It's not just your job!

"May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord's people will not be like sheep without a shepherd." (Num. 27:15-17)

It's not just your job!
By Rev. William Dohle

I love to garden. I really do. In Montana, we had a good size garden full of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and even some really large pumpkins. We had raspberries and some strawberries too. Every year we'd go out and plant what we could, water it as we would, weed, and finally take in the harvest. It was a nice sized garden. Not too big and not too small.

I love to garden. But I can't imagine gardening this much. I can't imagine picking all these strawberries in the field above by myself. I can't even comprehend how much work is involved.

Gardening is great...but farming needs help. It needs people to come in on shifts, to pick the strawberries one person misses and strip the plants of their fruit. It needs more than one person at a time to work and more than one shift to get the job finished. In the end, to finish the job right, it needs a steady stream of leaders and workers.

The job of ministering to the world is the same.

I am a minister in the world. I serve a congregation of Lutherans in Peoria, Illinois. My job, though, was here before I arrived and will be here long after I am gone. My job was ably done by Pastor Tuhy and Pastor Borcherding and by other pastors before them. They shepherded the people I pastor now.

Someday my job will be passed on to another who will have the privilege of walking with these people too. Thus is the legacy of ministry and of any job. This isn't my ministry. It's God's. And I am but one worker in a line of workers.

It's not just my job.

This is what I think Moses realized too as he gazes over the land on the mountain in the Abarim range. The Torah tells us that he was gathered to his people, like Aaron was, because "both of you disobeyed me to honor me as holy before their eyes."(Num 27:14). You might think that Moses is mad at God for doing this. Or if not mad than a little sad.

But I think Moses is glad to be done with leading the people of Israel. I think he's ready to pass the mantle onto another.

After all the stress that came from leaving Egypt to all the complaints in the desert to countless times the people rebelled and had to be dealt with. All of this still weighs onto Moses, I think. And I think he's ready to be done with it. Ready to say "It's not just MY job anymore."

God, who is gracious to us, helps us do the same thing Moses did. When our time comes, God helps us pass on the leadership to the next generation and move on. God helps us let go as others take leadership of the group that WE use to lead. God strengthens us for whatever our next task is. And God gives us vision to see how our work fits in with the larger picture.

I think Moses saw what was ahead on that mountaintop. Gazing down at his people one last time peering back at their past and forward into their future, Moses saw what God had done through his hands.

And I think it made him smile.

Give us vision, Lord, that we may see our place as one piece in the puzzle of Life. Amen.