Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · May 7, 2006

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Prayer of the Day

Lord, the earth is yours and all that is in it.  And so we come to worship today, to sing, to acknowledge, and to accept that you have appointed us stewards over your property.  May this hour help empower us to first give ourselves to you and then to the work of your people.  Amen.

Scripture

2 Corinthians 8:1-9

And now, friends, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.  Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.  For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability.  Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.  And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.  So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part.  But just as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us – see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.  For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Message

The Power of Table Talk

Rick Frost

I’m glad you’re here.  I hope this has been a good week for you.  My week, quite frankly, has been a little weird.  Jan, my wife, has been at a conference in Michigan all week, and it sort of threw my routine off a little bit.  I don’t know why that would be.

We, like most of you, have very busy, demanding lives.  I don’t know how you do this, but for us we almost always get ourselves back together around dinnertime.  It’s just been a tradition for us, but this week I ate out a lot.

It started last Sunday.  In Fellowship Hall we had 11 tables of our high school seniors with their families and a couple of their friends.  We were sharing some fun stories about days gone by.  It was so wonderful to listen to young people talk about their hopes, and their dreams, and the decisions they are making that are, in fact, going to shape their future.  It was a wonderful lunch.  Cyd Coil, Shelly Fletcher, and all those mothers and fathers of juniors helping out.  It was great.

Then that evening I had dinner with Mary Cunningham, a member of our church, and Ken and Nancy.  We went to Murry’s, and we listened to some great jazz.  We enjoyed some fascinating conversation around a wonderful table there.  It was really fun.

On Monday… (This is probably more information than you want, but I don’t care.)  On Monday I shared a brown-bag dinner.  Have you ever had a brown-bag dinner?  Do you know what that is?  That’s where you bring something.  It was with the Personnel Committee here at the church.  We sat around tables out there in the office wing.  We talked about the incredible gifts and strengths of each one of our Broadway staff and the kinds of ministries they are eager to take on.  They are a talented, dedicated group limited only by the resources that are made available to them to get the job done.  It was a good experience.

On Wednesday, I recall dropping by the Great Wall for a little dose of Chinese before heading to another meeting or two.  You know how it is when you go to a restaurant.  If you have somebody with you, you sort of tend to focus on each other.  Of course, I was by myself, so I was looking around.  At the table next to me there was a father reading a book, a mother talking on her cell phone, and a little four-year-old playing hide-and-seek with me.  He was trying to get somebody’s attention, anybody’s attention.  You know what I’m talking about.

Thursday’s treat was a streamside lunch as fresh trout miraculously jumped out of the water and into my skillet over a Coleman stove.  Brody, and Jacob, and I sat around a table, and we shared stories.  Admittedly, some of them were slightly embellished.  We told stories about important things like rainbows, and browns, and rivers, and streams, and lures, and leaders, and lunkers, and how grateful we were that the first disciples – almost all of them – were fishermen. 

I realized while trying to get ready for today that I spend some really good times, some really productive, meaningful times around a table.

Of course, when you and I come to worship here on Sunday morning, we find a table – a table that’s been set by our church.  It’s been spread out for everybody who comes here.  If you’re new with us, you may not know that this is not our church or our table, either one.  It’s really the Lord’s Church, and it’s the Lord’s Table.  It’s just been entrusted to us.  We really believe that.  We find a Table at the very center, the heart of who we are and what we’re about.

Jesus, somehow in his wisdom, knew that it’s just so easy for us to forget.  It’s so easy for us to forget who we are and whose we are.  So, he invites us and a couple of billion other people on any given day to what the Bible calls a feast of joy, a banquet celebration.  We call it “table time.”

Ever since Easter, folks…  (This is something that bothers me about some of our folks in church.)  Ever since Easter, “table time” is fun time.  We get so solemn for some reason around the Table of the Lord.  Since Easter, this is supposed to be a place of joy.  This is supposed to be a taste of the kingdom that the Scripture says is on its way.  This is supposed to be a place where we taste Easter, Resurrection, just a little taste of heaven.  So I encourage you to do just that.

