Text — Luke 4:14-21

What difference does it make to be a person of faith and belong to a community of faith like this church?  If what we do here on Sunday morning matters — which is to say, if what we think and do the rest of the week is different because we were here — then we should be able to say how it’s different.  And the reason for saying how it is different is that saying it and hearing it from others helps all our faith grow and matter more.  This is what a church is for.

 My faith matters in two ways — in how I see life, how I think about life.  The traditional Christian language for this is my “inner life.”  It also changes what I do, where I go, how I spend my time and money.  The traditional Christian language for this is my outer or “active life.”

 In terms of my inner life, my faith makes the most dramatic difference in how I deal with failure.  Now every time I talk about this, after the service someone says, “Are you depressed?  Your life isn’t a failure.” 

 I’m always touched by these expressions of concern for my well-being.  But this time, let me say up front that I’m not depressed at all.  And I do have my occasional, momentary blues, heartaches and worries like everyone, but I have quite a sunny disposition.  I’m almost always up.  I have a lot of fun.  I love people and feel loved in return.

 I was talking recently with another UCC minister who brought up the subject of “alligators” in the congregation.  Alligators are nasty creatures that lurk just below the surface, waiting to grab your leg and pull you underwater and chew you up.  I’ve met some alligators in my past congregations, so one particular source of joy for me is that we don’t have any alligators in this congregation.  This is a wonderful blessing for all of us, not just for Sandra and me, because healing from alligator wounds can take a lot of time and interfere with the real joy of being the church. 

I certainly don’t think of my ministry or my life as a failure in any deep sense, but failure and failures are something we all have to deal with.  Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, has a lot to say about this in talks he gives and he’s helped me understand the importance and value of failure in our lives.  His way of dealing with failure isn’t exactly what I’m going to say about it, but there’s a certain parallel, and he says that dealing with failure constructively is the most important thing he knows.  He says we all need to fail.  If we’re not failing, we’re not trying and aspiring to anything worthwhile. 

Christian ministry is a very rich, rewarding experience, but like most sales jobs, it’s loaded with opportunities for rejection and failure.  Not everyone wants your ministry.  Even those who do want it, somewhat, don’t necessarily agree with what you say.  Sometimes I’ve said things in all sincerity that, later on, I didn’t even agree with myself.

 Most of us have “sales” jobs of one kind or another.  We have product or a service that we want others, at least our employer, to buy.  Our product or service isn’t always perfect.  We make mistakes.  Our clients aren’t always understanding or forgiving.  I suspect that most of you have met an alligator along the way too. 

This is just part of the territory, whatever work we do.  It’s the way life is.  This always hurts a little, but I don’t take it nearly as personally as I used to.  This — as I’ve said many times — is the great blessing of being over fifty.  By this age, we’ve all failed enough that it’s not a big deal anymore.

 But my coming to terms with failure hasn’t been automatic; it hasn’t been easy.  And my Christian faith has made a huge difference in this area.  Jesus’ own life, from one perspective, appeared to be a total failure. 

 Someone asked me last week why so many people didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah.  The answer is: the Messiah was the One who was supposed to be successful.  The Messiah was supposed to make things better for the Jewish people.  That’s what a Messiah is. 

Jesus didn’t make things better for the Jewish people in any visible way.  St. Paul even went so far as to talk about Jesus’ life as the embodiment of all human failure, shame, and even sin.  He was crucified.  Crucifixion was the sign of being cursed by God. 

 I know it sounds strange, but this gives me a lot of hope.  God did a lot more with Jesus’ life than anyone looking at his life at the time, could see.  And that helps me believe that God will do more with my life than I’ll ever see.  

 This frees me of the burden of having to see success.  It frees me from the fear, and sting, of failure — so it also helps me do things I wouldn’t otherwise do.  I’ll get to that in a moment. 

 No one’s life can be judged, adequately or finally, by what we can see.  That’s good news because a lot of the time it’s hard to see that what we’re trying to do is doing much good for anyone. 

 This way of seeing applies to all the failures and rejections we experience.  It applies to dealing with the biggest failure (so to speak): the fact that we’re all going to die.  Jesus died too, but it didn’t’ make his life futile.  God raised him from the dead.

 Failing and dying don’t make our lives futile and hopeless.  My Christian faith tells me this.   Life is full of beauty and hope even in the face of failing and dying.

 My faith makes a huge difference in my outer, active life too.  It gets me to do things I otherwise wouldn’t do, what I wouldn’t dare to do out of fear of failure.   

There are many examples of this but my favorite one, or the clearest one, is this: Being downtown on my day off.  I’m running errands.  I’m not in my “ministerial” mode.  I’m not looking for someone to be nice to.  But then, I see someone I’ve met — in church, or at CVH, or at some other corner of the community — sitting on a bench, or waiting for a bus, or walking down the sidewalk, someone who isn’t necessarily easy to talk with.  People who aren’t easy to be with spend a lot of time alone. 

In cases I often say to myself, “I really don’t want to start a conversation with this person right now.  I just want to get home.” 

But then — not always, but sometimes — I start a conversation anyway.

 Not because I want to.  I don’t do it out guilt.  I can always get beyond a little guilt.  I do it because this is what Jesus tells me to do.  I do it out of a sense of spiritual adventure.  Jesus says this is how the kingdom of God breaks in. 

 I’m not always looking for the kingdom of God.  And it’s not that these little encounters are successful or go well.  I often fail to say what needs to be said to make them go well, and sometimes the other person fails to accept my overture.

 But these encounters take me to a place I wouldn’t otherwise go.  They take  me closer to the kingdom of God.  They remind me that God loves this other, even difficult person, just as much as God loves me.  They help me believe that God does love me.  This may be life’s most powerful, precious revelation — that God loves me not for being successful, but because God loves everyone, even the failures, which in one way or another we all are. 

 How does your faith make a difference in your life?