The Downtown Presbyterian Church

Sermons

Looking for Something to Do

Luke 4:14-21

January 25, 2004

Rev. Kenneth M. Locke

The Downtown Presbyterian Church

One thing you can say about Jesus is he sure knew what he was supposed to be doing. Jesus reads his job description straight from the profit Isaiah, and the Gospels are the stories of him living out that job. Jesus knew his job was bringing release from economic bondage to people held down by an unjust system of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Jesus knew his job was bringing release to people suffering physical and mental deformity, laming and crippling holding them down in society and often holding them down religiously by making them unclean and unable to worship. Jesus was always bringing good news to those condemned by a harsh political system favoring insiders over outsiders. And he was forever driving out the demons of sin holding people back from embracing each other with love.

Jesus knew his job was bringing sight to a people losing their way in the darkness of an oppressive ruling class. His job was bringing about the Lord’s great jubilee, restoring the spiritual order to an older time, a time when the order reflected God’s loving forgiveness.

Time and again throughout the Gospels we see Jesus working at his job, day in and day out, living out what God has given him to do.

For years I envied people who had a sense of purpose and meaning in their work. I envied people who felt that their work was somehow transformative, liberating. One of the reasons I left the study of English was because I knew at the end of the day I might indeed become an expert on T.S. Eliot, I might well bring a new generation to those great lines of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ that re-shaped modern poetry. You remember:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .

Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

I might become a world-figure on those lines, but at the end of the day who’s going to care? Whose life is going to be changed, freed, empowered by a poem almost 100 years old? I wanted more, something meaningful for others that would give meaning to me.

I tried freight for a while, and suppose I did OK at it, but in the end you move a bunch of packages really fast and who’s lives are changed? Who’s world is improved? It became joyless and I left.

I’m sure some of you know this feeling. Why do I do this work day after day? Why do I stick with this mind-numbing doldrum year after year? We may wear business casual but nevertheless we are men and women in gray flannel suits – nobly heading off to work and dying a little more each day.

Many people are going through life unhappy. They’re unhappy because they don’t have Norman Rockwell families and their spouses don’t look or act like the characters on “Bachelor” or “Bacheloret.” We’re constantly counting fat grams and calories and carbs, shaving this and waxing that all to raise our self-image.

Just another way of asking the age-old question: what’s my purpose? Why am I here? Think it’s not that bad? Read the comics in the Tennessean. A month doesn’t go by without some comic, whether it’s Peanuts or Hagar the Horrible, asking the existential question: Why am I here?

Some people deal with it badly – like the Fastows of Enron fame or Dennis Kowalski of Tyco. Others just bravely put on their suits, record their songs, raise their children and die wishing for more from life.

But Jesus, Jesus had a purpose. He knew what his life’s job description was and he did it. He did it then and he’s doing it now: opening the eyes of those blinded by society’s message that a full life is a life surrounded by expensive toys and every excess money can buy. Jesus is still freeing people from the bondage of poor self-image. He is still releasing those who are captive to an economic system happy to raise those who resemble the middle-class but leaving the impoverished mentally-ill and drug-riddled to fend for themselves. Come to the office with me some morning and see. I’ll introduce you to them by name.

And Jesus is still doing it in our lives. Jesus is opening us, releasing us, to a new way of living. Jesus is offering his job to us. Jesus is saying “come to me if your lives lack meaning and value and true purpose, and I will give you a reason to enjoy being alive.”

This is the kindness of God, that Jesus offers to make us partners in his work.

You see, God doesn’t need our help. But God loves us enough to let us help. It’s sort of like when Mom is making cookies and the 5 year old wants to help. Mom sure doesn’t need the 5 year olds help. But Mom loves him enough to let him help.

One of the great heresies active in the church today is this notion that God needs our help. This heresy proclaims we are the only hands, the only arms, God has. Only by our efforts can the poor be fed, can the oppressed be set free, can the emotionally and morally blind be given new sight.

To that I say ‘nonsense.’ God is God. God does not need us. The God who created the world out of nothing does not need us to feed the poor and overthrow unjust political regimes. Read the resurrection stories. We weren’t there administering CPR and raising Jesus from the dead. God raised Jesus entirely without our help. God does not need us, God does not have to rely on us, to do the things God wants to do.

No more than Mom needs the help of a 5 year old to make cookies does God need our help to do all the things Jesus did. God can do those things quite well all by God’s self. But the good news of God’s love is God offers us meaning and value in life by letting us partake in the work of Christ.

As Christians this is what we are called to do. And it is not a hardship, it is a blessing. In freeing those who are chained to drugs and alcohol, in healing those who have been told they are ugly and useless, in liberating one another from society’s message that we aren’t worth a plugged nickel unless we have a great body, a great home and a great family, in doing Jesus’ job with him we receive a purpose in life, we are saved from boredom, from wondering why we are here, from the agony of that burdensome gray flannel suit.

Those days when we envy others their purpose in life, when our lives feel spread out against the sky like a patient, etherized upon a table; when our lives play out like an argument of insidious intent, leading us to some immaterial question, let us step back and remember we have a reason for rejoicing. We have a job description. We know what is expected of us. We know regardless what our day jobs are, our real job is bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, helping the oppressed go free and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s great favor. We have a wonderful, meaningful, purpose in life.

This is what God calls us to do. This is how much God loves us. Thanks be to God. Amen.