A few years back I read The Unnecessary Pastor by Eugene Peterson and Marva Dawn. A thought provoking read to say the least. Can any of us honestly claim to be "necessary"? How easy it is to think of ourselves as more important than we really are. The marvel and beauty of recognizing that we are "unnecessary" is when we realize that God desires to use us anyway. There is only one Savior and all the rest of us are simply servants doing our assigned duties. Spiritual elitism can occur when we elevate certain preachers, teachers, methods, seminars, authors, counselors, etc.... to the position of Savior. In essence we elevate ourselves because of our association with the one we have elevated.
From here it is a very small step to the development of a faction. The end result is envy, fighting, jealously, quarreling, bitterness, and so forth. The bread and cup call us to remember the message. Messengers are "unnecessary". They certainly have a job to do and they should do the best they can with the message they have to deliver! However, today's messengers will not even be known in a few decades. God will raise up new messengers.
The bread and the cup direct us to give all our allegiance to Christ. He is the message. In him we will find unity with one another.
3 comments:
Byron
Thank you for your lesson Sunday. Your lesson brought to my mind why it is so important to have legions of teachers. It is unfortunate that sometimes in our churches it is the same people that teach repeatedly.
I have wondered many, many times about the lessons that the older women in particular could teach if they would only take to heart the lesson of Titus 2. Many of these women understand silent service.
Congrats on the blog by the way!
Sorry we missed your sermon this past Sunday. And let me tell you, we did MISS it.
I wonder why the message is "Christ crucified"? I'm partial to the resurrected Christ myself. I like the power over death stuff, walking through closed doors, ascending into heaven, disappearing from supper in Emmaus. But yet, Paul says the message is Christ crucified - it's that he died.
I have to believe it is for good reason that the way we have been given to celebrate Christ is a memorial of his death. The body and blood could easily be replaced by a time waving palm branches or a reenactment of the stone being rolled away or something, but instead we are invited into the moments right before his death week after week.
It's bizarre to me that this is how Christ choose to be remembered, maybe even foolish? However, as you said, it does bring us back to The Message - Christ crucified. And even if deep thought will not save us, let us think deeply on that. Very thought provoking sermon for me. Thanks.
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