No Good Deed Goes Unfinished
Luke -26
Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.”
Following Christ, preaching and teaching and living in the power of his name, does not mean the life of Christian discipleship is insulated from failure. In fact, Jesus knows that failure will be such a recurring possibility in life that he provided his followers with a sacrament of failure. Just as there are ways to live that teach the world about Christ, there are also ways to fail that are uniquely Christian. Failure, or what futurist Don Michael calls "error embracing," is going to be a big part of any Christian's ministry.
Nobody likes to hear they are going to have to face failure in life - not the disciples 2,000 years ago - not Disciples today. But understanding how Jesus' own ministry, how his very death on the cross for our sake and our salvation, provided all Christians with a sacrament of failure can empower all of us with the "nerve of failure" as we witness to the world.
Steeling that nerve started for me personally when Marshall Dunn - the minister at University Christian Church - went on sabbatical in January of 1988. I was Chair of the Deacons at the time.
Anyway, Marshall began his sabbatical on a Saturday and by Sunday the Associate Pastor - Louise Kilpatrick - and I were up to our necks in ministry. Louise was 67, but just recently ordained.
Normally the Chair of the Deacons has rather mundane tasks. Those include scheduling and being sure everyone knows their job for that particular Sunday. That’s not to minimize the Chair’s responsibility, but in this instance I was called outside of my calling as a deacon and into a whole new area of responsibility.
On the Sunday after Marshall left, Louise got a frantic call from one of the Deacons saying she needed to have new locks put on her apartment door - immediately. Louise called me since I was the resident locksmith. From our conversation I realized she didn’t need new locks, but needed those she had rekeyed. I grabbed my trusty pin kit and went over.
But the frantic call was not about a lock for a door. It was a cry for us to rescue her from addiction. So we tried.
We gave her money, we went with her to a psychologist , we got her into a treatment program, we prevented her worldly possessions from being put out on the street, we tried to comfort her mother, we sent her 12 year old daughter to Mary-Mac, but in the end - we failed. She ran away from rehab, her mother died, her sister refused to let us have any more contact with her daughter, and barely a week before my ordination in 1995, her daughter returned to University Christian and told me that Paula had died that week.
Paula’s cry for help and our failure to solve the problem created a bond between Louise and I which will last forever. Marshall wasn’t there to guide us. We were forced to rely on each other and on God.
This experience had a profound effect on us both. Louise came to realize just how difficult parish ministry can be. I heard the echoes of the call to ordained ministry I had first heard at Bethany Beach all those many years before. Louise is convinced that our failure with a drug addicted deacon moved me to accept that call and journey toward ordination.
Funny what failure can do to a person.
What Louise and I did was not outreach in the strict sense we Disciples use the word, but it was the same kind of ministry we would have provided even if Paula had not been a member - or a deacon of the congregation. I learned from Paula and Louise that no good deed goes unfinished.
If I’d stopped to think about it then, I would have realized that from the world’s point of view Jesus’ ministry and his preaching of the good news was a failure. But no good deed goes unfinished and the good news is still alive and well these 2,000 years later.
That is because - try as we might - almost everything we do in the name of Jesus is never resolved. There’s always a lack of finality in ministry - yours and mine.
We have - this congregation has - recently ministered to a family to which we have loose ties. It has been some months and the situation hasn’t changed, nor will it in the foreseeable future. This isn’t failure. It’s simply unresolved continuation.
When Jesus is quoted as saying, “The poor will always be with you.” He is quoted out of context. He was saying that while the poor will always be with you, the Son of Man will not. He was not saying that there is no hope for the poor and that ministry to them will fail, but he can be construed as meaning that ministry to the poor may be unresolved.
- Even with the money, time, and talent directed to the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami, the ministry in the south western Pacific is not a failure, but unresolved.
- Even with the money, time, and talent directed to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, the ministry on the Gulf Coast is not a failure, but unresolved.
- Even with the money, time, and talent directed to the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake that ministry in the Carribean may not fail, yet it will go unresolved for - perhaps decades.
Name that tune - that ministry - and you will see that it is unresolved. That is not failure, it is simply a recurrence of the theme - no good deed goes unfinished.
A theology which takes the unresolved seriously does not encourage fatalism, passivity, or indifference to the world. Nor does it acknowledge failure. Rather it affirms that the person who cannot freely lay down his or her life is one whose ideals and values are compromised. The person who cannot accept the possibility of complete, radical, personal failure in the carrying out of their Christian mission is not sharing that absolute poverty of spirit which characterized the freedom of Jesus to accept the divinely appointed means for His mission. There may simply come a time when we realize the need to shake the dust off our feet and commend unresolved ministries to God and to other Christians.
Louise and I felt we had failed Paula - left our ministry to her unresolved. Perhaps, but Paula’s daughter went on to Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts. Our good deed to Paula may have gone unfinished, but perhaps our efforts led her daughter into a life different than she otherwise would have led. Perhaps.
One thing I know, though, and it’s what keeps me - and you - from actually failing in our ministry - Jesus’ last words to His disciples - "Lo, I am with you always ... even to the end of the earth."
And that always goes unfinished. Thanks be to God and AMEN.