Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship · June 10, 2007
Second Sunday After Pentecost
Gracious and Loving God, we are created in your image. Each day, remind us that when we see one another, we see, not only you, but also the face of love. Through Christ we pray together. Amen.
Scripture
Matthew 13:10-17
The other day I came across an article written by Garrison Keillor. It is a brief reflection on a book tour he did several years ago. He mentions that as the book crept up on the best-seller list, his accommodations and travel arrangements became better and better. By the end of the tour, he was staying in places where there was real art on the walls, towels as big as blankets, and the answer to every question was, “Yes, Sir.” “My pleasure, Sir.” “Right away, Sir.” He even had black Lincolns waiting at the curb and maitre d's whisking him away to private and secluded corners. But that wasn’t all.
Let me share with you, in his own words, some of his other experiences.
After the tour, I went to a friend’s house at a famous ski resort in Utah for a weekend – a half-million dollar house with timbered ceilings and high windows with views of snowy peaks and tall pines. And here, alone, on a chilly March afternoon, I discovered what it’s like to be at the bottom. A simple tale.
After lunch, I took of all my clothes and went out to the hot tub. The door closed behind me… and locked. I sat in the water for an hour or so thinking Santa might drop in, or the Lone Ranger, or St. Jude. When they didn’t, I wrapped myself in a blue plastic tarp off the woodpile and trudged, barefoot, down the gravel road, and knocked on doors and pleaded for help. A naked man wrapped in blue plastic does not win friends easily. I knocked on the doors of five homes with lights on and cars in the driveway, and nobody showed their face.
What Mark Twain said is true, “Clothes make the man.” Naked people have little or no influence in society.
I waved an urgent wave to three men driving by in a pickup, and they managed not to make eye contact and drove on.
At the fifth house, a woman came to the door and opened it a crack. She agreed to call my friend’s office. She didn’t invite me in, though – I was shivering – or offer coffee or tea or a lift back to the hot tub. I’d been schmoozing on national TV the week before, and now I was a pariah in Utah. I hiked a half-mile back to the hot tub and was rescued an hour later.
That was the parable of the naked man in blue plastic. The moral is: Have mercy when you’re riding high. Things have a way of changing suddenly. Ever since then, I have braked for the naked.
You know… When I was reading this story, I thought this is really perfect, because this final line, “brake for the naked,” really does ring true. One summer, Paulette and I were riding our bikes in a state park. We had to slam the brakes on the bicycles, because out of nowhere, a naked man ran across the trail.
But on a more serious note, I think Garrison Keillor’s story relates to our text for this morning. The question is: How do we see others?
It’s so easy, as Garrison points out, to avoid looking at others when we don’t want to. Think about this for a moment. Have you ever avoided looking at someone? Perhaps it was a homeless person asking for loose change. Or maybe it was a person you no longer like. Or maybe it was even someone you love, and the pain of looking at each other was too great. Whatever the situation, we have all, at one time or another, avoided looking at our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
A week from today the youth will leave for their mission trip to Racine, Wisconsin. We will spend a week working with others from around the country, painting, building, worshipping, and growing in faith. I guarantee we will form relationships with others, that if not for this mission trip, we would likely never form. I guarantee we will travel to areas that will most likely challenge our comfort levels, and if not for this mission trip, we would likely never travel there. By being forced to encounter others in their own homes and own environments, the youth mission trip will change lives. There will be experiences that youth and adults will take with them for the rest of their lives.
But how do you encounter others if you are not forced to do so? How do you encounter others if you’re not going on a mission trip, or a service project, or some other event that would force you to travel outside your comfort zone?
Our text this morning provides some answers to some of these questions. In Matthew 13, the disciples have a conversation with Jesus. They ask him, “Why do you speak in parables?”
I think this is a fair question. Why does Jesus speak in parables, because parables rarely get directly at the point? Sometimes it would be a lot easier if Jesus would just say exactly, clearly, and concisely what he was thinking. But Jesus answers that he speaks in parables, because otherwise people would fail to hear and see. Jesus answers that he speaks in parables, because understanding is not merely a human accomplishment. It’s a gift from God. To truly hear, to truly listen, to truly see the other is a biblical concept. Jesus says that if you really want to see the other, to be a disciple to one another, then you must, with the help of God, be fully present with one another.
