St. John’s United Church of Christ

April 20, 2008

A Sermon by the Rev. John Krueger

Living Into Our Britches                                         I Peter 2:1-10

Last weekend I survived the annual reunion of my college barbershop quartet.  One of the fellows lives in Berne, IN and the other two in Wisconsin.  We make sure we see each other at least once a year and we plan to be together this fall as well.

They gather at our home in Greenfield because our home is the best to accommodate the eight of us, for our spouses are as invested in these gatherings as we are.  We sing, we eat, we play cards, we relive our college and seminary days, and we would play golf if the weather would cooperate.  We try to keep up with children and grandchildren as we celebrate the gift of life, the first one of us now 70 years old.

All four of us in the quartet are retired, technically, but we each continue to do part-time work in ministry.  One is a pastoral psychologist and therapist in Milwaukee and we always ask him what is happening in this field.  He said the most reoccurring theme is depression, issues of self-esteem, struggling with feelings of inferiority or lack of purpose, or personal futility.  Often the root causes are growing up in a difficult or dysfunctional family, or some instances of abuse, or lack of love and affirmation, or some tragic incident.  So, wounded as they are, they seek some sort of help, and often are referred to my friend, Dan, by a caring, wise minister.

The human dilemma, simply stated, is finding and accepting our place,           where we fit in the grand design.  The Psalmist had it right, in Psalm 8:

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

            The moon and the stars that you have established;

What are human beings that you are mindful of them,

            Mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

            And crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands…”

That’s where we are, suspended between God and God’s creation.  We are stewards of God’s amazing world, God’s representatives here, and yet, in the sweep of history, we are here today and gone tomorrow, momentary actors with bit parts in a grand drama.

Although at times we act too big for our britches, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, puffed up with an unwise sense of our own importance, the greater tendency is to think too little of ourselves.  Dan’s counseling experience suggests the result often is depression, the sense of our lack of worth or value for God or for anyone else.

The pastoral letter of I Peter is also right on, written at the end of the first Century to a still wet-behind-the-ears Christian community:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the might acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Living Into Our Britches, I call it, growing up into our rightful destiny as a child of God.  This is being able to look in the mirror and seeing not just an image of ourselves, but looking in the mirror and seeing one of God’s most precious creatures, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.

There is much that goes on around us that suggests we don’t count for much.  There is a truism that none of us is irreplaceable, and that if we didn’t show up for breakfast or for work tomorrow somehow the world would go on without us.  We would be missed, certainly, by some people, and missed for a long time by a few, but life would spin on at its usual pace with us absent.

Many people paid their taxes this past week with deep resentment, angry that federal and state and local governments needed our financial resources to provide for basic services.  We are told that we must work until April 23 this year and every penny will be taken away from us by various taxes.  Only by April 24 do we begin to earn something we can keep.  That is supposed to make us angry, resentful, incensed, and make us feel even more insignificant and worthless.

A corporation suddenly announces it is closing, throwing out of work its loyal people, putting in jeopardy pensions and retirement plans.  The doctor has unpleasant news, and the medical insurance pays only a portion of the costs.  Larger franchises swallow up Mom and Pop stores, stocks tumble and savings contract.  The terms in warrantees tell us we are not covered, and the usually reliable product fails.  One of these mis-adventures every so often would be bad enough, but sometimes they come in bunches, and that self-image of being a beloved child of God takes a huge hit.

“…yet you have been made just a little lower than God.”  “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…”

Living Into Our Britches.  Could the great God of this universe care anything at all about you?  Is a busy God of 6 billion people not too busy to notice what you are dealing with today?  Are you carefully created in the image of God for more than just taking up space, more than just filling in the picture?  Will your time on this earth be remembered at all?  Will your life leave any lasting mark, something that will endure?

The great Good News of the Gospel is that God cares, cares deeply, about every one of us.  Just as last week we saw the patient hovering of The Good Shepherd, so the theme continues.  The Bible, and the Christian faith, are life affirming, over and over telling stories in which human being are important, valued, essential for the unfolding of God’s will.

The God we have come to know in Jesus of Nazareth relies on us to carry forward the ministry of Jesus.  If good is to be done in the name of a gracious God, it will be done by people like us.  If a God of compassion and forgiveness is to be made real, it will be because we who claim to be God People display compassion and forgiveness with others.

That is the scary part of being known as a Christian – people can expect us to be different, even better, than John and Jane Doe.  They can draw conclusions about God, the God we say we follow and worship, by looking at what we do and what we say.

When I see a car or truck on the road with some sort of Christian identification, the name of a church, the sign of the fish, a bumper sticker that has a religious meaning, I expect that driver to be above average, more courteous, better behaved, less aggressive, more considerate.  I am often disappointed.  Better to be anonymous than give God a bad name.  If you choose to wear the name, then live up to your expectations.  Live up to God’s expectations.

Created to be just a little lower than God, the steward of God’s magnificent creation.  Created to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.  Those are descriptions of our rightful britches, our calling to be a special people.  You count, and your life counts.  You are royalty, in the sense that you are the unique creation of the God of our universe.  There has been no one like you ever before, and there will be no one like you ever again.  Honor that uniqueness.  Accept that honor as God’s gift. 

Represent your God as best you are able, for God’s reputation, in part, is determined by the life you choose to live.  Live into you calling, your britches, as the singular child of God.