But I’m comfortable with my life
John and Paul were having lunch together. They were not close though they both attended St. Matthew’s parish. Their relationship as mostly a cursory greeting over coffee and cookies in the fellowship hall each week.

So when John called and suggested lunch, Paul was curious. John had a proposition to make. That could be almost anything. They met at Maude’s diner – forgettable chicken fried steak and memorable pie. Their lunch conversation was light and non-committal – family news, work, vacation plans and such.

But over coffee and pie, John’s demeanor began to change. He looked straight at Paul and asked: “Have you ever thought about missionary work?”

Paul was stunned. John, having begun, seemed to dredge up the courage to plunge on. “You know that several of us from church go to Central America every year to work in a clinic and school. We do the normal things like nursing care and eye exams and such, but we also help with construction projects, and roadwork and sometimes they just want us to sit and read to the kids.

“It’s really exhausting work. You’ll come back thoroughly drained, and you’ll come back re-energized in a way you won’t believe.

“So our group met last week to begin planning this year’s trip and several of us thought that it was about time for you to join us.”

Then he stopped…and waited.

Paul didn’t respond immediately. His mind was racing. He had to find a plausible excuse.
Too old? No, John was about his age.
Too feeble? He supposed anyone who could eat Maude’s chicken fry and survive could conquer just about any challenge.
Too busy? He didn’t think he could sell the concept.

Then he had an idea. He would tell the truth.

“John, it sounds interesting, but why me? I don’t have any skills that you need – that is unless you have a computer system down there that needs to be administered. What could I do that would be helpful?”

“You’re right Paul. What you’ll be doing has nothing to do with your career here. That’s not why we thought of you. We wanted to add someone to the team who could relate to kids. And frankly that’s you. You have a great relationship with our children. The children’s message you gave last week was really fun and they all enjoyed it. Not only that but you taught them something.”

A feeling of desperation washed over Paul. He had to find a way out of this.
It just wasn’t possible.
He couldn’t do it.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help.
It wasn’t even really a matter of time or work.

The real truth was that he just wasn’t ready to up and…

No, the truth was that he was afraid. It was too different, too strange. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like. How could he accept it?

Finally, he found a way out. It wasn’t a good way, but it was the best he could think of on the spur of the moment.

“That sounds really interesting John. Can I look at my schedule and get back to you?

“Sure, Paul. That would be fine. Thanks for thinking about it.”

But as they left the restaurant, they both knew what Paul’s answer would be. Paul went back to the office to manufacture a reason why he couldn’t go. John left to phone in his report to the mission team leader. Paul would not be joining them this summer.

I’m too old. I’ve already given significantly.
Mrs. Wharton laughed out loud.

Didn’t he know who she was?

Certainly he had been told about all the good things she had done for the church over the years. How she had spent her whole life working in the church.
She had served on the parish board and on the Stephen’s ministry team.
She had served as Moderator of the lady’s aid at the local and regional levels.
She had been a Sunday School teacher for more than a dozen years.
She had been involved in mission work for as long as anyone could remember.
She had knitted bandages and crocheted socks.
She had assembled care packages and served meals at the rescue mission.
She had spent almost as much time in the church’s kitchen as she had in her own (maybe even more if you asked her husband).

She had given a full and productive life to the church and what she needed now was for the church to spend some time and effort taking care of her.

Instead what she got was some young whipper-snapper of a pastor who had the nerve to sit in her living room, drink her tea, and tell her about some crazy idea like a care ministry at the women’s prison.

And then he had the audacity to ask her to help. It was preposterous and she told him so, in no uncertain terms.

He, of course, was young and brash and he had a lot to learn about dealing with church leaders.

He tried to explain that she had more spiritual gifts than anyone he had ever known, and that gifts changed over time – as we got older and our circumstances changed. (That didn’t really help.)

He tried to explain that she still had gifts to give and it was important to find out what God was calling you to do at every stage of life.

In desperation he told her that caring for members was an important part of the church, but frankly “being cared for” didn’t really qualify as a spiritual gift.

She suggested that he could find his own way out, and then she left the room.

I’m not good enough
Vivian was sitting on her patch of grass, sign propped up against her knees.

It wasn’t that she wanted to beg; it’s just that begging was the only thing she knew. She had been raised as a panhandler. Her parents eked out a living on the kindness of strangers and, though she had never asked, she assumed that her grandparents and their parents before them had been beggars.

For Vivian every day consisted of staking out her place and waiting.
Always waiting.

Some days were good, and she would have enough money for dinner and a night at a third-rate motel. Other days weren’t so good. On those days she would have to choose between food and shelter. And on some days, she would have neither. Those were the really disheartening days. Those were the days that seemed to stretch on forever. Those were the days she feared more than anything.

Fortunately, times were a little better recently. People seemed to have a little more money to spare, and they seemed to be a little more willing to share what they had with her.

The hardest time for Vivian was mid-afternoon.

By then she pretty much knew how the day was going to turn out.

Granted there was the afternoon busy time when people were going home from work, but those people rarely stopped to give her anything. They seemed to always be in a hurry to get to wherever it was they were going.

She smiled.
One of the best things about her life was that she never had to hurry. She could take life as it came and if she could stand the waiting, it usually did come – eventually.

Vivian was sitting on her patch of grass, sign propped up against her knees when the man approached.

As soon as she spotted him, she knew that he wasn’t going to give her money. She was instantly very alert. People who didn’t give you money always gave you a hard time. Either they were officials of some sort – police or social workers who said they only wanted to help, but never did, or worse, they were bad people. This man didn’t look like either, but you couldn’t always tell. Vivian waited.

They looked at each other for a few long moments. Finally, the man broke the silence. “I’m Reverend Jones from the community church.”

