Who Do You Work For?

Sometimes I marvel at the fact that anyone decided to follow Jesus in the first place. “Foxes have holes,” he says, “and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” That is, tread in my footsteps and you’ll find that you have no place to call home, either geographically or culturally.[1] “Let the dead go and bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” That is, tread in my footsteps and you’ll find that the demands of discipleship supersede all other obligations.[2] “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” That is, tread in my footsteps and you’ll find that faithfulness requires undivided loyalty and focus.

These expectations are daunting, even impractical. And yet, from generation to generation, there have always been some who say yes. “I have set the Lord always before me,” as the Psalmist puts it, “My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices.” If the life of faith involves a decisive and long-term commitment– a permanent determination to walk one path to the exclusion of others– then why does anyone do it?

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells two stories, one fictional and one factual, that get at the kind of dedication Jesus describes in today’s Gospel from Luke:

[Excerpts from Overcoming Life’s Disappointments, 30-1, 34-5]

“I have set the Lord always before me…. My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices.” On this feast day for Saints Peter and Paul, June 29^th, I also mark the anniversary of my ordination in 2013. That’s twelve years, if you’re counting. And when this day rolls around every year, I have an opportunity to stop and ask myself again who I’m working for, and why.

My internship supervisor, James Honig, is among those I call my mentors. He delivered the sermon at my ordination, and described pastoral ministry in a way that dignifies the call to serve God in every age and in every way. For that reason, it’s a message for all of us:

Jesus’ call through the church does not demand a perfect love on your part. It does not demand that you have fully purified your motives. It does not demand that you have attained a certain measure of love that sets you apart. [Jesus’ call] comes. By grace….

[Which is to say the ministry] you do will not be rooted in your gifts. It will be rooted in the love of the savior that calls you in spite of your imperfect love and imperfect motive. It will be rooted in the promises of God for the people you serve and for all of creation. It will be rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ and [in] God’s intention for the Spirit to be moving in the church and in the world…. Your gifts will merely — and I use that word very intentionally — merely [be] the vessels through which God’s work gets done.

[1] Richard J. Shaffer, Jr., in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, 194.

[2] James W. Thompson, in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, 195.