Are You Ready for God’s Party?

Anton DeWet

1 Corinthians 3:12-17 and Psalm 40: 1-10

Volunteer organizations are notoriously difficult to manage. Churches are no exceptions. Because people donate their time and resources it remains somewhat of an ongoing egg-walk. You tread lightly. It’s a little like dancing in a minefield.

A church had a man in the choir who couldn’t sing. The desperate choir director eventually turned to the minister and asked his help.

“Please speak with Matt. The choir members are going to quit if we don’t do something about this. Please do something.”

So the minister went to the man and suggested,

“Matt, I like for you to consider leaving the choir. I have four or five people who have told me that you can’t sing.”

“That’s nothing,” the man snorted. “Fifty people have told me that you can’t preach!”

There is one place where we cannot go wrong, whether we can’t sing or preach, and that’s what I would like to call God’s invitation to all of us to be part of God’s party.

I think its high time we rediscover the joy-aspect of faith. Faith can be fun-filled, light, humorous, life-sustaining and relaxing.

We don’t always have to think of our faith in terms of being stern, serious and pious. How about simply enjoying the liberty, the possibility and the hopefulness of our faith?

Jesus certainly had a sense of humor. “Who among you whose child asks for bread will give him a piece of stone?”

It’s like the kids will say: “Duh!” I can imagine quite a few chuckles going around when he said that.

The Bible is filled with stories of joyful celebration. How about seeing our faith more as an opportunity to celebrate life?!

Jesus is elevated in the gospel of John as someone who attends a wedding and when the wine runs out he turns water into wine.

When he visits with Mary and Martha he enjoys a meal with them and they all get carried away with the table talk to the point that Martha complains that Mary is not helping enough in the kitchen.

Music, humor, parties and joy is all part of our faith tradition.

In Psalm 40 we read that this poet describes God as follows:

1-3 I waited and waited and waited for GOD.
At last he looked; finally he listened.
He lifted me out of the ditch,
pulled me from deep mud.
He stood me up on a solid rock
to make sure I wouldn’t slip.
He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,
a praise-song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
they enter the mystery,
abandoning themselves to GOD.

God is portrayed as being the One who teaches us to sing the latest God-song. And more and more we as God’s people, when we let go of all that holds us back—that fills us with anxiety—and simply take that leap of faith, will enter the mystery of God’s enlightening joy.

Life does not have to be drab and serious to be Godly and faith-filled.

God invites the world to God’s party of loving and celebrating, of abandoning our cares and greed and guilt and leaping into God’s faith-party, singing God’s latest God-song.

But when invited to a party there is always the inevitable question; “What shall I wear?” And that’s not always just vanity…its also a question to determine what is proper, what is appropriate.
So what shall we wear, then, to this God party we are invited to?

Paul writes to the congregation in Corinth and he has a suggestion what we can wear.

“So, chosen by God for this new life of love,” Paul says,
dress in the wardrobe God picked out for all of you:
compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.
Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense.
Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.
And regardless of what else you put on, wear love.

It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”

There we have it…plain and simple… “wear love”.

Imagine the celebrities being interviewed on the red carpet at the Oscars: “Ma’me, who are you wearing tonight?”

Imagine the following response: “Today I’m wearing “love”, by God, and a little touch of compassion, kindness, humility to go with the quiet strength and discipline.”

O, drop the long faces and the constant obsession with understanding everything. Drop for a moment the despairing thoughts of an ever-evading world peace and start celebrating the beauty of the earth which God has decorated in diversity and splendor.

Claim the light of Jesus Christ as the financial woes of the last two years threaten to wear you down and laugh at our foolishness of constantly hoarding our possessions and lavish some money on the poor, take a cruise, send your neighbor an expensive gift, sponsor a child.

Yes, we all had a tough year. Yes, we all share each other’s concerns for the rising national debt, not to speak of our own. We can always make a case for not being happy, not being thankful, not being rich enough, young enough, slim enough, healthy enough.

Or we can “abandon ourselves to God” in joyous celebration of who we are and what we have. Giving thanks for our human experiences, the love we share, the life we enjoy.

2009 is fast coming to an end. Four more days and it will be gone forever. We can sit here and consider everything we regret about this past year or we can get excited about the New Year that is beckoning, not because we fatalistically hope that everything will be rosy and Alice-in-wonderland-pretty, but because we are God’s people and we have the unbelievable potential to deal with our circumstances.

We are equipped to stand together when tragedy strikes. We relearn the skills of trust when we are betrayed. We learn to forgive when others damage us. We learn to live with the limits of our aging bodies. And we even learn to deal with loss.

We are wonderfully crafted and the world is our home. God is our refuge. Jesus is our light by which we can find our way to a better way of living.

Take the plunge and join the festivities God has given us and remember to dress appropriately. Wear love. Amen.