Even though it was common among members of my generation, I never went
“in search of myself.” The Baby
Boomer generation was the first generation to go in search of themselves on a
large scale. I suspect this was
true largely because we were the first generation that could afford to do so,
as we were the first generation to be raised in relative affluence. The search
for ourselves was, in reality, a search for meaning. In the years since my generation began searching for themselves,
every succeeding generation has created some form of the same search, to the
point that multitudes of people are searching for meaning in their lives.
This
morning we continue the series of messages What
Is It About Jesus, as we come to the topic of Meaning. For our
Scripture text we will read about the calling of some of the first
disciples. We are most familiar
with the version found in Matthew 4:18-22 (18 As Jesus was
walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and
his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were
fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you
out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and
followed him. 21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers,
James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their
father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and
immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him) but I
tend to favor the version from John’s gospel.
Follow along as I read our
Scripture text for the morning, from John 1:35-45 –
35 The next day John was there again with
two of his disciples.
36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said,
“Look, the Lamb of God!”
37 When the two disciples heard him say
this, they followed Jesus.
38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following
and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”),
“where are you staying?”
39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
So
they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It
was about four in the afternoon.
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one
of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.
41 The first thing Andrew did was to find
his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the
Christ).
42 And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are
Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is
Peter).
43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for
Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from
the
town of Bethsaida.
45 Philip found Nathanael and
told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom
the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
I like that telling of the story of
the calling of the first disciples because of what we read in verse 41 – the first thing Andrew did was to find his
brother Simon and tell him, “we have found the Messiah.” After meeting Jesus, the first thing
Andrew did was go and tell his brother.
Andrew found Jesus, bringing him a sense of meaning to his life, and in
his excitement his desire was to tell others.
As I have been doing in the weeks
of this series, this morning I will speak about meaning through three words.
Those words are belonging, purpose, and value. Those words
represent what I believe to be absolute essentials in the life of every
person. Each of us needs to belong somewhere. Each of us needs to have a sense of purpose in life. Each of us needs to know that we are of
value. When any of those elements are missing from life there are
difficulties. To feel as though we
have nowhere to belong is devastating.
To go through life with no sense of purpose robs much of life’s
joy. And to feel of no value is an
incredibly damaging state of being, and we have all seen the tragic results in
the lives of those who have believed they are of no value or because they have
been told they are of no value.
One of
the great blessings of faith, I believe, is its ability to fulfill all three of
these needs. Through church we are
given a place to belong. Through
our calling from God we are given a sense of purpose. And the promise and realization of God’s love certainly
provides us with a sense of how we are so greatly valued.
Belonging.
Perhaps you saw a recent survey
that received quite a bit of attention in the news in recent days. A survey by the
health insurer Cigna found that loneliness is widespread in America, with
nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel alone or left out
always or sometimes. Using one of the best-known
tools for measuring loneliness — the UCLA
Loneliness Scale (I found it fascinating to discover that such a
tool existed)— Cigna surveyed 20,000 adults online across the country. Scores on the UCLA scale range from 20
to 80. People scoring 43 and above
were considered lonely in the Cigna survey, with a higher score suggesting a
greater level of loneliness and social isolation.
More than half of survey respondents — 54 percent — said they always
or sometimes feel that no one knows them well. The survey also found that the average loneliness score in
America is 44, which suggests that "most Americans are considered
lonely," according to the report.
The survey also found something surprising about loneliness in the
younger generation. Our survey found that actually the younger
generation was lonelier than the older generations, says Dr. Douglas
Nemecek, the chief medical officer for behavioral health at Cigna. Members of Generation Z, born between
the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, had an overall loneliness score of 48.3. Millennials, just a little bit older,
scored 45.3. By comparison, baby boomers scored 42.4. The Greatest Generation,
people ages 72 and above, had a score of 38.6 on the loneliness scale.
I find that very interesting,
as well as very troubling. Perhaps
it is the nature of today’s world that is driving a greater sense of
loneliness. Perhaps it is the rise
of the digital world and the accompanying decline of face-to-face interaction
that contributes to loneliness.
Whatever the cause, it is clear that many people struggle to find a
sense of belonging. The reality
is, even to be surrounded by people it is still possible to feel both lonely
and that you do not belong. You
can be in a large room of people – such as this sanctuary – and feel
alone. You can go to work in an
office full of people and feel alone.
There are many places where it is possible to be surrounded by people
and yet feel alone.
There are many
reasons why people will visit a church.
