What Do You Believe?

Sunday, October 26th, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Acts 9:1-9, 2 Timothy 3:3-7 (Matthew 5:33-37, Romans 12:9-18)

Acts 9:1

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

2Ti 1:3

I am grateful to God--whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did--when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

“Belonging precedes Believing precedes Becoming”

Just to review, last week we began to look at the components of this statement. Our question last week was “Where do you Belong?” Hopefully, the answer to that question for most of you here today is ‘Here’. But if not here, the answer, regardless of where you find your family of faith, is definitely with and to Christ. Our scripture passage last week was from the fourth chapter of Gospel of Matthew, the scene was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the event, Jesus’ calling his first disciples; Peter, Andrew, James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

What we found last week is that, before they grew to believe, the disciples were welcomed into fellowship with Jesus through his invitation to join him. It is that same invitation that Christ continues to extend to us and to everyone today. Insofar as we invite and welcome people into this fellowship, this family, this small part of the body of Christ, we are initiating the dialogue of faith between that person and God. We are making introductions between that person and Jesus, but in that introduction, we are carrying out a dual role: we are both doing the introducing, and being introduced. We are Christ’s presence to them, and in that presence, we are carrying out the incarnational witness of the Gospel, in other words, through the living of our lives, through our words and actions, we, like Christ, are helping to break in the Kingdom of God.

Belonging precedes Believing precedes Becoming.

The first ‘step’ in the series, so to speak, is to experience a sense of belonging. As the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a first impression. The same is true – especially true – for church. I know of no other place where the perception of a group as a whole can hinge on the actions or words of a single individual – and not necessarily the Preacher - to the degree that it does in a church setting. That is why it is SO critical to be nothing we are NOT in church. That is, don’t say or do anything IN church that you wouldn’t say or do OUT of church. To turn it around: Don’t say or do anything anywhere else that you wouldn’t say or do here, between these walls. What is the most common accusation launched at the church? What is the most common reason given for someone NOT being involved or becoming active in a church? That it is full of hypocrites. Let’s work at nipping that in the bud. Biblically, Jesus puts it this way in Matthew 5:33 and following (part of the sermon on the mount):

33"Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, "You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be "Yes, Yes' or "No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Paul puts it beautifully in the 12th chapter of Romans (for those of you who were here for the Associational Brotherhood meeting, forgive me for reading this passage again, but it is one that doesn’t seem to lose any of it’s power through repetition):

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

It could be said in a simpler way: Be Real; being a part of a family of faith is an ongoing act of trust. Not only are we trusting God to guide and direct us as a congregation, as well as individually, but we are trusting each other with each other’s lives, cares, worries, fears, and in some cases, secrets and children. It’s usually a point of pride to be able to say ‘what you see is what you get’. Let that be true of us here at Jerusalem. Let’s be that transparent, that open, that welcoming. But it doesn’t stop there, because there is more to it, more to this being church to each other, than that. Belonging is the beginning place, but we come to the heart place.

We come then, to believing.

Our opening scripture presents us with two images of coming to faith, coming to the point of believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The first is probably the most famous. It is Saul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus. It is so famous, so well-known, that the phrase ‘a Damascus road experience’ can be found outside of faith communities, and still carry the same connotation. It means having an experience so dramatic, so radical, that it marks you for life. Perhaps some of us here today in this room can claim to have come to faith through a similar experience. In those cases, it is easy to pinpoint the day, date, and time when we ‘got saved’.

Probably for others, the reference to Timothy is more appropriate: “a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” Paul doesn’t mention Timothy’s wild days as a teenager, or how he used to chase around town in a chariot, throwing empty wine jugs out the back. What we have is progression. The faith of your grandmother and your mother, that is now yours.

I wonder if there was a time when Timothy didn’t remember being surrounded by faith? Please correct me (later ) if I’m wrong on this, but I don’t believe we have a direct reference in Scripture to how old Timothy was or if he was even born when Lois and Eunice first became followers of ‘The Way’, which is what the early Christ followers were called.

If he was a toddler, or a very young child, his experience may have been very similar in that respect to that of many of us here today. It’s not that you ever didn’t believe, it’s more an issue of … waking up one day and realizing ‘I really DO believe’. You may not be able to get any closer to the day or date than maybe give a general idea of how old you were at the time, but the truth remains the same. Sometime before that, you didn’t believe, but after a certain time, you DID, you stepped forward on this road, this pilgrimage of faith, and in the words of Robert Frost, “took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

For the disciples, that coming to faith had a specific turning point, similar in many ways to Paul’s meeting with Christ on the road to Damascus. It came after the resurrection. In the Gospel of Matthew, we read a short passage, verses 16 & 17 in chapter 28, just before the much better known great commission:

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

There is another passage, not so short, which I will summarize; Mark 9, verses 14 and following. The story is of Jesus coming upon the disciples surrounded by a crowd and arguing with some scribes. When he walks up to them he finds out that the disciples had attempted an exorcism. When questioned, Jesus answers “All things can be done for the one who believes”. The father of the boy then cries out, with a cry that echoes with all of us here:
"I believe; help my unbelief!"

What do we do with doubt? Is there a way to escape it? Hebrews 11:1 says

“faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.

That doesn’t seem to leave room for doubt. In truth, it doesn’t. But what we need to remember, what we need to accept and incorporate into our self-understanding, is that we are inconstant beings. Not a single one of us, as close as we may come, are one hundred percent all the time. Speaking for myself, I can reel off several areas in my life where it would be wonderful if I were constant. Granted, self-perception is not always the most objective view, but it is what we work from by nature, and that is what comes through to me in the cry of this helpless father, who’s spent most of his son’s life looking for help, someone to rid him of the demon that had been plaguing him since childhood. He is saying, in fact, “Lord, I believe, but I know myself and I know that I won’t ALWAYS believe. I rely on your Grace to get me through those times.”

Jerusalem can be all of them, the Damascus Road and the ‘cloud of witnesses’, such as Lois and Eunice for the people who come through that door and don’t know Christ, who haven’t had an encounter with the living Lord through the lives of his followers. Jerusalem can also be the place that welcomes the person who is wrestling with doubt in the midst of faith. Here’s the thing: we don’t know which it will be for any given individual. We do know this: we are called to obedience, we are called to love, and we are called to share.

It is just that sharing that we will explore next week.

For now, for some, we are at the turning point.

C S Lewis was an avowed atheist well into his early adulthood. The only description he gives of his conversion experience is this: one day he went out for a walk, and between the time he left and the time he returned he knew that God was real. Somewhere along that walk, he came to faith. He specifically says, there was no dramatic event; it just happened that he began the walk as an atheist and ended it as a believer. If you are here today and woke up not sure, but now, somehow, someway, something has turned that uncertainty to certainty, your invitation is to consider this time and place as the opportunity to make that certainty – that step of faith - public.

If you are here today and have been surrounded by that ‘cloud if witnesses’ all your life, and know that today is the day you can say ‘I really DO believe’, we would welcome you.

If you are here today and have BEEN a part of that cloud of witnesses, or have already been ON that road to Damascus, your invitation is to continue in the faith that was first in Lois, then in Eunice, then Timothy, and uncounted others between then and now, and to strengthen the bonds of love and trust in this small but vital part of the body of Christ.

The special invitation today is for those who struggle with doubt. The struggle is part of our humanity; it is not a reflection on the strength or weakness of your faith. That you are in struggle with it is a sign that your faith is active, alive, and growing.

Let’s Pray.

Where Do You Belong?

Sunday, October 19th, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 4:18-22 (cf Mk 1:16-20, Lk 5:1-11, Jn 1:35-51)

18As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

There’s a quote I heard the 2nd week of class, that has stuck with me ever since, and which I would like to explore today and over the next two weeks. It is this:

“Belonging precedes Believing precedes Becoming”

I’d like to expand that, looking at the lives of the Disciples. Today we’ll be looking at what it means to belong.

