“Growing Together”

Scripture Lesson: Mark 4:26-29

Sermon Transcript for May 17, 2009

By Pastor Bob Coleman

             I love to tell the story!  For those who have not heard the message of salvation, it’s a very new story.  For some of us who’ve heard it for many, many years—lifelong of hearing the story—it is an old, old story.  But is it the complete story?  We want to look this morning at the understanding of what it means to grow together as a church.  Yes, it is a continuation of our introduction of a new image, the logo as we call it.  And as it will be displayed on the screen in a moment, I want to share with you that what was told two weeks ago was the image of the tree.  And the image of that tree, that tree has to grow.  You have to plant trees; they have to start very young, but there it is.    The tree is the reminder that we are as a church, as a tree.  And we have our roots that go deep in to the word and the truth of God and yet our arms are reached out to the warmth and the love of the Son, Jesus Christ.  And last week Pastor Andy shared about caring together as a congregation and a community and how we must care for one another in the name and love of Jesus Christ. 

            Well, today we look at growing together.  And it’s growing together in the understanding of that story.  The Gospel, as we call it, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  If I ask people what the gospel is, they will have an answer for me.  It may not be the complete answer.  I’ll explain that in a moment.  But to set the stage for the rest of the message, I want us to hear from God’s word a parable by Jesus Christ found in the 4th Chapter of the Gospel of Mark starting in the 26th verse.  Let us hear these words in a very simple, straight-forward parable.  “Jesus also said, This is what the Kingdom of God is like.  A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, when he sleeps and gets up, the seeds sprout and grow but he does not know how.  All by itself, the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.”  The word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God.  Let us pray, “Lord this day given to us by you as a gift, let us hear your word in our heart and our mind.  Let us be changed and transformed by your spirit.  Let us be your people as we follow Jesus, the Christ.  Amen.” 

            Last night Joe Sanford sang in the service, “Jesus paid it off, all to Him I owe, Sin had left a crimson stain but now I am washed whiter than snow.”  These are all part of the Gospel.  Some will say that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  But I want to share today is:   How do we grow together?  In what ways?  What are the signs of growth that we can have?  Growing together as a spiritual tree of Grace United Methodist Church means we continue to seek beyond ourselves.  And as we grow as that tree and we care inwardly for ourselves and for people of our community, we also need to find ways to grow, move forward, be something different tomorrow than what we are today.    Too often the story of Jesus Christ is one that sort of freezes us into a moment of an experience. 

            What I’m getting at is the understanding of what it means to be a service, to be a service in the name of Jesus Christ, to be an agent of difference, an agent of change in this world.  Studs Terkel was an author who died last fall.  And the only reason I know his name, I’ve never read his books, but my dad would read his books and liked him as an author.  I like the name, Studs Terkel, it’s easy to remember.  But Studs tells the story about a family during the depression.  They fell on hard times and apparently the landlord fell on hard times and let the apartment in which they lived fall into disrepair to the point where not only were they evicted because they could not pay, but they had to move out because the place was uninhabitable.  Here they are with their few possessions on the street in New York City.  It happened early in the morning.  By nightfall, though, a plumber came by and an electrician came by; a carpenter came by.  And each one in their own turn went back in to that apartment fixing the electrical problems that were part of the danger, reconnected the plumbing.  There were some physical things that needed to be changed to make it safer.  And by evening, nightfall, the family was back in the apartment. 
But Studs said, “It’s the community of action that accomplishes more than any individual does no matter how strong that individual may be.”  It’s the church of Jesus Christ.  He makes no mention of the church or Jesus Christ but that’s what we are to be about.

            Saint Teresa Avila, 500 years ago was quoted in one of here writings, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes in which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out.  Yours are the feet in which Christ is to go about doing good.  And yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”  We are to be of action as people of God.  Frederick Favor said, “Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.”

            I think the church has kind of divided itself in to two paths.  The singing of the songs that we had earlier, To Tell the Old, Old Story, is to bring salvation to people.  The Good News of Jesus Christ, one that we are sinners.  We need repentance and once we repent in the spirit of Christ we receive the forgiveness.  And salvation is the gift of that forgiveness.  And that is true!  For that’s the church of Jesus Christ.  But it is not the whole story.  It’s not the complete gospel. 

            Dallas Willard, the Christian contemporary writer, says that faith today is treated as something that only should make us different not that actually does it call us to be different.  In reality we vainly struggle against the evils of this world waiting to die and go to heaven.  Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that the essence of faith is entirely a mental and inward thing.  Once saved always saved!  I’m saved in Jesus Christ by the blood of Jesus Christ.  That’s all I need to know and now I hang on for the rest of my life.  Terrible things going on around me but I’m not really responsible.  But I am saved and if I can get others to be saved, glory hallelujah! 

            Well, that’s the gospel but it’s not the whole gospel.  I received a book this week written by Richard Sterns, the current president of World Vision.  In this book he confesses that the church has stood too long and too firmly in only this one position.  He gives a further description of what the gospel is.  In fact, he entitles his book, The Hole in Our Gospel.  Those are two key words.  There’s a hole in the gospel because it is ours—not Jesus Christ’s gospel.  What he goes on and says is that the church is too often characterized its goal and its purpose like offering a bingo game.  You win bingo, we’ll give you a card marking “You have received Jesus Christ, you have been baptized.  Good enough.  We’ve got it in the record.  You’re saved.  We’ll now go on to the next.”  Someone after the service Saturday night said, “We call it a body count.  How many were saved at this church?  How many were saved at this revival?” 

