"Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors"
(2nd message in a 3-part sermon series)
Scripture Reading: Luke 19:1-10
Sermon Transcript for August 14, 2005
By Rev. Mike Beck
We have some special Sundays and special weekends coming up—Celebration of Children, Celebration of Youth, and Celebration of Friendship. And to help us prepare for those weekends, we’re preaching a three-part sermon series on how we might become a more welcoming congregation. Now you all know your assignment! On those special Sundays, if you know un-churched persons with young children you are to bring them with you that day. In our Celebration of Youth if you know un-churched persons with teenagers, bring them. And then, all of you at the Celebration of Friendship, and again you can, with tongue-in-cheek tell them, “My preacher says I get kicked out of church if I don’t bring a friend with me. So will you come and we’ll go out together for brunch following the service.” We’re trying to examine how well we are living out the promise of the television commercials that we are a people as United Methodists with open hearts, open minds, open doors. A friend of mine gets a devotional on her computer each day and she brought me in a copy of the devotional on July 31st. The series is called “On a Journey: Meditations on God in Daily Life”. It is written by Tom Ehrich, if I am pronouncing it correctly, and she said, “You know, what he wrote this past week I think really fits what you are trying to emphasize in this series of sermons.” So I want to read it for you as we begin. He writes:
“Here is my Sunday morning wish. I wish that every one of you could venture into a faith community today and see deeply, see bravely, see everything that God would show you. I wish you could enter with open eyes, open heart, open mind – not needing to filter anything out in order to feel safe, just open to whatever God would do today.
I wish that you could put aside your expectations and prejudices and just trust that today’s hymns might be the heart-song you need to sing, today’s prayers might draw you closer to God, today’s Bible readings might speak across the centuries to your soul, and today’s preacher might have a word you need to hear.
No church is perfect. How could it be? What we have inherited is a far cry from what Jesus had in mind. Too much pride and appetite, and too little of what Jesus wanted, namely, humility, self-sacrifice, oneness and inclusion. But it is what we have, and if we look closely, we can see the face of God.
No one can say for certain what the face of God will look like today. That is the wonderful mystery of faith. Every time people claim certainty – saying that God is exactly this and never that, that God loves this forever and hates that forever – God does something surprising, like wrestle with Jacob, lead Moses up a mountain, speak to Elijah after the storm, call a shepherd to be king, allow Israel to be vanquished, try a new way in a Galilean rabbi, speak hope to the gentiles, turn away from empire-builders, touch the soul of a transplanted German musician trying to win England’s favor, draw letters in the dust of Calcutta, speak peace to a world hell-bent on war.
I wish for you a soul open to surprise. Whether this is for you a dark night of the soul or a day of gladness, I wish you could stand in the midst of it and say, as a brash cheater once said, “I have seen God face to face.” And then take on God’s new self, and become Israel, or Matthew, or Peter, or whatever new name and new life God would give you. Today’s encounter isn’t about staying the same, being affirmed in who you are, it is about becoming a new creation, growing into the full stature of Christ.
I wish for you what I wish for myself and my family, that we will be transformed. And if that means we no longer fit easily into the world, so be it.”
Dr. Roger Swanson is a former Director of the Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church. I want us to watch him tell a story from his youth that has some important things to teach us. Direct your attention to the screen.
VIDEO: KEEP TO THE KINGDOM
Dr. Roger Swanson: What we would call public housing today, my brother and I pretty much were free to do what we pleased. At the bottom of our hill was a little church. My brother and I would go through the back door. On a hot, muggy day a church basement was cool; and in the winter there’s still heat. Well, one day, which in some ways was a bad day, turned out to be the best day in our lives. The pastor was waiting for us. He’d figured out when we did it. I immediately knew there was something different about this fellow. In fact, the first thing he said to my brother and I; I’ve never forgotten it:
Pastor: Of all the people in this neighborhood, you guys are trying the hardest to get into this church.
Dr. Roger Swanson: And with that, he did the most extraordinary thing that changed my life and the life of my brother and sister, Mom and Dad. He reached into his pocket and he said to my brother:
Pastor: Here, come anytime you want. (Presented a key to the church).
