Lectionary 23; September 9, 2007; Bethel Lutheran Church, Rochester.
Philemon 1-21.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. AMEN.


Today and the next two weeks we are going to consider the concept of Christian duty. It is a word that can mean many things—often we think about guard duty or military duty as in the following story:

It was a dark, stormy, night. The Marine was on his first assignment, and he had guard duty. A General stepped out taking his dog for a walk. The nervous young Private snapped to attention, made a perfect salute, and snapped out "Sir, Good Evening, Sir!" The General, out for some relaxation, returned the salute and said, "Good evening Marine, nice night, isn't it?"
Well it wasn't a nice night, but the Private wasn't going to disagree with the General, so the he saluted again and replied "Sir, Yes Sir!" The General continued, "You know there's something about a stormy night that I find soothing, it's really relaxing. Don't you agree?" The Private didn't agree, but, then, the private was just a private, and responded "Sir, Yes Sir!"
The General, pointing at the dog, said, "This is a Golden Retriever, the best type of dog to train." The Private glanced at the dog, saluted yet again and said "Sir, Yes Sir!" The General continued "I got this dog for my wife." The Private quickly responded, "Good trade Sir!"
Is it our duty to simply agree with those higher up the ladder than we are? Do we agree without thinking—even worse—say things without thinking? In the letter to Philemon, Paul commands us to do our duty. But it isn’t a blind duty; it is a duty informed by love. Sometimes that duty informed by love is found in families, or between husband and wife.
A woman accompanied her husband to the doctor's office. After his checkup, the doctor called the wife into his office alone. He told her, "Your husband is suffering from a very severe disease, combined with horrible stress. If you don't do the following, your husband will surely die...Each morning, fix him a healthy breakfast. Be pleasant, and make sure he is in a good mood. For lunch make him a nutritious meal. For dinner prepare an especially nice meal for him. Don't burden him with chores, as he probably had a hard day. Don't discuss your problems with him, it will only make his stress worse. If you can do this for the next 10 months to a year, I think your husband will regain his health completely." On the way home, the husband asked his wife. "What did the doctor say?" She replied, "You're going to die"! I suppose that duty goes only so far?

We have many different duties. We have a civic duty to obey the law and serve where we are called. A notice comes in the mail. You’ve been selected to serve your community by doing jury duty. Is your first reaction, how can I get out of this? If it is, apparently you’re not alone. A recent study shows fewer than half of all Americans called to serve actually report.

We have a duty to our church—particularly in worship—any many thanks to all of you for making time for worship on this Rally Day weekend at Bethel. Several centuries ago in a mountain village in Europe, a wealthy nobleman wondered what legacy he should leave to his townspeople. He made a good decision. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the church until it was finished. At its grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece.

But then someone said, "Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is really quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?" The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls, and then he gave each family or individual a lamp, which they were to bring with them each time they came to worship.

"Each time you are here,” the nobleman said, "the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God's house will be dark."

We have a duty to serve others. A while back Will Willimon, Dean of the Chapel down at Duke University and a superb preacher and writer, got a call from an upset parent, a VERY upset parent. "I hold you personally responsible for this," he said. The father was hot, upset because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to throw it all away and go do mission work with the Presbyterians in Haiti. "Isn't that absurd!" shouted the father. "A Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she's going to dig ditches in Haiti."

With tongue-in-cheek, Will responded, "Well, I doubt that she's received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work, but she's probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months.” "Look," said the father, "this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible.”

As the conversation went on, Dr. Willimon pointed out that the well-meaning but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. THEY were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship to ski in Vail. Will said, "You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me." "But all we ever wanted her to be was a Presbyterian," said the father, meekly.

It doesn’t have to be Presbyterian. It could be Lutheran or Roman Catholic or United Methodist or a host of other denominations. We are called to be something more than a name. We are called to do our duty out of love.

Paul is so confident in his letter that he writes to Philemon knowing that Philemon will do even more than he has asked, because Philemon will be serving out of love and not because he was forced.

God doesn’t force us to do anything, but God asks a lot. Is God asking you to do anything about the flooding? A Thrivent representative called me last week to say that people of Bethel have been especially kind and wanted to thank us for our donations. Members of Bethel have served individually, in small groups, and through the Red Cross and United Way. In this next week we have the opportunity to step up through the serving of a meal in Rushford and going with the Men’s Ministry on Saturday to help. Is that part of our duty of love? Each of us will decide.

We begin a new program year. Over one hundred people have felt it their Christian duty to serve our children and youth through our education program. Perhaps two hundred people have responded as musicians to lead our congregation in worship. Literally scores of other programs are enabling thousands of people to use their gifts through Bethel.

This is an exciting time to be the church. We have so much to do. We have the resources to do it. We have the people. We have the spirit. Most importantly, we have the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads us in our duty! It is a joy to serve with you as the people of God. May we move forward this new year in love! AMEN.