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The scripture you heard a few minutes ago is the lectionary for today. I thought I wanted to talk about it, but as I worked on this message, I just wasn’t there. What really spoke to me most this week about this prayer was its simplicity and brevity. The disciples seem to have been asking for a formula. I know prayer was really important to Jesus, but I wonder if he wasn’t saying something like “here are some things it’s important to pray about, but God doesn’t expect you to have a lot of fancy words. You’re getting hung up on all the wrong things.”
So I’m not going to talk much about this scripture, except the part about God’s kingdom. From other places in scripture it seems that God does expect us to have some part in that. But just what does God expect us to DO?
People since at least the time of the Exodus have been trying to figure out what God expects of them. Moses gave them a lot of laws to follow, and I’m sure they thought they were doing their best. But a few centuries later, the prophets came along and said “that’s not what God expects!” Micah wrote:
What offering should I bring when I bow
down to worship the LORD God Most High?
Should I try to please him by sacrificing calves a year old?
Will thousands of sheep or rivers of olive oil make God satisfied
with me?
Should I sacrifice to the LORD my first-born child as payment for
my terrible sins?
The LORD God has told us what is right and what he demands:
"See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern,
and humbly obey your God."
So apparently, the right ritual and sacrifice wasn’t it.
In the time of Jesus, people were still asking “what does God want us to do?” For the Pharisees, it was all about obeying laws, and there were even more rules than in Moses’ time. It must have been easy to get all hung up in the rules and forget about God. One man asked Jesus for clarification about what was most important. Jesus and the man agreed that the answer, in essence, was “love God and love your neighbor”. But that wasn’t specific enough for the Pharisee, so he asked “who are my neighbors?” Jesus’ answer was the parable we call the Good Samaritan, where a man who was assumed to be the scum of the earth risked his safety and spent a lot of his money to take care of a complete stranger who had been beaten up. In other words, neighbors are whoever needs us.
In another story, a rich young man questions him about what he needs to do. Jesus’ answer to that man is to sell everything he has and give the money to the poor.
Those are dramatic and maybe extreme examples. If we take the Bible seriously, we should be thinking that we might be called to do either or both of those things. But meanwhile, what do we do in our ordinary, day-to-day lives?
Those of us who are members of the UMC took some vows when we joined. The last one is us to uphold the church by “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service.” What does this tell us? Well, we are to pray for the church. How many of us remember to do that? We are to be here. Obviously, everyone here this morning is at least doing that one. We are to give, both our gifts and our service. Uh oh, you mean just showing up isn’t enough? We’re supposed to give money AND service? All of us? Yes, every one.
When I was teaching, our school had a magazine sale every year as the major fundraiser for student activities. It was a hassle and a distraction for the staff, but it did make quite a bit of money, so we put up with it. The worst part was the assembly at the beginning, where the sales rep did a big rah-rah thing and tried to get the kids all excited about all the prizes they could earn if they sold enough magazines. A lot of them were cheap junk, and the easiest prizes to win were usually 90% sugar or made annoying noises all over the school for a week or so. But for some kids they really did work.
There was one thing about the assembly that I liked (it was pretty much the same every year for the 24 years I was there). Near the beginning of the assembly, the salesman would say “if everyone in your student body would sell just one subscription, you would have the best sale you ever had”. After hearing that for a few years, I kind of worked out the math, and he was right. Of course it never happened that way. If you’ve ever been involved with this kind of project, you know how it is.
It’s pretty easy to see the parallel to the church. We’ve all heard quite a bit about the financial troubles of the church (if we’ve been paying attention). The church has about 350 members, plus others who participate actively without formally joining. But almost all of the financial support comes from about half of those people. If all the others would give even a little bit but do it consistently, we would have far more financial resources to support the ministries we believe are helping to bring God’s kingdom into the world.
What about the service part? We have a few people who are here all the time, doing an amazing number of things for the church. What would happen if EVERY member would help with Parents Night Out one time per year? We would have about 35 volunteers every month. We would have to find a way to invite more kids to keep all those volunteers busy! What new ministries could we do in this community if EVERYONE would commit to 1 or 2 things per month? How much could we do to end hunger or homelessness or any of the other problems that we see around us?
Last month we heard about a church that saw a need in their neighborhood for medical care. Their response triggered a response in other churches, and now Salem has a free medical clinic that continues to grow and provides care for hundreds of people every month.
What is your dream for Morningside to make a difference? Whatever it is, mostly it takes people with faith and commitment. Without people, all the great ideas we might have will go nowhere.
We have an opportunity coming up this fall to help move us in that direction, but guess what – we need lots of people to make it happen. We will be going door to door in our neighborhood asking questions about who our neighbors are and how they perceive Morningside. By the way, the questions do not include “are you saved?” or even “do you have a church home?” If we do it right, we should end up with a picture of our community that will give us new insight into what we can do to love our neighbors.
Does knocking on doors in the neighborhood sound scary? Compared to what? The Samaritan in the story? Selling everything and giving away all the money? Compared to those, knocking on doors and talking to a few people doesn’t sound all that scary. Neither does spending an evening or an afternoon with children.
Fear isn’t a very good excuse, but this particular activity may not work out for you for some other reason. I urge you to pick something that seems significant to you and JUST DO IT. It doesn’t have to be at Morningside; there are lots of other things you can do to help bring God’s kingdom into reality. What can you do to love your neighbor? How can you bring justice and kindness into a world with too little of both?
What does God expect of us? Each of us must answer that for ourselves, but for each one of us there is something. We know it has to do with God’s kingdom of love and justice. If we can work on those things together, we as a church can change the world in some amazing ways.