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10/29/23 – What Makes You Come Alive by Rev. Tim Mitchell

WHAT MAKES YOU COME ALIVE
WHERE’S YOUR PURPOSE & PASSION

October 29, 2023
Reformation Sunday
Deu. 34:1-12, Matt. 25:1-13, Matt 22:24-46
Rev. Tim Michell

As civil rights leader Howard Thurmon once wrote, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive, then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Indeed, they do.

The theology that supports this can be found in our Liturgy today. It isn’t enough for you to show up. Cowboy culture is still dominated by the larger-than-life image projected by the most outstanding cowboy actor, John Wayne. The rough-and-tumble, heart-of-gold, good-guy character John Wayne perfected on-screen always succeeded in embodying the qualities of honor, loyalty, bravery, and commitment.

John Wayne’s Cowboys didn’t just look good. They were good. In the classic “Rio Bravo,” Wayne’s character summed up the essence of his cowboy philosophy by declaring to a less-than-perfect sidekick, “Just showing up doesn’t get the job done!”

If you show up without discovering who you are in my kids’ vocabulary, “then you are a waste of skin.” Such a person’s talent is useless, pointless, and wasted. So how does a person avoid such an end?

First, you must understand that you are a uniquely created person. So, seek to be you! This can be a struggle as so many of us have grown up in households where we were seen as extensions of our parents. And so often, we equate the battle to be oneself with selfishness. But it is not. Many of us grew up taught to imitate others because it was shaming to be different—to be ourselves. Modern psychology refers to being something that we are not as creating our false selves.

Be assured there is no standard normal—we are all different! Leonard Sweet writes: “Be Yourself. It has always been true: Everybody wants everyone else to be just like them. Oscar Wilde said (tongue in cheek) that the first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. Wilde continued: “What the second is, no one has yet discovered.”

For this time, God has called you to this place with your unique gifts, talents, sense of humor, enthusiasm, and personality! But we need you to be you! God has called you to be you! Again, an old cowboy might declare: “You can put a boot in the oven, but it won’t come out a biscuit.” We must make our biscuits from scratch using the energy, talents, skills, guts, and gifts God has given us.

Anglican Bishop Rowan Williams states that “the vocation of creatures is to exist as themselves, to be bearers of their names, answering to the Word that gives each its distinctive identity. The act of creation can be seen as quite simply this: the vocation of things to be themselves, distinctive, spare and strange. God does not first create and then differentiate a great multitude of roles within creation: In one act, he creates a multiple, noisy jostling and diverse reality” (Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness [Cambridge: Cowley, 1995], 149).

The time is now, and the Challenge for each of us as followers of Jesus is to claim our unique identities. To do otherwise will result in personal failure and our corporate loss. We are all in this thing together. We Are One Body!

So, the first step in coming alive is to “be comfortable in your skin.” Be you because no one else can be YOU!

“Who Am I Meant to Be” by Anne Dranitsaris is an online quiz on Oprah.com. It is free and based on personality styles. I took it and found it to be accurate and helpful.

http://www.oprah.com/inspiration/who-are-you-meant-to-be-self-assessment quiz_1#ixzz4yArqlNyE

The next step in coming alive is learning that following Christ is about fulfillment. It is about discovering what brings you Joy. Yes, Jesus said that in this life you will have troubles, and he also said, “I have come that you might have life and that more abundantly” in John 10:10! John 15:11 Jesus again says, “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!

What brings you Joy? Is it serving others? Is it leading others? Is it getting involved in helping others receive justice? Do you love to see people learn? Does it bring you joy to work with children? Does what you are doing for the Church energize you?

Find a work you love, and it won’t be considered work. Billy Joel’s advice: “If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.” I want to tell you about a man named Denny Brauer. Denny was a bricklayer and made a good living at it. But he had another passion – bass fishing. One day in 1980, Denny came home and revealed the deepest desire of his heart, which no doubt shocked his wife to the core. He wanted to move from their home in Nebraska to a place where he could fish – full-time – as a professional bass fisherman.

