The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 21st, 1984. The title is, A Servant Church, and the scripture reference is Isaiah 28, verses 23 through 29. 

I've tried twice to share something that happened three weeks ago, and both times so far this morning I feel that I've failed to do it justice. The vestry and I went on retreat just for an overnight, a Friday evening and a Saturday out to Shrinemont, and I would say to you, and I think virtually all of the vestry would say to you, that it was one of the most remarkable times that any of us have ever experienced. So much so that on the way home, we talked to each other in the car and we said, how in the world are we going to communicate this?

I happened to be in a car with only some other gentleman. We said, how are we ever going to tell our wives about this? We agreed we couldn't. You had to be there.

But I've been foolish enough to try, and I haven't made it. You really had to be there, but I'm going to try again. It was remarkable because, first and foremost, God was there.

And He met with us. He touched us and He spoke to us and He molded us. And it was part of what He's doing amongst us.

And I think it will have repercussions down through the years together. We went with no specific agenda except to be together. Just to be together and to wait upon the Lord.

to worship Him, to seek His face, to allow Him to speak to us. We did have one kind of general question in mind that we'd been thinking about and praying about, meditating on for some time, and focusing our attention as the retreat drew closer, and that was very simply, what's next? What's next?

The Lord has led us through so many things over the last several years, and especially the last couple of years, as we've experienced tremendous growth of numbers, and then we've gotten into this whole building expansion program and the renovation of our physical plant. That in and of itself has been very disrupting, and yet God has been with us and guided us through that, and praise be to Him, it's just about over. We've come to the conclusion of that phase in our life together, and so the question was, what's next?

What do you have for us, Lord? Where are you taking us? And even though I know now, because I've tried twice, that I won't be able to do it, I'm going to try to share a little bit of what transpired in our time together.

We began with a Bible study that Ed Quick led, And he drew our attention back to Isaiah chapter 6. I'm sure you remember the passage where Isaiah is worshipping in the temple and suddenly he has a vision of the Lord. It's as if the roof of the temple blew away and instead of being in a physical church here on earth, he suddenly found himself in the very throne room of God.

And he said, I saw the Lord and His train filled the temple. and surrounding him were angels and archangels and the cherubim and the seraphim were hovering about the throne of God and they were singing, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord. Ed made four points about that passage.

They're very obvious. You're aware of all of them, I'm sure. But we need to be reminded again and again.

Number one, We need to see what Isaiah saw. We need to see the Lord. We need to see Him, and we need to see Him, and we need to see Him again.

We need to see a fresh vision of God. Somehow we get running along in the day-to-day business of things, and we get all caught up in the tyranny of the urgent. You know, you can be tyrannized even by church business.

Every now and then I say to Neil, you know, I'd really like to quit this job and go to work for the Lord. It's possible. And we need to catch a fresh vision of God.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And let all those distractions just fade away into insignificance.

But it's a holy God we're talking about. We need to see the awesomeness of God. We need to see something of the splendor and the might and the majesty and the power and the grandeur, the unspeakable holiness of this God that we worship.

The second thing is that as we see that to the extent that we see it, We'll experience what Isaiah experienced, almost like a reflex action. The more you see of the holiness of God, the more you shrink back in shame over your own shortcoming and sinfulness and failure. Isaiah's response was, Woe is me, I am undone.

For I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in a generation of unclean lips. The more we look at God, the more we see ourselves as being terribly needy, sinful people. But the good news and the third point is that God is already doing something about that, has already done something about that.

In Isaiah's vision, it was at that point that God sent one of the angels to take a burning coal from the altar of God and it touched Isaiah's filthy lips. And it purged them and it cleansed them. and that's like a little foreshadowing of the gospel because God has sent His Son from the throne room to touch and purge and cleanse us God has done something about our need it's only after you go through those three steps you see God in His holiness you're immediately overcome with your own need and then you hear the gospel that Jesus has come to purge and cleanse your sin, that you're ready to respond as Isaiah did.

You heard God asking the question, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And Isaiah said, here I am.

Send me. Very simple Bible study. Yet we needed to hear that again.

and again. And we began to share together. It was just an open-ended discussion.

It went on fairly late into the evening. People reflecting on what that touched in their own spirits and sharing together. And as I perceived what was happening, it seemed to me that two different themes were emerging.

And at first, it sounded as if they were almost contradictory to each other. The first was that several people said, Yes, yes, that Bible study touches upon what is our greatest need. The greatest need of Truro Church.

The greatest need of the vestry in particular. But certainly not exclusive to us. The greatest need of all Christians everywhere at all times is to wait upon God.

That's what we need. We need more of that. We need to come into the presence of God.

We need to focus upon Him. We need to dwell in His high and holy place. We need to meditate upon Him.

We need to pray. We need to seek His face. We need to let Him speak to us.

We need to wait upon the Lord. But then there were others who said, there's a sense in which, it seems to us, there's a sense in which we've been waiting too long already. it feels as if we've been in a holding pattern for the past couple of years prior to the building project we had a very definite sense of what we're supposed to be doing each year we had a new step to take in the seven year program we had a very definite goal we were task oriented we knew what we were supposed to do didn't seem like we could do it but somehow we geared up we got together we gave the push and lo and behold the Lord enabled us to do it and it was exciting and we moved on with it and then came the building project and everything went into a holding pattern.

And we've been waiting upon the Lord. And it's time to get up and get going. And it sounded at first as if those two themes were just coming head against head.

Are we to wait upon God or are we to get up and get going? well the more we shared that evening it was as if a picture was coming into focus the more obvious it became that those are not contrary themes at all that as a matter of fact they're two sides of the same coin and that's exactly the point that unless we wait upon the Lord the going whatever that means the going the ministry, the service, whatever it is, unless we wait upon the Lord, the going is just going to be fruitless self-effort. We'll analyze the situation and we'll decide what to do and we'll go do it and hope God blesses it.

And that's not what He wants. Wait upon the Lord and let Him direct us. And yet, unless we're available to the Lord to be sent to do whatever He wants, then the waiting is just empty piety.

And so we're to wait in a spirit of availability to Him, and as He sends, we're to go in a spirit of still waiting upon Him. Does that make any kind of sense to you? That's what we felt God was saying to us.

there is to be a spirit of waiting upon the Lord and a spirit of going as He sends and they're both all wrapped up together but as important as it was to begin to see that and I think we only began to see it as important as that was it was at least as important to see what was happening in relationships between people. You know, some of these folks have been on the vestry for two and a half years now. Some of them have been on in previous terms and they're coming around again.

And what I heard them saying to each other over and over and over again was, this is the first time I feel that I'm getting to know you. and one man said he sat there and he kind of looked around the room and he said this is the very first time since I've been on vestry that I feel I'm among friends it's a very important evening well after breakfast the next day I made this suggestion that we would simply go around the room and let each person speak in turn. And we wouldn't discuss what was said until everybody had had a chance to share.

We've been asking this question, what next? We've been asking the Lord for a sense of His direction. And I said, it seems to me that no one of us is going to have the last word on that subject or the whole word, but it may be that each of us will have a piece of what God would say.

And let's give everybody a chance to share and let's just see what God puts together. Let Him weave the tapestry. Seventeen out of our 18 vestry members were present.

One was unable to be. Sixteen out of the seventeen spoke. One declined and passed.

And as people began to share, Some of it reflected what had been said the previous evening. And then we went beyond it. This was the sort of thing that was said.

Over and over this was said. We're to gather for prayer and for praise. And then we're to be sent out in ministry.

We're to be a church that gives its life away. we're to care for our own members to be sure but in addition to that we have something to share with others beyond ourselves it was interesting to me that as I heard that being said over and over again I just reflected on the fact that that very weekend Neil and Marsha were doing a little mini retreat in Syria Joe Kitts was doing an evangelistic weekend at a church in Luray Billy Hutchison was preaching a stewardship sermon at a church in Orange Ed Pritchard, our senior warden had to join us late because he was up in Maryland speaking to the Brotherhood of St. Andrew and Dave and Donna Blackstone were down in Jacksonville sharing about our shepherding ministry all at once, just on that one weekend we do have something to share with others please don't misunderstand We were very concerned in acknowledging that together. That we don't want that to sound as if we think everybody ought to do it Truro's way.

Or that other churches ought to become mini-Truro's. We do not believe that. I do not believe that. I don't think that God would want another Truro any more than He'd want another you.

One is enough. He doesn't make any two people alike and He doesn't make any two churches alike. Praise God.

But just as we encourage each other as we share our experiences of the Lord, so one church can encourage another church as we share our corporate experience. And we have the sense that that's part of what God was saying to us. We're to care for our own members, but we're also to try to share with others what God has given to us.

as we went around the room we groped for a phrase to to try to capture all that lord is there is there one phrase that we could use that kind of captures the the sense of what we believe you're shaping us and calling us to be a church where where people come from great distances sometimes to celebrate together to enjoy the presence of god but at the same time a church that does not believe that Sunday morning is the be-all and end-all of the Christian life. Instead, it's a time for equipping the saints to go out and do the work of ministry in their jobs, in their neighborhoods, wherever they might be. But finally, we came up with this phrase, a servant church.

A servant church. A church that seeks self-consciously, deliberately, to give its life away. Through its people, through its prayers, through its programs, through its teaching, through its ministry, through its giving.

A church that seeks to give its life away. And it was in the midst of all that that Dick Major shared a passage from Scripture. And he said, as I've been praying about our time together, over and over the Lord has brought me back to this particular passage, and I think that it's for us, and the problem is I don't understand it, but I share it with you.

And he read the passage, and as he read it, my heart did a little leap inside me because I felt immediately as if I knew exactly what it meant. And as we talked about it, we came very quickly into agreement. We knew what it meant, and God was speaking to us.

It's the passage that I had read as our first lesson. You might look at it again. From Isaiah chapter 28.

Give ear and hear my voice, hearken and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?

When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, so common, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and spelt as the border? For he is instructed aright as God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over coming.

But dill is beaten out with a stick and coming with a rod. Does one crush bread grain? No, he does not thresh it forever.

When he drives his cartwheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it. This also comes from the Lord of hosts. He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

Do you know what we heard God saying to us out of that passage? Let me paraphrase it. It was something like this.

It was as if the Lord was saying, I've been harrowing you. That's what I've been doing. I've been preparing the field and I've been plowing it.

I've been plowing the ground. I've been readying Truro Church to do something here in this place that is beyond your wildest imaginings. But now the harrowing is over.

Some of you may like and some of you may not like what I've done with my church. But it's my church. and I'm the one who has done it.

I've changed it. Toro is not the place that it used to be. I've called it to be something else and that's been a harrowing process.

But he who plows does not plow continually. I've called you to be this new thing. Now be it.

So that I can bring forth an abundance of crops. We were very struck by the fact that the passage talks about a multiplicity of crops. All different kind of crops.

It's not all planted the same. Aren't you glad? It's not all the same.

We've got different crops here. We've got some dill over here. We've got some cumin over here.

We've got wheat and barley and spelt. We've got some tough, crunchy old carrots. We've got some incredibly tender alfalfa shoots.

We've got some sweet potatoes. We've got some garlic buds. And they're all growing together in this field that God has planted.

You know they're going to come to maturity at different points in the season. And each one requires special care, different tools, different treatment to be ready for harvest. You know, that's not what I expected the Lord to say.

As a matter of fact, that's not what I wanted Him to say. I really expected we'd get a new seven-year plan. Or at least he'd agree with me that it was time to buy the Mosby.

That's not what he said. At least not yet. Spin off some satellite churches.

It's a good idea, but that's not what he said. Not yet. Not yet.

That may come, or something equally dramatic, something totally unexpected may come. I don't know what God has up His sleeve. But He didn't say any of that for right now.

What He said for right now was this, the harrowing for now is over. Bring forth an abundant harvest. Use these facilities that I've given you.

Fill them for celebration to the praise of My name and equip the saints who come here for the work of ministry and send them out to do it to My glory. Be what I've called you to be, which is a servant church that gives its life away. Gather for praise and go forth in power.

well as we move toward the conclusion of our rather brief time together we had anticipated ending with the Eucharist and as that drew near I began to feel more and more uneasy finally I said I've got to share this with you I really don't want to makes me very nervous but I have the feeling that God is telling me that we ought to wash each other's feet and I don't know if you've ever done that I've only done that once before it would be different if it were part of our culture the first thing you do in India we're celebrating Sundar Clark's 10th anniversary as Bishop of Madras and so I know from being over there the first thing you do in India when you walk in the house is you wash your feet and if they can afford servants they might have servants to help you do that but that's not part of our culture it's very strange to us and, you know, it's a very humiliating experience. Wonderfully humiliating, but humiliating. Both for washer and washy.

I said, I think God is telling us to wash each other's feet. And immediately five other people said, yes, God is telling me that too. And so we did in the midst of that communion service.

We got down on our knees and we washed each other's feet. And I don't think there was anybody who wasn't in tears in the midst of that experience. Because you see, it really wasn't each other that was washing our feet.

It was the Lord Jesus through each other that was washing our feet. And that was just a symbol of servanthood. You remember how he did it on that first night.

We call it the Last Supper. It was the first Last Supper. And as the supper ended, he got up and he took off his outer garments and he put a towel around him and he got down on his knees and he washed their feet.

And he said, you call me Lord and Master and you're right, That's who I am and I've given you an example. If I, your Lord and Master, have stooped to wash your feet, so ought you do to one another also. Can you share in this vision?

There's no new seven-year plan. Not yet. No dramatic program for buying the Mosby.

Not yet. Just a simple call to be servants. A servant church.

What would it be if that mentality really became ours? Really became ours. To be eager, to look around us, to see what the needs are that we can meet.

if this became known as a church where people serve a church where people give themselves first to the Lord and then to each other and then to the world around them what would that be like? It says the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus they said tell us should we pay Caesar or not? And he said, you give Caesar the things that are his.

Those things which have Caesar's image stamped upon them. Give those to him. And give to God the things that are his.

Did you ever think about it? What are the things that have God's image stamped upon them? It's you and me.

We're created in His image. We're redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We're purchased with a great price and we're to be available for His purposes.

Called to be servants like after the one who came to serve. Let's bow our heads together. Father God, the words come easily and the experience comes hard.

We find ourselves rather more like the disciples, continually arguing with each other about which is the greatest. and you've said that he that would be greatest among you shall be servant of all Lord Jesus Christ give me a servant's heart for your name's sake Amen