In today’s world it seems that so many individuals are closed off, distant, and angry. Unless we are forced to be in a situation, such as mission trips where we meet others, we are hesitant to develop new relationships.
Today I want to share some insights with you from a book I’ve been reading entitled Contemplative Ministry, by Mark Yaconelli. Mark gives us some practical ways, based on the teachings of the Bible and the life of Jesus, that we can truly encounter others.
First, we need to accept the invitation to surrender to the Holy Spirit. If you surrender to the Holy Spirit, if we surrender to the Holy Spirit, we trust that God will be God and that the presence of God constantly surrounds us.
All too often we put so much pressure on relationships, hoping that we’re doing and saying the right things. There’s so much pressure to be perfect. I think we all, at one time or another, have repeatedly analyzed a conversation we’ve had with someone or maybe an e-mail that we sent. We wonder if we said the right things or listened appropriately. Such worrying can truly drive a person crazy.
To surrender to God means we do not control how God moves or how God lives in us. To be attentive to others and aware of God’s presence in the moment is a constant struggle.
We live in an age that demands we multitask. We are trained to have a certain number of goals accomplished by the end of the day, end of the month, and end of the year. We are constantly thinking about decisions made in the past and what is yet to come in the future.
But what can be more important than the present moment? Is there any greater gift we experience in this life than that of another person’s full attention? Is there anything more loving than to be fully seen and fully heard by another? Didn’t most of us become Christians when we sensed that God was present with us? Truly, relationships are formed on the understanding that being present to others is a series of small acts and trust; a series of small acts and trust that God is part of the conversation – part of the embracement – we have with others.
Once we surrender, then it’s possible to receive. For many of us, receiving is difficult. After all, when you meet someone for the first time, what is the first question you commonly ask? Is it, by any chance, “What do you do?” We’re so concerned about what we do and what we accomplish. For many of us, what we do is the basis of our identity. What we do is how we define ourselves in our lives.
But what would happen if you reversed the question? What would happen if you asked someone else, or even yourself, “What have you received from God today?” Think about this for a moment. “What have you received from God?”
One of the most used phrases of Jesus, especially during the time of offering in a church service, is, “It’s better to give than receive.” But when you trace the life of Jesus in gospels, you see that he spends a lot of time receiving. He receives food from a cheating tax collector. He allows a prostitute to pour expensive oil on his feet. He lets children embrace him and shout his praises.
Perhaps most important, Jesus is willing to be received by God. When Jesus comes to the Jordan River to be baptized, a voice from God says, “You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.” When Jesus hears God call him “beloved,” he doesn’t question it. He accepts it, and he believes it.
How many of us really believe and accept God’s love? How many of us remember that God says to us, “With you I am well pleased”? How many of us take time to let God’s love penetrate the depths of our soul? The great gifts of God, the great gift of grace, the great gift of Jesus is a recognition that Christian life is not driven solely by what one gives but also by what one receives. Once you receive the love of God, you are able to tolerate self-doubt, unhappy conversations, and even hatred. Deep, deep within your heart, in the recesses of your soul, you know that as you form relationships with others and seek to understand others, you are being offered, not only by yourself, but also by God.
In addition to surrendering and receiving, I believe we need to offer God, others, and ourselves the gift, the transformation. When we seek to create relationships with each other, we work hard; we seek to do God’s work. One of the ways we can do this, as Rick mentioned last week, is to have an active prayer life.
Another way to talk about an active prayer life is to use the word “contemplation.” If you look up the word “contemplation” in the dictionary, it says, “Religious or mystical meditation.” At root, contemplation and action are the same. When we seek to be in contemplation and prayer with God, we are seeking authentic action – action that transforms and moves. It is action that pulls at your heart and shares the love of God.
I have two final stories to share that demonstrate authentic action. The first one is a story by Mark Yaconelli. The second one is a story about Broadway Christian Church.
