“Bridge to the World”
"4th in a 4-part series"
Sermon Transcript for October 5, 2008
By Pastor Bob Coleman
This week we start our time of the message with a Scripture that is a very familiar
one. And not the whole story, in fact. It’s the one that is found in all
four Gospels; but this one is from the Gospel of John in the 6th Chapter, starting
with the 5th verse. I’ll be reading it for you as you either read it in
the Bibles that you have with you or read it on the screen and follow along.
This short account focuses on one little boy and what that boy can do for the
world.
“When Jesus looked up and saw a crowd coming toward Him, He said to Phillip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ He asked this only to test him. He already had in mind what He was going to do. Phillip answered, ‘Eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite.’ Another of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. ‘But here is a boy with five small barley loafs and two small fish. How far will they go among so many?’”
How far will they go among so many? Don’t forget that passage. Remember it, we will return to it a little bit later. We are on the fourth Sunday of a series called “The Bridge”. And on this bridge we have crossed, on the first Sunday, to come to God remembering that redemption is at the heart of the Gospel message. But a person needs to know they are to be redeemed before they can accept that redemption. And it is in God, through Jesus Christ, that we find that redemption. So the first bridge we are to cross in life is the one to God.
And then the second week we looked at what it means to cross that bridge to people which we identified very directly as the church. The church is a place that we cross over this bridge to live out, in practice and in truth, the words of what it means to be brothers and sisters in Christ together, to think of ourselves united as the body of Christ each one needing the other. Not stand-a-lone Christians, but those who clearly need to know one another in Christ.
Then last week was the bridge to community where Pastor Andy shared that there are many bridges already in place. Some that maybe need a little repair and fix-up, a strengthening, but others that could be added to that. But always seeking ways to find that around here in Franklin, Indiana there is much to be done. And there are many institutions—other churches, the schools, the government—whereby we can find a way to connect with and do God’s work in serving people out there.
And today we look at the bridge to the world. But before we do that, I want to remind you of a cartoon which maybe you know, or watched, or your grandchildren, or in my case, my children watched this. And they would quote these lines to us. And I wondered, “Where’s that coming from?” Finally I saw a few of those episodes myself. And it is based upon two characters, both of them mice. One of them sort of a silly British accent, not-to-bright mouse and another one who is so smart his head is enlarged because, well, they call him “the brain”. If you haven’t called on yet, it’s called “Pinky and the Brain” and there they are. Maybe you never saw an episode. It’s pretty well formulated. It would go through some kind of a great experience in, in a half hour of course, and at the end, it would always end with this same dialogue. Pinky would say, “Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?” And Brain would respond, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky, plot and try to take over the world.” And that was the basis of the cartoon.
This humorous, comedic approach underlies the basic problem with the way we see the world and the way some people, in fact, have particularly lived out their lives. They have become hungry leaders, despots, dictators. Throughout all history, there are many who fill this list. They may be just the dictator of their own personal family as a matriarch or patriarch, but they could also be over a community or a small region or even a nation. And, yes, a few have even tried to take over the whole world--anywhere from Alexander, the Great, to Ghingas Khan, to Adolf Hitler just among the big names in history.
A lot of small people have tried to take over the world in their own perspective in that way. And so in that spirit, I announce to you that last week we took over Franklin and this week we cross the bridge to take over the world. That’s what the church is called to do, right? The Great Commission—to go out into the world to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But unfortunately, too often in history, to our shame, we as the church have misunderstood that and translated into getting too close to political military alliances. And some parts of our last 2,000 years as the church, we even ourselves, as the church, become a military entity. And we have attempted to take over the world. We align ourselves with egomaniac personalities and we always lose when that happens. We align ourselves too close to the powers of this world, and we always fail. The church has polarized with governments, kings, even dictators has always led the church away from its intended, created purpose.
When we go in to the world, when we cross this bridge over in to the world, we must never forget that we are following someone into that world. We are not leading the charge. If we follow any one else but God in to God’s world, we have misunderstood and forgotten our reason for being. If we use language that speaks of conquering other people, even triumphalism, that now we’ve made this a Christian nation. We…notice the stretch…we have made this a Christian nation. Anymore than any of us can say, “We have made ourselves Christian.” The very definition of Christian is one who recognizes their need for redemption and accepts the power beyond themselves in their lives.
