Sample of Watchwords for Lent

WATCHWORDS FOR LENT

Sermons for Lenten Devotions and Easter by Rev. Ken Behnken

4. WORK! 1 Corinthians 7:17-24

WEEP! WORSHIP! WALK! The Lenten WATCHWORDS that we have considered so far have emphasized for us again the converting power of our God, who “has called us out of darkness to walk in his marvelous light.” “You turn to me, O Lord, and I shall be turned!” we say with the prophet of old. We recognize fully that God’s call in Christ brings a new direction to our lives. And tonight’s watchword adds its own insight to our consideration. Christians hear the word WORK in a new way. In our lives in Christ our work is no longer just a way to make a living; it has become part of our building a Life.

In their classes and in their response to Children’s Sermons, whenever the question of how we may serve our Savior comes up, children almost invariably say things like “We can pray; we can sing praises; we can tell others; we can read the Bible; we can go to church and Sunday School.” In their minds, serving Jesus requires some religious activity. It takes some prodding to move their thinking about serving Jesus over to the way they do their studies in school, their chores at home, and their general friendliness and helpfulness.

It’s easy to think that the word WORK as a Lenten WATCHWORD means that a person has to drop what he’s doing and pick up his Bible. And sometimes that’s the case. It was for the first disciples. They were fishermen when Jesus called them to follow him – and they dropped everything, leaving their nets and boats, their homes and families, to pick up the “Bible” of the living Word of God. They were eager to learn God’s truth from Jesus and to catch his spirit.

It has continued to happen in the history of the Church. William Carey was a cobbler in London who simply could not go on with his shoemaking when he became possessed by the vision of the millions in India without Christ – so he closed his shop, took training, and became one of the pioneer missionaries to the Hindus. It still happens when a young man or woman hears the call to full-time service in the church and enrolls at a school like Concordia University with that in mind. It happens when men and women decide on a career change that will move them into professional church work. They drop the line of work they have been doing and enroll in seminaries that will prepare them for service as pastors or teachers in the Church. I understand that about 30% of the men enrolled in our church's seminaries these days are involved in that kind of career change. It’s happening in our own fellowship here at Faith as Don Barber, who serves us as an elder and a Bible Class teacher, is being moved toward becoming a pastor.

Generally, however, this is not the case. When God calls people to be Christians and to follow and serve the Lord Christ, it usually does not mean that they are to drop what they are doing and become preachers or teachers. There’s a joke about a farmer who left farming to become a preacher because one day he saw a cloud formation that looked to him like the letters P and C. He took it to stand for “Preach Christ". He sold his farm and went to Bible college and then began to serve a small congregation. He had been a successful farmer, but he left much to be desired as a preacher. Finally, as problems grew, his church board met with him. He told them how he had been called to preach. The board listened to him, then one experienced churchman told him in kindly fashion: “Maybe you misinterpreted God’s message. Maybe the P and the C didn’t mean 'Preach Christ'. Maybe God was telling you, 'Plant Corn'.”

Obviously, God’s call to WORK as Christians does not mean that all must become professional ministers or teachers in the Church. In this text Paul was giving advice to the Corinthians. Evidently some of them were thinking that their becoming Christians required them to devote all their time to studying and sharing the Word. Some were even questioning their continued relationship with husbands or wives who had not become Christians. So Paul advised, “Each one should remain in the situation in which he was when God called him.” He established a clear principle: God’s vocation usually means that the businessman, the engineer, the scientist, the housewife, the office worker, the sales person, the teacher, remain as they are in their daily lives, but with this difference – they are now to carry out their daily duties as Christians. As we see here, Paul even spoke to slaves in this way. He did not say that because of their new-found freedom in Christ they should assert themselves and run away. That would not have been good advice in that society. Instead, he told them that their freedom in Christ would enable them to serve their masters with a new outlook. In Colossians he wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. It is the Lord Christ whom you are serving.”

Martin Luther came on the scene in the Church at a time when the “double standard” was firmly in place – the idea that those in holy orders, monks, nuns, priests, were more worthy in God’s sight because of their self-denial and service than ordinary Christians in their “secular” work. Luther was caught up in this himself. As a young law student he left the University and entered the Augustinian Order as a monk, seeking “a more worthy life to lead”. Later, as he was led to his own personal freedom and to the full assurance that the Gospel provides, he restored the Bible’s teaching of the Christian vocation of every believer. He insisted that the Christian housewife in the home and the farmer in the field and the worker in the shop, as they performed their duties conscientiously, with a Christian and loving attitude, were offering a service no less acceptable to Christ and no less honored by Christ than those in holy orders. As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir in the Church.

“Each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him,” wrote Paul. This suggests that each of us should seek the guidance of the Lord to find that kind of work in which we may serve most effectively. It may indeed be a call to full-time church work, and God’s Spirit will supply the needed gifts. But more often it means serving God in work that is not directly related to church work, and it is God who supplies the gifts also for that – by which his people provide for themselves and their families and equip themselves to share with those in need. But in all of it, our WATCHWORD reminds us that in our WORK we are to work as Christians. “Whatever we do, we are to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” One Christian wife and mother applied this to her homemaking duties by putting a little sign above the kitchen sink: “Christian services conducted here daily.”

Our work as Christians is not just to proclaim the Word – but our work as Christians is to proclaim the Word! Our Lord Jesus still commissions those whom he calls with the WORK of bringing the Good News to the whole world. In that sense we are all called to be his ministers – to devote some of our time and energies and an appropriate portion of our income to the WORK we are doing together as Faith Lutheran Church. In carrying out our recent self-study we identified 138 individuals, some 42% of our membership, who are performing at least one task, large or small, as their contribution to our life and work together as a congregation. The health of the church as an organized body depends on volunteers such as these, and the church work they do deserves a high priority in their lives.

John Wanamaker set a high standard in this. He was the owner and manager of Wanamaker’s, a great department store, and he also served his country as Postmaster-General. In addition, he found time to begin and supervise a Sunday School in a depressed area of Washington D.C. A friend expressed surprise that with all his pressing duties he had time for Sunday School work. Wanamaker replied that the Sunday School and other Gospel work were actually his life’s work – and that he did the other jobs so he would have the means to carry out the real work for which God had put him here.

As Christians we, so to speak, have “the best of both worlds”. We can, if we are willing, find the time and the energies and the talents needed to provide some meaningful service to our Lord that will be a direct contribution to the life of the Church – and, by carrying him with us into our everyday duties and doing the very best we can for those for whom we work, we can be involved in meaningful Christian service in all we do.

After all, that’s what you are here for, isn’t it – to WORK for him?

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