"WHAT'S THE USE?"
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 15, 2017
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
"I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.”
Isaiah 49:4 (ESV)
There are countless tasks in life that must be done but are nevertheless frustrating: doing laundry, for example, or washing dishes. These things have to be done, you do them to the best of your ability, the end result of all your labor looks pretty good, but you know all the while that in a very short period of time you're going to be doing the same things all over again. It might be compared to mowing the lawn during the spring when there is an abundance of rainfall that makes that grass grow faster. (Or, if that image seems a little too remote for you in the dead of winter, how about shoveling snow out of your driveway and off of your sidewalk in the morning, knowing all the while that you may very well be doing the same thing tomorrow morning?!) No matter how necessary these tasks may be and no matter how conscientiously and efficiently we may carry them out, they all seem to be so pointless, so unappreciated, and so temporary.
Living our lives as Christians--witnesses in this world for the Lord Jesus Christ--can be a very frustrating experience as well. We give it our very best, but all too often it seems as if our very best just isn't quite good enough. We say the right things but maybe we don't say them quite clearly enough to be understood or maybe we fail to behave in a manner that is consistent with what we are saying or maybe nobody really pays any attention to what we're saying or maybe they do pay attention but they dismiss it all as being irrelevant. It often appears as if our confession of the Christian faith in the world makes no difference at all. But we're in good company. The great prophets of God, including Isaiah, often experienced this same frustration as they spoke for God in the world--even (and perhaps especially) among God's own people. Let's use Isaiah's words that serve as this morning's sermon text to examine the nature of both our frustration in the Lord's service and our confidence as we go about this sacred work.
Part of our frustration in the Lord's service is that what we do in Jesus' name often seems to be nothing more than what we might call "busy work." We do our work, but that work doesn't seem to be organized around any kind of plan or theme. It doesn't have a goal toward which everything points. The responsibility for this lies not with God, who has given us a Gospel to share, the gifts that we need to share it, and a world to share it with, but rather with us. Individual Christians and Christian congregations alike must look at the resources with which the Lord has blessed them and must look also at the community where He has placed them in order to determine how they might best carry out the mission of sharing the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Some congregations (including ours) publish a "mission statement" as a means of establishing this goal--a short statement of why the congregation exists in its community and how its members can share the Gospel in ways that no one else can. Whether such a goal is written or not, the people of God must have a plan--a strategy for witnessing. Otherwise all of their efforts will seem to be aimless. As at least one wise man once put it: If you aim at nothing, you’ll probably achieve it.
Another part of the problem with frustration is that whatever we do to share the Gospel with others, it often seems like a wasted effort. For over two thousand years the followers of Jesus Christ have been proclaiming His message of sin and grace to the whole world, but the overwhelming majority of people still don't seem to get it. Even here, in what many of us would like to think of as an "enlightened" nation, the average person doesn't seem to grasp what the Christian message is all about. I'm not talking about people not believing the Christian message; I'm talking about people not even understanding it. Most people think that Christianity is all about living right, doing the best you can, treating others fairly, living up to your responsibilities, and a host of other things that people are supposed to do. All of this is fine and good, but none of it is the point. The point is that no one does these things as he or she should, and therefore God has sent His Son to do them for us and to pay the penalty for our failure to do them. The Christian message is first and foremost a Gospel message--a message not of what we must do but of what God has done for us in Christ--the message through which the Holy Spirit brings the hearer to genuine repentance and faith in Christ. But despite our best efforts, most people still don’t seem to understand that.
The comforting thing in the midst of our frustration is the knowledge that the success of our work in the Lord's name does not depend on us, but on the Lord Himself. Through the power of His Holy Spirit He has called us to tell, in our words and in our action, the story of what He has done for us and for all sinners and how that has changed our lives. But He has neither commanded nor empowered us to convert anyone. The Holy Spirit alone does that, but He does it through the Gospel message that we share. We aren't necessarily a failure if people reject the Gospel that we share; we are a failure only if we neglect sharing it. We can plant the seed of faith through our confession of Jesus and we can nurture that seed through Christian education and Christian fellowship, but only God Himself can make it take root and grow.
In the passage before us the prophet dares to bring up the subject of "recompense" or reward. Most of us would probably consider it to be inappropriate to think of our Christian witness as something for which we should be rewarded. But before we make any hasty judgments about Isaiah's words, let's bear in mind two things: (1) While it is indeed true that the matter of whether we are saved or not is determined on the basis of Christ's merits and not our own, it is also true that the Scriptures do speak of the redeemed being rewarded for the good works that they have performed in the name of Jesus. And (2) We don't really know precisely what kind of reward Isaiah is referring to here. He could merely be saying that he would like to be rewarded by seeing the positive effect that his proclamation has on those who hear it. In any case we, like Isaiah, can find comfort in the midst of our frustration with the assurance that recognition for our labors, as well as the success of our labors, lies in the hands of God Himself, who works His good and gracious will in and through the Gospel of His Son.
It's a difficult world that we live in. It becomes even more difficult if we take seriously our calling to be witnesses for our Savior, sharing His message of grace with people who at best couldn't care less but all too often are hostile to that Gospel message. But no matter how frustrating our work in His name may be, it is worthwhile simply because He is the One who has given it to us and He is the One who will make it successful. In Him we find not only comfort but also encouragement as we go about the task that He has given us, proclaiming His salvation to those who He has saved by His perfect life and innocent death, confident that He will work His will in us and through us until He returns in glory and brings all things to a perfect completion.
Amen.
May the God who caused light to shine out of darkness cause you to increase and abound in love toward one another and toward all people, as His love abounds for us; and may the glory of His Son be manifested to you and in you, that you may be witnesses to all nations now and until the coming of ou