Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · August 30, 2009

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Prayer of the Day

Gracious and Loving God, this morning we pray that you will help us be listeners, helpers, hand-holders, creators, neighbors, and healers, all in your name. Amen.

Scripture

Joel 1:2,3

Hear this, O elders,

   give ear, all inhabitants of the land!

Has such a thing happened in your days,

   or in the days of your ancestors?

Tell your children of it,

   and let your children tell their children,

   and their children another generation.

Message

De-Bugging Your Life

Jacob Thorne

One of my favorite memories from childhood is sitting in the living-room chair with my Dad each evening and listening as he read to me only one chapter a night from the stories of Little House on the Prairie. Back then, and still today, it was fun to imagine what it might be like to live out on the prairie. I liked the idea of having a large garden. I really liked the idea of building my own house. But, of course, I didn’t give much thought what it might be like to live during the hard times.

Do you remember what happened on the banks of Plum Creek? The Ingalls family move from Kansas to Minnesota. They settle in a little dugout on the banks of Plum Creek. Pa trades his two horses, Pet and Paddy, to a property owner in exchange for land and crops. For a while, everything is looking great. Pa builds a new above-ground wooden house for the family. Laura and Mary go to school for the first time. The newly-planted crops are doing well. 

But then, just when it looks like it might be a terrific year, the disaster strikes. One day, Pa comes into the house, and he says, “The grasshoppers are hatching. This hot sun is bringing them out of their eggs and up through the ground like corn popping.”

Laura runs out to see. She looks at the grass on the hill, and it iss full of tiny, green bugs. They eat all of the green garden rows. They eat all of the green potato tops. They eat all of the grass, all of the willow trees. They eat the entire prairie. Everything is left barren and brown.

For days on end, all Laura and her family can do is watch as the grasshoppers eat everything in site. Then the light grows dim. It is hard to see, because the grasshoppers are so thick they are blocking the sun.

But all at once, in a giant cloud, those grasshoppers decide to move west. For three straight days, they move across the country. When it is all done, when not a single grasshopper is left in the air, Ma goes into her house. She sits down in her rocking chair. Rocking back and forth, she says, “My Lord, my Lord.” 

The words were a prayer, says the narrator, but they sounded like, “Thank you.” Isn’t it strange, that despite living through a terrible experience – an experience in which millions of grasshoppers destroyed their crops and left them in financial ruin, Ma Ingalls still gives thanks to God?

As we continue our study of the Minor Prophets, our text this morning comes from the prophet Joel. We don’t know a lot about Joel. There is no background information on the prophet, like normal. Joel doesn’t waste any time. In the opening lines, he gets right to the point. He says, “Hear this. Listen all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened to you before? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and let their children tell it to the next generation.”

What Joel is referring to, like the book On the Banks of Plum Creek, is a massive invasion of insects, specifically locusts. During the time of Joel, just as it was for Laura Ingalls Wilder, the locusts had left the land a barren waste. 

The locusts threatened Judah’s ability to live and survive. Joel describes the locusts in four different ways. He talks about a cutting locust, a hopping locust, a swarming locust, and worst of all, a destroying locust. What I discovered is all four of those words really just relate to one single locust. Joel wants to emphasize the overwhelming nature of the catastrophe. Then after describing all of the destruction, Joel admonishes the people of Israel to pay attention. He wants them to recognize that this destruction was a sign from God that the people of Israel are not living their lives the way God intended. Joel spends the next several verses encouraging people to repent, to lament, and to ask for God to intervene in their lives.

At the conclusion of Chapter 2, God, speaking through the prophet Joel, says, “I will pour out my spirit on all of your flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young shall see visions.”

The line, “I will pour out my spirit on all of your flesh,” is the basis for the Church season that we are now celebrating, Pentecost. In the book of Acts, the newly-formed churches come together. They recite the lines taken from the prophet Joel, and they celebrate as one, because the Spirit of God has been poured upon them. They are all moved to celebrate and to sing, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.”

But, how do we get there? How do we become one in the Spirit? How do we become one in the Lord?

For Joel, you start at the very beginning. You begin by telling the story. For us, our story begins at the beginning in the book of Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth. The prophets were so influenced by the book of Genesis, because they had the understanding that the earth is drenched with the presence of God. 

The writer David says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” Then David later prays, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”

In the ancient Jewish world view, according to the beginning of the story, God is not somewhere else. God is right here. It is God’s world, and God made it. God owns it, and God is with us today.

