February 20, 2002
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
A little boy came home from kindergarten and announced that his teacher had put a gold star on his report card. His mother was delighted and asked what it was for. He replied that during rest period, his teacher said that he had rested better than anyone else! We know that God has more in mind for us than that!
We know what it feels like when Isaiah said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing.” When we’re not resting and sitting around but working long and hard and we still end up feeling that nothing was accomplished, we feel like what Isaiah was saying. So much of what we do yields no immediate results that we can point at. We can get terribly discouraged.
That’s the reason why pastors like me like to work on physical projects like mowing the lawn or weeding the garden. After an hour of back-aching weeding, I can see immediate results and all the efforts are not in vain; at least for two or three weeks. Then I start all over again. Maybe that’s the reason why God created weeds for pastors—so that we can get immediate satisfaction in our accomplishments.
It is vital for us to believe that we are chosen by God to be about God’s business in some unique way. Yet most of the time, we are only vaguely aware of specific ways that God is using us.
The Chosen Servant
The prophet Isaiah speaks about a chosen servant of God who will be listened by people and nations everywhere. People from far away coastlands will come. Kings will stand up. Princes shall prostrate. For this servant is God’s chosen agent. With effective skills and qualifications, the servant has a “mouth like a sharp sword” and a polished arrow.
But even with such skills and strengths, the servant doubts about his own abilities. “I have labored in vain.” He can’t seem to accomplish anything by himself. “I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” He realizes that success comes from trusting God not on himself.
God’s servant is one who goes against the norms of the world. He is first hidden from the understanding of the world but from the very beginning, in his mother’s womb, it was always God’s intention to use the servant to perform God’s mission. God said, “You are my servant, in whom I will be glorified.”
God’s plan for his servant was to go beyond just bringing Jacob back and restoring the survivors of Israel. God’s plan for the servant is to give “you as a light to the nations, that God’s salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”
Our Labors
In the past few weeks, I have felt a heightened sense among us the desire to understand the purpose for our lives. Maybe our sensitivities about our mortality have been ignited with the tragedies of September 11th. It may have been the recent annual ritual of turning over the new 2002 calendar and realizing that “we are another year older.” Perhaps it was confronting the sudden death of a loved one, a visit to the operation room, a medical exam that calls for more tests. We find ourselves wondering about the meaning for our lives and whether our labor has been in vain. Most of the time we are vaguely aware of the things that God is using us for. But we can begin to understand our purpose in life in the relationships and connections that we have with others—you and me; you with you; and so forth.
Remember when growing up, we would play with magnets on how they attract and repel. Every object has its own attracting and repelling influence on every other object. That’s true not only of things like magnets; it’s also true with our lives. Whether we like it or not, every life has its own distinctive influence on every other life. It’s not that you may wield an influence on others. You do wield an influence on others whether you intend to or not.
Every word you speak or do not speak, every action you take or do not take has an influence on someone. Someone is either led closer to or further away from what they could be, what God intended for them to be by you. We can have a cumulative influence on the lives of people. By our words and actions of love and faith, we can build up in others their realizations that God loves them and God has a purpose for their lives.
It’s like a science teacher who suspended a heavy iron cylinder from the ceiling by a cord and then lined up three students with peashooters. One after another they launched their tiny missiles of peas against this large cylinder. It looked like the most futile thing anyone could ever do. The tiny peas would hit the cylinder and bounce off with no visible effect at all. But then finally, the slightest motion was seen, another pea hit, a slighter larger motion. At last the whole cylinder was swinging wildly back and forth. What happened was that the cumulative influence of many tiny peas hitting the cylinder made it to swing. That is like what would happen to people when we share our words and actions of love and faith. Our words and actions are like Isaiah’s servant’s sharp sword and polished arrow.
Why Are You Here?
When I get up on Sunday mornings around about 6:15, I know why I’m doing this. I’m going to work! It’s one of the few things that I do that I can see immediate results. But why are you here? What are you looking for this morning?
Are you looking for someone to believe in and hold on to? Are you looking for something important enough to live for? Are you looking for something big enough to claim your passion, your devotion, your faith? In all that you and I do and labor in, we are looking for each other and for God to give meaning to our life.
In our Gospel lesson for today, we see the disciples were looking for answers to these same questions. Two disciples were following Jesus and when Jesus noticed them, he turned around and asked, “What are you looking for?” They called out, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” On one level, the disciples were asking Jesus where was he lodging or living. But on a deeper level, they were asking, “where are you working in the world?” They were asking, “Might what you are doing give us meaning and purpose for our lives?”
You would think that John the Baptist, his cousin and the one called to announce Jesus’ coming would know him. But in this passage, John the Baptist said, “I myself did not know him.” He admits his unfamiliarity with Jesus twice. John who baptizes with water and tells people that Jesus will baptize with the Spirit didn’t know him. John who testifies that he saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, didn’t know him. Although John was a big part of God’s plan in bringing to the world hope and redemption, he just can’t quite see it. “I don’t yet know it. I can point to it, but I can’t grasp it.”
We are all looking for answers for our lives. We are all seeking purpose and meaning for what God originally intended for us to be. We know we have been following Jesus all this time, but somehow we feel our labor has been in vain, and we are not sure what we are looking for. I can point to it, but I can’t just yet grasp it.
For many of our lives, it’s like this. Those of you who teach school and work for the dignity of children find the world stripping away your efforts. Those of you who are in business and strive for fairness and integrity end up with people like the Enron leaders watching out for their own interests only. Those of you who are in medicine and work for health care discover an ever-increasing list of resistant viruses and bacteria. Those of you who are in law and work for justice wonder how many innocent lives have been executed because of our unjust system.