Jack Miles loves to come up after church and say to me, “When are we just going to have a good time at the table?”  You know… Jack is right.  I don’t usually think of that, but I think he’s right.

But like I said, it’s so easy to forget.  It’s so easy to wander off, to get distracted, to get side tracked, and sometimes we do.  We even get lost.  We find ourselves heading down the wrong direction.  It can happen.  It does happen.  So every Sunday, the people of this community of faith, everyone who comes here is invited to take a place at his Table.

What do we remember?  We remember who we are.  We remember our people.  We remember our story, our history, and we actually get a chance to re-experience the One who we believe creates and judges and redeems.  We remember the One who calls, and leads, and guides, and teaches, and heals.  We remember the One who says, “Come on.  Come on.  I know the way.  Just follow.  Follow me.”

It’s always been that way.  It’s the thing that keeps us from stumbling.  It’s the way we recover our identity.  We get back on track if we find ourselves off the track. 

Folks, we are, bottom line, steward people.  We can’t help it.  We’ve been shaped that way.  It’s what we do.  It’s who we are.  If you are a person who thinks that stewardship is a program… If you think that stewardship is a way for us to raise money for budgets and buildings, then you missed it.  You plain missed it.  You didn’t realize that some things happen here that make us steward people.  It’s who we are.  We can’t help it.  Things get said here.  Things happen here at his Table that have a tremendous amount of influence on us.  Just think of some of those things.  I tried to think of them this week.

The first thing that has had a tremendous influence on me in recent years is to realize how huge this table is.  This is a big table.  And you know what?  It was meant to be big.  It was designed to be big, and that’s because it’s a place where everybody who wants a seat at the Table has a place.

Sometimes we have to do sort of like we do at our house.  There are occasions when we have to put a few leaves in the table.  Have you ever had to do that at your house?  You had some people showing up.  Maybe sometimes they were invited.  Maybe other times they were unexpected.  They just came to your house.  You had to make room for some people who were coming for dinner who weren’t there the last time you got around the table.  What a great image for steward people.

“God’s banquet table” is the way the Scripture talks about it.  It’s going to be an incredible thing.  It’s a place where all kinds of folks can sit down, from east, and west, and north, and south, and every corner of the globe.  Our job, of course, is to make the dining room ready.  That’s not the only task we have, but it’s one of them.  Our job is to invite, to welcome everybody who comes to the Table, because the Scripture says that when we do that, we help God “heal the nations” (Revelation 22:2).  In the very last book of your Bible, in the very last chapter, we get told what our mission is in this world.  Revelation 22:2 says our job is to help God “heal the nations.”

God has prepared this incredible feast.  Scripture says God is one who does not want anybody to go hungry, and yet you and I know there are tons of people in this world who are hungry this very day.  God says in God’s Word that God does not want people to perish, and yet we have people perishing all the time.  God says he wants all of God’s creatures to share the gift of eternal life, and yet, you and I know that gift is not going to be bestowed on some folks.  The Lord’s Table is a huge, huge table.

Secondly, when we get around this table some things happen that are really important.  This table is not only big, but it also offers us a time when we talk and when we listen to what happens around this table.  Let’s call it “table talk.”  OK?  When we talk and when we listen around this table, we get shaped.  We get formed.  We get molded.  We get nurtured.  Sometimes, in fact, most of the time, it’s not something we’re even conscious of.  We do it so often, so much.  We hear the same words. 

I learned an awesome thing this week, folks.  It is an amazing thing.  You may know this, but it was news to me.  The scholars – the people who study these kinds of things – say they have discovered the single-most-important influence in developing the character of a child.  Do you know what that single factor is?  Any guesses?  It is the parents’ conversation around the dinner table.  Oh, my goodness!  For good or for ill, what happens around the table with Mom, Dad, and children is the number one most influential phenomena in the character development of a child.