‘Making your way in the world today
takes everything you’ve got
taking a break from all your worries
sure would help a lot
wouldn’t you like to get away?
sometimes you want to go
where everybody knows your name
and they’re always glad you came
you want to be where you can see
our troubles are all the same
you want to be where everybody knows your name.’

Though I’d really rather not compare a Church to a TV version of a Boston Bar, the lyrics to the theme song from ‘Cheers’ touch on a very basic human trait.

In his Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato stated that ‘man is a social animal’, and that in order to thrive, man must live in community with others. In other words, humans are wired to be in association with other humans.

On some level, there is an element of Imago Dei, the image of God, in that trait. In that God created us to be in fellowship with God, as well as with each other, that is an aspect of the divine nature that we can share in when we are in worship, fellowship, or any other type of communion with each other. That is why, any time we are together, if you look closely, you can catch a glimpse of the Kingdom.

Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville was a place that welcomed me with open arms. With everything that was going on in my life at the time, the people in that congregation first and foremost welcomed me into their midst, did not shy away from my questions, did not shun me for my sporadic attendance, and were genuinely always glad I came.

When was the first time you consciously realized that you ‘belonged’ somewhere, or TO something or someone?

In some instances, that realization that you belong comes gradually.

I remember about 4 years ago walking down the hall at Thalia Lynn. We’d been members there for about 5 years at the time, and as I went down the hall, I began to greet the people I passed. I was walking from the Preschool wing to the Sanctuary, and on my way back to the Preschool wing, it dawned on me that I had greeted almost everyone I met by name. More significantly for me, I had been greeted by name. I realized that day that I belonged at Thalia Lynn.

In other instances, the realization is a little faster in coming.

My friend Stacey tells the story of meeting his wife for the first time. He had joined the Summer Missions Drama team for Kentucky Baptist Student Unions, called Son Share. Kim had joined the Music Team, and on the first evening, all the teams were together for a debriefing/devotion time after having spent the day working on their different programs. As Kim walked out of the room at the end of the evening, she walked past Stacey and ruffled his hair, and said something innocuous, like, “Good night, Stacey”. “Right then I realized I was going to marry her,” he told us. On some level, he realized at that moment that they ‘belonged’ together.

This immediateness, the turning from a lifetime of one thing towards a lifetime of something else, seems to have been the hallmark of the way in which people responded to Jesus’ invitations. It was no different with the disciples. In calling them to follow him, Jesus was telling them ‘you belong with me’.

Have you ever known someone with so compelling a presence that you hang on his or her every word? Or perhaps you have found yourself in the position of being that someone?

It is at he root of the human spirit, this wanting to belong. In developmental terms, beginning around the age of 4 or 5, we go through a stage where this belonging becomes all-important, so important, in fact, that it is at this point that we develop the ‘us and them’ distinctive. In order to belong, in order to belong to something, there must, by definition, be those who do NOT belong to that same thing. It is beginning at this age that we see clubs forming, usually formed down gender lines.

As adults, the shadowside of this longing for belonging is that, in order for there to be a sense of belonging, there must be a distinction between those who belong and those who do NOT belong. We can witness this disassociation throughout history; sadly, it is most in evidence in church history, see it displayed in graphic terms in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, in the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Serbia and Croatia, in the massacres that have occurred in central African nations, and, lest we think ourselves above all that, in our own history we see it in the racism and the resulting civil rights conflicts of the 50’s and 60’s, and even in continued attitudes we find but do not speak of so readily today.

We’ve seen it rise in our own denomination. ‘Theological diversity, functional unity’, once a hallmark of Southern Baptists, the understanding that ‘you and I may disagree on some areas of faith and practice, but that is not going to keep us from doing church together’, has been replaced by current leadership demands of “Theological Unity being the ONLY way to functional Unity”, a shift to a view where the understanding is now ‘if you don’t agree with me on every single issue, be it spiritual, moral, or political, you are an infidel’, seemingly ignoring decades of historical evidence to the contrary. It is the darkest shadowside of belonging … to want to be ‘in’ so badly that you separate yourself from the richness and beauty of the wonderfully diverse ways in which different traditions and different ideas can come together and give us a fuller and clearer and more detailed picture of who God is.

What does this mean, then, for Jerusalem? How does the disciples’ response to Jesus invitation to join him affect us today?

It affects us like this: last Sunday I stated that when we are doing the work of the church, when we act as Christ’s body in the world, we are active participants in the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. Does it need repeating that when Christ was on earth, during his public ministry, he was breaking in the Kingdom of God? When we invite – and more importantly, when we WELCOME into our midst – strangers, and estranged friends, and families, and folks who do not have a church home, or folks who’ve never been invited TO church in their lives, we are in fact extending Christ’s invitation to his disciples.

Belonging precedes Believing precedes Becoming.

The Disciples first were welcomed into fellowship with Christ. As was the custom of the day, if a teacher took on disciples, it was a 24/7 classroom. The disciples lived with the teacher. The disciples spent the next 3 or so years with Jesus. For us here that means that those whom we invite will be able to see us BE Jesus at any given moment. It is called incarnational witnessing. We live our lives as Jesus would have lived his.

It is, of course, a tall order. But it is the first step in the process – this welcoming – this giving a sense of belonging to one who has for whatever reason NOT found a place to belong. Earlier in our worship service, in fact, at the very beginning, after we sang “We’re marching to Zion”, we had an opportunity to express that welcome, to tell someone ‘you belong with me’ – it is listed in the bulletin as “Hand of Fellowship & Greetings”. We cannot minimize the importance of that event as a part of worship. In churches that observe a more liturgical form of worship it takes the form of the ‘passing of the peace’. It can also be expressed communally in a call and response – “The Lord be with you” – “and also with you” - “lift up your hearts” – “we lift them up to the Lord”.

There is a comforting quality in knowing that that part of the service is coming. It is not just a formality; it is a statement of belonging. Recognition that we are all part of one body, following, with Christ as our head.

Our challenge today as a church is to maintain, no, more, to increase that welcoming spirit.

We read in the New Testament of Jesus having 12 disciples. Consider us the equivalent of the 12. Our responsibility here is to learn from the master. At the end of his public ministry, our role will change. We will see that next Sunday.

If you are here today looking for that place to belong, where you can bring yourself just as you are, with no pretense, with no mask, stepping out on faith and into a family of faith, we would welcome you. We know someone we’d like you to meet. His name is Jesus.

If you are here today and have already met Jesus, but are looking for a place in which you can get to know him better, then we would also welcome you.

If you are here today as a member of this congregation, your challenge is to be as welcoming and as the Holy Spirit prompts. We say Christ meets everyone where they are. That means WE meet everyone where they are, with open arms, with tender hearts, with listening ears.

Lets pray.

Our hymn of invitation is ‘Jesus is tenderly calling’. Perhaps we can look up from the nets of our daily lives long enough to hear his voice.

Come To The Table

Sunday, October 12, 2003 (World Hunger Day)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Empanadas de Pino, Queso, y Ensalada Chilena.

That was our Lunch last Monday. My brother Jimmy was visiting us on a break from School up in Pennsylvania, and Leslie decided to make a Chilean meal while he was here.

Empanadas are a kind of Chilean pocket sandwich. Pino empanadas are a meat pie. The meat mixture is made up of browned ground beef and onions, seasoned with cumin, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, and paprika. After most of the cooking is done, you add raisins to the mixture and let them plump up with the juices from the meat. Then you take a couple of spoonfuls of it and wrap it in dough and either bake or fry it. The baked kind can be as big as half of a large dinner plate, and constitute a meal in themselves. Empanadas de queso are made with cheese, usually a white cheese similar to Monterrey. Those you definitely deep-fry.

Ensalada Chilena – literally, Chilean Salad, is simple: thinly sliced tomatoes and onions, tossed with a little olive oil, lemon juice, and liberally seasoned with chopped cilantro and salt and pepper.

We gathered around the table, gave thanks, and Jimmy and I just soaked in the smells of home. A bite into the salad transported me back to those Asados - open-pit barbeques – we were lucky enough to enjoy at mission meetings in Temuco, in southern Chile. There was usually a side of beef, a
sheep, and a pig that ended up suspended on spits over a 15 x 15 foot pit,
and the salad was a required side dish. Empanadas are one of the national dishes of Chile, along with Cazuela de Ave, a chicken stew, with potatoes, carrots, and a kind of pumpkin in the broth.

To my family, my brother, sisters, parents and I, those are all comfort foods.

Comfort food that I’ve come to add to that list since I’ve gotten married: Pineapple cheese casserole, the first time I heard it described, my reaction was ‘no, thanks!’ but after tasting it, it became a standard at any holiday meal or special occasion. Tomato sandwiches in the middle of summer, when the tomatoes are perfectly ripe, and the bread is fresh, and there’s enough mayonnaise to make it a challenge to keep the tomato between the bread. Squash casserole, made with sour cream, it usually doesn’t last beyond two days in the refrigerator. Or Creamed Hamburger and rice, one of the simplest meals to prepare, but the emotional comfort it brings goes so far beyond the simplicity of the tastes that there is simply no comparison.

Aunt Lala, my mother’s middle sister, and Uncle Ray, lived in Nashville Tennessee for years, and always had the biggest table I can remember. Stan, Kim, Brad and Eric, our cousins, and for several years, 4 additional Park kids would join her either around Christmas or Thanksgiving, or really, whenever we could fit in a weekend trip to Hermitage.

“Y’all come!” was all we needed to hear to run down the hall or up the stairs from the den, to sit and eat and joke and laugh and try to follow fifteen conversations at once.

“Y’all come!” meant it was time to feast, to quench our thirst, to satisfy our hunger.

Out from all this, Jesus is calling us to his table.

“Y’all come!”

But what does he call us to?

He promises to quench our hunger and thirst, as he promised the Samaritan woman at the well, but hunger and thirst for what?

He offers himself, the bread of life, and the water of life. But which life? The life I’ve just described? We live in a country and an area within that country that can at times and to many of us, feel like just this side of heaven. If we were to scratch just a little beneath the surface, though, we would probably find otherwise.

One of the surprising benefits of parenthood has been rediscovering children’s books. We’ve introduced Hannah, Caleb and Judson to ‘Green Eggs and Ham’, as well as to other classics, like ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, or ‘Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’ and Shel Silverstein’s ‘The Giving Tree’. One of the joys of parenting has been to discover new children’s books, like ‘Bedhead’ or ‘I Love You, Stinkyface’, or to find books that, though designed for children, have something to say to adults as well … I think, in retrospect, that is the genius of Children’s Literature anyway, that the books and stories have something to say to those being read TO as well as to those doing the reading.

We have one book, a simple little paperback that has action prayers, songs, and prayers for mealtime. Flipping through it, Leslie came across a prayer from Nicaragua that caught her off guard. We pray it occasionally around the table at home:

O God,
Bless this food we are about to receive.
Give bread to those who hunger,
And give hunger for justice
To those of us who have bread.

Today we observe World Hunger Day.

We live in a world of harsh, sometimes horrible realities.

Enough grain is produced in the world to provide every living person with two loaves of bread a day, and yet, nearly one in six of us goes hungry.
• More than 840 million people in the world are malnourished—799 million of them are from the developing world. More than 153 million of them are under the age of 5.
• Six million children under the age of five die every year as a result of hunger.
• Of the 6.2 billion people in today’s world, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day.
• The amount of money that the richest one percent of the world’s people make each year equals what the poorest 57 percent make.
• Virtually every country in the world has the potential of growing sufficient food on a sustainable basis. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has set the minimum requirement for caloric intake per person per day at 2,350. Worldwide, there are 2,805 calories available per person per day. Fifty-four countries fall below that requirement; they do not produce enough food to feed their populations, nor can they afford to import the necessary commodities to make up the gap. Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
And finally: The death toll from hunger is horrendous. Each day, 32,000 children die from hunger. That is not counting men and women, only children.

We distributed rice bowl piggy banks this summer during vacation bible school. The money that is collected in them will go to world hunger. It doesn’t depend on massive donations from a few select multimillionaires or corporations. The genius is, with enough participation, small gifts from a large number of churches and people accomplish the same goal. It may not seem like a lot, but it can make all the difference.
Paul is addressing the brokenness of the world, made apparent in the church at Corinth, when he reminds them of what the Lord’s supper was supposed to be: a proclamation. ‘For as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’

We are, in observing the Lord’s Supper, communing, that is an action verb. As a body, as a community of faith, we are proclaiming the central truth of the Gospel. Christ’s death for the world. Christ’s death in our place. The second part of that last sentence is critical: “Until he comes”. That is saying a couple of things. First: Christ is no longer dead. So, the proclamation is not only of his death, but also of his resurrection. Second: Christ will come again. And this is critical: we are a part of his return. When we do this, when we act as Christ’s body in the world, we are active participants in the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.

Let’s Pray.

(Communion)

26 While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." 27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." (Matthew 26)

This is our time of invitation. Christ invites each of us to the table. Whatever we bring to it, we are welcomed. It is what we take from it that will change the world.

Benediction:

May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
May God give you Grace never to sell yourself short,
Grace to risk something big for something good,
Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love.
So, may God take your minds and think through them,
May God take your lips and speak through them,
May God take your hearts and set them on fire
Through Christ our Lord.

Closing hymn:
Blest be the tie that binds (1st verse)

Redefinitions

Sunday, October 5, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Matthew 12:46-50

Last Sunday I made a passing reference to how Christ was expanding our understanding of who our family is when he said in Matthew chapter 25, verse 40:

'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

Today I’d like to revisit that.

46 While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, "Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." 48 But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49 And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

September 23rd, 1989 is a day that I will mark, consciously or not, as a watershed date in my life. On that day, the woman whom I’d been dating for the previous year and a half, with whom I had planned to spend the rest of my life, asked to end our relationship. Though I had dated briefly in college, I’d never been in what you could call a ‘serious’ relationship. This one had been, in a word, serious.

I was undone.

It was up to that point, the single most devastating event of my life.

I spiraled into a deep, dark, depression. I was attending classes at Southern Seminary, but stopped. I’d been attending Crescent Hill Baptist Church, but stopped. I stopped talking to my hall-mates, and would come back to my room from my part-time job and curl up on my bed and sleep until nighttime, when I’d wake up and cry until the next morning, when I had to get up and do it all over again. I stopped eating, lost weight, and finally decided to withdraw from Seminary altogether.

I remember tearfully talking to my father, who was back in the States on a short trip, and asking him if he’d understand if I withdrew “for a while”, little suspecting that the “while” would turn out to be 12 years.

In February or March of that year, I had been invited over to a friend’s house for dinner. At the time, Claude was more a friend of my sister’s than of mine, and ten years my senior. We hit it off. Claude had graduated from Southern in 1980, and was a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, a trained counselor, and the director of a program that assisted clients with chronic mental illness manage their illness and try to live as normal a life as possible. In the course of the evening, he offered to let me rent a room from him. It didn’t hurt that he was an audiophile, and had a ‘music & video room’ with several thousand dollars’ worth of music and video equipment in it. But that was the least of my concerns in agreeing to move in to the house on Field Avenue.

Jim and Janet, Stacey and Kim, Sue, Jim and Nanci Carol, Jay and Kay, and Claude. When I was at the lowest point in my life, they became family to me, and more. I can honestly say that if it weren’t for them, I would most likely not be here today. There were other friends, David Johnson, who at the time was studying at Golden Gate Seminary, north of San Francisco, and Phil Brown, who was living and working in Little Rock, AR. If you’ve ever spent any time on the phone with someone who is depressed, it is not an enjoyable experience, and certainly not an energizing one.

One comment stands out from a conversation with Sue, my friend whom I mentioned a few Sundays ago, who is hoping to adopt the teenage brother of the two girls she and her husband have already adopted. She looked at me and said “Kenny, we are here for you, always. But there are things that no one can go through with you, things that you are meant to go through alone.”