            It is the gospel, but there is so much more!  Richard Sterns goes on and says that once you’ve get a person to be insured against fire—in other words, they are not going to hell--then that’s all we need to do.  He moves on and talks about that there is a greater call.  It’s a full call of living out the gospel, growing in the gospel, hearing fully what Jesus says in all that he says.  Repentance is a part, but there is so much more to the story.                   An anonymous quotation says, “We have shrunk Jesus to the size where He can save our souls, but now we don’t believe that He can change the world.”  We used to have that feeling.  There was a time; it was called the “Missionary Movement”.  It’s still there.  Now it had some weaknesses to it.  But the missionary movement’s purpose was to change the world.  That’s where hospitals come from in most countries and particularly this.  Our school system was started by the church.  Retirement homes started by the church.  On and on—children’s homes started by the church because the church that heard another part of the gospel when Jesus said, “If you see someone hungry, feed them.  If you see someone naked, clothe them. If you see someone who is oppressed, help to free them.”  That’s an action; that’s not just a wishful hope but it’s an action. 

            And so there is a part of the church that has been very strong in changing things in social action.  They have at times forgotten that people’s souls are ultimately important.  People who save souls have forgotten that this life is a place where we live out our calling to Jesus Christ.  This life must be impacted by those who call themselves Christians.  Not just prayed for, not just passively hoping for, not just waiting for a future moment when Jesus returns, but living in the here and now growing in the discipleship of Jesus Christ.  We need to see the church as a whole and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ as a whole, but not put a hole in our Gospel, but hear the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

            When Jesus stood, as it is recorded in Luke, Chapter 4, in the synagogue and he was given the scripture to read from Isaiah, the quote if you remember it said, “The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”  That could be the salvation.  “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind.”  You could make that in to a spiritual message.  “To release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  All of those could be translated in to saving their souls and the church rightfully should have them as the core of its message.  But we know later Jesus also said, “As you have done this to the least of these, you’ve done it to me.”  And named a whole list of action-oriented, discipleship understandings.

            Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who the play is based upon this afternoon, was one who lived out a life of following the prince of peace but found eventually he wanted to find a way to release those who were being oppressed by a very evil regime.  It ended up costing his life; it cost quite a few others their lives.  It was a terrible time in that way.  There were all too many Christians who said, “Let us not be involved in this work.  There are evil things that go on but we can’t get in the way.  That’s not really our responsibility.”  Or, they were just plain afraid.  Preach the gospel!  But they forgot that the gospel is in both worlds--the spiritual and the physical. 

            Guiding us as we grow together as Grace United Methodist Church in the gospel of Jesus Christ means we must take seriously the responsibility to receive each child who comes into our midst whether born as an infant, like my grandson.  And I do have pictures; you knew I couldn’t get by without that.  But our family takes seriously that not only will we have Justin Allen baptized, and I expect it will be in the Roman Catholic Church where I’ll be able to participate as I did with Jacob.  But that’s not the end of the story; it’s a mere beginning because our encouragement will be to raise Justin and Jacob and all the children in this church, to raise them to understand God’s great love that frees them from the sins that are this life.  But also that God calls our children and our youth and our young adults and adults of all age, to pick up the gifts that God has given them and to use them in the name of Jesus Christ to serve others.  To attend to those who are hurting, to bring comfort to those who are afflicted, to bring hope to those who mourn, and all the other ways that Jesus Christ has described.  Growing means moving forward and not staying in one place.  Growing means looking toward tomorrow and to what God can offer and lead us in service in the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. 

            We are going to recognize shortly graduates, as we are in all of our services.  Those names are printed.  It’s a momentous time in their life.  In whatever advancement they have made in a degree, their acceptance of that, they are moving on to another stage of their life.  We must not forget them.  We must encourage them. Help them to choose wisely what they do.  Not for the sake of gain, what job has the greatest pay.  The economy today may teach us the better lesson.  What job is available at all and secondly but most importantly, what can I do to use the gifts that God has given me in the name of Jesus Christ wherever I may work, serve, in what capacity.  We have the responsibility together.  We can do more together than we can do separately as Studs Terkel said. 

            And kindness, kindness in the act in the name of Jesus Christ in a daily way to bring and attend to the needs of justice, to right those wrongs that we can, to bring freedom to those who are oppressed, to free them from those oppressive systems when it is possible even at the risk of our own life.  That’s what we are called to do.  That’s what growing in Jesus Christ is all about.  This church has had a strong history in that way.  It needs to continue to remind itself though, for we can fall in to complacency.  We could fall in to the “well, that’s just the way it is”.  It’s interesting that the Christian social researcher, George Barna, has said, “By the history of facts and figures, once a person becomes adult if they are not in the understanding of growing in Jesus Christ, the chance of them accepting Jesus Christ in the conventional way is only six percent.”  All adults who are not Christian, only six percent of them will accept Christ later in their life.  It is important for the church to see fully we don’t just grow children in a physical way but we grow them in a spiritual way to become youth and adults who live out their life in Jesus Christ.

            The logo is only an outward shell or representation of what we are called to be.  But clearly, hopefully, it will remind us that we are to grow deeply into God’s word, into wisdom, and to reach forward in praise in the love and the warmth of Jesus Christ as we accept our baptism.  But that we then grow and pair together in our baptism encouraging each of us, encouraging us to do more together than we can do separately as disciples of Jesus Christ.  I pray that we will have a faithful future that will be to grow together and to care together in the whole gospel of Jesus Christ.  Amen.