How we respond, individually and as a church, to any given crises speaks volumes of our basic core values and our morals. It’s a basic truth of personal lives as well as a church and even of nations. Whenever you claim the title to be a Christian or a Christian church or a Christian nation, be careful how you live that out and how you respond, particularly in crises. For we all are called to turn to a God who is marked by mercy, compassion, unqualified love, grace, and steadfastness. As we venture out of our individual life solitude out in to that world, we are supposed to be a world of a family and, yes, of the marketplace, of the things of daily living that we have. We are to depend upon God, who isn’t earthbound though, so the irony is that we go out into the world to take the Good News of Jesus Christ, to live our lives as we are called to be Christians, and find that, guess what, God is already there. God has gone before us. God is not earthbound, located in any one country or any one geographic place. But it is our desire, when we understand that, to seek and to find God. The God we seek and find for our own personal salvation and redemption is the same God we are to seek and to find in the world. We do not take God in to the world; we find God already in the wine, in the world that He had created.
So when we cross this bridge to the world, we are to seek and find God in other people and in places that we might not imagine. We can be surprised. But we also go with a sense that there is only one who can save us. Any group of people who put their stock in human leadership, be it the local church or local city government or any government of the world, if we put our stock in our leaders to save us from the perils of life, we’ve misunderstood their role also. We must, as we are able, to be leaders ourselves. To do the right things as well as keep a strong and right relationship with God. The world so desperately needs that message in word, but also in deed. We need to keep it simple, straight-forward, with the integrity of spirit and life as we cross over to the world.
So today I am going to propose some “rules of the road” as you cross this bridge. They are simple and difficult at the same time. You’ve heard them before. Do no harm. Do good! And stay in love with God. If we can do those three as we cross over in to the world, we’ll be seeking always to find God where we go. We will not create an image in the world that we know everything and we have all the power and we have all the right. But we go to show people the One who does have the right, the power, and the wisdom.
Some other rules of the road—steer away from greed, avoid seeking happiness by storing up material possessions, walk toward generous giving and simplicity. It is one thing to plan and modify your own life around a good retirement or the dream home that you want. It is another that in the message of Jesus Christ as a church to cross this bridge, we are to live a generous life, maybe even to give away as much as we have. To always be generous in seeking to find people who have a need and doing what we can to meet that need individually and collectively.
On Wonderful Wednesday evening, I’m leading one of the groups called “The Jesus I Never Knew” by the author, Philip Yancey. We’re reading the book and the study guide. This last week we looked at The Beatitudes. As part of understanding who Jesus, is you have to look at the words of the One so that you can understand better who that person is. You know The Beatitudes in Matthew, Chapter 5. The whole list of the “blessed are those” and “they will inherit that”. Then there are also the curses that follow too. But in the first one, of the Beatitudes in Verse 3 of Chapter 5 of Matthew, it says, “Blesses are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
When we cross the bridge we are not to take over the world. We are to find the Kingdom of Heaven and inherit it. But that doesn’t mean inheriting other peoples or other lands or anything else of discord. Think of that and remember, “Blesses are the poor in spirit, for they are to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” What does it mean to be poor in spirit? The greater strength of one who was poor in spirit, is the awareness of their own weaknesses, of their own needs, their own shortcomings, their own failures. That’s why when we as a church cross this bridge to the world; we must remember always that we are imperfect. We are weak; we are broken. As Monica Helwig says in her re-writing of the beatitudes, “The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption. The poor know not only their own dependence on God, but also their interdependence on others”
You see, it’s not poor in material things; it’s poor in spirit meaning we recognize how much we need God. And we must never lose that as we go in to the world. A person, who is poor in spirit, learns to understand that they have a need, each one, to turn to God who is marked by mercy, compassion, unqualified love, grace, and steadfastness. This is so important that Jesus makes a point that we like to avoid and think it means He’s talking about someone else, when He said, “Have you never read the Scriptures?” in Matthew 21. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing and is amazing in our eyes. Therefore I tell you, Jesus says, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the Kingdom.”
