The Work We Do in the Meantime
The Work We Do in the Meantime by Rev. L. John Gable
May 29, 2022
I wish I could say I was intentional in planning it this way, but I will confess that I was not. Last Sunday we finished our nearly six month study of John’s Gospel and next Sunday is Pentecost, the day we will remember and celebrate the outpouring and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which leaves us this open Sunday in between. Curiously, the disciples found themselves in that same kind of gap period in our lesson from the book of Acts. After the resurrection Luke, the author of the book, writes that Jesus appeared among His disciples for another forty days, performing other convincing proofs and speaking about the Kingdom of God, before He was ascended in to heaven. At that point, the disciples were given the instruction not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which we know was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, a mere ten days later, but they did not yet know that. All of which then begs the question, “What do we do in the meantime?”
The same question can be asked of us, individually and as the Church, the body of Christ. What do we do in the meantime between Christ’s first appearance and His second coming, also a promise out-standing which has been given to us? What is it that God intends us to do or be in this gap period? Our lesson this morning gives us good guidance.
I can only image that the disciples, after the resurrection and after having been commissioned to “go and make disciples of all nations”, were pretty fired up to go out and do something. But in our lesson from the first chapter of Acts we hear the counter-intuitive instruction Jesus gives them to just wait in Jerusalem until the promise of the Father has been fulfilled. So, we see that the first calling of the Church, then and now, is to WAIT and PRAY for God to move, for God to act, for God to do His work before we attempt to do our own.
This seemingly non-productive instruction is a clear reminder to us that the Church is more than a mere human institution; it is a divine gift of God. Give us a task to do or a challenge to face and we will put our best minds and resources together, convinced that we can make it happen, and oft times we can, but the first act of the Church, then and now, is one of waiting and praying for the empowerment of God’s leading and direction. Admittedly, this is difficult for us in our over programmed, hurry up, impatient way of life and doing things, where time is measured in milliseconds which seem interminable as we wait for our computers to boot up. Yet, waiting and praying is our first calling. As one has put it, “Our waiting implies that the things that need doing in the world are beyond our ability to accomplish solely by our own efforts, programs and crusades. Some other empowerment is needed, so we as the church, must learn to wait and pray.”
The disciples asked Jesus, perhaps impatiently, “When the Holy Spirit is given is this the time when the Kingdom will be restored to Israel? Is this the time when the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled?” The question is a natural one. For centuries, faithful Jews had been anticipating the coming of the Kingdom of God. John the Baptist had announced the coming of the One who would usher in the Kingdom and Jesus, Himself, said, “The Kingdom of God is at hand”, so it only makes sense that the disciples would think, “The Promised Messiah has come, so let’s get on with it then.” Bear in mind, at this point in the story the disciples were still thinking in political terms; that the coming of the Kingdom of God meant the restoration of Israel’s past glory and the ousting of their Roman oppressors. But Jesus answered, “It is not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by His own authority.” Keep that teaching in mind the next time you find yourself, or hear someone else, trying to read the tea leaves of the times in order to figure out when Christ will return. Not unlike Jesus’ message to Peter in last week’s lesson when he wondered what would happen to John, here Jesus is saying, “It’s none of your business.” Clearly God had other plans, so the disciples were instructed first to wait and pray before just launching in to their best laid plans. A lesson we too need to learn today.
But then Jesus gives those faithful followers both a promise and a purpose for their waiting. In verse 8 we read, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be My witnesses, in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This was God’s intention! He was intending His disciples to be world-wide missionaries, not end times visionaries! He was sending the Holy Spirit to establish the Church as the people of God, and to empower them to be witnesses to the Good News of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.
In our more cynical moments we can look around us and say with Alfred Loisey, “Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God and what came was the church.” Yet cast in a more positive light we can also see that this was exactly God’s intention. Jesus had selected and trained His disciples as His followers and now God was preparing to send them out as His witnesses to the whole world by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church was called in to being and commissioned to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ in word and deed.
The primary task and calling of the Church, in every time and place, is to bear witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life. We have a unique role to play in the drama of salvation history. Just as the prophets of old foretold the coming of the Messiah, so our task is to tell of His coming and presence among us. We who live in the interim period between Christ’s first incarnation and His second, between the Easter day and the day of His promised return when He will bring all of history to completion and usher in the Kingdom of God in its fullness, have been called to be His witnesses. Everything we say and do must work to that given end if we are to call ourselves the Church of Jesus Christ. I will remind you of the central line in Tab’s mission statement: “We are called by God, led by faith in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to demonstrate the Kingdom of God through worship, discipleship and outreach.”
How do we understand our responsibilities and opportunities to bear witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ? The answer we give strikes at the very heart of our reason for being, as individual Christians and as a Church.
We may not often think of the Book of Order, our denomination’s book of church government and discipline, as being a source of great theology, but in fact it is. At the very beginning it states the Great Ends of the Church, our reason for being. “The great ends of the Church are the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the Children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.” We used that statement as our Affirmation of Faith this morning. In 1831, Rev. John Holt, then moderator of the Presbyterian Church, spoke to the General Assembly, saying, “The Presbyterian Church is a missionary society, the object of which is to aid in the conversion of the world, and every member of the Church is a member for life of said society, and bound, in maintenance of their Christian character, to do all things in their power for the accomplishment of this object.” This is our great end: to be witnesses for Jesus Christ, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our places of business and study and recreation. Those who envisioned the role and responsibility of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in this neighborhood spoke of it, of us, as being “a light for Christ in this metropolitan community”. And how will that be accomplished? Through the likes of you and me, each of us and all of us, using the gifts that God has given us, by the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
I will confess that it is very easy for the Church to get sidetracked from our primary calling. It is very easy for us to be seduced in to seeing ourselves as a social fellowship designed for us to enjoy one another’s company or as a social action agency structured to address the needs of our community. Those certainly are aspects of our calling, but they are secondary, not primary. Our primary calling as the Church is to be the people of God bearing witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. So we must see all of the other tasks and projects and programs we do as the means by which we serve our primary task, to bear witness. All of our worship, fellowship, service, mission and outreach and recreation must move us to that designated end. Without question, the Church has been called to be a transformer of society. We must be involved and engaged in finding solutions to the ills and conflicts that face us as a community and society. The horrific events of this past week Uvale, Texas, should motivate us, out of the love of Christ, to do something beyond just praying for the innocent victims and their families, and to use our best efforts and influence to effect change for the betterment of all of us, most importantly our children. We have been called to be salt and light and leaven; yet we must also realize that our greatest impact on society may not come by what we do, but by who we are. Our doing arises out of our being. I was thinking earlier this week that we in the Church, we at Tab, have much to teach our nation and those who lead us about how we can get along with one another despite our varied differences, and actually do good work together, and that, not because of what we do or who we are, but because of Whose we are. If the Church, if we, are going to have our desired impact on reforming and transforming the world socially we must be certain to maintain and deepen our roots spiritually, for that is uniquely who we are, a people called and set apart by God, empowered by His Holy Spirit, to bear witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Bear in mind, this does not mean we should just rush out and start chasing our latest, greatest idea on what we need to do to fix what ails us. Remember, Jesus first instruction to His disciples was to wait and pray. Wait and pray for the inspiration and empowerment of the Holy Spirit before we go out and do. And we would do well to heed the same advice, so let us commit together to this work of waiting and praying, so that we will be readied and enabled for the work of being His witnesses, in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria; in Mapleton-Fall Creek, in Indianapolis and Indiana, and to the ends of the earth.
To the honor and glory of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN