it didn’t matter what his captors might do; he
was ready for anything.
As it happened, DeShazer languished in a Japanese prison
for more than three years, and, after the war, returned home.
But he didn’t stay home. Just a few years later he returned
to Japan as a missionary. Would you believe that one of
those who found Christ through DeShazer’s ministry was
aviator Mitsuo Fuchida?!
This is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is
it that conquers the world but the one who believes that
Jesus is the Son of God, who knows that in Him God will
accomplish all things? Walk together, children, don’t you
DARE get weary!