All of you will get up tomorrow morning like you have done from year to year and go out and try to make the world a better place. But if somebody were to ask you, “What are you doing? What are you looking for?” Most of us might not be able to answer.
Like John the Baptist, we know that we have something important to do. But sometimes in the busyness and the routine of doing, we lose sight of what’s our purpose. I can point to it but I can’t grasp it. Like John, “I didn’t know him.”
So we become disheartened. We forget our purpose and our labors seem to be in vain!
We begin to see ourselves as worthless.
Many years ago when I was here as your CE pastor, I watched a short movie, called Cipher in the Snow. It left such an impression on me that it has influenced my ministry ever since. It’s about a young junior high student, Cliff Evans, who started first grade as a good and eager student. By the third grade, a teacher marked in her report, “Slow learner; Doesn’t talk much.” Since that was how he was described, eventually that’s what he became. He never talked, never played around with anybody, never smiled or laughed, never got picked for the team. Soon he became invisible in the classroom, entering last, sitting in the last row, leaving first. Finally one day, after years of being told he was a nobody, he became nobody. He simply got off the school bus one morning, stepped forward, and fell into the snow—dead.
I think we can all identify with this at one time or another, especially in those moments when we are severely depressed. We want our lives to count for something but there are times, O God that we feel so at lost when realizing our purpose. We are still looking for something to do that would give us meaning.
The truth so often is, we become the children of God in name only. We fail to embrace our new identity. We develop a sense of shame about ourselves. We remind ourselves too much of the sinner in us, the imperfect one, the failure, rather than the living a life of grace.
Lamb of God
God’s declaration is that every one of us is priceless and of inestimable worth. John the Baptist may not have known Jesus as well as he wanted, but John was able to do his job of announcing the coming of the Lord. He declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”
Jesus gives us a new identity when we follow him. When the disciples asked Jesus, “Where are you staying?” Jesus said to them, “Come and see.” You and I need to stop thinking that we are worthless ciphers in the snow and “come and see” what Jesus has for us. We have to decide to follow Jesus. No one else can do that for us. God has chosen us to come and see.
Look at what happens to the disciples. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother declares, “We have found the Messiah.” When Simon decided to come and when Jesus saw him, Jesus gave him a new name, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas.” Andrew gets to see the Messiah, the Anointed One. Simon gets a new name.
As God’s chosen people, we are invited to come and see. And when we do, we are no longer unsure about who we are. We know we are God’s chosen.
When God chose Martin Luther King, Jr. to come and see, Dr. King envisioned the day when his “four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Martin Luther King knew his purpose in life.
Come and See
Jesus said to the disciples, “Come and See.” Come and see where he’s working in the world. But they didn’t want to get too close. They didn’t want to use up their labor in vain.
We can’t see Jesus at work in the world from a distance. Like John the Baptist, you have to get involved in the middle of it, even when you can’t name it. Like the Servant in Isaiah, you have to forget whether your labor has been in vain or not and recognize that you are to give light to the nations. Like Martin Luther King, you have to be arrested and imprisoned in a Birmingham jail.
Finding the meaning of your life in your job or in your work maybe hard to know. Sometimes we just can’t see its purpose. It’s like what Isaiah was saying about the servant. The servant’s purpose is hidden for now, but from the very beginning in your mother’s womb, God already has plans for your life! When we strive forward following Jesus, the Lamb of God, we may still quite not see it, but we are in the presence of the living Christ at work in the world.
We are chosen to come and see.
There’s a story about a woman who works three nights a week at her church’s center for the homeless. Three nights a week! No one in the congregation is so thoroughly involved in this demanding ministry than she is.
Most of the people in the congregation think that she does it because she is such a model Christian. They said she really knows Jesus and knows how to serve Jesus.
But when the pastor commented to her about her great commitment to the work, saying to her that her commitment was a sign of her great faith, she replied, “Great faith? I don’t think so. I don’t really have that much faith. That’s the point of why I am here. I need all the help I can get seeing Jesus, understanding him, being with him. So I have to keep very close, and keep close very often, to those whom Jesus keeps close to. That’s why I’m here. If I didn’t have this place to see Jesus, I reckon I’d never be near him.”
We go around saying, “I’m just a Chinese waiter in Chinatown. I’m just a blue-collar worker. I’m just a maintenance worker. I’m just a teacher. I’m just a kid. I’m just an old person. I’m just a loser. I’m nobody.
Can you imagine the assortment of people that Jesus assembled for his disciples. Just a few fishermen. Just a tax collector. Just a woman who follows along. Just a leper. These were a group of no-names mentioned almost nowhere else except here in the gospels.
We don’t need fame and fortune to feel that we have meaning and purpose in life. We are the justs of life that Christ call to be his disciples. What counts is our dedication and decision to follow the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Remember what Isaiah said about the servant? The servant of God is to be the light to the nations and God’s salvation will reach to the end of the earth. Remember the old Chinese Proverb that I have shared with you before?
If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there’s harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there’s order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.
Your life counts. When you have God’s light, you can change the world. God has chosen you for a purpose even if you feel that your labor has been in vain. God has chosen you and blessed you with meaning even when you can’t see all of God’s grace and mercy. The light of God in Jesus Christ is in us when we see the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We are not ciphers, not nobodies, but God’s people—chosen to come and see. As Jesus’ disciples, we come close to him and we see the Messiah who forgives our sins and makes us new creations.
Let us pray.
Lord God Almighty, we pray for our willingness to come close and see Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world—our sins. We bring our labors trusting in you to reassure us that in faith, our lives have a part in making your reign in the world become reality. Thank you, Lord for choosing each one of us here and blessing our lives with your mercy and grace. Amen.