Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / Rev. Will Mlambri - "The Laborers Are Flawed"
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: Please remain standing as we hear together the gospel from Matthew chapters 9 and 10. Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to the disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles, first Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew. James, son of Zebedee and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James, son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus, Simon the Canaan, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out, with the following instructions: Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment, give without payment. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Maybe seat. After sharing ministry that included the Sermon on the Mount and many healings, Matthew tells us that Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news, curing every disease and every sickness. Which you may recall are the very things that Matthew tells us Jesus did just after his baptism and his temptation, the temptation in the wilderness. Teaching, proclaiming, and curing were Jesus' primary acts of ministry. He became famous for them, because he was good at them, and because they were needed. So needed in fact that Jesus looked around one day and despite the teaching proclaiming curing, or or likelier because of the teaching proclaiming and curing that he had done, the need had only grown. It's like the more he did, the more there was to do. Which weighed on Jesus. He had compassion for the crowds because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. The good shepherd wanted those sheep to be cared for. So he told the disciples to pray. Looking around at all that need, Jesus said, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. Pray for help, Jesus instructed. Just before summoning the twelve disciples, who in the very next words of the gospel were told that they had authority to go and over unclean spirits, to cast them out, to cure every disease and every sickness. Pray, then act. Act like I do, Jesus was instructing them, because your actions may be God's answer to the very prayers you've been praying. Jesus told those disciples to pray for more laborers. Guess what? You and I are the latest answers to their prayer. How does that grab you? Maybe the way it grabs me sometimes ⁓ Thanks, but I think you might have the wrong guy. Who are you and I to be teaching, proclaiming, and curing? I was thinking that this week. About me, not about you. I was wondering about that while I was at the annual conference. Strange, I know, because if there's anywhere that I go each year that should encourage my attempts at ministering for the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's the annual conference of the United Methodist Church. I mean, you can't go two hours there without a praise song or hymn breaking out. Prayers break out even more often than that. There's inspiring preaching, there are uplifting stories about what's happening in ministry, including in Clemson University. We're glad that Stephen Simeneau is here, one of the campus ministers. All across our state, there are good ministries happening, and we are grateful, and it is inspiring, and you hear it. You're going to hear more about that in just a bit. What I kept hearing was the state of the United Methodist Church is good. What I kept hearing is the individual examples of that across our state and beyond. And I listened. I always do. I l I listened during the ordination service to those questions that are asked of the ordinance. And I remember and reaffirm my own vows as I I hear all that. Nothing in that caused me to question my calling or or my ordination. But I was feeling Flawed. I I wanted to laugh while we were together at annual conference. I wanted others to as well. Fellowship is such an important part of what we do when we go to these gatherings. I wanted us to enjoy each other. Which meant sometimes I said too much. Sometimes I was a little snarky trying to be funny. I didn't take enough time to check in on how my friends were doing. I wanted I wished I had tamed my tongue more, been kinder, more faithful in the ordinary going zones of the day. I don't think anyone was irreparably harmed by what I said. I'm confident that I have thought about it a whole lot more than they have since then. But my thoughts kept going back to the very people who deserve love. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, generous j ⁓ gentleness, and self-control. Kept wondering. How can I expect to offer the fruit of the Spirit to the people who are hard to offer it to? If I was struggling to offer it to people who are among the easiest to offer it to. That part weighs on me, perhaps because every morning last week I read a devotional with a prayer in it, and the the prayer included the line, every day, shape my heart to be more like Christ's this day. And then within minutes of praying that prayer, I felt like I was going in the opposite direction. It wasn't the conference's fault. It was me. Except the last example. That was the conference's fault. Sort of. The conference gave us all t-shirts to wear on the last day of the conference. We wore them that morning dutifully. Everybody was in their shirt. I wore mine home and on the way in, stopped by our local grocery store to pick up some groceries for the rest of the week. Got my groceries, went to the cat to cashier. She said, ⁓ I just love your shirt. That's one of my favorite hymns. And I thought, ⁓ this is good, the shirt's doing what it's supposed to. Bagged our groceries, headed out, and she chased me into the parking lot. Because apparently I had stolen a bag. Then the shirt became a little awkward. What I think happened is the bagger saw the reusable bags, threw mine in, and the other person's in and off I went. But I'm not sure the cashier or the guy behind me think that's what happened. I think there's think there's some disconnection between the shirt I was wearing and the life I'm living. I hope not. But let's hope that no one thinks anyone wearing a Christian T shirt or a cross or a robe is flawless. There are too many examples to the contrary. Like every example is to the contrary. While in Jesus' day laborers may be few, may have been few, every day since, however many there have been. The laborers had been flawed. It's nothing new. There's actually an official teaching in the church established hundreds of years ago that says that anyone who baptizes someone with proper form and proper intention then turns out to be despicable, well, the baptism still remains valid. It's the work of God despite the actor, not because of the actor. As a flawed person, I take comfort in that. And yet as a follower of Jesus, I don't want to be despicable. I want to be faithful, even with my flaws. So I have a choice. As do you. Do I stop talking so as to say nothing wrong? Do I quit attempting the works of the faith until I get all the works of the faith down just right? Do I avoid grocery stores where baggers don't know whose cart to put the right bag in? More to Jesus' calling. Do I wait until I can proclaim and teach and cure perfectly before I attempt to proclaim and teach and seek to cure? In other words, do I let the perfect become the enemy of the good? Can't do that. Neither can you. Jesus looked at those suffering sheep and told the disciples to pray for laborers and then he told them to be the laborers. He did not have time to wait for the laborers to be perfect, and he still doesn't. He does, however, need his flawed laborers to at least begin their day praying some version of shape my heart to be more like Christ's. Looking back on the week, I wonder if that prayer isn't why I was feeling a little discomfort. While I meant no harm by my silly comments, maybe I was unsettled by how they landed, because that prayer was working on me. Simply praying it made me conscious of how my misshapen heart how misshapen my heart can be. How I want it to be shaped more like Christ. Thankfully, I'm not the only one wanting that, and not the only one who is still trying to get there. It's Friday's devotion from that same book where I got the prayer, the Methodist Book of Daily Prayer reminded me. In it, the author quotes Martin Luther, who wrote, This life, therefore, is not godliness, but the process of becoming godly. Not health, but getting well. Not being but becoming, not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed. We're always going to be flawed. But we don't have to be helplessly or unhelpfully so. Our Redeemer is the very one who tells us to pray for laborers and to be them, who calls and empowers us to teach, proclaim, and cure, even as we are learning and hearing and in need of cure. Who looks forward to the day when we're great at following but never wants us to wait until we are great to start. It's like the song we sang before I read the scripture. If we tarry till we're better, we will never come at all. If we wait to serve until we're perfect, we'll never start. Pray that your heart will be shaped more like Christ. And trust that while the process is not finished, it is actively going on. Then, flawed laborer that you are, get out and labor. Because the harvest is plentiful. And you just may be the answer to someone's prayer.