The true test of whether what you are doing is real is not how you feel about it when you start. The true test is whether you can keep going and complete your task.
Anybody can get excited about a new job. But not everybody can stay by the stuff and finish. Some people get bored, or distracted, or disillusioned, and they quit the work. They lose interest. The true test of whether your work means something real is not how eager you are to get out of bed in the morning. The true test is whether you can put in the long hours and the drudgery needed to get the job done, done completely.
It’s good to come to Labor Day and to celebrate with many of you. It seems as though every week brings news of somebody with a new job. Some of you who have been unemployed quite a while have found work, and you are relieved and excited. Just to be able to pay the bills -- that will be great! I rejoice with you! Others who have felt a little unappreciated in their old jobs have found something more challenging. With you too I rejoice! I don’t believe God wants us to coast through life without some sort of challenge. Still others are going to college to pick up where you left off, to prepare for something more vital than what you’ve had. That’s superb, too! And yet others have received promotions, or you have just refreshed your vision of the job you’re already doing. I think all of this is great! It can only mean more vitality for you and for everyone around you. Praise the Lord for new jobs and better jobs!
By the way, as one of the people who makes sure the church can pay its bills, I guess I would be remiss if I did not remind you that a tithe of more is, indeed, more! But we won’t go there just now.
Remember, the true test of whether what you are doing is real is not how you feel about it when you start. The true test is whether you can keep going and can complete your task. e it?
One day I went downstairs to watch our Wednesday Club at work. Wednesday Club, as you may know, is a ministry our church operates for mentally challenged people. We do a number of things with our guests, including recreation. One favorite item of recreation is working jig-saw puzzles. On this particular day Jean White was sitting across from a Wednesday Club guest, and they were tackling one of those big, challenging jig-saw puzzles, with about a thousand pieces in it and no discernible pattern! As I watched, our guest worked at it for a little while, but he got tired. It was too much, and he gave up. He leaned back in his chair, he piddled with a couple of pieces, but he quit. In fact, when he saw me, he had a question, “Is lunch ready?” Let’s quit this hopeless thing and go have lunch. But not so Jean White. Jean continued to search for puzzle pieces. Jean kept on digging in the pile, confident that what she was looking for would be in there somewhere. And when I told our guest that, yes, it was almost time for lunch, what do you think Jean White said? “You go on without me, I’ll be there when I get this puzzle finished. I just can’t stand to see a job left incomplete.”
Would you rather finish a job than eat? Have you ever completed a task instead of feeding your face? Can you get so excited about completing something that you might miss one of Dan Lamar’s gourmet delights? Have you ever heard of such a thing? Can you imagine it?
I can. I have heard of such a thing. I read about it right here in the 4th chapter of John’s Gospel. John reports that Jesus was approached by his disciples, who had run off to town to buy food, but Jesus turned it down. “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And when the disciples, who I suspect never failed to satisfy their own Big-Mac-attacks, heard that, they couldn’t believe it! Not eat? Miss a meal? Why, for heaven’s sake, why? Jesus told them that indeed it was for heaven’s sake that he could miss a meal: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” My food, the thing that keeps me going, is not on a plate or in a pot; my food is to do what God wants me to do, and, most of all, to complete his work. To do it right. To do it all. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
I want to think with you for a few moments this morning about completing God’s work. Not about getting it started, but about completing it. Not about beginning new things, but about finishing what we have begun. I want to do this under the theme, “Caring with a difference.” Caring, with a difference.
I
When Jesus had finished telling the disciples about his energy for completing the Father’s work, he then told them to look at their own jobs. And he put it like this:
Do you not say, ’Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the
task. That’s where meaning lies. That’s where fulfillment is. That’s where you get satisfaction. Complete the work.
I would describe completing the work as caring with a difference. We have made a good beginning. We have embarked on some fine things. We’ve started some solid programs. But the temptation is going to be to shortchange them and to do them only halfway. The call of Christ is for us to complete our work, and to care with a difference.
Now we are a little different from some other churches here. Some churches need to be persuaded to help hurting people. Some churches aren’t sure it’s worthwhile to minister to broken people. Some churches are so caught up in their own conflicts, they can’t even see others’ hurts because they themselves hurt so badly. Still other churches are so caught up in their own idea of what it means to be spiritual that they can’t put any energy into serving those who hurt. Some churches, in a word, are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use.
But that’s not Takoma. That’s not where we are. Among us there has been a great deal of commitment to caring for hurting people. We want to see the sick healthy, the bereaved comforted, the ignorant educated, and the confused redirected. We have had, for many years, a commitment to help. You do know that caring is doing God’s work.
But I must insist today that caring is not enough. Caring is not enough. We are called not only to care; but to care with a difference. We are called not only to begin ministries with hurting people; we are called to complete them.
What am I talking about? What do I mean by completing the task? Jesus gave us the clue when he said that the Lord of the harvest was “gathering fruit for eternal life.” Gathering fruit for eternal life -- Jesus says that the job of helping hurting people is not finished until they have been helped into spiritual life. Care is not complete until their spiritual lives have been healed as well as their physical and emotional lives. We are to complete the task, and not to stop when we teach somebody to read or when we get somebody fed or when we see that their diseases are healed. All of that is fine; all of that is necessary; but there is more. We are to care with a difference. And the difference is Christ. The difference is eternal life. The difference is to complete what we have started, and to lead them to Christ. That’s where real excitement is. That’s where genuine fulfillment is.