Now, if all of that is so important for our families around the table, what more can we say about how important it is what we say and what we hear when we gather around the Table of the Lord.  This is the place where it happens.  This is the Table that shapes us into being what we could call “steward people.”  Our “table talk” centers around Scripture, and sermon, and songs, and prayers, and remembering the mighty acts of God, and remembering the One who is Lord and Savior, Jesus.  It’s at the heart of what we are.

That “table talk” is something you’re going to hear again, by the way.  We always have the Words of Institution.  If you’re new with us, you may not know those words are the words we repeat every time we sit at the Lord’s Table.  Somebody is going to take bread from the table, and that person is going to lift it to heaven, give God thanks and praise, and remember and say those words, “That Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he gave it.”

Four words.  Four verbs.  They are the ones that teach us consciously or unconsciously about how to follow Jesus.  Hear the words: “take, thank, break, give.”  The big four.  Those are the key words.

Sitting down to the table, folks, as we often do in a variety of settings, oblivious to God, oblivious to others, just perpetuates the mess the world is in today.  But when you sit down at the Lord’s Table, you learn with each other what it means to be a steward people, because you thank God every single day for what it is that you’ve received.  Then out of a spirit of gratitude, you share what you’ve received with others. 

Folks, that’s the good life.  That’s the joy of life.  It’s fun.  It’s the best.  It doesn’t get better than that for us, because we are shaped and formed at a table in ways that make us steward people.

Now… I want to know.  Did you hear any of that in the text I read to you today? It is a text that models, not only for the people in Corinth a long time ago, but it also has modeled for followers of Christ for 2,000 years everything I’ve said up to this point. 

The Christians in Macedonian didn’t start off this effort focused on money.  According to the text, it all began when the people gave themselves to the Lord.  They gave themselves first to stewardship, folks.

I had a young lady – a second year student at M.U., a brand new Christian who just joined the church – come up to me last week.  She said, “You know, I got this letter in the mail, and it had this card in it.  It had words I don’t understand.  Could you tell me what ‘stewardship’ is?”

She had never heard that word before.  It was a brand new word to her.  What would you have said to that young lady that day?

Folks, stewardship begins with baptism.  You’ve seen it.  You’ve experienced it.  Some of you.  You’ve seen those fifth graders and older folks walk in, and they’ve come down here to be in the water and to give themselves to the Lord.  They have their sins in one hand.  What are they going to do with those sins?  What do they do every time?  They burn those sins.  It a symbol, a sign.  It’s an incredible thing.  The life that was, is no longer with us.  We’re getting ready to enter into a new life.  We’re giving ourselves to the Lord.

Do you know what’s in the other hand?  Have you watched them?  Sins in one hand; what’s in the other hand?  You missed it?  The pledge card.  Absolutely.  That’s intentional.  That’s not a mistake.  We want those who become persons of faith to understand they are steward people.  We’re no longer who we were.  We’re being shaped by what God wants us to be.  The word for that is “stewards.”

God’s concerns become our concerns.  Before we know it, we find people begging, pleading to find ways to help, which means, of course, the kind of conversation that takes place around the table gets translated from talk into action.  The Bible calls that the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  You can call it whatever you like.  We call it the Broadway Spirit around here.  It’s the power.  It’s the energy that motivates us to carry out the mission of being steward people.

I want you to hear it’s not a small thing when our people – the steward people – gather around the Lord’s Table.  When we do, we lift bread.  That’s a sign and a symbol unto itself.  It’s not just holding up bread; it is a sign that says everything we need for this life we receive from God.  When we bring that bread down, we offer a prayer.  Our elders today will offer a prayer – a prayer blessing for those gifts.  Then we will take our hands, and we will break that bread.  We will give it to each other.  Those keys are very, very important.  We do it every Sunday, and it’s amazing how it shapes us over time.  It’s a phenomenal thing.