We have biblical examples of similar friends. Jonathan and David, in the Old Testament, Jonathan risking his life to warn David of HIS father’s coming attempt to murder him. In Luke, chapter 4, we have the paralytic and his four friends who lowered him down through a hole in the roof so he could get to Jesus. What is striking about the encounter is that the passage reads ‘when he saw their faith’ (v 20) he spoke the healing of the man who was paralyzed. It wasn’t based on the paralyzed man’s faith, but on that of his friends, that seems to have prompted Jesus’ act of healing.

Last night Jerusalem witnessed something like that. We hosted a fundraiser for Sylvia Jones. Chances are, there were more people here who knew Sylvia than didn’t, and after the evening was over, I hope we could all claim to be her friends, besides being sisters and brothers in Christ.

There are people who come into our lives who are there by divine appointment. Perhaps unknown to them, but apparent to us, in their presence, we are made that much more aware of the presence of God in a real, physical way in our lives.

I’ve lived it. I suspect that, if we paused a moment and thought about it, most of us in this room have experienced it.

I’ve shared this before, on a Wednesday night, but in reference to my family of friends that rallied around me through those dark times, I can truthfuly say that they were my salvation. I don’t mean I was saved through them, per se, but Christ’s love reached me through them, in that they were Jesus to me. They lifted the roof off the cave I’d crawled into and instead of lowering me INTO it, they pulled me OUT of it.

This is what we mean when we say that you cannot be a Christian and not live in community – in communion – with a fellowship of believers. There is, of course, an individual element to faith. Each person has to come to that saving knowledge of Jesus, the Holy Spirit steps in and acts on a person’s heart uniquely, in ways that no one else can relate to, and in that, the transforming of the mind takes place- the internal changing of direction of one’s life, from moving away from God to moving towards God. The Holy Spirit redirects, or redefines our lives. Our reason for being changes from trying to live our lives for ourselves to living them for Christ.

Jesus was in the habit of redefining. He redefined the law in the sermon on the mount. He turned ‘thou shalt not kill’ into ‘if you are angry with your neighbor you’ve as much as killed them’. He turned ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’ into ‘if you look on someone with lust, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart.’ He said ‘you’ve heard it said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy’, and turned it into ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ With this last example, we have a very real opportunity to respond. A couple of weeks ago, someone broke into the Church. Our response needs to first be to pray for whomever it was that did it.

Though Jesus redefines ‘family’ in the text, he does not do it in an exclusionary way. In other words, he does not cancel out what defines immediate family. Though my friends became my family in my time of crisis, my family was no less a family to me because of it. There were distance issues involved – my parents were still serving in Chile at the time, and my middle sister Becky and brother Jimmy were the only ones that were nearby. The redefinition that Jesus embarked on was to broaden the meaning of the term.

‘Whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven.’

There’s no secondary qualifier. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven and speaks my language. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven and looks like me. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven and shares my political views. No. It is a very simple statement: WHOEVER.

We live in a broken world. We’ve lost what it means to be true family. As many of you know, October is Domestic Abuse Awareness month. There is no better example of what it means to be fallen than to see what happens when abuse is present in a home. Whether physical or emotional or sexual, domestic abuse tears at the heart of the family. Trust that should under gird the foundations of a family is broken. I’ve known too many close friends who are still as adults learning to rebuild their trust … sometimes not in their human parents, but in God and Christ. That is why I always thank God on Mother’s day and Father’s day for parents who make it easy for us to understand God as our HEAVENLY parent.

We come then to our time of invitation.

If you are here today and are longing to be able to trust someone with your life as you’ve never trusted anyone before with it, your invitation is simple: come to trust Jesus as your Savior. Though there may be an instant change in your heart, this may just as well be a first step towards learning to fully trust not only him, but to again trust your earthly family.

If you are here and are looking for a place where you can join friends who are willing to tear up a roof to bring a friend to Jesus, we would welcome you.

If you are here and are already a member of this extended family, you invitation is to break out of the mold. To breath in what the spirit of God has made your family and to live out that broadness – that directly reflects how broad and deep, and powerful the love of God is.

Lets pray.