II
Let me illustrate: a few weeks ago we hosted a bone marrow donor drive. We used our facilities, and we enlisted scores of people to be tested in order to see if we could find a bone marrow match for a young man related to one of our church members. I have heard numerous people say, “Now that’s what church is all about. That’s the kind of thing we should be doing.” Yes, that is true. No quarrel with that at all. That is a wonderful example of caring. But I believe we are called to do more than to care. We are called to care with a difference. We need to do more than look for bone marrow donors; we need also to point to a cross on which the body of the Son of God was broken, so that men and women can have not just health here and now, but health and life for eternity. Gathering fruit for eternal life. Caring with a difference. Completing God’s work.
We run an after-school enrichment ministry. It’s opening its fourth year now. I am astounded, every year, at what some folks seem to think this ministry is about. Some have said, “You are just duplicating the public schools.” Others have said, “You are aiding and abetting irresponsible parents, who ought to stay home and care for their children.” Still others have said, “We don’t need to subsidize these people; they ought to pay for the full cost of this.” Well, I am not this morning going to respond to all of that, but this much I must say: we are not just doing math and reading. We are offering more. We are not just running extra hours of school; we are providing love and care and nurture and the presence of Christ. If we care about children; we had better care about their education, and their safety, and their social skills, yes. We had better care about all those things, and do what we can for them; but we are called to care with a difference. And the difference is Christ. The difference is the Christ who commanded us to let the little children come to Him. Teach and tutor, yes. But give them Christ. Gather fruits to eternal life. Complete God’s work.
Whatever we do, we do as a church, committed to the message of Christ. The other day a man came up to me on the street; he told me that he was out of gasoline, that the service station wanted eight dollars for a deposit on a gas can, that seven or eight other people had cursed him out when he asked them for help. He seemed desperate and hot and angry. Now I had some choices. I could have said that I didn’t have much money with me, which was true. I could have just slipped him a few dollars quietly and let it go at that. But I felt moved to do more. I spoke with him about trusting God for all his needs. It turned him around in his tracks. “Nobody ever said anything like that to me.” What a shame! To leave that word unspoken would be to lie. If I am going to give my money, or the church’s money, which is all really God’s money, then I need to gather fruit for eternal life.
Whatever we do, we do as a church, committed to the message of Christ. If we have Exercise Classes, it is not just for recreation. It is for teaching people to be healthy in spirit as well as in body. If we have a youth ministry, it is not just to herd teenagers in here, away from negative influences. It is also to show them life in Christ. We care; I know we care. But we must care with a difference. Tell the whole story. Give the whole gift. Gather fruits to eternal life. Complete God’s work.
I have a dream today. My dream is of a redemptive church that will go on and finish what it has so nobly begun. My dream is of a church that will go into its community and, finding there not only “nice” people, people with all their ducks in a row, but finding there some broken and hurting people, will create new ministries for new needs. I dream of our having here ministries for alcoholics and for drug addicts, for families in distress and for single parents, for those who struggle with all kinds of distress. I dream, as one of our members said to me, that our church might be a hub in this community, a hub to which spokes lead from all the outer edges, out there where people are on the margins and are rejected and thrown away. I dream of our church as a hub, tying them in, welcoming them and loving them, caring for them. But with a difference. With a difference. At the center of the hub, Christ. Jesus Christ, savior and Lord! He is the difference.
III
So can we do it? Can we accomplish this? Can we find the energy and the diligence to do God’s work? Do we have here what it takes to give strength to the feeble and power to the faint in heart? Do we have what it will require to care with a difference?
A little while after Jesus had spoken with his disciples about his energy for completing God’s work, he and they all found themselves at the Sea of Galilee, faced with a daunting task. Five thousand hungry people to feed, and very little with which to do it. Five thousand hungry, tired, expectant people. Their Stewardship Chairman, Philip, ran his mental calculator, and said, “Even if we spent six months’ income, we couldn’t give them more than a little.” Philip didn’t quite say no, but he didn’t say yes, either. Philip was afraid to start something he couldn’t complete. I understand. I sympathize totally.
But then there was Andrew. Listen to Andrew, identifying resources. "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" We do have a start, but .. But you know what happened. Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. And they ate their fill. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples,
"Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost."
So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
Oh, God’s people, when you care with a difference, there will be enough and then some. There will be enough for them, and enough for us. When you care with a difference, I’m not worried about our budget, I’m not worried about our energy. I’m not worried about whether we are aging, I’m not worried that we are trying too many things. I am concerned about one thing and one thing only: do we care with a difference? Will we complete God’s work and point them to Christ?
I’m not worried, because when you care with a difference, there will be enough, and more. When Jesus Christ is on the scene, there is only one command, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." Gather up the fragments, so that nothing may be lost. Gather up broken men, left out, so that none of them may be lost. Gather up disgraced women, left aside, so that none of them may be lost. Gather up abandoned children, left behind, so that none of them may be lost. Gather up listless youth, bored of everything, so that none of them may be lost. Gather up AIDS patients, gather up lonely seniors, gather up the sorrowing and the suffering, gather up every fragment, so that none of them may be lost. Complete the job. Get it finished. Care with a difference. Gather fruit for eternal life. And you will be satisfied. You may miss a meal or two here and there, but I guarantee you: you will be satisfied, if you care with a difference.
