You Are My Servant

 

Isaiah 49:1-7   John 1:35-42

 

     The words in the call to worship spoke to me this week.  I think many of us have been there with the writer of Psalm 40, down in the desolate pit.  Some of us might feel like we are there today.  And somehow, through some person or some action, God spoke to us.  God drew us up out of the miry bog and set our feet upon a rock.  And God put a new song in our mouth. 

 

      The prophet Isaiah experienced what the Psalmist was talking about.  His words were very similar to those of Jeremiah, "The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named me."  He believed he was called to be a servant of the Lord.  But things didn't go as expected.  He said, "I have labored in vain, I have spent all my strength for nothing and vanity." 

 

      It sounds like his task had been to help the nation of Israel to become one again, to help reunite the exiles coming home with the people in Jerusalem.  It appears that he was not been very successful.  And this is where the story gets interesting.

 

      Imagine that you work for Eastman, and you assign one of your employees a project to do.  He works at it but really doesn't accomplish anything.  Chances are you are not going to give that person a more difficult job to do. 

 

      Or you are part of a law firm and you assign one of the attorneys to a case and she loses the case.  Chances are you are not going to add to her workload.

 

      Or you are the director of a choir and you ask someone to sing a solo and they try really hard but end up sounding like Barney Fife.  You probably are not going to give that person a more difficult solo to sing.

 

       But that is exactly what God does with the prophet.  His task had been to help reunite Israel and he had been unsuccessful.  And God's response, "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."  In other words, I am expanding your ministry.  I want you to speak to the Gentiles as well as the Israelites."

 

        Isaiah, you have been pastoring a church of 50 and not much has happened.  Why don't you continue to pastor that church and take on that 3000 member church down the street?  It seems a foolish thing to ask except for one thing, the prophet  will not be working alone, God will be working through him. 

 

        The good news is that there is only one way we can fail.  That is by rejecting the presence and the help of the one who has chosen us.  Maybe what God gave to Isaiah is a new vision of himself.  And maybe that is what Jesus gave to Andrew, a new vision of himself.  And just maybe that is what God is offering to us this day.  A new vision of ourselves. 

 

        We have been called to be servants of God.  But it is not about our heroic efforts.  It is about what God does through us.  In other words, stop looking at it as doing a job.  Start being a light.  Let your light shine and God will take care of the rest. 

 

     If we look at it as doing our duty, we won't be successful in a small task.  We will feel like we are stuck in a desolate pit.  If we recognize that our role is to be a light that God shines through, our lives will become a song of praise to God.

 

      At Christmas we celebrate the birth of  Emmanuel, God with us. As the year moves into Epiphany we are reminded that we are called to be a reflection of the light of God. 

 

      When Ike and Bob and Anne and Noah and Robyn go to the Congo, they are not going to do a job, they are going to reflect the light of God.  They are not going to do a task, they are going to shine.  The same is true of people who spend their Wednesday afternoons at WATeR, and people who spend their Friday mornings at the Food Pantry and people who help with IHN.  Their calling is to shine, to be a reflection of the light of God.

 

      That is why it doesn't matter where we have been, what our background is, who our family is.  I have seen the light of God reflected in a fairly wealthy church in Fulton, Missouri and I have seen the light of God among the poorest people of Africa, Guatemala and Cuba.  It is all about the one who calls us to be servants of the Lord.

 

       It is too light a thing for us to try to build up this church, we are called to be a light to the nations, so that God's salvation may reach to the end of the earth.