It was the annual medical check-up for some City bankers. A small group of them head off for the West End clinic. On their arrival, they are shepherded into a waiting room and told to strip to their underwear.

One guy is a bit worried; he’s sort of overindulged somewhat since his last check-up, so he’s pulling his stomach in and all that. Anyway, it’s his turn to a step up to the scales and the dial moves round – 18 stone!

Well, a bit worried, he looks at the rather attractive nurse standing by and asks, “What should I be?”

And the nurse does a quick calculation on her pad, “9’6”.”

Now I don’t know whether a City banker can be 18 stone, or 9’6” for that matter, and still be able to do his job, still be fit for the purpose of the company. Maybe being so huge or different in size is not good; maybe it doesn’t really matter. But there will be things that really affect his ability to do his job.

If he didn’t read financial news reports, that would affect his understanding. If he didn’t arrange to be in the office when required, that would affect his output. If he didn’t seek to work cooperatively with his colleagues, that would affect team effectiveness. And these are the things he would have to work at to be fit for the purpose for which he’s employed.

I have been wondering at the beginning of another church year, how we measure up, how we are fit for the purpose of being members of God’s Kingdom, partners with God in his ministry? It has occurred to me that there are a number of responses we can have to that call: to be fit for God’s purposes.

God’s purpose
Now the first thing to think through is to work out what we feel God’s purpose is. Our guide of course is the Bible, in which God has revealed himself through his recorded dealings with all sorts of people. And because they are stories of people, we can relate to them even thousands of years later.

As we look at the vast sweep of the Bible, we see at the beginning that God wants to be in relationship with people: he says to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:9), “Where are you?” God wants to have a relationship with us.

Furthermore, God wants us to have a right purpose to our lives, to do the right thing, to make appropriate decisions, and so on. God says to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:13), “What is this you have done?” in other words, he has a good purpose for our lives and we have a habit of mucking it up.

Now I could go on because the opening chapters of the Bible set the scene for so many obvious parallels in life, even in the 21st century, but what I want to do is to look at responses to God’s purposes. How do we respond to God’s purposes of reaching out to people and of giving them a good reason to live and be?

Jonah - exclusive
Here’s a Bible character who made a response to God’s purpose. Most of us will know the story, because we learnt it when young, of the man who ran away and was swallowed by a whale. He ran away because he didn’t want to do God’s purpose: God’s purpose reached out to the Assyrians (non Israelites) and Jonah did not want to include those he saw as enemies and outsiders.

Jonah wanted an exclusive faith, one that was for him and for his friends, but not for others. We can relate to this story because being exclusive is quite common in our world – sometimes, we feel included and sometimes we feel excluded.

When we had our holiday this summer, we flew economy and you know, don’t you, that you are the outsiders in the flying world, you are the excluded ones, the despised ones really. When we were so delayed on our journey that the airline had to put us in a hotel overnight, we were the last to know.

I can recall sitting in the departure lounge by our Gate and the first thing I knew that we were likely to be staying was seeing the First and Business Class passengers being led away. Well, they weren’t going to leave their free drinks and free massages without good cause, and re-embarking was not on the options list!

It’s very easy for us to exclude others, to decide that we are First or Business Class people. But that doesn’t fit in with God’s purposes of reaching out and giving purpose to people’s lives, to all people’s lives.

So when we look at what we are about as followers of Jesus, we are not called to be like Jonah. It may be where we want to be by instinct, but it’s not where God wants us to be. We cannot be exclusive; we are called to include others, and to think of ways that do that, here in church, but also in our workplaces, our homes, our neighbourhoods.

Esther – assimilated
This woman may be a less well-known character. She was a Jewish woman in Persia of the 5th century BC, who became queen of Persia. Her cousin was a high ranking official, called Mordecai, who brought her up as his own daughter. The King of Persia at that time, a guy called Xerxes, decided he wanted a new wife so called a beauty parade of the young women in his empire and choose Esther.

This was good news, because when the Jews in the empire were faced with destruction, she was able to save them by going to the King and getting him to change his mind – I guess he didn’t fancy having his new wife bumped off.

Esther’s situation was both good and bad. It was good because she was in the right place at the right time, but in terms of being Jewish and of being someone who stood up for God’s purposes of reaching out to and giving purpose to others, she didn’t do it. She was too assimilated into the culture – the king of Persia didn’t even know she was Jewish!

It is really easy to get assimilated, really easy to blend in with our surroundings, like some sort of chameleon. A classic example of this is when an opposition party finds itself in power. It’s all very well shouting from the sidelines, but it’s quite different to be in government and run a country. All sorts of things need to organised and dealt with, all of which in opposition can be happily ignored.

Two questions need to be asked of such situations. Firstly, can this party really do the basic things that a government must do better than its predecessor, or was it making just a lot of hot air? Secondly, can it remain true to its original ideals and purposes now it’s in power, or will it, in turn, become corrupt, just like so many other governments?

Often political parties become totally assimilated into the structures of power and government such that we can’t tell the difference. It’s just as easy for us to be like Esther and be indistinguishable from those around us. We can be totally assimilated to our culture so we don’t stand out – not like a sore thumb (that’s a bad standing out) – but stand out like a lighthouse, showing others where danger and safety lie.

Daniel – influence
Daniel was a very bright, young Jewish lad, who was taken into exile in Babylon and trained up in the fast track of the Babylonian Civil Service. Now despite all the opportunities to be exclusive or to assimilate, Daniel did neither. He remained true to his Jewish faith and, by God’s help over some 70 years of government service, he influenced the ruling king on several occasions.

He let his faith affect his actions. It was a faith through which God could reach out to the ruling king and it was a faith which was intentional in fulfilling God’s purposes.

His service had a good influence on those around him. I think we would all wish that to be so for ourselves, wouldn’t we? Sometimes people’s influence is for the wrong things. Here are some feedback replies received by a National Park office:-
· Walks need to be wider so people can walk holding hands.
· Too many bugs, spiders and spiders’ webs. Please spray the woods to get rid of these pests.
· Reflectors placed on trees every 50’ so people can hike at night with torches.
· Escalators would help on steep uphill sections.
· The places where walks do not exist are not well marked.
· Too many rocks in the mountains. Can you remove some?

As you can imagine, they didn’t have much influence, but God wants us to be influential in the lives of those around us, influential for good, influential for honesty, influential for integrity.

Jesus – salt and light
Jesus talked about this in our reading, about being salt and light in the world. These words come after the Beatitudes, which you may have come across before: ‘Blessed are you who …’ and so on, and the ones who are blessed by God are actually the lowly people, the unimportant people, the little people. That’s us, that’s all we are, we can be blessed by God.

Jesus calls us to be like salt. Salt has two functions: to preserve and to flavour. It’s more likely that Jesus is thinking about flavour here. He’s suggesting that we will be fit for God’s purpose when we are flavouring our world with God’s presence by our presence.

Jesus also talks of how we can lose our fitness for purpose, just as salt loses its taste. Now, sodium chloride never stops being sodium chloride, but in Jesus’ time, salt was full of impurities and if the actual salt got washed out, you would be left only with the impurities. It’s interesting that the words ‘loses its saltiness’ (5:13) can actually mean ‘become foolish’ in the original Greek. A foolish follower of Jesus has no influence on the world.

Jesus also calls us to be light. What do lights do? Amongst other functions, a light can warn (think of a lighthouse) and a light can show (think of a torch). Jesus is suggesting that his followers, if they fit for God’s purposes will be like warnings to those around them – that’s why people don’t find it easy being around Christians sometimes: our lives are like warnings of their foolishness or false purposes.

If you find it uncomfortable to be around a Christian at the moment or even being in church perhaps, it’s probably because in your heart of hearts, in your subconscious, you know you have got something wrong going on. God can deal with that if you want.

Light can also show. It makes things visible, which is why you don’t shove a light under a bowl (5:15). It doesn’t work there. Jesus is suggesting that his followers, if they fit for God’s purpose will be like lights that show others another way to live, a better way to live, a more wholesome way to live.

Conclusion
As I ask myself, so I ask you today. Are you fit for God’s purposes? When you go about your daily life, do you act as salt and light, as divine flavour and divine direction?

Perhaps you keep your faith to yourself like Jonah wanted to. Perhaps you are so assimilated into the world around you that no-one knows that you attend church, or even sometimes call yourself a follower of Jesus. Perhaps you know that to be a Daniel, to have an influence, is too frightening, a step beyond the comfortable existence you prefer.

Jesus is calling all of us, indeed whether we believe or understand yet, to be fit for God’s purposes, to be people through whom he reaches out to others, through whom his ways and his values are communicated. Fit for purpose? Let’s all be fit for God’s purposes?