Dr. Dale Miller, July 9, 2006

Sent to Serve

Matthew 28:16-20

Obviously this morning we are gathered together for worship, but there is also the sense of anticipation of a new relationship between a pastor and the people of this congregation. As a means of introduction I want to take you back a few decades to a small town in southern Indiana, a town named Scottsburg.

Scottsburg was where I lived between the ages of two and seven. It was in that town where I accomplished many "firsts" in my life: it was where I first went to school, where I took my first piano lesson, where I first learned how to ride a bicycle, where I first played basketball, where I first learned how to play with other children, and where I participated in my first Sunday School Christmas pageant. It was an exciting and wide-eyed adventuresome time for me.

I lived with my mother and father on Slater Street. Slater Street was one block long. It started at the top of a small hill alongside a two-lane highway that featured a noisy truck stop. It quickly descended to a small lake with another street crossing. It was a great place for a youngster to learn how to ride a bicycle, at least going down hill that is. You got up on the bike, pushed off, and you didn't have to peddle. Brakes, however, were very important so you wouldn't land in the lake. The trip back up the hill was tedious and forced you to learn how to peddle.

There were perhaps a dozen homes on this street with each home containing one or two children. We needed every child on the block to play games. If we wanted to play "tag" or "statue" or "hide-and-seek" it was mandatory that each kid participate. And we couldn't hesitate to say, "yes" to whatever was going on. If we wanted to play the game we wanted to play we had to learn how to play the games the other kids wanted to play. It was definitely a group effort that made everything happen.

Allow me to call your attention to the tree stump in the middle of the chancel. I must now confess to you that I have wanted to be a preacher since the age of six. Oh, there were times when I wavered in that desire, but I always returned to that inner pull on my life. The tree stump is significant to my life. When it was my turn to pick the game the neighborhood children were going to play, I would call out "preacher!" I took the kids out to the fencerow in the farthest corner of our backyard; took the thin blanket that I usually used for my Superman cape and turned it around to use as a robe; took my place atop the tree stump; and began to preach.

I remember the tree stump. I remember the cape. I remember having a good time. Fortunately, I do not remember anything I ever said from that tree stump. I want to publicly apologize to all of those former neighborhood kids for anything I might have said. I am sure that it wasn't anything good at all.

Two lessons I learned from those experiences that I still carry with me today:

1. Getting the most out of living is a group effort that takes cooperation. If I want people to listen to me I had better be interested in hearing what they have to say. If I want people to be interested in who I am then I need to be genuinely interested in who they are. If I want people to work alongside me then I must be more than able to work alongside them. If we focus only on our own lives we are going to miss out on a whole lot of life. If we understand that we are in this world with incredible, wonderful people and some not-so-wonderful-but-interesting people, then we can relax and enjoy them and ourselves as well. The Christian faith is personal, but it is not individualistic. If it were about individualism Jesus would have never called twelve disciples to be a part of his group. Jesus calls us personally into a faith relationship with God, but once we are in that relationship we discover that when we are with God we also get to be with all of God's family.
   
   For those of us who are married, are we able to remember that moment when it dawned on us that our wonderful, lovely mate also came with a family that we were now in a relationship with as well? Good, bad or ugly did not make any difference. When we enter that faith relationship with God through the grace of Jesus Christ we get the whole Christian family. And with the grace of Jesus Christ the whole family is to be cherished and enjoyed. No, the family is not perfect, but we work together to perfect our love in Christ, our love for Christ, and our love through Christ.
   
   Our journey with Christ is amazing and it takes amazing grace to make it happen. It always has and it always will. Your faith journey began before I arrived here. My faith journey began before today. Our journey is now intertwined, with Jesus the Christ calling us forward in our discipleship to him. There are great times in store for us, because we serve a great God. Amen!

2. When you stand on the tree stump you better have something valuable to say. When I was introduced to the Detroit East District Superintendency Committee in 2000 as the next Detroit East District Superintendent, I remember the last question asked of me that afternoon. The Bishop turned to me and asked, "Right now, what is your greatest fear?" 
   
