Be Our Guest!

The song from "Beauty and the Beast" is going through my head as I write this morning, Be Our Guest.

It's hard to believe that it's been 13 years in pastoral ministry. In the spring of 1993 I was sitting in the living room of our home in Lapel, Indiana studying the book of Romans when I finally understood what God wanted of me, what God wanted me to do. I had been working in youth ministry for a couple of years with my partner, my wife, but I had started to feel uneasy, unsatisfied, incomplete. I wasn't fulfilling God's purpose for me, or maybe a better way of putting it, I wasn't allowing God to work enough in me and through me.

That's when I read from Romans 10...

"It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”

Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?"(Romans 10:8-15, The Message)

It's this last part that helped me understand my calling, but it's the first part that burns within me, helping others to understand, helping those who do not believe to come to belief. God has placed within me a passion to bring people to Jesus and help them grow.

But isn't that the great commission anyway? Isn't that what the church is called to be about?

Exactly! "Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you."(Matthew 28:19-20, The Message)

Re-reading Romans 10 today made me think about our church. I'm proud of the work that has been accomplished in our Vision Statement and our Purpose Statement. They both proclaim that our mission is to those who are not yet in our church. But we are not there yet in our practice. A careful reading of Paul's argument in Romans reveals something I think we all need to hear, we shouldn't be too proud of who we are or the position we have received in the kingdom of God. We were outsiders who were let in on the action of God, but once inside, we are no better than those who are still on the outside. While we have come to salvation, it doesn't make God love us more or make us more special.

O, and the church isn't ours, it never was. It's not ours to do with as we please. It's not ours to keep people out of or to measure who comes in. It's not ours to make it most comfortable for us. God has placed us in Christ's Church to make it a hospitable place for others to experience the completeness of God and his salvation through Christ. We are simply hosts, proud to welcome others into our midst and servants, making sure they get everything they need while in our care.

While my calling is about going and telling, our calling is about welcoming and sharing. We are hosts for Christ, eagerly awaiting and preparing for the guests of Christ, so that they may know the assurance and love of God.

Our song is, Be Our Guest, because that is what Jesus sang to us.

Peace ><>
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