Earlier this spring, I went to see the Bishop about finding me a church in the conference. I didn’t know at the time whether I was retired or unemployed. He answered this question and his answer is the reason I’m standing here this morning preaching. In that conversation, I told the Bishop that my wife and I are beginning to develop our retirement property in Canada, where we intend to build a home with a guest suite so we can run a Bed & Breakfast when we retire. We are calling the place “New Occasions.” No sooner had I said the words, “New Occasions,” when Bishop Palmer completed the line – “teach new duties; Time makes ancient goods uncouth.” “Uncouth, by the way, is an old fashioned word for “untrue.” We named our venture “New Occasions” because we want to appeal to people who face the new occasion of growing old with a chance to enjoy the retreat aspects of a week or so in the north woods. The opportunity to enjoy growing older in new ways is a new occasion in people’s lives that needs to be embraced and enhanced. My father said as he turned 90 years old that he had no idea he was going to live this long. He told his version of the old chestnut: If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. By which, he meant that he would have started another business. He had a Midas touch that served him well in his investments and business interests. I told him that he had already lived ten years longer than his father and that I intended to live ten years longer than he, so keep on trucking. Many of us will live decades longer than people have ever lived. It’s clear that growing old successfully requires some planning. Growing old today means something quite different than it used to. We need to accept the new duties that make being old meaningful, significant and fun.

Faith and I take the “New Occasions” name from the hymn Once to Every Man and Nation set to the words of James R. Lowell, who in 1845 was opposed to the impending war with Mexico which loomed large in the politics of slavery, which Lowell ardently opposed. It’s missing from the new United Methodist Hymnal, even though it has been sung for over a hundred years in Methodist churches – hense the Bishop’s familiarity with it. This hymn, which, I’m sure you recall, we just sang, speaks of the way people are called to rise up to new challenges from time to time, challenges that make previous beliefs, traditions and practices no longer valid. “New occasions teach new duties,” is how he put it.

I’m sure we trip a bit over the word “duty.” “Duty” is not a very popular word these days. I talked with a college creative writing professor once who said he had assigned the topic of “duty” to her students only to have a revolt on her hands. “Duties” is such an old fashioned word, they protested. “Duty” has only negative connotations to many, especially the young. No one wants to put on the shackles of duty anymore. Being a “free spirit,” on the other hand, is something we can really get into.

Unfortunately, I suppose, “duty” looms large in the Christian vocabulary, principally because Jesus used the word to describe what it meant to be faithful to God and faithful to yourself. In our reading this morning from Luke, Jesus likens being a Christian to being a slave. He means that the disciples, and we, are completely at God’s disposal. But the relationship also means more. The contrast implied is between a relationship based on achievements and merits, and one based on belonging. The slave belongs to the master with an indissoluble bond, but, "The disciple is not an employee who can work and expect payment. He is a slave for whom the master accepts total responsibility, and who enjoys total security, and who, at the same time, labors out of a sense of duty and loyalty, not in the hope of gaining rewards."[i]

The language of slavery is difficult for us. Imagine working out of sense of duty and loyalty rather than for money or fame? We don’t have slaves anymore, thank goodness, and the idea that someone could be completely fulfilled by doing only what serves and pleases another is repugnant to us. Doing only what serves and pleases another leads to the kind of abuse seen recently in the trial of the polygamist Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was convicted of forcing young women to marry older men and be completely subservient in all ways. Young women were forced by Warren Jeffs to be in effect sex slaves. Complete obedience often signals some sort of abuse.

In the first century world of Jesus, however, fully thirty percent of the population was enslaved. For Luke, and probably for Jesus, slavery is an accepted institution that provides a useful metaphor for faithful service. Slaves resided at the lowest social level. They were in a constant state of obligation. Slaves lived to do the master’s bidding. No master would ever thank a slave for carrying out his obligations. It goes without saying that no master would invite a slave to take her ease before meeting the master’s needs. In serving the master with neither hesitation nor reservation, the slave is simply doing what is minimally required. Does Jesus really mean that we should be faithful as slaves are faithful, with no compensation, no reward, not even a word of thanks?

The answer, I’m afraid, is yes – there is no promised reward or even word of thanks. This is not how we sell Christianity, of course. A more common sales pitch for church membership is the person who comes on stage and tells you what happened when Jesus came into his life. `I was on dope. I was an alcoholic. I played loose with women and relationships. I had it all. Then I hit rock bottom. I lost my job. I lost my wife. I lost my boat. I lost my big, expensive car. I lost my home. Then I found Jesus. And everything changed. I have a million dollars. I have a home at the beach with a Jacuzzi. I have three BMW's. I am the happiest I have ever been. I even have a new wife, prettier than the old one, and she loves Jesus, too!'"

This sort of testimony makes faith seem a bit too exciting, energetic, surprising and fun for my Norwegian bachelor personality. But even more importantly, it makes faith conditional on whether or not God is good to us. In this view, people are brought to and fall from faith depending on how good life treats them. I’m puzzled by people who lose their faith because something bad happens or who find faith when something good happens. Where does Jesus promise that bad things won’t happen to good people – and vice versa? Nowhere! Jesus says that faith can transplant trees, to be sure, but quickly on the heels of that promise comes the notion that faith is more about loyal service, doing our duty, than it is about gaining rewards. Like slaves, our duty is to be faithful whether God is good to us or not.

Slaves, it seems, do lots of work, extra work, and receive no thanks for it at all. Be like that, Jesus tells us. In fact, Jesus tells us, the only way to get a recognition party is to go off in wild abandon, living a reckless life of wasteful self-indulgence - and then repent. God likes these people a lot and hosts elaborate parties for them. God expects us, however, to be the loyal brother who continues to work in the fields for no pay and small thanks. Christians don't need praise and gratitude in response to their faithful service to God and neighbor because being faithful is our duty.

No wonder duty has gone out of fashion of late. We do things nowadays only when they please us, reward us, or benefit us. Duty, on the other hand means doing something even after it stops being fun or of personal value. I suspect that’s why the divorce rate is so high, church membership so low and voting rates in decline. We expect a return on investment for everything we do. Even the church is not immune. David Ruhe, the senior pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Des Moines, says that gratitude is the only emotion impossible to overdo. And so I suspect this church as all others gives awards and certificates at every opportunity. We make sure that anyone who helps in even the smallest way receives ample thanks and recognition. But many of us remember when the church and our parents raised us not to expect praise and thanks for our acts of goodness and kindness. "Don't let the right hand know what the left hand is doing, when you do acts of kindness," we were warned.

Garrison Keilor makes dark fun of this tendency is his own upbringing in his book Life In Lake Wobegon. Here's how he complains to his parents about the lessons he learned in his own home:

For fear of what it might do to me, you never paid a compliment, and when other people did, you beat it away from me with a stick. "He certainly is looking nice and grown up." He'd look a lot nicer if he did something about his skin. "That's wonderful that he got that job." Yeah, well, we'll see how long it lasts.” You trained me so well, I now perform this service for myself. I deflect every kind word directed to me, and my denials are much more extravagant than the praise. "Good speech." Oh, it was way too long, I didn't know what I was talking about, I was just blathering on and on, I was glad when it was over (pp. 259-263).”

As a result of such early training, many of us don’t know what to do with a compliment. It makes us uneasy when someone tells us we did them a great favor, or made a wonderful contribution, or sang a beautiful solo. All it takes is a simple response, "thank you," by the way, but most of us stammer away about how it was nothing at all, and a meager effort at that. It's really hard to compliment a Christian.

Although I understand the importance of gratitude and believe that it indeed can’t be overdone, still Jesus does seem to say that doing one's Christian duty is like being a slave, whom one never needs to thank. No one deserves any credit or reward for being a Christian. It’s our duty to follow Christ. No one gets a reward for doing his or her duty.

I remember as a high school senior watching the events surrounding the shooting of John Kennedy. One of the small details which stick in my mind from the assassination of President Kennedy is the secret service agent who leaped onto the car when the President was shot to protect him and the other occupants of the back seat. He did his duty by using his own body as a shield for the President. His duty was to take the bullets intended for the President. He performed this duty spontaneously and fully expecting to get shot, hardly much of a reward for good service.

What attracts me to this sense of duty is its extreme humility. We make no claim on God. Like a slave, I expect neither praise nor reward for dutiful, faithful obedience even unto death. Contrast that to the 9/11 zealots who crashed planes into the twin towers. They did a truly diabolical act of murderous and self-destructive cruelty because of their assurance that bliss would be their ultimate reward. They were not recruited by a sense of duty. They were bribed with a promise of everlasting glory. Jesus makes no such promise. Jesus says to concentrate on your duty as disciples. God will take care of the rest. “Don’t ask what God will do for you,” Jesus warns, paraphrasing John Kennedy – or perhaps it was the other way around. “Ask what you will do for God.”

I get frequent e-mails which assert that I have been especially selected to receive a FREE mini-vacation, special loan rates, unique opportunities to get rich with hardly any effort, investment opportunities unknown to ordinary investors. Such offers play on our desire to get huge rewards for very little effort. Even great religions such as Islam and Christianity fall prey to the temptation to promise enormous benefits to their faithful followers. Jesus tells us, however, that the tough work of being a Christian is the constant, daily, increasing challenge to take Jesus a little more seriously and ourselves a little less so. It’s not about getting Jesus to do nice things for us. Jesus hurls this little story at all of us who think otherwise. We may walk out of here this morning refreshed, renewed, invigorated, fed by the food on this table and I hope and pray you do. But worship is only good when helps us be a more dutiful servant of our God and of our neighbor.

Listen as I pray the prayer of Ignatius of Loyola: “Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as your deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward; except that of knowing that we do your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

A SERVICE OF HOLY COMMUNION

Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another.

Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive us, we pray. Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Hear the good news: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God’s love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

Let us offer one another signs of reconciliation and love.

Come to this sacred table, not because you must, but because you may; come to testify not that you are righteous, but that you sincerely love our lord Jesus Christ, and desire to be his true disciples; come not because you are strong, but because you are weak; not because you have any claim on the grace of God, but stand in constant need of his mercy and help; come to seek the presence and Spirit of Christ.

Prayer of Blessing

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world the Body of Christ redeemed by his blood. By your spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet. Through your Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and for ever. Amen.

The Bread and the Cup

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

Bountiful God, we give you thanks that you have refreshed us at your table by granting us the presence of Christ. Strengthen our faith, increase our love for one another, and send us into the world in courage and peace, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.