The Only Valuable Player - Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 7, A+D 2021

Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches, Custer and Hill City, SD

The Only Valuable Player

    Do your job.  Today’s readings speak much about how Christians are to live, the life of good works.  And, on this Super Bowl Sunday, a famous aphorism of a widely hated but exceptionally successful football coach offers us a useful starting point to consider the life of good works we are all called to live.  I am speaking of Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots.  Coach Belichick has for decades shown an amazing knack for getting great results out of players who don’t necessarily seem to be elite.  Central to this success is Belichick’s mantra:  “Everybody do your job.”  That is, don’t try to do somebody else’s job, just do your own.  If everyone on the team does his own job, then collectively we’ll do pretty well.  

   I don’t know if Bill Belichick has studied much Christian theology, but regardless, he is doing a fair job of talking about Christian vocation, or calling.  Vocation refers to the fact that God calls each member of His Church to different roles, tasks and relationships, within which we serve our neighbors, and thereby God serves us all, through the efforts of all the others.  

    We are all called to be Christians, to gather regularly to hear the Word and receive the gifts of Christ.  Doing church requires some work.  Some are called to be pastors and teachers, others musicians, others to take care of the facility, or care for the sick and elderly.  We don´t need the pastor to fix the boiler, or the trustees to play the organ.  Our life together goes better when each of us does his or her own job, fulfills his or her own calling. 

    Beyond the congregation, in our daily lives, we have many other callings, or vocations.  We all received the calling to be the child of our parents, many of us to be siblings, and some eventually husbands or wives, and parents.  Likewise, you may be called to serve others as a soldier, or a painter, a farmer or a builder.  In all of these and a thousand more honest occupations, the Christian serves his or her neighbors, thereby walking in the good works which God prepared for us beforehand. 

    Paul in our Epistle today talks a lot about his particular calling to preach the Gospel, and we get a glimpse of the power of that Gospel to transform lives and motivate sinners to good works.  Paul, formerly called Saul, was, if you remember, a persecutor of the earliest Christians.  He oversaw the execution by stoning of St. Stephen, and Saul even traveled around, seeking out believers in Jesus and throwing them into jail. 

   But the ascended Christ confronted and converted Saul, and called him to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, to the nations.  Paul became the greatest missionary of the Church.  So deep and transformative was the change worked in Paul that for joy he poured himself into his ministry like no one else.  Paul taught very clearly that ministers of the Gospel can and should be supported in their ministry by their hearers; but Paul chose never to take a salary.  Instead, Paul worked in his secular calling as a tentmaker to support himself, in a free act of gratitude for the free and amazing salvation he had received.  Paul knew he was the chief of sinners, but even more, he knew he was forgiven in Christ.  Through this faith the Holy Spirit used him mightily, not only in ministry, but also to show us what freely done good works look like. 

   Paul also reveals his laser-like focus on doing his job, adapting his ways and manner to best enable him to reach whatever audience the Lord brought before him:  I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.  To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.  Paul knew what his job was, and he focused all his energy on doing it. 

   We also see folks doing their jobs in our Gospel this morning.  The disciples, which means followers and learners, follow Jesus around, trying to understand Him and learn from Him.  Peter´s mother-in-law is sick with a fever, and so Jesus heals her, in order that she could fulfill her special calling that day, to serve as hostess to the Son of God.  And Christ is busy doing the things He has been sent to do by His Father: teach, cast out demons, heal the sick.  St. Mark also shares this crucial detail, which we need to keep in mind: in between all His serving, Jesus made time to slip away and pray, to commune with His Father, to be strengthened in His humanity, in order to go on serving. 

   By this, the Holy Spirit teaches us that vocation and good works follow faith and communion with God.  Much more than Jesus, we weak sinners who have been brought to faith need to regularly return to the Source, to be renewed in our faith, before we can be sent forth to serve again. Without this refueling, which God does through His Word and Sacrament, we will not be able to do anything.

   Isaiah also teaches us about Christian living, proclaiming the mystery of God´s plan for His people:  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

     He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.  Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

   Did you catch that?  If you want to run the race well, to mount up on wings like an eagle, you must first be faint, you must have no might, no strength of your own.  You must wait for the Lord, because all true power comes from God.  To “do your job” as a Christian, the first thing necessary each day is for you to confess that you have no strength to live as a Christian.  This is called living in daily repentance.  

   Paul says the same thing when he exhorts us to run in such a way as to obtain the prize.  The imperishable wreath of the winners of Christianity is eternal life.  Which is found only in Christ Jesus.  So to run a disciplined race is to stay connected to the One who has already finished the race perfectly, for us, Christ Jesus our Lord.  There is no other way. Separated from Christ, we are losers, powerless, doomed.  But joined to Jesus by faith, when we are trusting in Christ alone, His victory is our victory.   

   Apart from the Lord we have no strength, which also means that the good works of the Christian are always the result of the Holy Spirit moving and working in and through us.  Of our own strength and character, we cannot do good works, for sin infects all we do.  We are useless to God, unless the righteousness of Christ first cleanses us, and prepares us to be a holy instrument for the Lord.  We are not saved by our good works, but rather only by faith in the promise of forgiveness.  But then, by our union with Christ by faith, we do begin to walk in good works, by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

   Which brings us to Tom Brady, another football legend.  Also widely hated, quarterback Tom Brady played under Coach Belichick for 20 years, and won six Super Bowls.  But the great coach and great quarterback parted ways last year.  And you know what happened?  Belichick and the Patriots missed the playoffs, but Tom Brady and his new team are back in the Super Bowl this evening.  So football fans are wondering, how much credit for the Patriot´s success should go to Belichick´s skill and his “do your job” mantra,  and how much should go to having the greatest quarterback of all-time leading your team? 

    I don´t know, and I don´t really care.  But Tom Brady´s exceptional contribution gives us one more point of comparison with Christ and His Church.  However much credit Tom Brady should get, he doesn´t get it all. Without his teammates, he couldn´t begin to compete.  But on Team Christianity, all of the credit does go to the quarterback, our leader, Jesus Christ. 

    Jesus won our salvation all by Himself, without any positive contribution from us.  He is not simply our most valuable player, He is the Only Valuable Player.  He is the One who has done all our works for us, and He has paid for all our mistakes.  His perfect life of service and love is credited to all who believe in Him.  And His shed blood covers all sins, because it is the blood of God, of infinite power and worth.  Jesus paid not only for the sins of Christians, for yours and for mine, but He also paid for the sins of all His enemies.  And, as He did with Paul, Christ Jesus is trying to get all of them on His team, by reaching out to them, even through the likes of you and me.    

    You want to lead a Christian life, full of good works?  Good. Then dig more deeply into the Good News.  Like a disciple, grow in your understanding of what Jesus did for you.  God will determine how exactly He will use each one of us, but the transformation that Paul received is just as true for you and me:  He who knew no sin, the Holy and eternal Son of God, became sin, for us weak and miserable sinners, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.  This is what we are, this is what you are, by faith in Jesus.  Revel and rejoice in this most precious gift, and then live freely in your vocations, your callings.  The Lord will take care of the rest, according to His perfect plan.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto life everlasting, Amen.