Rev. Susan Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Church in the Park

Texts: Luke 13:10-17; Jeremiah 1:4-10

A few months ago, I went to a conference on Stewardship given by our denomination, and several of us rode together. One of the other ministers drove, and her car was equipped with GPS. At one point, I suggested that we should take a certain exit, only I was incorrect. (the right exit was the next exit), so as we headed off the highway, the GPS spoke up, and she said, “….Recalculating….recalculating….” I was very impressed. Not only did the GPS know the right way to go, but it was able to just offer us a new direction, and best of all, without saying, “What were you thinking? You idiot!”

I was reminded of God….not only because we were hearing a disembodied voice telling us what to do, but because I truly believe that God always is offering us a new direction, without shame, without anger – just making a new way possible when we don’t know the way. And I was reminded of the verse in the Gospel of John where Jesus says, “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

And how many people miss that message? How many people think that God and Jesus and the Bible are all about telling folks that they don’t measure up?? Or, how many people believe that this is what the Church is telling folks, and so they just write us off?

Our whole culture tells people they don’t measure up – our consumer culture depends on people feeling that they aren’t as happy or as beautiful or as successful as they could be, and that buying certain products will help. The culture and the media work together to convince us that we aren’t good enough – the Church should be the place where people get a different message.

Today’s Gospel story tells of a woman who is crippled by a spirit that had kept her bent over for 18 years. The literal description of her ailment is that she has a “weakness” or “incapacity” – in some way, she too experiences that she is not sufficient.

Also true of Jeremiah – who upon recognizing that he is being called by God, responds, “Ah, Lord God, I am only a boy….”, although I think he really said, “What? Are you kidding?”

How many of us feel this way – we focus on the areas where we are not enough: we’re not good enough, not thin enough, not young enough OR not old enough, not smart enough, not skilled enough, not good enough with words/people/tools/math, whatever – in some way many of us describe ourselves like Jeremiah: “I’m ONLY….”

To a certain extent, this is very natural and makes sense – we tend to take our gifts for granted – after all, they are gifts, and we have them, we didn’t have to work for them– how many of us devalue our own gifts, while looking longingly at the gifts of someone else? As I’ve said before – every one of us is both blessed and broken, we have gifts and weaknesses. We need to accept both – to realize that our gifts are real and worth developing and appreciating, and to accept that we have weaknesses and so does everyone else. Having weaknesses shouldn’t cause us to hang our heads….By the way, just because we don’t have to work FOR our gifts doesn’t mean we don’t have to work WITH them…most gifts are just starting points. Developing them takes work – for example, while Dan and John and Dave and Jim all obviously have significant musical gifts, they have all worked very hard too. In my own experience, the difference between the areas where I have gifts and the areas where I don’t is that in the areas I have gifts – the work gives me more joy, and seems to pay off.

Have you seen the movie Hairspray? If you haven’t seen it yet, go – it’s still playing at the Campus Theater. It’s about a teenager, who is quite heavy, and who dreams of being a dancer on the local after-school rock and roll show. She doesn’t let the fact that she’s heavy keep her from reaching for her dream of being a dancer. The movie is set in Baltimore in the early 1960’s, and along her way, she works for integration so that other people can reach for their dreams. I saw an interview with Nikki Blonsky, who plays the teenager with a dream. Nikki is a heavy girl – and she said in the interview, “I always wanted to play this part – I never felt apologetic for myself.” I was so impressed – in our appearance-obsessed culture, this overweight teen could say she feels good about herself. Many of us don’t share her confidence – many of us are more like Jeremiah, excusing ourselves on the basis of one deficiency or another. Or we are like the woman in the synagogue, bent over with a spirit of our own incapacity.

It’s interesting that Jesus healed this woman on the Sabbath – she had been experiencing this weakness for 18 years. It probably could have waited – so Jesus clearly chose to heal her on the Sabbath. That was part of the point. Jesus wasn’t thumbing his nose at the Sabbath – Jesus observed the Sabbath. So what’s the point? I think that perhaps part of the point is that wholeness and healing are of the essence of life in God, and that we can’t fully celebrate the Sabbath until we appreciate ourselves, and have a sense of our own selves as blessed and able to make a real difference.

After all, why does stopping work matter, if the work doesn’t really accomplish anything? We have to have a sense of our own effectiveness, our own significance in the work of God in order to really appreciate taking time away from that work. If we can appreciate that our own work matters, that we and what we accomplish are part of the mission of God, then we can also appreciate that Sabbath – ceasing, resting, embracing and feasting – is also important in the rhythm of God. Observing Sabbath is essential to the wholeness and balance that God intends for us – and we can only really appreciate ceasing our work when we understand that our work matters. Understanding that our work matters and is valuable to God helps us to understand that taking a break from it also matters, that this rest is also very important.