Those Macedonian Christians, says Paul, gave according to their means and beyond their means.  We marvel at that kind of commitment and joy.  We wonder where in the world that kind of energy and desire comes from.

I want to suggest to you that if you are a parent, you know exactly where that energy and motivation comes from.  What parent has not given up, has not set aside, has not postponed something they really wanted for themselves in order to provide, to supply for your children something you believe they need or something that is going to make life better for them?  Is there any parent who has not been there?  My goodness.  I just start thinking about the list.  It’s long.  The dollar signs are staggering. 

That kind of giving, folks, doesn’t hurt.  It feels good.  We can do that.  It’s the same feeling when you sit down at the dinner table and we actually eat less so that we can share food with friends who show up unexpectedly at dinnertime.  It’s not deprivation.  It’s exhilaration.  We’re glad to have folks and friends join us.  It’s a miracle.  It’s a phenomenal thing.

What I want you to see is what we saw a couple weeks ago.  A couple weeks ago several hundred of you gave according to your means and beyond your means as you raised what is probably going to turn out to be $14,000 or $15,000 to build a Habitat House.  It’s a house that’s going to go to someone who would not have a house otherwise.  You did it!  As Linda Poehlman said in the article in “Broadway Life” this week, “… one nickel, one dime, one quarter at a time.”  I mean… It’s phenomenal.  It’s amazing.

Today you’re going to see what hundreds of you have done and are doing according to your means, and some of your even beyond your means, to create a Youth Center – a place that is safe, that’s welcoming, nurturing.  It’s a Christian environment for our kids and their friends and some folks they don’t even know yet as they learn how to be servant, steward people.  You did it one check, one dollar, one gift, one penny at a time.  Even our children have given one penny at a time.  It’s awesome.  If you haven’t seen it, stop by today.

In a couple of weeks, we are going to break ground on a Christian Life Center where children and adults are going to learn more about their faith, where people in this community are going to gather to make decisions to help make this a better community to live in, and where folks in this church are going to do very much, I believe, what the first church did a long time ago.  We read about it in the book of Acts, where the people came together and they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings.  They devoted themselves to fellowship.  Key word here: fellowship!  They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  In so doing, according to the Scriptures, the Lord continued to add to their numbers each and every day, because their mission was to help God heal the nations.  We will continue to do that.

How are we going to do that?  I’m not sure, quite frankly.  I don’t know exactly how that works.  We’re involved in a faith journey here.

I turn to the wisdom of someone like Millard Fuller.  Many of you have heard that name before.  Millard is the person who founded Habitat for Humanity.  He says, “The economics of our ministry have always been wrapped around Jesus’ stories – the ones we find in the Gospels – about the feeding of the multitudes.  We had some things to learn from those amazing stories: 1) Take whatever is available in a given situation of need.  2) Thank God for every single gift that’s been given and ask God’s blessing upon it.  3) Get yourself organized.  4) Go for it.  Go to work.  Launch an effort to meet the needs.  And those available resources?  Just watch what happens.  It’s an amazing thing.  What we learned in Habitat is that when we moved out in fatih, it seems that somehow God’s Spirit moves out with us, and the small supplies we have somehow miraculously get multiplied, and the need – whatever that need might be – gets taken care of.”

Folks, that’s fun.  That’s exciting.  It is not deprivation.  It is exhilaration! 

So, I ask you to remember that when we stay close to the Table, when we stay close to the Lord’s Table, God’s grace somehow transforms what we say here and what we do here into actual action and empowers us to do amazing things.  When that starts to sink in… When that starts to get inside you… When that happens… Economic miracles actually begin.  They’re fun.  They’re good.  They’re enjoyable.  For us, it simply doesn’t get any better.

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Provider God, ever mirror your Table.  As we consecrate the gifts of your body and blood, so may we consecrate our hearts and gifts to further your kingdom on earth.  Amen.