You can imagine what Denny’s wife thought of this. Jack McCallum in Sports Illustrated captured their prospects nicely when he wrote, “Deciding that you wanted to make a livable wage as a bass angler in 1980 wasn’t quite as risky as deciding that you wanted to make a livable wage as, say, a marble shooter, but it was close.”

But amazingly enough, Denny’s wife said, “Well, let’s go!” And they packed up and moved to where the fish were.

It turned out to be the right move, too. Two decades later, Denny Brauer has a Saturday morning fishing show on ESPN, “The Bass Class with Denny Brauer,” as well as two instructional videos and a couple of books. He has endorsement deals with so many companies that when he goes to a tournament to fish, he is adorned with so many logos that he looks like a NASCAR driver. Brauer is doing quite well since he transitioned from bricklayer to fisherman – some 310 tournaments later and 2.5 million dollars in prize money and more in endorsements.

Denny Brauer is a man who made a daring, courageous career change to pursue his passion for fishing. God calls us to find what gives us life, joy, and love. And finally, you might want to ask the question of yourself,” What energizes you?”

Sharla Kostelyk, in an article entitled Finding What Energizes You, writes: “The first time I discovered the power of something that energizes was back when we were foster parents. I quickly realized that a new baby energized me like nothing else. From the moment we would get the phone call asking us to take a new baby, I had a sudden burst of energy that would last for many months.

Holding a precious new life in my arms and getting the privilege of pouring love into a heart that had already been hurt was electrifying. The sleepless nights and extra laundry hardly affected me because the high from being able to care for a baby kept me going.

Whenever we had a new baby, I was like the Energizer Bunny! There was nothing I couldn’t accomplish. The energy that I got from holding that new baby helped me be a better mom to my other kids, do more housework, be creative, get more work done, and feel more joy.”

What a great example of discovering what energizes—be attentive to your response to your Church work. She provides some questions you can ask yourself to determine what energizes you.

What drives me?

  • What could I talk about for hours?
  • What do I feel passionate about?
  • What do I do when I feel less tired afterward than before I started?
  • What do I get so excited about that I want to tell everyone I know?
  • How do I recharge?

Finally, last but not least, do you sense the call of God? Steven was a young man who felt the call of God in his life. He came from a close family. He finished college and then went off to seminary.  After finishing seminary, he came back home before going to his first church. He visited with all of his relatives for about a week. He stopped by the church and talked to his hometown pastor. The pastor asked him if he would like to preach that upcoming Sunday. Steven felt honored and took the pastor up on the invitation.  Sunday morning came, and after hours, yes, even days, of preparation, he stepped up behind the pulpit, looked out at the congregation of friends and relatives, and started to expound the knowledge that he had learned.

Well, he had hardly begun when his young niece, Kathleen, about six years old, stepped out into the aisle and put her hands on her hips, her left foot out in front of the other, her head cocked to one side. Then she said in a booming and clear voice for her age, “Uncle Steven, you don’t know what you are talking about!”  I am curious to know how Uncle Steven finished that sermon.  But undoubtedly, it was an experience he will never forget.

It takes a lot of work to impress the people at home. God calls, ordains, and sets each of us in the body. My theology says that God has called me the same way God has called you. The story is told of Saint Francis of Assisi, who invited a young monk to accompany him to town to preach. The young friar was excited to be with Francis and wanted to learn as much from him as possible, so he watched him closely. He observed his mentor carefully as they strolled along the community streets. Saint Francis would often stop to visit with the children and the merchants. After a while, they returned to the abbey. The young priest said, “Sir, you have forgotten that we went to town to preach.”

Wisely, Francis replied, “My son, we have preached! We have been seen by many. Our behavior was closely observed. Our attitudes were closely measured. Our words have been overheard. It was by these measures that we preached our morning sermon.”

We all have a call of God in our lives. We have a divine compulsion that warms our hearts. We are attentive to who we are and what brings us joy and passion. We are careful of the needs of others.

God has called us to discern what brings us alive. What makes me the unique person that I am? Am I seeking to be me?  What brings me joy? What energizes me? Do I sense the Call of God? All these questions are our responsibility to answer, and when we do, God’s kingdom on earth will be advanced.

 

 

© Rev. Tim Mitchell, 2023, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org | 309.673.8501