Dr. Roger Swanson: We were a family that had three generations of alcoholism behind us. It changed our life, changed the life of my mother and father. When I went away to college with the help of that church four years later, my mother was the treasurer of that church; my dad was a trustee. And it all began with a profound expression of generosity and hospitality. And it was, still today for me; it’s the best image of Christ that I have—that open door that open heart that says, “You are welcome here.” There are churches that are, quite frankly, for church people. There’s a sense in which, you know, non-church people need not attend. And there are churches that have a lifestyle and a way of being church that focuses on un-churched people. And it really has to do with a number of things but principally it has to do with what that congregation sees as its primary task. Is its task to be a church or is the task to make disciples? And churches for un-churched people have a focus on discipleship. Churches for church people have a focus on membership. Now there’s a difference between a church that focuses on membership and a church that focuses on discipleship. Membership is kind of like being in the club and getting your name down on the roll. Discipleship is being on a journey; it’s following Christ.
He said in his story there were two young boys that had been breaking into the church for the cool basement and the pastor had found them. And instead of scolding them, handed them a key and said, “Come, anytime you want.” He said that man that would later go on to direct our Board of Discipleship, he said it was that moment that profound expression of grace and hospitality which, if you noticed, he said it led to the breaking of three generations of alcoholism within their family. You know, we as a church ought to be about that. There are so many families out here caught up in generation after generation of unhealthy, dysfunctional behavior patterns. We ought to help break that cycle and let a new morning in that family emerge.
I want you to notice that he said there are churches, frankly, that are for church people. And then he said there are churches that have a lifestyle and a way of doing church that focuses on un-churched people. Which are we? I want you to take inventory and ponder these critically important questions. If I had of thought about it earlier, I would have included a place that you could take notes. But if you want to find an empty spot in your bulletin, draw a little grid with a place for five phrases on one side and five contrasting phrases on the other. I’ll give you the phrases as we go through these questions.
What is our image? Do we and our neighbors see this church as a “Spiritual County Club” or a “Life-Saving Station”? On one side of the grid would be the words, “Spiritual Country Club”; on the other side of the grid, “Life-Saving Station”.
What is our primary task? To go through the motions of “doing church”, or to be “making disciples”? There’s a difference, a profound difference between just going through the motions and doing church and making disciples.
What gets most of our resources, energy, and attention? On one side of the ledger would be the word, “Maintenance”. And the contrasting word on the other side would be the word, “Mission”.
What is the bottom line when we seek to measure success? The number of “members” we have or the number of “lives that are being touched and changed”?
How do we view our relationship with Christ and one another? Is it a matter of “being in the club” together or “being on a journey” of faith together?
There is a big difference between what you have on the left side, which is probably where most United Methodist Churches fall. They haven’t yet understood that if you “keep doing what you’ve been doing, you are going to keep getting what you’ve been getting”, which is three decades of steady decline. They need to move over to those five things on the right that are what Christ calls the church to be.
Like we did last week, I want to close by looking at a familiar story of Scripture. It is found in Luke 19:1-10; it is the story of old Zaccheus. Most of you may remember learning a song about Zaccheus years ago in Bible School. It says, “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.” I want to stop there. Jesus did not have on his to-do list, minister to Zaccheus in Jericho. He was just passing through. If you haven’t yet learned this lesson, you need to. Our best opportunities to minister and to share our faith with others won’t be on our schedule. They are in the unexpected moments of the day. And it says, “A man was there by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.” Tax collector’s were hated; they were Jews that had sold out to the Romans. The reason he was wealthy is because whatever he could skim off the people over and above what he had to give to Rome was his to keep. In other words, Zaccheus was not exactly your church-type individual.
