Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Duty or Delight?"

Text: Luke 5:1-11 and Isaiah 6:1-8

a man was walking down a road.

And he met an angel coming the other direction,

and the angel is carrying a flaming torch in one hand,

and a bucket of water in the other.

The man is puzzled.

"What are you doing?" he asks the angel.

"Well," says the angel,

"with this torch,

I’m going to burn down the mansions of heaven,

and with this water,

I’m going to quench the fires of hell,

and then we’ll find out who really loves God."

The first time I heard that story, it puzzled me.

I wasn’t sure I understood it.

The second time, a dim little light started to shine.

And the more time I spent with it,

the deeper it sank in,

and the more it convicted me.

I’m afraid that angel has humankind well figured out.

How many of us can truthfully say

that we worship and serve God

solely because we love God,

and delight to do what God asks?

And how many of us, on the other hand,

take an interest in the will of God

mainly because we hope for some kind of reward,

or fear some form of eternal punishment?

If we knew for a fact

that there were no heaven and no hell,

how many of us would be here this morning?

What is our reason, what is our motive,

for worshipping God, and for serving God,

and for helping our neighbors?

Now, not only does that story convict me;

the scripture passages we have just heard from Isaiah and Luke

convict me as well.

The way in which people respond to God!

Especially when contrasted with

the ways I sometimes seem to respond.

Isaiah says, "Send me!"

Whereas I frequently say, "Who, me?"

or, "Why me?"

or even, "Not me!"

Simon Peter, and James and John,

are told that from now on,

they are to catch people instead of fish,

and they willingly leave their nets behind

and follow Jesus.

There is such a flavor of joy

about their responses … lively, spontaneous.

And so often,

such a sense of reluctance about ours.

As if to say,

Lord, I know you want me to do this,

so I guess I will,

but don’t expect me to enjoy it.

I suspect that for many of us,

our obedience to God, or our attempts to be obedient to God,

grows out of a sense of obligation or duty.

Theirs, at least as reported to us,

seems to have come from

at least passing moments of genuine delight.

What is the driving motive

behind our relationship with God?

Is it duty, or delight?

You may have guessed by now that my feeling is

that delight is a more appropriate response.

I do hope that the time will come for all of us

when doing the will of God

is a matter of joy, not obligation.

But that’s not to say

that a sense of duty is a bad thing.

Often, it’s a very good thing.

There are some things in this world that would never get done

if someone, somewhere, didn’t have

a sense of obligation about it.

Would diapers ever get changed

if we decided to wait until we liked doing it?

Would our homes ever be clean

if we had to wait to do housework until we enjoyed it?

Mine certainly wouldn’t.

And I’d probably just about starve to death, too,

because the only time I really like to cook

is when it’s for more people than just me.

I certainly would never pay any income tax

if one of the criteria were

that I had to enjoy it.

Some weeks, at least, I’d never get a sermon written

if I were required to delight in every minute of the process.

Imagine how much work the session would never get done

if every meeting had to be

nothing but delightful.

For each of us,

there are aspects of our lives

that sometimes, maybe oftentimes, will be that way.

Some days our children

are more of a duty than a delight …

Some days it’s our marriage, or other important relationships,

other days it’s our work,

other days it’s just the daily routine stuff.

And we keep going because

we know it’s the right thing to do,

not because we are enjoying it at the given moment.

We’re in good company … after all,

if you read about Jesus in the garden,

it’s pretty clear that the business of dying on a cross

was not something he found delighful.

He did it,

because he knew it was what he was supposed to do;

he knew that somehow it was necessary.

But even at that late hour,

he was still praying that some other way could be found.

And so when I talk about

delight being a more preferable notion than duty …

that’s not to suggest that, from now on,

we should only do things that we like to do!

It’s a little more complex than that!

I think it’s more to suggest that

part of what it means to grow in faith

and in the knowledge and love of God

is that, over time, we learn to like the things

that we know we need to do.

Here’s the kind of thing I’m talking about,

although this example has nothing to do with faith!

When I was a child, I absolutely hated squash.

The yellow kind, I mean;

that was the only kind I knew about.

My brother hated it, too …

we called it "squush" …

and ganged up to be real pills any time it was served to us.

And the only reason I ever ate it

was that my mother made me eat it.

It was a duty. It was required. It was not optional.

Lo and behold, a few years have passed,

and – what do you know – I like yellow squash.

I’ve even been known to order it in a restaurant,

or going through the line at the Bishop Grill.

Something which was once a nauseating duty

has become a delight.

Now, as I said,

squash has nothing to do with faith!

But that kind of growth does.

There is so much in the Christian life,

so many things on our journey,

that we first tend to perceive as a painful duty.

We do it because it’s expected,

or because we know it’s right,

not because we enjoy it.

Dragging ourselves out of a nice warm bed to get to church on time.

Dragging ourselves out even earlier to go to Sunday school.

Dragging ourselves out,

and actually going to church instead of the golf course!

Giving time to serve on a committee, or to teach.

Making a pledge, and putting our money in the plate.

This would be a really hopping place

if all of us grew to the point where

we found all of those things truly delightful.

You know, as much as I disagree with

the theology of some of the charismatic churches,

I think that part of the reason they attract people

is that, people who have had that kind of experience of God

are filled with delight.

And others are drawn to them

because they are so obviously enjoying what they are doing.

Whether it’s worship, or witnessing, or even tithing,

you get a sense from them

that this is a privilege, not a burden.

I covet that for all of us.

There is, after all,

a reason that Presbyterians so often get referred to as

God’s "frozen chosen."

We are dutiful;

we take God very seriously.

But we often seem so glum about it.

We trudge along, doing the right thing,

knowing that God expects it of us, ho hum.

If we reached a point where we delighted in studying God’s word,

we’d need more Sunday school rooms,

or weeknight classes, or all of the above.

If enough of us really delighted in stewardship of our money,

there are dozens if not hundreds of things

that we could be doing for our community and for one another.

If we delighted in worshipping God,

we’d have a sanctuary filled with even more visitors,

partly because our spirit would naturally attract people,

and partly because we’d be inviting them ourselves!

I may have told you this story before …

One of my brother’s and my other annoying childhood habits

was one we picked up from our friends who lives up the street:

Whenever their parents asked them to something like

a household chore, or cleaning their room, or whatever;

they would answer back with,

"I’ll do it because I want to,

but not because you tell me to!"

I’m sure that by the time my own parents had heard that a few times,

they wanted to have our vocal cords surgically removed.

But for all its taunting little sound,

really – it is the ideal.

To do the right things,

the things that need to be done,

because we want to,

not because our parents or God or the Bible or whomever

told us that we had to.

I wish I could offer some magic formula

to turn our duty to delight.

Because while duty is a fine place to start,

it’s kind of a depressing place to stay!

I guess a lot of it has to do with prayer,

and spending time with people who are delight-full Christians,

and, believing for ourselves that it’s really possible.

That we could actually delight in

losing our lives for God’s sake,

and giving up our lives for one another.

Think about all the fun we’d have.

Think about all the people we could catch.

Think about how God could be glorified, through us.

How positively delightful.

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)