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Bob Ericson
Trinity Lutheran Church
Watertown, MN
"HOW is God involved in my calling?" (2/3)
Luke 19:1-10
Some of you know that our youngest son, Carl,
is an avid golfer. When he was in high school he was on the school’s golf
team. Carl always wanted to do the best he could possibly do, so he took
advantage of every opportunity to practice. He literally played until the snow
flew. One day after school he called me at church. “I’m out at Pheasant Ridge,
Dad. Can you pick me up on your way home?” “Sure, what time?” “Well the
clubhouse closes at 5:00 p.m.” You see, it was early in November. We were
already off daily savings time and it was dark by 5:15 p.m.
I went about my work at church for a couple of
hours. I worked late and got home around 6:00 p.m. As I walked in the door
Barb asked, “Do you know where Carl is?” “Oh my goodness! I was supposed to
pick him up!” I had completely forgotten. I also realized that Carl couldn’t
call me because the clubhouse was closed. O man did I feel terrible! I hopped
into the car, drove as fast as I dared. I got about a ½ mile from the golf
course and there was Carl, walking down the side of the road in the dark with
his golf bag slung over his shoulder. It would have been about a 5-mile walk.
I had let him down – big time. I had gotten so busy with my own stuff that I
had forgotten all about him. What damage had I done to his self-image? His
phone call to me wasn’t important enough for me to remember. I had failed as a
father.
It was hard for me to open the car door. “I’m
sorry, Carl. I’m so sorry. I got busy with other stuff and I completely
forgot.” It was awkward. “That’s OK, Dad,” he said. “But you had to stand out
there for over an hour in the dark.” He could see I was really hurting.
“That’s OK, Dad. Really, it’s OK.” My failure was met by grace. I vowed that
I’d never forget again.
We are having a three Sunday sermon series on
our “vocations” or “callings.” Last Sunday we looked at the question of “WHERE
Am I Called?” We saw how differently Luther thought of one’s “vocation” or
“call” from the religious leaders of his day. When we know Jesus Christ as our
Savior and Lord, God doesn’t “call” us away from the cares of this world to some
cloistered religious occupation. Instead God “calls” us “right where we are” –
in our jobs, in our home, in our community. We are “called” by God to love and
serve others. God preserves and cares for his creation through us.
This morning turn from asking, “WHERE am I
called” to asking, “HOW is God involved in my calling?” How does God work in
me, and on me, and through me in my “calling”? The answer is not a whole lot
different than what I experienced in my “calling” as a father with our son,
Carl. As you and I are confronted, as I was, with how we fail in our various
“callings”, God meets us with grace and changes our behavior. We see the same
dynamic at work in an encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus in his “calling” as
a tax collector.
I’ve always loved the story of Zacchaeus.
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he,” is the way a Sunday
school song starts out. “He climbed up into a sycamore tree, the Lord he wanted
to see.” Zacchaeus wanted to see the Lord because he was a needy man. He was a
tax collector. He was a Jew who went to work for the occupying Roman
authorities to collect taxes, often extorting more than required. He was both a
traitor and a cheat. He was hurting – big time. Most likely his own people
avoided him, called him names, refused to have anything to do with him. The
feelings that accompany dishonesty, and the fractured relationships that result,
must have confronted Zacchaeus in a powerful way with his failure.
Zacchaeus must have sensed that Jesus could
change his life. And Jesus must have sensed Zacchaeus’ need. “Zacchaeus, come
down right now. I must be a guest at your house today!” Jesus met Zacchaeus at
his point of failure with grace. He went in to be the guest of a “sinner.”
While we don’t know what went on inside the
house, we know that Zacchaeus came out a different man. That’s what undeserved
love can do. “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the
poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times
the amount.” Jesus replied, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Then
Jesus spelled out his purpose for being in this world, not only for Zacchaeus,
but also for each of us in our various “callings.” “For the Son of Man came to
seek and to save what was lost.”
The way Jesus interacted with Zacchaeus is the
same way Jesus interacts with us. It is in our “callings” where God confronts
us with our failings, meets us with his grace and empowers us to live in new,
God-pleasing directions.