And it says, “He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Him, since Jesus was coming that way.” Now if we read between the lines, we can see that Jesus had obviously attracted people’s attention. Word about Jesus was on people’s lips. They knew He was coming to town; they had lined the streets to see Him. And, friends, we as a church have got to come up with creative ways to let people know we are here for them if we are generally concerned about outreach. As we think about our next capital campaign next spring, we have to reflect on how we can create better “curb appeal” out there on Highway 44 for thousands of cars pass Grace Church every day, but we set so far back off the road they can get by without even knowing we are here. Reverend Dan, with the help of our youth, is working on the distribution of door-hangers to neighboring new subdivisions in preparations for our Celebration of Children and Youth. Every time I drive out Hurricane Road I look over to the west, and I see literally now it must be a hundred or more houses in what used to be a soybean field. I’m thinking they are one mile from Grace Church, what are we doing to reach them?
Starting at Christmas and continuing in 2006, we are seriously considering doing some bulk mailings to the community. Adam Hamilton, in CD’s the Church Growth Task Force is listening to, tells a story about that. They used that approach a lot. And he says, “There was a lady, we found out later on, she got our first mailing in the mail and she pitched it in File 13 without even looking at it. She got the second one and she did the same thing. She got the third one and she glanced at it a little bit and she said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s that church that’s meeting in the funeral home.’ And she pitched it in the waste can. And then she got a fourth one that said, ‘Talk to me, not at me.’ And she was going through a crises in her life and with the fourth mailing she said, ‘Maybe I ought to try out that church.’” And months later she told this story to Adam Hamilton about how she first came and how that church had ministered with help and hope and home to her need at that time.
And then it says, “When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up…” Let me stop. He looked up—those of you that were here last weekend and we read that story about Abraham, do you remember exactly the same words? It said, “Abraham looked up and he saw those three men coming to be taxed. “And Jesus said to him: Zaccheus come down immediately. I must stay at your home today.” I want you to notice two things in that last sentence. One, Jesus knew Zaccheus’ name. This church is big enough that I have reluctantly had to tell myself, “I may not know everybody’s name, but I keep working on it.” Because when you can call a person by name, that’s why you ought to be in a Friendship Eight group because as you share dinner together with people that you don’t know four times, they become people that you not only know their name, but you know them at a deeper level. And I want you to notice Jesus extended a specific invitation. He said for Zaccheus to come down now. Now, don’t ask your friends to come on Friendship Sunday quite that bluntly. But let me tell you how not to invite someone. You will strike out 99% of the time if you say this to someone, “Come with me to church sometime at Grace.” They’ll nod their head and they will smile and they’ll never come. You need to say, “This coming weekend our church is having a Celebration of Friendship. Would you come with me to the 9:15 a.m. service this Sunday? You’ll want to come early. I’ll meet you at the north door at ten minutes to nine. We’ll go out for brunch following the service. Can I count on you coming with me?” See, that’s a specific, targeted invitation. You’ll strike out all the time if you just say, “Come to church with me sometime.” It’s like we use to tell Dad all the time as boys when we’d ask him about something and he’d say, “One of these days boys.” And we got to where we would reply, “Yeah, one of these days never comes.”
And it says, “The people saw this and began to mutter: ‘He has gone (speaking of Jesus) to be the guest of a sinner.” You need to know a little history about the Middle East. If you were willing to sit down and have a meal with a person, you are saying that you accepted that person. And Jesus is going to have a meal with the hated tax collector. In fact, as we think about these special Sundays, who do we think of inviting? Good folks, like us? Or what about the guy down the street that drinks a little too much? What about the person whose language isn’t always the best? Do we think maybe I ought to invite them?
For you see, the next part of the Scripture says, “Zaccheus stood up and said to Jesus: ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’” Now, we have a tendency to read Scripture and think it all happened right at once. No! Zaccheus probably said that seven or eight hours later after he’s had supper with Jesus. But you see, friends, God is in the business of changing lives. He doesn’t so much see what we are as what we can become!
And the Scripture closes, “Jesus said to him: ‘Today salvation has come to this house. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.’” Lost people matter to God. Do they matter to us? Have we truly begun the journey of realizing we exist primarily for those who are not yet part of our fellowship? Let us pray, “Lord, if un-churched persons are going to come to know life in Christ, then more often than not it will depend upon my acceptance, my invitation, and then my ongoing love and support. Help us here at Grace to truly be a people with open hearts, open minds, and open doors. For your honor and glory, Amen.”
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn