The Deep Well of Gladness
Matthew 28:16-20
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The dog?
The children?
The trash truck rumbling by?
The smell of fresh ground coffee winding it’s up the stairs from the kitchen?
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Your stomach?
Your bills?
Your job?
Things you can’t get out of your mind?
What calls you out of bed in the morning and invites you into your day? Are you able to identify those moments of deep gladness where you know in your soul you are fulfilling your vocation in this life and doing what God created you for?
Maybe you are a teacher of children or of youth. Every now and then a moment of gladness rises to the surface of your mind from the depths of your heart. You know that it is a God moment – or a God thing - such as when you see a sixteen year struggling to understand but all of a sudden in the middle of an experiment – they understand the difference in the density between a popped and un-popped kernel of popcorn. You recognize that moment of learning and you know that God made you for that moment.
Or maybe you are helping a little child to learn to read and pronounce vowels and consonants in the correct combination and finally she pronounces the “sch” sound in “school” and keeps on reading as if she had done it all her life – and that moment of deep gladness overwhelms your heart and you know that God made you for that moment.
Or maybe you are music teacher and you are introducing children to music and a young boy has been blowing through that mouthpiece over and over and over again and only air ever comes out but you keep encouraging and teaching – and then finally one day the sound comes out and he knows he has created his first piece of music – and your heart soars along side of him and you know that God is in that moment.
That is what gets you out of bed in the morning.
Or maybe you are some kind of designer or builder or painter - and you have listened to the dreams, the needs and the hopes of your customer and you work painstakingly to make their dreams come to reality – and when they see it – you can tell that you have created something that was once only in their imagination – and your heart is glad and you know that God created you for this moment and for this purpose.
Or maybe you work in the business world or retail world where the pace is hectic and customers and staff are stressed and rude – and you remain calm and confident as you model patience and you guide your team to a successful implementation of a new structure or reorganization and you know that God made you for this moment and gave you these skills.
Or maybe you are parenting your own children – or your grandchildren and they are three or nine or sixteen and your heart is deeply glad when you see them learn to talk or complete a math assignment or use good judgment when they are now driving with their peers. Your heart soars along with them – each step on the journey of their life as they mature and grow - and that is what makes you get out of bed in the morning. Thais is what you are called by God to be doing in this world.
Fredrick Buechner said that "The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
These are all crossroad moments – when we have a glimmer of the hand of God in our lives when what we were made to be doing – meets a need in the world.
We are all called by God. Clergy talk a lot about being called into the ministry – but everyone here has a calling from God. God calls you for a purpose. God has made each one of us here with tender care and great thought. The Psalmist cries out in Psalm 139: “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me….. for you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
God created us and knit us together. Just as our women carefully knit prayer shawls – God has knit us together. We have a purpose and are crafted and called by God to be in the world. Do you know what you are called by God to do? Do you know what it is in your life that brings you deep gladness? Deep gladness – is something that comes from your soul. It is not just a superficial happiness that is fleeting. Deep gladness is an inner understanding of the gifts and skills that you were given and how you use them. Deep gladness could be called your vocation which comes from the Latin word “vocare” or call. Your deep gladness comes from your soul when you understand your calling in this life.
"The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
Understanding of your vocation - your purpose is what calls you out of bed in the morning and invites you into your day.
However not everyone feels this way about their job – or about getting out of bed in the morning! Your vocation maybe be different or in addition to your job. Drawing from the well of deep gladness may come in moments and in places that you volunteer and or enjoy as well. Your vocation and your job – are different. Your vocation may be coaching or singing in a choir or teaching yoga or visiting seniors or playing in a band or serving meals to the homeless or organizing a mission trip. Your vocation is in those moments when your gifts meets the deep needs of the world – of which there are many. We also have moments when we are happy or we find ourselves having a good time – let’s say at a Red Sox or maybe even a Celtics game – or out to dinner – and we are happy or content. Understanding your call and your deep gladness occurs when it intersects with the world’s deep needs.