It was during the Christmas holidays. Mark had spent the entire day shopping and had decided to enter McDonald’s for some coffee. Suddenly ten developmentally-disabled individuals arrived, accompanied by two assistants, wearing shirts that read, “Redwoods Group Home.” With slow and careful effort, the assistants helped each person decide what food to purchase, stand in line, order a meal, pay for the meal, and carry the food back to a table. The assistants patiently helped people get their food and get seated before seating themselves.
There was one man, however, who shook off every effort of aid from the assistants. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted to do it himself. The assistants relented, and eventually the man ordered a large cup of coffee, returned to his friends, and his face was beaming with pride at what he had been able to accomplish by himself.
After eating their meal, it was time for these ten individuals to leave. Mark notes that by now, like this morning here in Columbia, it was raining hard outside. One by one, the assistants accompanied the members of their group across the slippery sidewalk into a waiting van. The young man with the coffee was bent over, sheltering it and protecting it from the downpour. Then without any help from the assistants, he took off for the van. But he stopped halfway across, confused and scared by the storm. The assistants yelled for him to continue, but in a moment of panic and in a moment of fear, he dropped that 32-ounce cup of coffee that he was so proud of. It went crashing against the wet concrete. He stood still, and he began to cry. His body gave way, and he slumped down into the steaming puddle, the dark rain soaking his clothes.
Mark stood looking on with helpless sympathy as one of the assistants ran across to the young man, sat down in the cold, wet coffee, wrapped her arm around him, placed his head on her shoulder, and let him cry. For several minutes, she sat there with the patience of God just holding the young man while the rain poured down. Mark stood transfixed, aware he was gazing on one of the deep spiritual truths of our relationships with one another – our capacity to care for one another and the way in which we participate in God’s healing love through gentle acts of solidarity and kindness. A transformation took place that afternoon on a cold, wet, coffee-stained sidewalk.
The second story took place here at Broadway Christian Church several months ago. David, a Disciples minister from Arizona, who specializes in new church starts, and his daughter Betsy, a senior in high school, were in Columbia visiting colleges for Betsy. They’d already been to several other colleges around the nation, and Columbia was their last stop.
As they pulled into the parking lot of Broadway, Betsy saw the sign for the Loft and said to David, “Oh, Dad, I really miss having a youth group.” One of the difficulties of new church starts, as you might imagine, is that it takes time to build a youth program.
After parking, David and Betsy came inside, and Syd Stansberry, who had agreed to show them around the church and the city of Columbia, greeted them. David and Betsy also met Kim, Rick, and me for just a few minutes. As we talked, we shared stories about all the exciting events taking place at Broadway. I don’t know what took place after that. I think Syd showed her around the church and around the city of Columbia.
Several weeks later, David and Betsy were back at their home church in Arizona. David was leading the service, and it was time for prayer requests. During the prayer requests, members of the congregation are invited to come forward and share their joys and concerns. All of a sudden, Betsy, David’s daughter, got up and started walking towards the microphone. David had no idea why she was coming forward. She got to the microphone, and she said, “I want to tell you that I’ve made my decision where I’m going to college.”
By this time, David was pretty much stunned. They hadn’t had any conversation about where she was going to go to college. She said, “I decided to go to Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.”
David said, “Betsy, that’s just so great. Why did you choose to go to school in Columbia?”
She replied, “Dad, because of the church – because of Broadway Christian Church. It felt like home.”
Little actions such as giving someone a tour of the church, talking about the Spirit of God at Broadway Christian Church, or holding a person as they cry are all parts of the transforming grace that is needed to change lives, and to create relationships and partnerships that will last forever.
You know, we look forward to having Betsy with us this fall. At the same time, we look forward to continuing to grow in faith with one another and those we have yet to meet.
We are called to reach out to others. We are called to surrender to the Holy Spirit. We are called to be received by Christ. And we are called to transform the lives of ourselves and the lives of others. May God be with us today and every day.
Through Christ, we say together… “Amen.”
God of the Ages, give us new hearts to see those around us. Let us not live watching the minutes tick away. Help us to surrender and tune into the Holy Spirit. Let us live, fully aware, making moments that matter in our days. Amen.