In the book of Genesis, Jacob has a dream. It is a dream in which God reminds him of his purpose and his destiny. When Jacob wakes up from his dream, he says, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I am now aware of it.”

God was there all along, but Jacob was just beginning to realize it. Jacob was waking up from a spiritual sleep.

As a pastor, I get to hear lots of powerful stories. The other day, a friend shared with me the story of how her life, for these past few years, has taken so many unexpected turns: tragedy, job loss, relocation, abandonment. Then she finished the story by saying, “God was there all along.”

The world is soaked with the presence of God. 

I mentioned earlier that we don’t know much about Joel. But we do know that in Hebrew, his name means Yahweh is God. Remember that, because his name is significant. Joel doesn’t ever criticize the people of Israel for one specific sin. He simply wants the Israelites to remember that they are refusing to recognize the presence of one God, Yahweh, in their midst. Once they recognize God’s presence in their midst, Joel wants them to tell the story from one generation to the next generation to the next generation.

What happens when you start to listen to the stories of others? What happens when you wake up from a spiritual sleep? What happens when you give thanks to God, even after a tragedy? What happens when you begin to follow the instructions of the prophets?

In the book of Acts, following the instructions of the prophet Joel, people begin to listen to one another. When you listen to one another tell the story, your heart and your mind are engaged in a spiritual discipline – the discipline of being present to one another.

Mark Yaconelli tells the story of how, several years ago, he was leading youth group on a Sunday night. He was having a conversation/discussion on the difficulty of talking about your faith with someone who is outside of the church. It was just a regular Sunday night. So, in an effort to help the conversation, Mark decided to do some role-playing. The scene was very simple: imagine, if you can, a high-school cafeteria. In one chair sits a person who is hostile to the Christian faith. In the cafeteria, sitting across from the person who is hostile to the Christian faith, is a young teenager who is a devote follower of the Christian faith. This person is reading his/her devotional during the school lunch. They have a conversation with one another. The rules for this spontaneous role-playing are very simple. If you want to opt out of the conversation, all you have to do is raise your hand, and somebody else will take your place.

Immediately, Daniel stood up and took the chair of the person who is hostile to the faith. Then Sarah walked up and took the seat of the young person who is reading the devotional. Soon, Daniel was ridiculing Sarah for her faith. Daniel was claiming that Christianity was nothing more than a psychological crutch. Sarah was doing her best to play the role of the devote Christian follower. She did her best to explain that faith is more than just psychology. But Daniel was persistent. Soon, Sarah became flustered. She raised her hand and asked for someone to take her place.

The process repeated itself. Julie, a freshman, stepped up to the chair, sat down, and began defending the Christian faith. But Daniel was ruthless. His emotion was so vivid; it became clear that Daniel was no longer doing a role-play. His anger and his questions were his own. 

Mark, the youth minister, is sitting back watching all of this and suddenly becomes worried that the exercise is getting way out of control. However, he has no idea of how to gracefully close the conversation.

It didn’t take long before Julie raised her hand. Then Sam came up and tried to respond to Daniel. But Daniel became even more upset. Then he set aside any pretense of the role-play. Daniel said, “Listen. I was born in South Central, one of the roughest parts of Los Angeles. When I was four-years-old, my best friend and I were walking to the park when a gun fight broke out. We stood frozen just watching those kids shoot at each other. Then my friend Benjamin got hit in the chest by a stray bullet. I sat there screaming and crying while I watched him die. Now, you tell me that God is good and loving. What kind of God allows a four-year-old to die like that?”

The youth-group room became utterly silent. No one knew how to respond. Sam, sitting in the chair, quietly raised his hand. 

Then Jake stood up. Jake was the last guy that Mark would have chosen to respond. Five months earlier, Jake had been arrested for breaking into homes and for having drug money. Jake was a big, strong kid, who had attended church only to get away from his parents. He had never shown an interest in the Christian faith. After walking up to the make-shift stage, Jake removed the table. He turned his chair and sat down directly across from Daniel. He looked at him with steady, open eyes. There was a minute or so of silence as Jake just sat there, relaxed and patient watching Daniel. Finally, Daniel spoke up and said, “So what do you have to say? That my friend Benjamin went to a better place? That this is all part of God’s plan?”

