In the service of Christ

[AI translation] "Now the other thing that is required in the Shapars is that every one should be found worthy of the calling." (1 Cor 4:2) I have read the Word of God from three different places in the Bible for this sermon today, as a sign of how interconnected the whole of Scripture is, how unified, how the same Spirit speaks through the words of Jesus, the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul. The one complements the other, explains the other, presents the same thing from a different angle. If I were to formulate what the Christian life is, what its practical meaning is here on earth, on the basis of these three words, I could say: to be at the service of Jesus Christ.I see the greatness of God's grace not only in the fact that Jesus forgives our sins for the merit of his redemptive death, but also in the fact that he involves us, sinful people, in his service. I see the power of Jesus' redemptive death not only in making salvation by free grace possible, but also in making it possible for miserable people like us to actively participate in serving Christ. For Christ died to reign over both the dead and the living, which means, in effect, to make ourselves available as servants to their Lord. What these words are saying, then, is that the Christian life - our life as we who have come to know the dead and risen Lord - is a life lived in the service of Christ. But the question is, how do we do this service: faithfully or unfaithfully?
Here, however, we must first clarify another fundamental question: can we really see our life on earth as an active ministry under the Lordship of Jesus? In the parable, Jesus speaks of himself: the man who wanted to go on his journey 'called his servants and gave them what he had'. Before he leaves, he gives out the work, entrusts it to responsible servants and comes back to be called to account. This is the law of the household of Christ. Here, first of all, the truth that everything is His. The servants are His servants and the talents entrusted to them are His talents. Those servants cannot claim for themselves either their own person or any of their possessions. Everything belongs to the absent Lord and is to be managed for His benefit. We are not landlords, but house servants in our lives, stewarding the possessions and goods that belong to Jesus. Here Jesus reveals to us the often forgotten truth that all things in this world, all material and spiritual possessions, are directly and exclusively His personal property. He owns the time, the nation, the family, everything that we say is mine: my money, my house, my body, my soul, my leisure, my physical or mental faculties, my children, my life partner.
My life is like a big household with many different rooms: in one room I spend the quiet time of my individual life, in another room I live my family life, and the third room is the work space I do in the world, either at machines or desks or sickbeds, school desks or in the pulpit. But in this big household that represents my life, not a single piece of furniture is mine. The individual rooms within whose walls my life flows are not the individual rooms of a dwelling house, I am not the owner of the house: the landlord is Jesus Christ, and I am the trustee, the custodian of His property. Grace is precisely that He has made me an undeserving steward of His goods. He does not first inquire of any man whether he deserves this position of trust; he places his trust in each one, receives him into his great divine household, and allows him to manage and care for it. We are all, then, such trusted men of Jesus. The Bible calls this being a sacristan, and our work is called being a sacristan or being a sacristan.
Are we consciously sapphires? Does this mean that we live in the certain expectation, the expectation that our Lord will come back and give an account for everything? Can we take in faith the certain assurance of what Jesus says in the parable, "And after many days the Lord of those servants came and gave an account of himself to them." (Mt 25,19) Does not the departure of our Lord into that invisible world make us forget that when He returns home, or when we return home to Him, we must hear His voice as He calls us to give an account of our fellowship?
Servants in the parable do not share equally in their Lord's goods. One receives more, the other less. But each receives one, two or five talents with the aim of multiplying and increasing them in his hands. The divine household is wonderful: God gives something in order to give more. Every gift of God is a title and a voucher for an even greater gift, but only if we do not regard that gift as a title and a voucher, but as a gratefully accepted opportunity. God gives life in order that he may give faith to the one who uses it in the right way; he gives faith in order that he may give Christ, give himself, to the one who lives with him. He gives Christ, that he who yields to him may give him the joy of service; he gives forgiveness of sins, that he who truly receives him may give him the victory over his sins; he gives the Word, that he may give obedience; he gives tasks, that he may give solutions; he gives arable land, that he may give bread; he gives work, that he may give a prosperous, happy, enlarging life. But that is why all God's gifts are tasks and commitments. To live in Christ's service is to commit His gifts to the task and to do it to the full. It is up to me to make the forgiveness of sins I receive a victory over concrete sins, the Word I hear obedience, the fellowship with Christ love, my faith mission, my presbyterial or pastoral charge a flourishing church life, my school work a good report card, my physical or spiritual strength a help and blessing. So from one talent to two, from two to four and from five to ten! It is precisely the honour of serving Christ that He uses our work, our strength, our position as the means by which He gives us more blessings, by which more of His goods, gifts and talents are given to us, and by which more of His blessings are brought into the world. Therefore, talent cannot be treated as a servant who has received one and buried it: every talent obliges us to deposit it with money changers, to bring it into the world, to rotate it, to interest it, to trade it, to use it in the reality of daily life.