Some people drive by a church and are attracted by the facility. Some people come to a church because
they enjoy the music. Some people
come to a church because they enjoy the preaching. Others come because of the programs, ministries, and
outreach opportunities. People
come to church for many reasons, but the reason that will keep people at a
church is when they find it to be a place where they can belong. If people do not feel as if they belong
in a church, they will not continue to attend there. When people feel as though they don’t belong in our church,
or that there is no place for them, I can’t help but take that as a personal
failure. It is a very hard pill
for me swallow to think there are people who come to our church and do not feel
as though they can belong. If you
attend our church and have been trying to figure out how to connect, and don’t
know how, talk to me about it. I
want to help you connect with others here and help you to find a
place to belong. I often worry
that I’m rushing from place to place and unwittingly communicate an idea that I
don’t have time to talk with people, especially on Sunday mornings, but I will
take time and talk with you and will do whatever I can to help you find a place
to belong.
We
are created to be in relationships with others. God did not create us to live solitary lives. I believe that Jesus called the
disciples for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was certainly to
provide for a sense of belonging. Within
that group of twelve, Jesus was providing a model of community that created a
template for what it means to live in relationship with others and to be a part
of a community that provides us with a sense of belonging.
Purpose.
As
I have said on more than one occasion, I have served vocationally as a minister
for 37 years, but I’ve had other jobs as well. It’s interesting how people sometimes respond when I tell
them I’m a minister. Ministers are
on the receiving end of a lot of jokes (and yes, that joke about working one day a week is one we have
all heard, many, many times and don’t need to hear it any more) about not
having a “real” job, but I have had “real” jobs, some of them before entering
ministry and some of them concurrent with and supplemental to ministry. One of my earlier vocational goals was
to be a musician. How hard could
that be, right? After all,
Bachman-Turner Overdrive sang get a
second hand guitar, chances are you’ll go far (from the song Takin’ Care of Business. Incidentally, that line is far from
accurate. Chances are you won’t go far). When I was completing my first semester of seminary I decided
to give music a try and dropped out of school to do so and that’s probably all
I need to say about that embarrassingly failed effort. I know I don’t need to talk about how
impressed my future in-laws were with the idea. They were so impressed they moved to another state. But I found them and moved there. The only thing worse than making your
own really bad vocational choice is letting yourself get drown into someone else’s
bad vocational choice. A friend of
mine talked me into going with him when he told his father he was dropping out
of college to move to Nashville to try and make it in music. I can still see his father slowly
lowering his newspaper and looking at my friend with shock, and then launching
into a lecture that I did not need to hear.
One
of the jobs I had while in seminary was with a cleaning service. Part of that job involved me being
required to clean public restrooms, and let me just say that there is a part of
life that you really have not experienced until you have worked a job cleaning
public restrooms. Here is one of the things I learned from that job – someone
has to clean public restrooms. In
fact, someone has to do a lot of jobs that we cannot imagine doing, and may not
be willing to do, and the people who do those jobs understand they are
relegated to the bottom of the vocational ladder, and if you get a sense of
your purpose from your vocation, as so many people do, that experience is tough
to deal with, especially when it is communicated to you by society that you are
on the bottom rung of the vocational ladder – and thus of lesser value –
because of your job. I began that
cleaning job on a Thursday evening, working that night and Friday night before
coming back on Monday. When I
walked in on Monday evening the young lady who led our small cleaning crew was
surprised to see me, saying she didn’t think I would be back. She was in her late 20s, a single mom
with several young children, and worked a couple of jobs to provide for her
family. I asked her why she was
surprised to see me. Her answer
gave me quite a jolt, as she said, because
you’re a seminary student. We get
a lot of seminary students who take these jobs, work one or two nights, and
then quit. And do you know why
they quit? They quit because they
think they’re too good for this kind of work. Do you want to know how that makes me feel? Well, I didn’t need for her to tell me,
as it was quite obvious how it made her feel.
We
so strongly tie our sense of purpose to our vocation that we even think of
God’s will primarily in terms of vocation. Over the years, many people have asked me this question – how can I discover God’s will for my life? Do you know what is almost always meant
by that question? It’s a variation
of the same question, which is related to vocation – what should be my vocation?
Should I accept the job that was offered to me? Do you think I should consider the
possibility of a new career?
This is just how we think, because our culture has ingrained in us the
idea that we should see most of life through the lens of our vocation. We so often think of life through that
lens of vocation, but do you know how often the Bible speaks about our vocation,
especially in terms of God’s will?
Zero times. In fact, the
only time that the Bible mentions an character’s vocation is as a peripheral
element to the story. We know that
a few of the disciples were fishermen and one was a tax collector, but we don’t
know what the other disciples did for a living. We are told that Paul was a tentmaker, which was his
livelihood (Acts 18:3 says and
because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. In Acts 20:34 Paul says that these hands of mine have supplied my own
needs and the needs of my companions). Paul did not earn a living
as a “religious professional,” such as a pastor or church planter. No, Paul paid his own way in terms of
financial support, and this was in order to allow him to fulfill his life purpose,
which was not tied to his vocation as a tentmaker. That vocation was a means to an end, allowing him the
financial freedom to move about the Roman Empire, establishing churches and
strengthening existing congregations.