Jake just sat there. Mark assumed he was planning some type of response. Then something broke. Daniel’s hard expression softened. His eyes searched Jake’s eyes. Then Mark noticed what he was looking at. There were tears on Jake’s face. Quietly, without looking away from Daniel, Jake just let the tears roll down his cheeks. Daniel gazed at Jake for a moment, and then his eyes swelled with tears. He lowered his head. Slowly Jake stood up. He raised Daniel from his chair, and he hugged him. Jake never said a word.

That evening, Mark’s entire youth group was stunned. They didn’t know how to respond. What they did know was that they had listened to a young man tell a tale of tragedy. They had witnessed a powerful act of redemption.

As Christians, if we claim to live out the teachings of Christ, if we claim to live out the seasons of the Church, then we unite with one another as one. The prophet Joel understood, as did Mark’s group, and Ma Wilder, that even in the face of great tragedy, it is possible to say a prayer – a prayer that says, “Thank you, and I am here for you.”

It only begins when we take the time to reflect on the events of our lives and recognize that God is in our midst. The story must be told and listened to.

I have one final story to share. The other day, I came across Michael Rosen’s book, What Else But Home. The story begins when Ripton Rosen, Michael’s seven-year-old son, spends the whole summer in his penthouse apartment in New York City, on the lower east side overlooking Thompson Square Park. All summer long, he is overlooking and watching this pick-up baseball game that is taking place down below. Eventually, Ripton asked his Dad, “Do you think I could join in the game?”

His Dad, Michael, said, “Well, yes. But first we need to get you a bat and a glove.”

They go to the store and buy this brand new glove. Ripton watches the games for a few more days, and then he works up his courage. He and his Dad walk down to the park. Ripton asks if he could join in the game. Much to his Dad’s surprise, the neighborhood boys warmly welcome him in.

After the game, Ripton is having such a good time that he asks his new friends, “Hey, you want to come over to my house and play Nintendo?”

Of course, the boys didn’t turn this down. Over time, five of these boys, all living in the projects, all living in a very rough environment, all from a very impoverished neighborhood, make their way across the park and become, not for just one afternoon, but a permanent fixture in the Rosen’s home. The boys start referring to Michael, Ripton’s Dad, and to his wife Leslie as their parents.

At some point, with these five boys in the house, and Michael and Leslie also had two teen-aged boys, so seven teen-aged boys living in an apartment… Good times! Michael and Leslie decide it is their responsibility, like parents everywhere, to help these boys get a start in life. So, Michael and his wife unofficially adopt all five boys. All five boys, under their guidance, managed to stay out of jail, graduate from high school, and now all five of them attend either college or community college. 

With results such as these, it is tempting to think that this is just a feel-good story where everything works out perfectly. But what the Rosens discovered, and what the boys discovered, is that in order to succeed, there was great pain and great difficulty, beyond the range of which most people would be willing to endure. At some point, Michael says, “If you are going to adopt these boys, if you are going to be parents to these five boys, then it has to be unconditional. They will test it, because disadvantaged kids are always forgotten. Their teachers start out nice. Their social workers, their Moms’ new boyfriends, everyone starts out nice, but in the end, everyone gets tired and walks away. These kids don’t know it, but they are fighting for their lives. It is a matter of life and death. If you let them into your family, it has to be forever.”

The word forever is part of the promise we make to one another and part of the promise God makes to us. But Michael learned that the promise of forever only begins when he took the time to listen to the full story of the boys’ fractured lives. Michael and Leslie had to learn to listen. It is all about the willingness to listen and respond.

The challenge we face this morning, and what we have learned from the stories we have heard is the recognition that the Bible isn’t very concerned about individualism. But it is much more concerned about community. Every time we remember God’s presence, every time we are reminded to open up and to share our lives with somebody else, every time we are reminded to listen to our hearts, we experience a little homecoming.

Meister Eckhart once said, “God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk. What else is there but home?”

This morning, let us return home. Let us become aware of God. Let us notice the kingdom of God that is among us and within us – deep inside us. Let us be reminded that our faith is a journey, not a destination. In order to travel along that journey, we have to take the time to tell that old, old story of Jesus and all of his glory.

Through Christ, we say together… “Amen.”   

Benediction

Deliverer, we will speak of your ways. We will sing of your wonder and mystery. We will tell of your steadfast love generation to generation, heart to heart. We will proclaim your glory, your story, and place our hope in you. Amen.