However what if you don’t feel that deep gladness? Or what if you don’t feel that deep gladness every day – or you don’t feel that God has called you for any good reason. Maybe ever day is a struggle – and you don’t want to get out of bed at all - you’d rather turn right over and bury yourself under the covers because you have no idea what your purpose in life is. Many folks don’t know their purpose in life - witness the runaway best seller a few years ago by Rick Warren- the Purpose Driven Life. People are thirsty to understand who they are and what their role is in life. Many people seek to find meaning out in the world rather than from within. People thirst for the ability to reach into the deep well of gladness.
If you feel that way at times then you are not unlike the disciples in our text today – an oft quoted and memorized text known as the Great Commission. This is a passage about call. This is a passage that called the disciples forward in life and calls us to go out in name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Great Commission – calls us to get out of bed in the morning. The Great Commission has called forth women and men of faith and formed missionary movements and churches for centuries. But today, look closely at this one sentence in the passage that reveals the emotional and spiritual state of the eleven disciples.
“When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.”
This is the remaining eleven disciples that the passage is referring to. The eleven disciples, who walked, ministered, healed, listened to and worshipped with Jesus. The eleven disciples who saw him crucified and resurrected – and who are now called to his side for some final instructions before he ascends back into heaven.
At that moment – the eleven worshipped and some doubted. They did both and this moment in scripture of wavering and of doubting – is a very good reminder for all of us – that if the disciples can waver and be shaky – then we might have those moments in life and in our faith life as well. Moments when we waver. But at those moments of wavering – we don’t pull up the covers and stay in bed – we get up and keep going in faith. We must look for the world’s deep needs – and when we find them we will discover our deep gladness. The disciples all choose to follow their call – and to go and serve the world where their deep gladness and the deep hunger of the world met.
“The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet”
This phrase by Fredrick Buechner is also where we get the final line of our church vision statement. That vision statement reads; “with compassion we reach out to our neighbors both near and far and serve where the world’s deep hunger and our faithful response meet.” The vision of our church is to be prayerfully aware of those times when a small group of people (that would be us) meet the world’s deep hunger (of which there are many needs). We can’t do everything –we can’t be everywhere – we can’t be super church – but we are first and foremost to be faithful to those crossroad moments when our collective gladness meets the world’s deep needs.
Tonight we will gather for the Annual meeting of this church. It is crossroad moment in the life of our church where we will look at the places God invited us to be last year – and to plan as best we are able – for the year ahead.
This church did indeed many crossroad moments when we drew from the deep well of gladness to serve the world’s deep needs.
Who would have ever known a year ago – that we would have had teens and adults running in costumes on a treadmill in the middle of winter, while the congregation had a tailgating party outside in the parking lot on Super Bowl Sunday for Loaves and Fishes? A moment of deep gladness meeting the world’s deep need.
Or who could have imagined a sit down visioning dinner for 95 people, all in Fellowship hall experiencing fellowship with one another? Or who could have imagined a sanctuary packed with over 200 people for a concert that was anything but blue – where a stranger was heard to say on the way out “if church was like this all the time – I’d come more often.” A crossroad moment – where deep gladness met the world’s deep need.
But just as important as those public events – were the private moments – the quiet moments – the spiritual God moments that happened in Sunday School rooms – between teacher and student; or in the nursery between caretakers and parents; or in the choir room between musicians or in nursing homes between seniors and church visitors. Or in those moments when a prayer shawl, made and knit together by prayerful and skilled hands was draped around the shoulders of someone who was scared, lonely or depressed. Moments where deep gladness – met the world’s deep needs.
That is the call of the church. To be alert for those crossroad moments ready to offer those who are thirsty a drink from the well of deep gladness - and a well that is grounded in the love of God the Creator, Jesus Christ our Savior and the Holy spirit our Sustainer.
This is what calls us out of bed in the morning and invites us into our day. When we are growing in faith and love in Jesus Christ first and foremost – we will be able – as a church and as individual children of God - to hear the call of God and the direction we are to journey.
This week and in the days ahead may you hear the call of God in your own life, may be filled with the assurance of God’s love - may your mornings be an invitation to the day that God has made.
Amen.
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