The
calling of the disciples must have been a surprise to those individuals,
because they were not the expected choices. They were not “religious professionals.” They were not experts in the Mosaic
Law. They did not have theological
degrees or long, spiritual pedigrees.
They were fishermen, a tax collector, and other vocations of which we do
not know. I imagine their reaction,
when called by Jesus, was something along the lines of us? Really? Why us? We’re not religious experts. We’re fishermen and tax collectors. Why would you want to call us? Maybe that’s what we need; fewer
religious “professionals” and more people of other vocations who see those
vocations as a way to further the kingdom of God.
Here’s
one of the great gifts of the church – through the ministry of a church your
life can have a great sense of purpose, regardless of your vocation. You can be a Sunday School teacher, you
can work with children and youth, you can work in one of the ministries of the
church, you can be a Stephen Minister, or one of the other opportunities and it
doesn’t matter what you do for a living.
Don’t let your sense of purpose in life be tied to how you earn a
living, because it’s not. When I
look back to some of the jobs I had that were not at all church related I see
the ways in which God used that work in ways that I could not see or understand
at the time.
We spend a lot of time in our society
encouraging people to prepare for their vocational lives. We encourage young people to get a good
education and plan for the future.
We emphasize the need to secure a good career. Do we, though, emphasize enough the intangible matters of
life, such as meaning and purpose and where they can be found?
Value.
People
need to know they matter. They
need to hear that they matter.
They need to know they are of great worth and value, because so many
people don’t believe they have value.
While it’s important to remind young people to make good grades or get a
good job, they really need to hear that they are of value. Young people don’t need to be reminded
only to have a good career or to work hard; they need to know they are
important and that they matter.
And it’s not only young people who need to hear this; adults do as well,
because we all get so beat up by the world and can very easily feel as though
we are not of value.
One
of the sad realities, I think, of life today is that so many of us fall victim
to the lie that we do not have value unless our lives possess certain elements
that are constantly trumpeted as being essential to a life of value. If our lives do not look like those in
so many media presentations we believe that our lives are of less value and we
are not very significant. If we
are not taking exciting vacations, we wonder what’s wrong with our lives. If we don’t have the perfect family, a
family that meets a particular image, we wonder what’s wrong with our lives and
we don’t feel of value. If our
work is not the type of work that is lifted up as being important, either
because it doesn’t generate a certain amount of money or doesn’t receive enough
attention, we wonder what’s wrong with our lives and we don’t feel of value.
When
I was a student I had a good friend who represented everything I wanted to
be. He was outgoing and
gregarious, while I was quiet and shy.
He was a great athlete, while I was not. He was known to everyone at school, while I was someone who
blended into the background. He
was popular, while I was a stranger to most everyone. My friend possessed enormous potential to be almost anything
he wanted to be, and I was so envious of him and so wanted to be just like
him. Except for one part of his
life. My friend did not feel
valued, because he had a parent who constantly belittled him. His parent often told him he was no good and that he would never amount to anything. Many, many times I heard my friend’s parent speak to him in
language that communicated one message – you
are worthless. Every time it
happened I could see my friend die a little bit more inside, and all the
potential he possessed has gone unfulfilled, and as he has moved through his
adult life he has struggled in so many ways, all because of his parent who
instilled in him the belief that he had no value.
One
of the powerful aspects of the ministry of Jesus was the way in which he
instilled a sense of value in people.
Zacchaeus, who was a very unpopular man in the city of Jericho, was
noticed by Jesus (Luke 19:1-9).
Jesus took the time to visit the home of Zacchaeus and to treat him with
love and dignity, and it transformed Zacchaeus’ life. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-30),
which was a great surprise to the woman.
Because of the kindness of Jesus, the woman went back to her town and
invited everyone there to meet Jesus.
Jesus, while traveling to Jerusalem, healed ten lepers (Luke
17:11-19). There was, perhaps, in
the time of Jesus, no other group as outcast as lepers. No one wanted to risk contact with
lepers, so lepers were required to make their presence known so that others
could keep their distance. The
fear of such a dreaded disease was understandable, but the treatment of lepers
revealed that they were treated with no value or sense of dignity. Except by Jesus. Imagine what it must have meant to them
to be healed and to restored once again to society. Once again they could be with friends and family. What a sense of value and worth it must
have given to them! There was the
woman who was dragged before Jesus, a woman who was faced with the terrible
fate of stoning (John 8:2-11) because she was taken in adultery. She had no value to those who accused
her or who wanted to take her life.
She had no value to those men, except as a pawn in their attempt to trap
and discredit Jesus. To Jesus, however,
she was a person of worth and value, and he saved her life. What a testament to the value he saw in
her life!
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