Being confronted with our failings happens in
many ways, but it is all God’s work. It might be lack of harmony at home, a
fractured relationship with an employer, the feeling of guilt when we become
aware that we have violated one of God’s commands, penalties that come if we
break a law of the state, an awareness that we’ve let someone down or realizing
how consumed we are with ourselves and how unconcerned about others, not only on
a personal level but also on a community or national level. God works to
convict us. God is constantly putting our old self to death that he might raise
us to new life through grace just as he did with Zacchaeus.
A son talks back to mom or dad. He feels
guilty, for God says we are to honor and respect our parents. He also
experiences stress in that relationship. The son is driven to the cross and the
grace God gives him there. God puts his old self to death and raises him to new
life.
In our “calling” as citizens we are asked to
pay taxes. We ought to pay our taxes out of thankfulness to God for living in a
free, democratic land. Our old self, however, sends in money out of fear of
punishment. Either way, God’s will gets done even while our old self is being
put to death. Hopefully God’s grace moves us to pay taxes out of thankfulness.
Each one of us who is married loves our spouse
and we gladly do so. But the law of God and laws of the state force our sinful
self to love them when we are tempted to wander off into other relationships.
Here again our old self is put to death in some way every day. We are brought
to the cross where we are convicted, but at the same time empowered to love our
spouse, as God would have us love.
Last spring I attended a retreat for CEO’s.
All were Christians who were seeking to live out their faith in the daily life
of their business world. One man was the head of a corporation that makes 60%
of the constant torque hinges used in laptop computers. Year before last was
their best year ever. Last year was their worst.
A decision loomed on the horizon. Should they
downsize and lay off management and workers? Or should they cut salaries across
the board, starting with management taking the biggest cut at 25%. The first
way, management would be making judgments that drastically altered people’s
lives and the company’s future. The second way, everyone would share in the
economic downturn, and management the most. Those who left the company would
self-select to do so. After writing a position paper and prayerfully
considering the two alternatives, the CEO decided on the pay cut alternative.
The law of concern for his neighbor drove him to the cross, where he and other
management died to self and sacrificed their own needs to the needs of their
employees. God was active in their decision by putting their old self to death
and empowering them to place their employee’s welfare over their own.
As God’s children, every day we are brought
under conviction of sin by God’s demands or law. The law accuses us of sin,
condemns us, crushes us and finally kills our sinful self. In God’s continuing
demand to love our neighbor, our old unloving self ends up being crucified. As
we recognize the extent of our sinfulness, in repentance we reach out for God’s
forgiveness. We are empowered by the Gospel to once again love and serve others
in our “callings.” It is all God’s work in us.
God continues to call you and me to the cross
every day. God’s saving work in our lives is not to try to make our old self
holy. Rather through the law and the Gospel God puts our old self to death, so
that the new self in Christ can make its presence known. The place where this
happens is in our “vocations” or “callings” – at home, in the workplace and in
the community. That is how is involved in our “callings.” God calls us and
uses us to love our neighbor and at the same time enables us to be more like
Jesus.
The story of Zacchaeus is really unfinished.
Zacchaeus was made new. He received a divine call, not to leave the tax
collecting business, but to go back to his old job as a child of God, to do his
job with new integrity and love for his neighbor. As Zacchaeus went into the
future, though, he would need to continue to die each and every day to his
natural desire to cheat and use people for his own purposes. He would need to
let God’s life in him move him to treat other people fairly and generously.
Our stories are unfinished too. Through the
Gospel and our baptisms God makes us his children. He gives us new life. But
this new life is lived out one day at a time. Because we are sinful by nature
and will always be so, God works in our lives each day to put our old self to
death and to raise us to new life. Luther says, “Our sinful self, with all its
evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and day
after day a new self should arise to live with God.” Working through our
baptisms and the law and Gospel God continues his work in us one day at a time.
The place where he does this is in our “vocations” or “callings.” We are daily
convicted, converted and empowered to live for God.
A member of our congregation said to me
recently about worship. “We need to get away from this one hour a week
stuff. The Christian life is every moment of every day.” It is my
prayer that each of us grows in our awareness of God’s intimate involvement in
our “callings.”
Amen.
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