For us church-goers, our greatest gift, our talent, is the knowledge of the living God through Jesus Christ. Well, God did not give it to us to keep it as a dead capital, buried somewhere in the depths of our hearts, as a precious treasure to be guarded from thieves, but to invest it: to exchange it for the heavenly capital of love, joy, peace, consolation, help, goodwill, trust. What we have received from Him, let us dare to live with it and from it out there among the money-changing tables of the world. That is why the apostle says, "as each of you has received gifts of grace, so give them to one another". The hallmark of service to Christ is that it is always of benefit to the other person. "I once read about a Buddhist saint who, after being absorbed in the various sciences, walled himself up and lived there for years, shut off from the world. Through the small hole through which he was fed, he happily proclaimed his love for all people, evil and good, the knowledgeable and the unconscious. He never harmed anyone with a single word - but he never did anyone any good either. There are such unproductive good souls today; nothing bad could be said of them, but the trouble is that nothing good can be said of them. Such was the man of the parable, a man of talent. He had a modern disease: antisocial behaviour. While the other two threw themselves into their work, and plunged into the world with the money they had received, this one withdrew, withdrew himself and his money from the service of the community, and lived a sullen, selfish life. He could not move along, rejoice together, be enthusiastic together, work together with others, he could not become a creative member of the great whole of human society. A man harms his fellow men most when he does not benefit them. All my service becomes service to Christ when it benefits another man. The sin of the one-man was not that he stole - no, for he kept what he had intact - but that he did not use what he had. Someone once said: the truly useful life is the one that has beautified and improved something in the world. He who leaves behind him a world more beautiful and better than the one he found before him. And for that we have been given all kinds of talent. And here the temptation for people with a talent is to do nothing, because there is very little they can do anyway.
And yet the Lord does not reward talent, but the faithfulness with which one has handled and used it. What counts in accountability is not the talent, but what has been done with it? That is why Paul says, "But what is more required of the Pharisees is that they should be found faithful in everything." One can only speak of faithfulness and unfaithfulness where there is a personal relationship. Only in a personal relationship can one be faithful or unfaithful. The closer we are to a person, the more accurately we know his thoughts, the easier it is to be faithful to him. The more distant we are from him, the less we know directly from him, the greater the risk of disloyalty. To be loyal to a master is to be close to him, or, where this closeness is lacking, to seek it again and again. To be loyal is to do everything in our power to find out what this master wants. To keep oneself from unfaithfulness in the service of Christ, one must remain close to one's divine master, constantly seeking his commissions, and persevering in these commissions without wavering. Faithfulness is a direct adherence to the Lord and his instructions whom we serve.
We do not know when the moment will come when "the Lord of the servants will come and give account" of us. But at such a time, when a school year ends, when a journey in the life of the Church is completed: it is good to pause for a moment and, before He calls, to go ourselves and give an account of our faithfulness. May He take the accounts of our lives and show us how faithfully we have served. What would the Lord say if He were to look into our account books now: what would we say to Him if He were to take account of our words spoken, the work of our two hands, the 24 hours of our days? Students, what would the Lord say if He looked at your report cards? Presbyters, pastors, fathers, mothers: what kind of report card would the Lord give you, us, about our church and family ministry over the last 10-12 months? Church-goers: has this earthly life around us, out in the real world, been made more beautiful, more joyful, more trustful, more peaceful, more good, more Christlike, by the gifts we have received?
What have we received from the gifts of Christ? Which word of our Lord applies to us: is it, "Well done, good and faithful servant," or "evil and faithless servant"? Let each one decide for himself according to his own conscience - and then perhaps we may be able to pray the psalmist from the heart:
In the greatness of your wrath
"In the wrath of your anger,
Do not rebuke me, O Lord!
In thy sorrowful excitement
Looking upon me,
Punish me not, O God!
(Psalm 38:1)
Amen
Date: 27 June 1954.