A Fourth Church Sermon by Sarah Sarchet Butter

January 27, 2002 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Called and Collected for Glory

Sarah Sarchet Butter
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 4:12–23
1 Corinthians 1:10–23

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
. . . that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

1 Corinthians 1:10 (NRSV)

A story is told of a monastery that was going through uncertain and changing times. The abbott of the monastery often agonized over the many changes and ambitious intentions of his order. In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town used as a hermitage. It was rumored that the rabbi in the woods was very wise, known for his discerning insights into leadership. One day, it occurred to the abbott to visit the rabbi in the woods and ask if he could offer any advice that might guide and direct the monastery into its future.

The rabbi welcomed the abbott at his hut. But when the abbott explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only shake his head and wonder with him about the future. The abbott and the rabbi commiserated together, reading Scripture and quietly praying together. When it came time for the abbott to leave, he embraced the rabbi, asking wistfully, “Is there no advice you can give me as I help my congregation face the future?” “No, I am sorry,” responded the Rabbi. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

The abbott returned to the monastery to find the other monks eagerly waiting. “Well, what did the rabbi say?” they asked. “He couldn’t help,” the abbott answered. “We just read the Scripture together and prayed. The only thing he did say, rather cryptically just as I was leaving, was that the Messiah is one of us.”

In the days and months that followed, the monks wondered if there was any significance to the rabbi’s words. “The Messiah is one of us? If that’s the case, which one?”

“Do you suppose he meant the abbott?” “Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbott. He has been our leader for more than a generation.”

“On the other hand, he could have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man, and he is most likely to succeed Father Abbot someday. Everyone knows Thomas is a man of God!”

“Certainly he could not have meant Brother Eldred. Eldred gets crotchety at times. But, come to think of it, even though he is rather thorny, Eldred is virtually always right. He’s very wise. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Eldred.”

“But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, not much of a leader. But then, Phillip has a gift for always being there when you need him. He just appears by your side, as if he knew you needed help. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah.”

“Of course, the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet, supposing he did. Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. You couldn’t possibly be in me, could you, God?”

I wonder if the disciples asked themselves that question. “O God, you couldn’t possibly mean me, could you?” Perhaps that was the response Simon and Andrew and James and John had when Jesus said, “Follow me.” Perhaps that day when he walked by the Sea of Galilee and called to the fishermen, Jesus knew the rabbi’s secret, or perhaps, the rabbi knew Jesus’ secret: that those fishermen, each and all of them, had God-potential in them. Jesus was calling forth the God-potential in them, inviting them to spend time with him so that his life might be seen in their lives. He held no audition; he asked for no resumes. He looked for no high-potential candidates or superstars. He simply invited people to “Follow him.” Their willingness was enough of a credential.

“Follow me,” Jesus said to the would-be disciples, “and I will make you fishers of people.” Jesus asked them to change their focus, away from the things of this world, their nets and boats and daily worries. Instead, he invited, “Focus on me and I will help transform your life’s work.”

As they followed, they began to see the messiah in Jesus and began to see his life and light reflected in their own lives. Little did they know that they would be asked to become his body on earth, the church. His ways became their ways, his light their light, his life their life.

Jesus’ disciples were not particularly pious or holy people. The good news for Simon and Andrew and for us is that Jesus works with raw material. Says theologian Shirley Guthrie, “The church is the only club in the world that accepts only members that are not qualified to join it!”

Guthrie points out three qualities of church members:

First, we are people who know we are sinners and freely admit that we are not good or superior.

Second, we are dissatisfied sinners, people who are not satisfied with ourselves or with the world around us; we are the people of God not because of what we have or are, but because or what we are seeking to receive and become.

Third, we are called and collected in the name of Jesus Christ, not for our own glory, but for his.

As a church, we call ourselves holy, not because we are, but because we belong to the one who is. We cannot proudly argue or declare our own goodness, strength, purity, or wisdom. We can only follow Jesus and focus on God’s goodness, strength, purity, and wisdom and hope somehow these qualities can be reflected in us and transform our lives.

The Corinthian church was full of God-potential people, people who, like the disciples, had chosen to follow Christ, who had responded to Christian faith and were becoming a church. They were people, like the monks at the monastery were people, like we are people. They were a church, like we are a church—with habits and patterns and personalities, with change and ambitions and growth and all the anxieties and dynamics and decisions and debates that come therewith. Paul was hopeful for the Corinthian church and for all they could do in the name of Christ.

However, Paul was not writing to the church at Corinth at its best. The Corinthians had a problem: they were more focused on following one another than they were on their higher calling to follow Christ. Angered by their divisiveness, Paul chides them for aligning themselves around different leaders and different priorities. (“You do not belong to Cephas, the great preacher, or to Appollos, the great teacher, or to me—even though I founded this congregation,” he declares. “You don’t belong to the one who baptized you or who married your or to your favorite preacher. You belong to Christ! You share a higher calling to the glory not of any of us, but to God! Be united in the same mind and the same purpose: following Christ!”)

Paul underlines his point by using himself as an example, saying his own purpose is not to baptize many or to preach or teach eloquently. His purpose is to use his life to give testimony to the power of God in Christ. “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” Or, as the King James Version says, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

By focusing on the Corinthian’s divisiveness, Paul gives us a prophetic glimpse of what could be, so that it won’t be. In the coming months, we have the chance to welcome a new co-pastor, Joanna Adams. While we can enjoy getting to know her gifts and talents and personality and style, we must remember that this is not about her anymore than it is about John Buchanan or Sarah Butter or . . . .

