Minding Our Own Business Romans 6:3-11; Luke 2:41-49; 3:21a First Presbyterian Church of Greenlawn The Rev. Frederick Woodward May 30, 2010 Romans 6:3-11 (NIV) Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Luke 2:41-49; 3:21a (NIV) Every year Jesus parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" 1 And when all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. 1 In the King James Version of the text, Jesus asks, wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? (italics mine). 1
Minding Our Own Business Preacher Fred Craddock tells the story about a little church he pastored in Custer Creek, Oklahoma. 2 It was a little town, maybe 400 people, with four churches, all of them little and struggling. Actually, there was another church in town as well. Well, it wasn t a church, really. It was a café, where a lot of the men folk congregated on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings when their wives and children went to church. What the men did together in that little café was not altogether different from what folks did in all the other churches. They shared meals. They swapped stories, and they offered each other friendship. Craddock makes clear that the people of this other church, the café church, were all good men. Working men. Honest farmers and ranchers. Good people, all of them. They just didn t go to church. One day after he had been in town for a while, Craddock met one of those men on the street. His name was Frank. Frank was a 77 year old farmer, and he was the high priest of the café church. Everybody looked up to Frank because he was a good and honest man. But Frank was a man who did not waste words. He rarely spoke, and when he did, he was brief and to the point- not like your pastor. Craddock knew better than to try to evangelize Frank out of the café church into Craddock s own church. While Craddock had plenty of good news to share, it probably occurred to him that he was unlikely to make much headway with a 77 year old man who had heard all the news he ever wanted to hear already. So Craddock didn t hit Frank over the head in the name of Jesus Christ. He just shook Frank s hand, and listened to his story. But Frank wasn t telling Craddock much of a story. In fact, when the conversation turned to religion, all Frank had to say was, I work hard. I take care of my family, and I mind my own business. All the rest is fluff. That s all Frank said, and Craddock got the message. Whatever else Craddock might have to say to Frank was fluff, and Frank wasn t having any of it. Frank wanted to remain fluff-free. Now I assume Craddock extended some words of welcome to Frank as he said good-bye. Maybe he said, if you ever want to drop by, there s room for you and a cup of coffee too. Maybe he told Frank, if ever you need an ear or just want to talk, my door s open. Maybe Craddock didn t say anything at all. But anyway, one day Frank came into the church to have a conversation with Craddock about getting baptized, and Craddock, like everybody else in town, wondered why. Why now? Why in the world did Frank want to be baptized at the age of 77? Now nothing bad had happened to Frank- which a lot of folks apparently assumed. (You know how we often look for an explanation for why somebody does something uncharacteristic.) Anyway, as pleased as Craddock was to see Frank in his church, Craddock was nobody s fool- he knew that Frank s baptism request probably had very little to do with Craddock himself. But Craddock recognized a divine opening, and so he invited Frank to say a bit more about what led him into the church that day. Now I already told you that Frank really wasn t the conversing type. He was the kind of man who, when you had a conversation with him, you had to do most of the talking. So after a long silence, Craddock started by reminding Frank of what he always used to say to people who brought up religion or politics, or any other weighty subject. 2 Fred B. Craddock, The Cherry Log Sermons, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), p. 11-12. 2
For what Frank said was pretty much always the same: I work hard. I take care of my family, and I mind my own business. All the rest is fluff. So Craddock asked Frank what had changed. After a long silence, what Frank said was simply, I just didn t know what my business was. I just didn t know what my business was. Luke tells us that when Jesus was twelve years old, he became separated from his parents who looked all over for him, and later found him in the temple courts in the company of the teachers. When she found him, Jesus mother was at her wits end. When she called him to task, Jesus responded to her with a question. The way that question is rendered in the King James Version is as follows, And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not- didn t you know- that I must be about my Father's business? (Luke 2:49). Jesus knew what his business was. Jesus knew what his business was. Do we? Frances and I have a friend who has fallen head over heels for a writer 3 who seems to believe that all of the suffering of the world is caused by the way we think about things. I wouldn t go quite so far as that, but I ll let that pass. Anyway, this writer urges that there are only three kinds of business in the world, my business, your business and God s business, and that where we get into trouble is by straying into business that is not our own. No doubt there is some truth in that. We can bring a lot of suffering upon ourselves and others when we get confused about what our business is. Sometimes we can get so caught up in other people s business that we don t ever get around to properly dealing with our own business at all. I am sure you have met people who have complained their problems were everybody else s false, and who had never taken much responsibility for the conduct of their own lives or the pursuit of their own happiness. Sometimes people confuse their business with God s business with disastrous consequences. Our mentally ill brothers and sisters sometimes act out of the belief that God has commanded them to go things, and sometimes terrible things. I ve read in the newspaper about people who believed