   To his surprise and to mine there was no silence between his question and my response. I immediately said, "Failing God." 
   
   I believe that when I serve God the best way I possibly can, then I am serving you the best way that I can. You are a vital part of what God is all about. If I fail God, I am failing you. If I am failing you, I am failing God. The best way not to fail you is to focus on whom and what God is and what God is calling us to be and do.

The big question, of course, is, "What is God calling us to be and do?" In the Gospel of Matthew we find a two-fold response: the Great Commandment (22:34-39) where we are instructed to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, and the Great Commission (28:16-20) where we are challenged to make disciples, baptizing and teaching them to everything that Jesus had commanded.

In other words, we are sent to love and to serve God and all of humanity. You and I are sent to love and to serve God, to love and to serve each other, and to love and to serve those people who are beyond the walls of this congregation, people whom we have not yet met, and people whom we will never meet.

Jesus armed his disciples with love and then gave them their marching orders. Jesus called his disciples to a love that helped them to understand God, to understand the Christ, and to understand each other as beloved creations of a caring and hope-filled Creator. Then Jesus dared his disciples to live out that love by giving it away.

The disciples were no longer the student followers of their Messiah. The disciples were now the leaders of a faith we have labeled Christian. How were they to lead? By serving. By giving the grace of God they had experienced in Jesus Christ to others. By sharing a sacrificial love that challenged people to commit themselves to all of creation and a Divine Creator, instead of being occupied with their own individualistic world.

I believe all disciples are to be leaders. In his book, Simple Steps, Dr. Arthur Caliandro, senior minister of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City writes: Unfortunately, there is a major misconception about leadership. Leadership is not an ego thing. Leadership is about giving. Wherever you are in your life, you can be a leader. You become one by serving others. It is just as simple - and just as difficult - as those words imply. Because true leadership has nothing to do with seeking advancement or personal rewards. It is all about helping other people - reaching out and caring and helping and loving as much as your capabilities allow. You can lead in your life, starting today, from exactly where you are. Leadership is a call you can obey.

It is my privilege to be appointed as your lead pastor, your spiritual leader. My leadership, however, is based on this understanding of serving, of giving, and of loving. It is also my challenge to you this day that your leadership is required as well. I have not come here to do your ministry. I am here to roll up my sleeves and work alongside you as we do ministry together.

Christianity is not a spectator sport. We are all participants. We all stand in need of discovering our dreams, ambitions and hopes for how we live out our discipleship in Jesus Christ. The tasks may seem overwhelming. It may seem that we do not have capabilities to pull "it" off, no matter what "it" may be.

The Good News, however, is that it is not all about us. It is about our God, our faith, and us. When Jesus confronts the disciples with an awesome commission, Jesus also promises the divine presence to the church as it responds to the commission.

At the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew we are told in Chapter One, Verse 23 that Jesus' name is Emmanuel, God is with us. In Chapter Eighteen, Verse 20, we read of the promise given to the disciples that when they gather for worship Jesus will be present. And now, in Chapter Twenty-Eight, Verse Twenty we read of this commitment of Jesus to accompany his disciples.

In other words, when the church baptizes, teaches, serves, speaks, and makes disciples of the nations we do so aware of the presence of the risen Jesus who empowers us to do so through him. Our capability is dependent on the One who possesses all capability.

Can great and marvelous ministries continue to happen at Nardin Park UMC? Absolutely! Because of me? No! Because of you? No! Great things can happen because God and you and me and all of us together are seeking to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, relying on the divine presence of Jesus Christ to make it happen!

I no longer live on Slater Street. My address now includes Eleven Mile Road. There are now more than a dozen people with which to play and enjoy life. There is still more energy and creativity from a group than from an individual. The gathering of the sinners and the communion of the saints still constitute the vitality of God's church.

I still have a tree stump. God still has a message for us, a message that came from another tree where a Savior gave us his life for us. We are still called to be loved and to love, to be disciples and to make disciples, all by the grace of God.

At the top of each newly written composition Johann Sebastian Bach would write: "To God Be the Glory." We can do nothing less than to give all that we are to the God who gives us all of life. Amen.