I know John and Joanna are committed to a common calling. I know the entire pastoral and program and administrative staff will be working to that end, and I am confident this congregation will do the same in the months and years to come.

But what is the one purpose to which we are called, around which we are to be united? The Westminster Catechism was written in 1649 as a summary of Reformation faith. It was adopted by Presbyterians in 1729 (so I know you will excuse the gender exclusive language) and continues in our Book of Confessions today.

The Catechism’s very first question asks,

“What is the chief end of man?”

A worthy question and one I hear often—usually in the language of our time:

What is my life purpose?

Why am I here?

What is my personal mission statement?

What should my short- and long-term goals and objectives be?

The answer?

“The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.”

To glorify God and enjoy God forever? That is my daily long-term purpose? What does it mean to glorify God and to enjoy God forever?

Commenting on this very question and answer, C. S. Lewis said, “We shall know then that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.”

In other words, a person’s highest end, our common purpose, has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God. Like the disciples and the church at Corinth, we are called to follow Christ and be God-glorifiers.

C. S. Lewis identifies the act of praise as part of God-glorifying. He writes,

The most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—escaped me. I thought of it as compliment or approval. I had never noticed that praise flows forth from enjoyment. The world rings with praise: lovers praising one another, readers praising a book or poet, praise of weather or wines, food, flowers, grandchildren, or gourmet cuisine, movies, music, or mountains, places, people, performances—we praise what we enjoy.

He further observes,

The humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, praise most, while cranks, misfits, and malcontents praise least. Praise seems to be inner health made audible. Just as people spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge others to join them in praising it: Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent? The psalmists, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all people do when they speak of what they care about. We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise completes the enjoyment.

So what is our highest end, our common calling? To enjoy God and enjoy the God-potential in our world and in one another. Enjoy God, enjoy our faith, our church, the people we sit with and serve with, the people we live with and work with. Enjoy our spouses and children and colleagues and friends, enjoy strangers who smile or sit next to us on the bus or whistle on the street. In so doing, we are enjoying the God who made them as they are and placed within them the God-potential that they have.

Enjoy God, your journey of following Christ, your church and the people who journey with you. Risk praising God in your ordinary language and conversation with others. For example,

God is good to me! Let me tell you what happened . . .

I’m really trying to trust God with this dilemma. I’m in . . .

I’d love it if you’d come to church with me. The preaching is so meaningful and the music is so moving, and it’s a place where I can really connect with God and focus on others.

Talking about God’s presence in your life is a way of enjoying God and glorifying God.

Whatever happened to the monastery?

As the monks contemplated the rabbi’s mysterious comment, on the off-chance that one among them might be the messiah, they began to treat each other with extraordinary respect and love and to enjoy one another’s company in new ways. And on the off-chance that each monk himself might be the messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary love and respect and to enjoy themselves and in so doing to find new joy in living.

People occasionally came to visit the monastery, to enjoy its beautiful grounds, to stroll in its gardens, or to meditate in its sanctuary, to attend the Sunday services. As they did so, they sensed the aura of extraordinary love and respect that began to surround the monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the place. Hardly even knowing why, the people began to come back to the monastery more frequently to relax, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to this special place and then they would tell others and with their praise, word began to spread. Then it happened that one of the visitors talked to a monk and after a while asked if he could join. And then another asked if he could volunteer. And then another made a gift. Rumor spread that the messiah truly lived in this place. When people came, they felt his presence. The Father Abbot watched, amazed, as within the next few years, the monastery began to thrive in new ways and to do expanded mission and ministry. Thanks to the rabbi’s gift, the monastery became widely known as a community alive in the presence of the living Lord.

Like the monastery, Fourth Presbyterian Church has decades of history. Like the monastery, Fourth Church is facing change, on the edge of a new era, poised to embrace our future with intentionality and ambition and faithfulness. And like the monks and the disciples, we are ordinary people, some crotchety, some passive, some ordained, some lay, all with God-potential in us.

As we face the future, the secret we can learn from the rabbi and the warning we can heed from Paul is that our church will thrive not because of one person’s leadership or another; our church will grow and expand and be spiritually alive based on how we follow Christ, how we change our focus to see the Christ in one another, how we learn to recognize that Christ is incarnate in our midst—not in any one of us, but in all of us.

I look forward to the changes ahead and to the energy those changes will bring. I hope you take advantage of the excitement—to recommit yourself to the journey of following Christ and to being part of his body, the church. I hope you take the opportunity to open the doors of your faith and your church in new ways and share the good news, not of Joanna’s arrival—although that is good news—but of Jesus Christ’s and invite people to join you in enjoying your church. And, as people come, their experience will tell us if the messiah is in this place. Word will spread, and we will grow, not to the extent that Joanna is going to be a great new co-pastor or that John will continue to be a great preacher or that our programs are incredible, but to the extent that we are a community who enjoys living in the presence of the Lord in a way that we and others can feel it.

May we know the Messiah among us, and may our living bring him glory!

So be it, and may it be so.

Amen.