10-13-15 - What's the Pay-Off?

It’s natural to want to see a return on investment, to see a pay-off when we’ve worked hard at something. Non-profits have learned to communicate the often intangible benefits to be reaped by donors and volunteers, and churches have jumped (or been forced…) on that bandwagon too. I spend a lot of my time preparing marketing materials in numerous media, spreading the message that being a part of life at Christ the Healer will help people feel better or more connected to God, others and themselves.

I even find myself “marketing” the life of following Jesus, reminding people how much joy and peace and love there is to be found in Christ in this life, not only the next. I have a sermon series on the promises of God – Peace, Power, Presence, Purpose (not Prosperity). Lots of pay-off!

James and John wanted to know there was a pay-off, too. But were they listening to Jesus? He has just spoken again about the adversity that he was soon to face in Jerusalem – arrest, trial, condemnation, crucifixion, and rising again Focused on their status when Jesus was in “his glory,” they seem to have forgotten his reminders of persecution. To their request that they have “dibs” on the seats next to him, 
Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’

They replied “We are able.” Did they know what they were saying? For that matter, do we? This expression Jesus used meant, “Can you share my lot?” Jesus was soon to hold a cup of wine and say to his disciples, “This is my blood. Each time you drink this cup, remember me.” And what did he mean by baptism? A ritual of cleansing, of complete transformation? Early on, the church saw in the ritual of baptism a symbolic joining with Christ in his death and rising with him in resurrection. Were James and John up for all that?

Are we up for all that? Or do we turn away when life gets hard and the rewards of ministry seem hard to discern, when church attendance and giving don’t seem to go up, and the numbers at the homeless shelter don’t seem to decline, and it seems harder and harder to connect people to the life we find in the Gospels. How do we live into the joy of the Lord when we don’t see it? Ah, that’s why it’s called faith!

The Life of God, as Jesus revealed it, is not the realm of the big pay-off. It is the life of sacrificial, other-directed, giving without limits that Jesus lived and taught, and millions have done after him. When we fail to communicate it that way (mea culpa…), we don’t help people to cultivate that spirit of giving. We don’t foster maturity in the Spirit.The Gospel was, and is, counter-cultural.

Yes, and I will continue to preach that God doesn’t expect us to give out of an empty vessel. The cup we drink every Sunday is called the cup of salvation; it is the water of life, turned to wine through the power of Jesus’ love. Our invitation is to take in that life, again and again, and pour it out completely, again and again, for the sake of the world.

The world may not appreciate the gift, but as we do see good fruit of changed lives and hearts turned God-ward, we can give thanks. That’s the only pay-off we need.