What am I doing here?

Written by Ed Kauffman

Things are not looking good!  People don’t pay attention to what God wants, they are greedy, and proclaim that everything is great, even when they know it’s not.  Enemies seem to be closing in, and everyone is fearful.  We thought things would get better, but even the weather seems to be conspiring against us.  Many people have just given up, and turned to despair.  The headlines read, “Terrorist threat Rises”, or “Enemy Approaches.”

 Even in the church things seem to be going downhill.   There is anguish over the state of the church. Some seem to have left the faith and borrowed from all kinds of beliefs. It’s hard to tell who is faithful these days, and the church seems to be heading for disaster.  Some people are spreading false doctrine and quarreling about who’s in and who’s out.

 Or at least that’s what it seemed like to Jeremiah and Paul.  And it hasn’t gotten much better.  In an editorial a week ago Saturday, Robert Remington began this way, “ The world is in a sorry mess. A lunatic pastor wants to burn Qur’ans on the anniversary of 9/11, the economy is in the pits, the weather in Alberta has been horrible for months, my favourite NFL team has a 40-year-old quarterback and Stephen Hawking says there is no God.”

 Jeremiah lived and wrote in a time of extreme distress.  Israel was under siege and there seemed little hope for the future. People were making alliances with foreign nations, borrowing gods from their neighbours, and generally grasping for whatever came along that seemed to promise relief.  At times they plead with God to deliver them, and at other times seem to turn away from God.  Just prior to the verses we read, Jeremiah notes the sound of approaching horses – the dreaded Babylonians are coming and he says “the whole earth quakes.  They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and all who dwell in it.”

 Paul, as I noted last week, had some real concerns for the church that Timothy was left in charge of.  We don’t know exactly what the issues were, but Paul never minces words when it comes to condemning and warning against those who deal in myths and quarrels. He calls them “wolves”, and even goes so far as “turning them over to Satan”.

 You don’t have to look very far to find similar themes today.  Wars, treats of war, attacks on civilians, and natural disasters seem to be the daily stuff of the news.  As Remington notes, even the weather seems to be paying havoc with us these days.  I made the comment the other day that I think we were lured here under false pretenses, having been told that Calgary was one of the sunniest places in Canada!  We’re trying hard to believe that, even though the evidence so far is not very convincing!

 And as for the state of the church, we’ve all read or heard those who predict that the church is on its way out.  The Pope, in England, warned of the demise of the church, and polls talk about the decline in church attendance.  And within the church, it often seems that most of the energy goes into quarreling over who’s in and who’s out, which only makes more people decide they don’t want to be in anyway.

 So what do we say?  How do we respond to such a picture?  Is it hopeless?   Is there no balm in Gilead?  ( As a side note, since this gets mentioned several places this morning, this balm was probably actually from the Far East somewhere, but the trading routes came through Gilead, and it was probably traded there for local use, and thus became associated with Gilead, even though it was not native there.)

 Perhaps our response is that of that lone voice from the back of the 7th Cavalry in Larry Verne’s 1960 one-week hit, “Please Mr. Custer” – as the situation surrounding General Custer and his men began to look more and more desperate,  that voice from the back rang out loud and clear “What am I doin’ here?”  “Please, Mr Custer”, the song continues, “I don’t wanna go!”

 Why would anyone want to get involved?  Who would want to be a prophet, or a preacher, or even be identified with the church when it seems to most to be irrelevant at best, and misguided at worst.  Perhaps we should all just abandon ship and fend for ourselves, or go off and find some nice secluded spot, keep to ourselves and not worry about what’s going on.

 Or perhaps, Jeremiah and Paul have a message not only for their own people, but for us as well.  Perhaps we can learn something from these two writers that will give us a sense of direction and hope for the future.  And perhaps it is something more than Robert Remington’s solution – the ukelele, much as I like the fact that he proposes that if everyone would join me and play the ukulele this would be a much more peaceful world.

 Now, Jeremiah’s words are also words of despair.  “my joy is gone’, he says.  He echos the questions of his people, “Is the Lord not in Zion?” He cries out, and literally cries for his people.  And in that he gives us a word of instruction.  We often view the role of the prophet as standing outside, or above the people, condemning them for their sins and pronouncing judgement.  Many people think the modern day equivalent of a Jeremiah are the Rush Limbaugh’s or Glenn Beck’s of the world. (sorry I don’t yet know the Canadian equivalents, and maybe you don’t have any equivalents)

 But the prophets did not distance themselves from their people.  While they may have pointed out the people’s sin, and called for repentance, it was always from within.  The prophets identified with the people and, as Jeremiah is pictured here, shed tears over what was happening, pleading with the people and with God on behalf of the people.  While they may have often wondered why they were chosen to speak, they were never in doubt that it was God who had called them to be where they were, at the time they were there.

