Today is the second Sunday of the church season of Epiphany
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
When Paul wrote the Corinthians, he reminded them of who they were right off the bat. They were the church of God in Corinth. They were the only church in Corinth, actually. They were sanctified in Christ, called to be saints. They were recipients of grace and peace from the Lord. They had been enriched by Christ in speech and knowledge of every kind. They lacked no spiritual gift necessary for their church to thrive. They were being strengthened every day. And Paul repeated the fact that they were called into fellowship with Christ.
It is mistaken to think a calling to Christian ministry is something that happens to men and women who become pastors, and that the rest of the people in a church are not called. This notion is flatly contradicted by Scripture. All people of a church are called to Christian discipleship. Even when we recognize that fact, we say that pastors are called to “full time Christian service,” as if there is any other kind. Is there anyone here who feels called to be a part-time Christian?
I understand that my own calling is to serve as a full-time pastor. But my prior calling, shared by all other Christian people, was to Christian discipleship.
The first step in effective discipleship is heeding the call. We are called to be saints, we are called into fellowship with Christ. This call is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Responding to Christ’s call does two main things. First, it places each man, woman or child within the realm of salvation. This is no little thing! Just what salvation is and what it means is a topic for another day, but we have to recognize that salvation is a big deal. The Scriptures talk about it a lot, and so did Jesus.
Answering the call to follow Christ is not a purely altruistic thing. Each one of us benefits, but we benefit principally in ways not found in the other areas of our lives. We benefit in peace, fellowship, assurance, faith, hope and other ways, none of which are listed in the benefits package of a Fortune 500 firm. And we will benefit in being resurrected from death to live in God’s presence forever. The need and desire to be saved is part of human nature. It’s a mistake to turn Christian discipleship simply into other-directed servanthood with no self-interest involved, as long as we recognize that the self-interest served by Christ’s call is not selfishness. It is principally love. Human beings are born to love and to be loved. We live best when we live in the love of God, the love of godly people, and the love of godly things. But love is never turned inward; true love is never narcissism. Godly love is patient and kind. Love is effusive and overflows from one person to another and desires the best for others. The call to discipleship is a call to be divinely loved and a call to love others divinely.
The second main thing the call does is serve the world’s interest. The self-interest of love is paradoxical in that it cannot be served without reaching out to others and inviting them to heed the same call of Christ that we heard. Ministering to others in Christ’s name, witnessing to them and sharing the Gospel with them are two of the most self-satisfying things we can do precisely because they serve others as well as ourselves. They enrich our own souls, the lives of others and the cause of Christ in the world.
But this Christian activity is not automatic. Hearing the call is simply to acknowledge that it is given. Heeding the call is to reorient our intentions and lives according to the call’s imperatives. In Ephesians, Paul urges us “to live a life worthy of the calling” we have received (v. 4.1). A life worthy of being called is a life of commitment to the caller, to Christ. The commitment part is where we tend to stumble. Hearing the Word and doing the Word are two sides of the same coin, but the one does not automatically follow the other.
When airliners accelerate for takeoff, there is a point in the takeoff roll, called the V1 speed, at which the pilot must commit the airplane to flight. Once the V1 speed is reached it is not possible to stop the airplane on the ground before the runway ends. No matter what happens, once V1 is reached, the pilot must commit to takeoff.
Hearing the call of Christ is like being given permission to run up the throttle and point down the runway. But at some point, individuals, churches or even whole denominations have to commit to takeoff rather than just run up the engines and make a lot of noise and never go anywhere. And we have to recognize when we have passed the point of no return because true progress, once underway, can’t be stopped without crashing.
Much of the time we solicit people to contribute to the church when we should be asking is for people to commit to discipleship. A contributor can simply watch, but a committer is deeply involved. I am thinking of the time a chicken and a pig decided to go out to breakfast. They came to a diner where the chicken read the menu posted outside the door. "Ham and eggs," said the chicken. "That sounds okay to me. Let's go in."
But the pig replied, "Not so fast. To you than a contribution, but to me it's a commitment."
Maybe the difference between a contribution and a commitment is that commitments involve risk. I don't mean danger, necessarily, although commitment to Christian discipleship can be dangerous. What I am getting at here is not danger, but presence. Contributions can be phoned it, but commitment requires presence. As the pig in the story knew, contributions are what we do using our things, but commitments are what we do using ourselves.
We make a lot of commitments because most of us lead fairly busy lives. Telephones, radios, televisions, meetings, commutes, deadlines, errands, the crowded calendars we keep, all the clutter of too many requirements and too little time. Our busyness constitutes a lot of static in our lives that the call of God has to punch through. Hearing, much less heeding the call of discipleship can be difficult.
One crucial element of heeding the call to discipleship is being informed in faith by a community of faith. Being a member of a Christian congregation is crucial to hearing God’s call. Yes, it is true that simply going to church does not make you a Christian any more than simply going into a kitchen makes you a chef. But no one becomes a chef who never enters a kitchen.
Disciples are formed in congregations. People can be religious without going to church, but mere religiosity is not the point of Christian discipleship. People can be spiritual without going to church, but Jesus never called people simply to be spiritual. He calls us to discipleship, and discipleship requires membership because Christianity is covenantal. Christian living always involves Christian community. Christian covenant always involves both the one and the many, not one or the many.
The vows of membership to join the United Methodist Church are simple: we promised before God and one another to support the church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service. Discipleship takes all four, but I have never known anyone who could do all four in equal proportion. The point isn’t legalistic exactitude, but neither can one part simply be substituted for another. Giving more money to the church does not relieve one from praying. Practicing private devotions does not excuse one from attending worship. Perfect attendance at worship or serving the church on a committee or a ministry does not reduce the obligation to tithe. All of these things take commitment, and they are all necessary responses to the call to discipleship.
We are being called, each one of us. Let us put aside our childish excuses. No longer shall we ignore the call or pretend not to hear it. No longer shall we hide behind the inactivity of others or pretend that others may be called, but not us. I am called, you are called, and we are all called together.
God is faithful, and by him we are called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us hear and heed so that we may live as, and lead others to become, disciples of Jesus Christ.