Vivian silently groaned. The only thing worse than officials and bad people were do-gooders.

“And I need your help.”

He paused to let the impact of his statement sink in. Vivian wasn’t the first street person he had dealt with. He knew it would be difficult for her to accept that she could offer anything to anyone.

“We’ve got this soup-kitchen and we need someone to work in the dining room – cleaning tables, making sure everyone has a place to sit, making sure everyone has spoons and forks and such.
We can’t offer you any money, but we can see that you get a good hot meal every day. And it wouldn’t take more than a few hours each evening, so you’d still have time for…”

He looked at her cardboard sign

“…for other things.”

He stopped talking…and waited.

Vivian wished he would go away. She wasn’t sure why, but his offer really bothered her. She didn’t think the work would be too hard. It bothered her when he said ‘…every day…’ but not really that much. As she thought about his offer, the only thing she could think of was:

“Why me?”

“We need someone who is persistent, and you are out here every day, rain or shine. We need someone who isn’t easily intimidated. You have a special kind of courage to be out here like you are. And we need someone who can relate to our guests. If one of our other volunteers tried to do the job we’d probably scare them away. We think you could identify with them – their needs and their problems in a very special way.”

Vivian was flattered – which was a very strange feeling for her. Nobody had ever paid her a complement before and here he was dishing them out one right after another – and then offering her a job and hot meals all in the same breath.

She just couldn’t take it.

“Look mister minister. I don’t know how you think you can come out here and just say these things like this. You think I’m this all goody two-shoes who can just up and do this thing. Well I’ve got news for you. I’m not the one for you. There’s plenty of people you can pick that’s a whole bunch better than me. Go talk to one of them, ‘cause I’m not the one you want. Now get out of my way. I’ve got work to do.”

Reverend Jones walked away rejected but not discouraged.

He knew that he’d eventually get through to the woman. It took a lot of persistence and a very careful approach. Actually, it had been a very productive meeting. Usually the ‘I’m not good enough’ defense was the last one to get past and she had had to resort to it in the first meeting. No, It wouldn’t be long, and she would be a kingdom worker. Yes, it had been a very productive meeting.

I can’t go, but I will be glad to send money.
It was Sunday.

Marge had thought this day would never come!
Now she was certain it would never end.

Mike paced back and forth in their bedroom rehearsing his speech one more time as she tried to get dressed. Her thoughts were not kind. For goodness sake, Mike, it’s only a Moment for Mission! But at the same time, she knew how hard this was. Mike was not a public speaker. He was much more comfortable doing things and much less comfortable talking about them – especially if that talking involved addressing groups of people. She sighed. It was a significant sign of Mike’s commitment to the project that he was willing to stand up in front of the congregation and make this pitch. But she also knew how hard it was going to be to convince people to help. If one could say anything about their congregation it was that they were generous when it came to mission work. The problem was that their generosity rarely extended beyond their pocketbooks. Getting a mission team together to work on a project was always a challenge. As she combed her hair Marge wondered why that would be.

How could a group of people who were so willing to help with their money be so unwilling to help with their time? There were probably a number of reasons. Some of them might even be valid.

How do you convince people that the love evidenced by their labor is as important as the commitment evidenced by their money?

Here I am Lord
Harold looked at the old woman and felt a pang of sympathy. She was bent, her hands were gnarled and when she moved in that shuffling gate, she almost seemed to be stabbing the ground with her cane. As she made her way slowly down the street, killing imaginary snakes, she mumbled to herself; a steady stream of dialogue with a world long past – a world that never paid attention to her then, and certainly wasn’t listening now.

Harold had seen her every day as she made her rounds. He supposed that her life consisted largely of moving from alley to alley, garbage can to garbage can, trying to beg, find, or steal enough to keep going another day.

He sighed. It had to end sometime.

She peered up at the man who suddenly blocked her path. How dare he! She was an old lady and nobody with an ounce of decency got in the way of an old lady! That was the one privilege left to her; the one concession they gave to people like her. And here he was, stealing even that! She stabbed him with her cane.

“Good morning ma’am.”

She cocked her head. He didn’t know what to say next. Probably best to just say it.

“We need your help.”

She snorted.

“We’ve got a patient over at the Vet’s hospital, an older man, and we’re having trouble dealing with him. He’s really violent and, well, angry. We’ve noticed that he is most violent with the younger staff and less angry with older ones. So we were wondering if you could try to talk with him. Maybe he would react better with someone closer to his own age.”

He stopped…and waited.

She seemed to be weighing not only his words, but his value as a human being as well.

Her laugh was so sudden and sharp that Harold jumped.

“Sure, I’ll have a go at him. Who knows, we might even go out dancing!”

Gently taking her arm they turned and slowly began to make their way toward his waiting car.

“You’ll give me a cup of coffee, right? And lunch – I’ll need lunch.”

Harold smiled. “I think we can find you some lunch.”

There are plenty of ways to take up your cross, plenty of ways to engage in the work of bringing God’s kingdom to a fuller reality here in Boise and around the world.

It might be as simple as setting up a charging station for the homeless.

It might be as large as creating a new ministry to help families struggling with how to balance school, work, and family life in this time of pandemic.

Yes, there are ministry opportunities that are physically dangerous.

Many more, though, carry an emotional threat.

They’re outside of our comfort zone, or they challenge our self-image or our sense of what we think God ought to be calling us to be and do.

But, ultimately, being a Christian is about being called, called to something larger than ourselves.

“Take up your cross and follow me.”

“Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how.”

Being a Christian is about living your life as though it’s not all about you.

It’s about finding that wonderful good worth sacrificing for. And dedicating every day, every hour, to helping it become a reality

I leave you with a quote from Novelist and Professor Toni Morrison: “I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” 

It’s all that easy.
And it’s all that hard.

Amen