It Is All Worth It 2 Corinthian 4: 5-12 Sunday, June 12, 2016 Rev. Heike Werder The Congregational Church of Needham If you are ever in need of a good pep talk, I encourage you to go to TED Talks, or better, to SoulPancake and find the Kid President s Pep Talk. Robby Novak, now 12 years old, gave the world not just an adorable but very inspiring pep talk. In his speech he says things like this: The world needs you so stop being boring. Ya- you! Boring is easy everybody can be boring Life is not a game people This is life people, you got air coming through your nose, you got a heartbeat. That means it s time to do something. A poem: Two road diverged in the woods and I took the road less traveled. AND IT HURT, MAN! Really bad. ROCKS! THORNS! And GLASS! NOT COOL ROBERT FROST. But what if there really were two paths. I want the one that leads to awesome. It s like the dude, Journey said: Don t stop believing. unless your dream is stupid. Then you should get a better dream. I think that s how it goes. Get a better dream and keep going, keep going, keep going and keep going. What will you create to make the world awesome? Nothing if you keep siting there. That s why I m talking to you today. This is your time. This is my time. It s our time, if we can make every day better for each other, if we re all in the same team let s start acting like it. We got work to do. We can cry about it or dance about it. We were made to be awesome. Let s get out there. I don t know everything, I m just a kid. But I know this, it s everybody s duty to give the world a reason to dance. So get to it. You ve just been pep talked. Create something that will make the world awesome! If we don t feel better after Robby s pep talk, we are in serious trouble. The Congregational Church of Needham, Rev. Heike Werder 1 P age
What you need to know about this kid is that he has brittle bone disease. In his first 12 years he has gone through over 70 broken bones and 13 surgeries so far. This child would have all reason to be bitter and discouraged. But instead, he has made it his life s purpose starting when he was 9 years old to bring messages of courage to the world. We also have just been pep talked by the apostle Paul in our scripture reading. His message was to the troubled church in Corinth, but his words are as true and encouraging today as they were then. Looking at the context, both letters to Corinth were written to a brand new church and brand new believers who were in the process of figuring out this ministry and Christian community thing. There were no blue prints to go by. Every church that got planted by Paul or by the other apostles had to figure it out from scratch. The Corinthians participated with enthusiasm in this new faith and its rituals but along the way they made mistakes. They did communion wrong, worship wrong, shopped in the wrong butcher shops, flaunted their spiritual gifts, tried to outdo each other in worship. While practicing their new faith, they still had to grow into it. Within the Corinthian congregation there were drunks, adulterers, sexual promiscuity, those who shopped at the pagan temple meat markets, and self-promoters. Paul had his hands full to redirect these newly minted Christians back to the center of the faith. And the center is Jesus Christ and the good news in him. Here is what Paul says to them: We have this treasure in clay jars. And because of that treasure, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. From what we know about the Corinthian Christians, they thought of themselves as the treasure. But Paul says, No, you are just the vessels holding that treasure, and that it will take all of your strength and courage to share and enact the treasure given to you. The Congregational Church of Needham, Rev. Heike Werder 2 P age
The question is: what is this treasure that we, that every church community from the beginning of time had available to them? The treasure is the good news of the gospel, the news of God enacted in Jesus Christ, the one who reconciles us and liberates us to new life. This God shows up with what we most desperately must have to live an abundant life. The treasure is: forgiveness in order to start again, especially in a society that never forgives and keeps score forever; generosity that overwhelms our lack in a society based in scarcity and getting more for ourselves; hospitality that welcomes us in a society that is inhospitable to all but our own kind; justice that protects the vulnerable in a social system that all too often is deadly in its injustice. And we are, just like the Corinthian Christians, not just the recipients of this good news treasure but the ones who are called to enact it and carry it into the world. In some ways the image that Paul is using, is kind of funny and ridiculous: we are these earthen vessels, jars of clay, fragile, more or less cracked pots, easily breakable, prone to shatter. Now God could have chosen jars of steel, unbreakable and everlasting pots, but no, God chose us, human beings, cracked pots We can take this metaphor and apply it to our own personal lives. We know life is fragile, and it can easily break us. The wisdom of a good life is not trying to control is fragility, but to deal with it to the best of our ability. Someone at a recent graveside service said that we can t control what happens to us in life but we can control our attitude in dealing with whatever comes our way. We can take this metaphor and apply it to our church and community. When we began our program year last September, we, me included, did not know what the future might hold for us. The Congregational Church of Needham, Rev. Heike Werder 3 P age
As we broke ties with our senior minister, emotions and worries were riding high. There was a lot of anxiety. Some people were mad, some were sad, some removed themselves to the sideline to watch or left for good, others came back to reclaim their seat in the pew. And here we are in June, a little bruised, a little tired but still kicking, struggling but not giving up, worrying and wondering yet continuing to seek enacting this treasure of good news. Everything around us is a clay pot fragile, likely to break, but never fully able to contain the truth and richness of the treasure. The temptation, be it for our personal lives or the church or this community when it is afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down is to give in to being crushed, driven to despair, forsaken, and destroyed. It is enough to push us over the edge, to despair of the future. But that means that we believe more in the clay pot than the treasure. It is easy enough for pastors or responsible lay persons to worry excessively about the clay pot of the church - whether we will have enough dollars, enough members, enough ministers, good enough programs and reports and communications - to keep it all going. But we have to think carefully: the church, in all its expressions, is not the treasure. The church is a fragile, transitory vehicle for the gospel, not more. I know this goes so against the grain of what we believe. Nothing lasts forever or remains unchanged. The two seminaries I went to when I came to the States gone. Bangor Theological Seminary, gone. ANTS will close its doors next year. Ministers come and go. Congregations come and go. Buildings come and go. Liturgies and hymnals and worship styles come and go. People come and go. Paul says that if we value the vessels more than the treasure, we will die. But if we keep the treasure close to us, we will find the strength and courage we need to be the church. He says that the treasure of the gospel, the good news of forgiveness, reconciliation, hospitality, generousness and justice, is the abiding reality that will not fail us. The Congregational Church of Needham, Rev. Heike Werder 4 P age
It is the treasure that draws the line against our over-investment in clay pots. It is the truth of the gospel that permits us to live freely in this vexed context afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. The But not is all that matters. The But not makes it all worth it. Guess what? You just have been pep talked! Amen. Sources: TedTalks: A pep talk from the kid president or go to Soulpancake The Congregational Church of Needham, Rev. Heike Werder 5 P age