 There have been times I have asked, “What am I doing here?”  Yet in each situation it has seemed clear that God has called me to that particular time and place.  Some of you have already heard me relate this story, but I’ll repeat it this once in a sermon.  As we were in the final week of packing, I finally got around to putting a “For Sale” sign in the window of my pick-up, on Wednesday before we left.  As I was driving it on one last errand that day, I got two persons who were interested, and took the best offer, from a guy from N. Dakota who was in the area on business and saw me driving.  On Thursday morning he called and wondered if there was any way I could get the truck to Marshall, MN where he had relatives living.  And I said, “that’s at least an hour away and I really don’t have time.” And we left it at that.  About 2 hours later I got a call from U-haul, to tell me where I was to pick up my truck on Friday.  “We’re sorry’, the lady said, “but we don’t have any trucks the size you want in Sioux Falls.  The closest place we have a truck that size available is Marshall, MN, but you could pick it up today.”  And that’s only one of the numerous instances I could cite where obstacles seemed to disappear. 

 But this message isn’t just for me.  We are all called to identify with the people around us.  Rather than standing aloof from all those bad people around us and condemning, or withdrawing into our own comfortable surroundings and leaving them to their fate, we are all called to identify with the world around us.  To see ourselves as called by God to this particular time and place.  First Mennonite Church is in this community for this time and God has a purpose for us here.

 And what is that purpose?  Well, for that I turn to Paul’s words to Timothy.  Words not of despair and condemnation, but of the message we have been given for the world.  Paul begins with a call for prayer – for everyone, and especially for kings and those in high positions.  “I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”  Now that may sound like a rather self-serving prayer, and I think for many years we read it that way.  “Let’s pray that the kings, Prime Ministers, etc would leave us alone to live in peace.”  But that’s not really what Paul is saying. 

 A peaceable life is not an end in itself, but rather Paul prays for a peaceable life, so that God’s mission can be accomplished.  God, who desires “everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Everything, for Paul, revolves around God’s mission of spreading the Gospel to the world.  His instructions to the churches, to families, in fact most of his message about how the people of God should live and behave, is for the purpose of furthering the Gospel message.  Of making it attractive to the world around.

 And what is that message?  Paul again gives us a summary, probably a formula current in the early church.

 “There is one God, and one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.”

 What are we doing here?  We are here to carry out God’s mission to the world, in the world but not of the world, proclaiming a message that is relevant no matter what the circumstances.  A message of hope even in tough times.

 So we need to decide.  We can join in the despair of the people.  We can stand aloof and say we're not like that, and condemn those who see no hope.  We can withdraw and say it’s not our problem, so long as we’re saved we don’t really care what happens to everyone else. 

Or we can join with Jeremiah, and Paul, and the myriads of others who have heard the call of God and Christ to spread the Good News to the world.  A message of hope and trust in a God who wants all people to be saved and has provided a means for that to happen through Christ.

 But it’s a message that people won’t hear unless we deliver it.  I was impressed this summer at the Mennonite Church Canada sessions when I heard about the peace messages on billboards and buses around Calgary.  That’s a wonderful start.  But I wonder, do the people of Killarney know that that’s the message of First Mennonite?  Or the people of the neighbourhoods we all live in?

 Jesus in the City, is a ministry in Minneapolis, MN that reaches out to some of the forgotten or rejected of the city. Many of the people Michael Lillie, one of the pastors, interacts with are ex-cons who have not adjusted to life back on the streets, and have returned to drugs or alcohol and many are homeless.  It would be easy to throw up your hands, write them off and condemn them to their fates.  But Jesus in the City Ministries sees Jesus walking the streets of the city, ministering to those in need and bringing a message of hope in the midst of despair.

 So, imagine yourselves in the world, with a message of hope and a story of a God who cares for the world, and for all who are in it.  A message for all time, in all circumstances, even those that seem hopeless. 

 Paul says, “For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”  That’s how Paul answered the question, What am I doin’ here?”  I believe I have been called to proclaim that message as well, and have been called by God, and by you, to this particular time and place.  And so I look forward to exploring with you our calling, together, as part of God’s mission to the world.

 And I brought my ukulele along just in case that helps!