So what we are doing here today is important – we stop our regular work, we relax, we gather with other people, enjoying one another and worshipping God, embracing the community into which we are gathered, and we share a meal together – the meal we share after worship is every bit as important as the meal that we share in worship. Ceasing, resting, embracing, feasting – these are the essential attributes of the Sabbath, and we can only give ourselves fully to them when we understand the work that we do on the other days as being part of our Christian vocation.

Frederick Buechner defined Christian vocation as being the place where our own deep gladness meets the world’s great hunger. Each of us is called differently. One person is drawn to working with children, another to creating beauty in the world through art. We may care about AIDS, but feel a real sense of energy around hunger issues. That’s fine – no one can do everything. As I’ve grown to know folks here, I see that we are called in many different directions, and the faithfulness of this congregation is making a difference in the world. That’s one of the things that makes Frame special – we’re not just involved with Frame, our discipleship draws us outward into the community and the world. That’s as it should be!

The concept of vocation is that we are called by God to our work. Work, by the way, is not a bad thing. Even in the Bible, before what we call the fall, Adam and Eve had work to do in the Garden of Eden – work is not a punishment. Each one of us is called – this is an essential part of Presbyterian doctrine. We believe in something we call the priesthood of all believers – we believe that every single one of us is called by God to be part of God’s work in the world. It’s not just ministers, missionaries, and other church workers who are serving God through our work – it is also teachers, doctors, receptionists, writers, custodians, managers, engineers, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers, and neighbors and friends and classmates.

We are called to serve God in our relationships and in our work. If we are married, part of our call is in serving God through our marriage. If we are parents, part of our call is in our parenting. Every single one of us is called to fulltime Christian service – to serve God in every dimension of our lives. For a while, I felt I took the easy way out when I became a minister – anyone can figure out how to serve God as clergy. It was when I was a CPA that it was more challenging to discern each day how to serve God through my work – but when I looked at my work as part of my Christian vocation, I began to see that the way I supervised the people in my department was a big part of my Christian mission. I wasn’t preaching Jesus to them – I was trying to supervise them in a way that reflected their value and wholeness as human beings, and discerned and affirmed their gifts.

And once we understand our work as being part of our discipleship, it can be pretty intimidating – until we understand also that God always gives us what we need to do the work of God’s Kingdom.

And that’s the wonderful part of the story of Jeremiah – Jeremiah protests that he’s not up to the task of being a prophet, and God says, “Pish posh – I’ll give you what you need. I need you to be available, and I will give you the words.” God needs us to show up and to be open to our own gifts. How many of us haven’t wanted to talk with someone who is experiencing grief, or a bad medical diagnosis? Every so often I have had the experience of being with someone and listening to the words that came from me, and realizing that I hadn’t thought those words up – God had given me just the right words. Honestly, that hasn’t happened very often though – more often, I don’t feel like I have the right words. But I think just being present with someone can be more important.

There was the wonderful story of the man whose wife had died, and the little boy who lived next door went over to visit him, and when the child came home, his mother asked where he had been. “I went to visit Mr. Johnson,” replied the boy. “What did you say to him?” asked his mother. And the child answered, “I didn’t say anything – I just stayed with him and helped him cry.”

Just showing up can be the most important thing we can do. And if something really needs to be said, perhaps God will give us the right words.

All of our work is a partnership with God – just like Jeremiah. God said to him, “"Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” We may not all be appointed over nations and kingdoms, but we all are called to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. What kinds of things might we be called to destroy and overthrow? Maybe AIDS, hunger, poverty. Maybe child abuse, war, cruelty, shame. Maybe we’ll find ourselves called upon to destroy an unfair practice in our workplace, or to resist an abusive institution. And maybe we’ll be called to build opportunities, to plant hope, to create possibilities for wholeness where people are beaten down by discouragement or prejudice or accumulated disappointments.

And maybe we won’t have the opportunity to solve big problems – maybe our call is to plant encouragement with a friendly word, to overthrow shame by being a safe person to be hear a story. Maybe we’ll be called to do something that seems sort of small to us, but is very important to someone else. Every one of us is called, every one of us has gifts and abilities to build up the Kingdom of God. Remember – a kingdom is where the will of the king is being obeyed. How can we help others to stand tall? And how can we learn to stand tall in the service of God? As we serve God faithfully, as we live lives of wholeness and love, as we destroy and overthrow, and build and plant, as we use our God-given gifts in this God-breathed world, we extend the kingdom of God. God works in partnership with us – when we make ourselves available, we make a difference, and God makes us different. Amen!