Creekside Church Sermon of July 11, 2004 "One Holy Passion - You Want Me To Do WHAT?" Romans 12	Betty Kelsey
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Back in the early 1970s when I came to Elkhart, I spent a lot of time cruising around town in my tan VW bug to get a good orientation of the city. One morning the car was low in oil, so I pulled up to the full service pump at a station on Main and Hively. The man who pumped my gas made me---his customer--feel important. I figured he must be the owner of the station. He cleaned the windshield, checked the oil, and filled the gas tank with a real service attitude. The experience was special that I never forgot it.

After I married Cary and started coming to Elkhart City, I discovered that service station owner was--Myron Miller! It fit, because Myron cares about people.

Later, when we were in a small group together, I heard a different tune from Myron. When I'd ask him how work was going, he'd say with a little lopsided grin, "Well, I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up."

What made the difference? Myron sold his station and took a job on the assembly line of an RV company. Myron's a people person, and his job didn't offer much in that department. But that phase of his life passed, and now when he goes to RV rallies for his company, he's in his glory, meeting and helping to people all day long. I know he's a real asset to his company!

Today I want to talk about "passion." It's a word that's thrown around a lot-between the movie title and talking about having a "passion" for this or that. Before you get sick of the word, let me put a different spin on its meaning. Passion, according to Henri Nouwen, is "being handed over, being acted upon." The definition fits with the passion story of Jesus-he was literally "handed over" and "acted upon." But when Paul talks in Romans 12:1 about offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, he means "handing over" ourselves to God so he can "act upon" our lives. The result, Paul says, is that GOD BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN US.

With the start of our church reorganization and new ministry teams, we need the best God can bring out of us. If we care about the future of our church-and I think all of us do--how do we discern where each of us should plug in with our own gifts?

I want to organize my thoughts along the line of a simple body prayer I learned at Shalem several weeks ago. Do it along with me as I walk you through it.
Beginning in prayer
REACH out to God
RECEIVE the gifts God gives you
TEND the gifts and develop them
SHARE the gifts with others

Let's concentrate on the verbs in that prayer.

REACHING
How do you understand your relationship with God? If you drew a picture of that relationship, what would it look like? Here are two images that one author shared:
"I see God expressing God's self in an enormous fireworks display in the sky, like a chrysanthemum of sparks flying off in all directions. I identify myself as one of the sparks, lighting up my particular point in space-time.
In another image, I see the Creator as a giant tree, expressing himself in leaves. I am a leaf on the tree. When I hold myself as a leaf up to the light, I see all the veins in the leaf and notice that their pattern matches the pattern of the tree itself. I am created in the image of the Creator."

God and I are not completely separate entities. But most of the time we live as though God were off in his kingdom somewhere out of reach, and we just try to live independently and decently on our own. We're not even sure we want God too involved in our lives.

In the tree image, this would be like a leaf deciding that, even though we owe our creation to the giant tree, we're not important to it, so we hop off the twig and seek our own life. The result is that we lose the sustenance of the tree sap, and eventually turn brown and shrivel up.

I've come to believe that God has a beautiful dream for his world. He's made many overtures to help us understand how much he wants and needs our companionship and service to bring his dream to fruition, including sending his Son to live and die for us. He continually tries to communicate with us. But we can be so busy with our own small dreams that we don't recognize his overtures.

Reaching out to God acknowledges that God is the center of our lives, and that all we are comes from God. Jesus' message was, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." To lose ourselves in God, in God's dream, recognizes that we are part of God, like the leaf on the tree. We lose ourselves as an individual leaf for the sake of God's tree. And what happens? We find ourselves-whoever loses his life for me will find it.

This is what it means to REACH out for God-to recognize the relationship of leaf and tree. We become part of God's dream!

So, reach out to God-and find yourself.

RECEIVING

Psalms says that God knit us together in our mother's womb. God weaves into each tiny baby the gifts of unique attitudes and aptitudes. As we develop, we need to listen for clues to discover those gifts.

As a teenager I remember being in groups where everyone was asked to list their gifts on paper. My paper usually stayed blank because I couldn't see that I had any gifts. I wasn't a teacher or a preacher like everyone else in my family. I didn't have a concert voice-in fact, when I auditioned for the lowest choir in college I wasn't even accepted! (What do they know--you guys let me sing any time I want to!) My family wasn't into encouraging excellence, except in faith, so I never worked hard to get good at any one thing. I lived my life the way I played ping-pong. I could give people a hard time, but I rarely won.

Over the years I've discovered several questions that can help uncover clues to who God made us to be. The first question is, what gives you energy? Most things take energy and effort to learn or to accomplish. When you exert effort in something, how do you feel? Energized? Or drained? Pay attention to what energizes you.

The second question is, what do you love? If you're like me, there are things I thought I would like to do, but figured they weren't meant for me. Cary and I have had a number of friends at the AMBS seminary. I enjoy and feel energized by our discussions with them. I've even read through the course offerings on the seminary website. But I never really thought of enrolling because of cost and, well, it wouldn't lead to anything! About a year ago I met a former colleague from MMA and asked him what he was doing. "Right now I'm taking a seminary class on "New Testament Teaching for the Congregation," he said, "because I want to see if seminary is for me." My immediate response was, "Wow, I'd love to do that!" But even then, I missed the clue in my very own response.

I must have used that phrase one time too many in front of Phyllis Carter. She said to me, "Betty, listen to yourself!" In fact, she suggested something even more way out-she thought I should preach! I said, "You want me to do WHAT?" Preaching was never something I aspired to-and still don't! She waved her hand at me and said, "Don't give me a response now. Just go on retreat and pray about it." I figured this wouldn't go away, so I spent a day at the Quiet Place just to "listen." What was God calling me to? Over the course of that day my question changed from "Am I being called?" to "How can I make it happen?" So here I am, at age 62, enrolled not in seminary, but in a two-year certificate program in spiritual direction. I'm doing what I love! Just proves that it's never too late to change-right, Vicki? So pay attention to any responses that begin "Wow, I'd love to . . ."

Returning to Romans 12, Paul has two pieces of advice about RECEIVING. First, be deeply grateful for the gifts God gives you. Recognize them as God's goodness to you. And second, be humble, without comparing your gift to others' gifts. This is the
passion--"handing over" ownership of our gifts and allowing God to "act upon" us for God's great purpose in the world.

Gratefully, humbly receive God's gifts.

TENDING

Now Paul gets specific. Listen to his list of things to "tend to." Notice how much he emphasizes relationships.
· Keep fueled and aflame
· Be alert, cheerfully expectant
· Don't quit in hard times-just pray harder
· Be inventive in hospitality
· Bless your enemies
· Laugh and cry with your friends
· Get along with each other
· Make friends of nobodies (don't be a great somebody)
· Discover beauty in everyone
· Don't get even-that's God's role
· Feed and clothe friends and enemies alike
· Get the best of evil by doing good

"Having" a gift doesn't automatically make it significant. We don't always measure up to Paul's list. Tending God's gifts sometimes means returning to the Giver for mending, forgiveness and loving instruction. Tending may include some formal training to develop proper knowledge and skills. Sometimes the gift becomes a life calling. Sometimes your 9-5 job simply finances your real calling. And sometimes your gift is more of an attitude than an aptitude.

When we first discover our gifts, it's easy to put boundaries on it. "I'll do this, but not that," as though the gift extends this far and no further. What if we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg, when God imagines so much more for us? Let me give you an example from my Shalem residency in Baltimore.

There were 16 associates in training, and we were divided into three peer groups that met frequently during the residency. At the end of the 10 days we were to evaluate ourselves and each of our peer group members-face to face. The leaders of the residency were wise. The evaluation was handled by gathering the evening before as a total group to pray. We were instructed to pray silently for first one member of our peer group, than another, asking God, What is your prayer for this person? After each person we were given time to write down what came to us. That was the evaluation we shared with each other the next day. There's something powerful about being told, this is what came to me when I was praying for you. The exchange was genuine, supportive, and insightful. My group encouraged me to BE BOLD, to be open to new gifts, not to shortchange myself by limited vision of who I am. And that's what I want to encourage in you. Remember Paul's words-when we are open to God, GOD BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN US.

SHARING

A gift left unwrapped in a package is beautiful but not what the giver intended. A gallon of ice cream unopened is never enjoyed. A dream never lived haunts the dreamer of what might have been.

I have here an empty bowl, a badly shaped bowl, and a bowl full of flowers. When it comes to getting plugged into God's dream, some feel like an empty bowl. Back in the days when I thought I had no gifts, I didn't recognize my God-given gift of faith and a passion for the spiritual journey. Looking back, they were always part of who I am. When I finally identified them as gifts, I "had a place in the choir" right along with all God's other children. I see them as God's dream for me-to share my faith in God when others find it hard, and to help people be aware of and grow in their journey with God.

Some of you may feel like the empty bowl-not yet recognizing the specialties God created within you. Pay attention to what energizes you and what you love to do. Some of you will understand the sense of being filled full in the discovery and sharing of your gifts. And what 's the misshapened bowl? I don't know. It could be fear that blocks you from taking a risk. It could be not seeing yourself as important to God and God's dream. Maybe it's a schedule that keeps you running on empty or floods your engine. It may be your need to be in control.

Moving from empty to full requires time for relating to God, for delighting in being a leaf on his Eternal Tree. One of the precious lessons I learned at Shalem is to take time for silence, for listening, for asking God what is His prayer for me and for others. Consider the insight of spiritual mentors. Share your gifts with others out of the model of servanthood, just as Jesus did.

God created you, God loves you, and God planted within you everything you need for a full rich life.

So, FOR GOD'S SAKE,
REACH, RECEIVE, TEND & SHARE. Amen.

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