The church is always one step away, one generation away, from losing the inheritance that God has given to it. We only gain the inheritance when we recognize the poverty of our spirit. But when we begin to believe that we are in charge of our own destiny and accumulate our own power and greedily horde more than what is ever needed within one’s life, we are in danger of losing that inheritance that we’ve been promised.
Much of the world, much of human history turns on the very choices that are in opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven. They are called lust for land, power, and wealth. These are verses, God’s rules, for stewardship of the world that are based upon our recognizing the created connection we have are where we are bound to one another. This is a world-wide economy now. What we do and what we don’t do affects the rest of the world. And what happens in other places of the world, affects us. In one sense, they are actually more in tune with what God has been saying all along—that this is one world created by one God and we are together because of that creation.
But the story within the story of our current financial crises is one that is at the heart of what we do as citizens, family members, and yes as church goers. It’s the hard edge of Jesus’ commandment to love God and each other. We should stop behaving that creation belongs to us and that our economy scarcity means that we need to make sure we’ve got enough for ourselves and not worry about others. A financial collapse, if that is the way it continues to go, continues on it will expose, even more so, the greed, stupidity, and delusional behavior upon which we have lived. The story comes out, it’s small decisions made in small increments, but made poorly. Even the grandest of wars and recessions start out in individual choices.
Jesus warned that the Kingdom of God would be taken away from one people and given to another. We shouldn’t think of our national fortunes or our tribal fortunes. We should think of the smaller circles of individuals who either get with God or get it wrong and who then feel the consequences. Fundamental tool of greed must be countered by fundamental good and generous giving.
One of the fears that I have to all of this is we’ll take on a mentality of protectionism. Not so much of the world, but we will protect what we have for we are afraid of losing it. Now it is true, some of you may be only a paycheck away from living on the streets. And that is a fearsome thing to people. But the truth of the matter is, the more we live like that and the more the church itself in Jesus Christ takes on a sense of scarcity and worry about the future, we will lose the heart of who we are—a generous spirit. That’s always the counterbalance to the evil of greed and protecting oneself as we begin to lose sight of what we are called to do in the world as a church—to recognize we are connected to each other and called to serve. Most of us will go on with our lives, we think, as they are. They’ll be decisions further made. Some will be right and some will be wrong. There will be learned papers that are written to explain all of the intricacies of who made what decision wrong in the past. But it is time for us who are full of the Spirit to assert the ultimate virtues of the goodness that is based upon knowing we need God. And at the heart of that, we will then make decisions that are right and best.
One of the saddest parts to this whole current financial situation is that some hard-working people will be hurt. And the most generous people that we have will become less generous out of a sense of protection. We must recognize always that there isn’t anything that we own in this world. It’s only given to us on loan. And it’s been loaned to us for the purpose of investing it for other people not for our own gain. But some others have seen this, it’s a world to manipulate to get as much as we can as fast as we can. And I have to be honest; I was riding the wave too. Looking towards retirement investment that, wow, if all these other people are making multi-millions, at least I make a few thousand along the way. It was really the wrong thought. It isn’t for the future that we invest. It’s for the daily living of caring for people and it’s seeking God’s wisdom on how we are to give away as much as we have received.
Crossing over this bridge to the world is one that we must cross but we can not cross without seeking God and the spirit of God present in the world. For God is there too. This is God’s word; we are not re-creating it. We are not to go to dominate but to seek others as equals, to show the way to the One from whom we have received our own redemption. I guess if there is one sermon that we can continue to preach until we get it right; it’s that we need redemption through God’s grace in Jesus Christ. And we are called to share it generously with all that we meet. And that is our reason for going in to the world.
Now, remember the little boy? The one who had five loaves and two fish? Remember how he was called in to play? He had a role to play—minor yes, but major in the very simple aspect of what he did was then was multiplied in the miracle of the feeding. We are going to hear a story, a recount of several voices that will be mingled together to remind us of that generosity. And somewhere in there is not the little boy, but the old man who is looking back and remembering what happened. It will not be a skit like we’ve had the past three Sundays, not people up here acting and portraying, but simply voices carrying a message to us as we understand this purposes today of crossing the bridge. So let us listen as we hear the expression and the witness of people sharing God’s spirit guiding them.
READER 1: You and I have never met before, at least not in the usual way. