In today’s reflection from 1 Timothy 5:9–16, we continue Paul’s discussion of widows and the church’s responsibility to care for those in need. But the passage also raises a larger question about Christian vocation and service. Not every Christian is called to full-time professional ministry, but every Christian is called to serve. Our work, our families, our churches, and our communities can all become places where we live out that calling. The question isn’t whether God has called you to serve—it’s where God is calling you to serve. Today, consider where your gifts, your life, and your circumstances might be an invitation from God to serve others.
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Good morning. I hope you’re doing well today on this Monday morning. I hope you had a great weekend, and wherever you found yourself, I hope it was a good one.
It’s fall break here in Starkville. There was some fall break last week, there’s some more this week, and there’ll be some more next week. So it’s going to be a little bit of a different week here at church. We don’t have Wednesday night programming, which is going to be different. It’s one of those firsts as I’m still learning my routines up here.
I tell people when you move somewhere new, it takes about six months to figure out where all the bathrooms are. So there’s always something to learn and something to observe.
Today we’re going to be in 1 Timothy 5, verses 9 through 16. This is really a continuation of what we talked about Friday with widows and the church’s responsibility toward them.
Paul makes a distinction between widows who are truly without support and those who still have family or other means of caring for themselves. The widows who are placed on the church’s list are described as women who have been faithful in their lives—women who have raised children, shown hospitality, served others, helped the afflicted, and devoted themselves to doing good.
So this isn’t simply a status that comes from a circumstance of life. It’s a circumstance of life accompanied by evidence of faithfulness.
And I think there’s something important for us to consider here when it comes to how we serve the church.
Especially in churches that are more interconnected and hierarchical, like the Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, or the Catholic Church, there’s a real understanding that the church has a role in discerning how we are called to serve.
In my own discernment about ordination and my call to ministry, I always came back to the question, “What does the church say?” I can feel called to ministry. I can feel called to something. But ultimately, I have to ask, “Where does the church believe my gifts fit best?”
And in some ways, serving the church means giving up some ownership of yourself. It means being willing to say, “I’m going to serve wherever God and the church believe I can best serve.”
And I think that’s important because it’s humbling.
Our world seeks power. Our world seeks fame. Our world seeks status and control. But in some ways, service in the church is about giving those things up. It’s about allowing the Spirit to lead and allowing the church to say, “You have this gift, so we want you to use it here.”
That’s what I think we see with these widows.
The older widows Paul describes aren’t simply people who have experienced a tragedy in their lives. They are people who have also demonstrated a life of faithfulness and service. They’re essentially saying, “For whatever time God gives me on this earth, my life belongs completely and totally to God.”
Now, Paul makes a distinction with the younger widows.
And just a little bit of context is important here. Women married incredibly early in that culture, so it would not have been uncommon for a woman to become a widow fairly early in life, when she was still young enough to remarry and have children.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
There’s nothing wrong with being a widow. There’s nothing wrong with remarrying. There’s nothing wrong with having children. The issue Paul is addressing is the making of a promise and then violating that promise.
If these women make a pledge to remain widows and devote themselves to this particular form of service, then they need to take that pledge seriously.
But there are other ways to serve God.
And I think that’s really important for us to remember.
Your vocation is not simply your job. Every Christian is called to vocation. Every Christian is called to service. But that does not mean every Christian is called to full-time, professional employment by the church.
I heard Sky Jethani, the Christian podcaster, make a distinction that I really liked. He said the question isn’t simply, “Are you called to ministry?” The question is, “Are you called to be paid for ministry?”
Because all of us are called to ministry.
And I think that’s the distinction Paul is making here. These younger widows are no less called to serve the church than the older widows. Their service may simply look different.
For some, their service may involve raising a family. For others, it may involve serving in other ways. For these older widows, their particular calling may involve a more full-time vocation of service to the church.
But one call is not better than another.
I’m called to preach. That’s not a better calling than your calling to be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer, a ditch digger—whatever it is you’re called to do.
I have a different call. It doesn’t make it a better call.
And we all have a call to serve the church.
I was joking with somebody recently about retirement. I’m 50 this year, and hopefully I’ve got a lot of life left in me. But I also know I’m closer to the end of my ministry than I am to the beginning.
I’ve been preaching for nearly 30 years. I’ve probably got somewhere around 20 years until traditional retirement age, although I may not do that.
But there’s going to come a time when I retire from full-time pastoral ministry, and I still want to serve. But I might also want to go fishing.
And that’s okay.
We all have lives apart from the church. But our faith continues outside of the church.
I think that’s the thing.
Our Christian vocation and our Christian service aren’t simply about what happens inside the church building.
In our United Methodist membership vows, we promise to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. And I’ve always thought there’s an important distinction between service and witness.
Service is how we serve within the church.
How do we serve? Maybe it’s preaching. Maybe it’s ushering. Maybe it’s teaching. Maybe it’s working with children. Maybe it’s picking up trash. Whatever it is, all of those areas of service matter. They’re all needed.
But witness is how we live out our faith beyond the walls of the church.
So we have a calling to both.
And I think that’s what we see here. The older widows have a particular calling to vocational service within the church. The younger widows have other callings, including family and other forms of service.
But here’s the reality, friends:
You’re called to serve.
You’re called to serve.
If you’re a Christian, if you’re a baptized believer, you have a call to service.
The question is not whether you’re called to serve.
The question is: Where?
Where is God calling you to serve?
I used to, when I was younger, whenever a little kid would come to church dressed up in a suit or something, I’d say, “Oh, are you going to be a preacher?”
I’ve stopped making that joke with kids.
And here’s why: I don’t want a kid to ever internalize the idea that the only way they can serve God is by becoming a preacher.
The Lord needs all kinds of Christians all over the world.
So it’s not, “Are you called to serve?”
It’s, “Where are you called to serve?”
So have a great day. Serve today, and see what God does with it.
I’ll see you tomorrow.