God had personally appointed them to be agents of God s wrath against those whom they thought God hated. So we have to be careful as we stray into other people s business and into God s business. But reality does not so easily cleave into the categories of my business, your business and God s business. If, for example, you re the mother of an eighteen year old youth who is engaging in self-destructive behavior, you will need to carefully observe the boundaries between your child s life and your own, but you also know that as a parent you have a responsibility to do something. You have to live at that messy intersection of your child s business and your own. The intersection between God s business and our own business is even trickier. If we are disciples of Jesus Christ, we know that we are not God, and we will seek to observe the boundaries inherent in the all-important distinction between Creator and creature. We won t confuse ourselves with God, and we will embrace the vocation of becoming fully human. But we will also recognize our responsibility to participate in God s mission in the world. 3 Byron Katherine Mitchell, written with Stephen Mitchell, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life [New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002]. 3
In the face of injustice, oppression, suffering or gross human need, we can t just say, well, that s God s business; we ll just pass along on the other side. When we are disciples, we dare in other words, to live at the dangerous intersection between God s business and our own business. Old Frank thought he had his business all figured out, and then he realized he didn t. He realized that God s business was his business. He didn t know exactly what that meant, and I suspect that none of us does either. But he knew that he had to take the next step. He had to give up the arrogance of believing he knew exactly what his business was. He had to acknowledge that he wasn t ever going to figure out what his business was until he had a better idea of what God s business was. And he knew that one of the first things he had to do to get a better sense of what God s business was all about was to submit himself to baptism. And he was right on the money. For that was Jesus himself did. For here s the real deal: in baptism, God says to us, you are my business. God says to us, you are my children, I love you and I claim you as my own. In baptism, God invites us into an alternative future in which we belong to God, and not just to ourselves. At the same time, God invites us into a larger community, a community that covenants with God and one another to live a different sort of life. In baptism, God sets us on the path that Jesus himself walked, and it is a path along which we learn who God is, who we are, and how we are to live as citizens of God s world, rather than as masters of our own puny little universes. If God says to us in baptism, you are my business, there comes a time when we say back, your business, O God, is our business, a time when we respond to God s claim upon us. For Frank, baptism was that time. But baptism, of course, is only the start of the journey. In baptism, it s like a sign gets posted out in front of each of us that reads, Christian-in- progress. So what will we Christians-in-progress see along our baptismal journey? I don t know. But I know that when we set out on this journey together, we will never be the same. And I know that when we embark on this journey with Jesus, we will never again travel alone. And I know that wherever it is that we are going, our God will provide. And that s a good start. Today, two children will be baptized, that is, if little A and K let me anywhere near them. But their mother, V, also comes to be baptized. Normally, when adults are baptized around here, they present themselves for membership in the church upon their confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Now we are not fully there yet. And in part because V and S are not yet members of Christ s church, I have a charge for them, their children s sponsors, and this congregation. Now what s a charge? Well, let s say that a charge is a kind of challenge. My charge to you, V, is that as you begin this journey of faith signaled by your baptism, that you continue to explore the significance of the drama that we are acting out here together today. And although you may be tempted to see all the initiative for your own baptism as resting squarely on your own shoulders, I would invite you to consider God s prior initiative in bringing you to this day. You may think you planned out this day, and of course you did. 4
But we here in this place have a pretty good hunch that God has been planning this day for a very long while, maybe even since the beginning of time. So V, pay attention to God s work in your life, and explore with us further the meaning of membership in Christ s church, and the church in this place. And for the parents of these little children, V and S, and their sponsors, and this congregation, I also have a charge. In a few minutes, you will all be making some promises. Take those promises seriously. For how can parents possibly be faithful to the promise to live the Christian faith and teach that faith to their children if they themselves are not also about God s business? How can sponsors possibly carry out the promise to support and encourage V and her children to be faithful Christians if they are not themselves joining them on their journey of faith? And how can we in the congregation promise to guide and nurture these children and their mother unless we see their business as inextricably related to our own business? Now I am not saying, of course, that we should be busybodies. Don t be busybodies. I am saying that we should all dare to take responsibility for one another and for each other s nurture while standing together under the umbrella of Christ s love for us all. And so to all of us- parents, sponsors, and congregation, I say what Paul said to the community of Christians a Colossus, And whatever we do, whether in word or deed, let us do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through him (Col. 3:17). 5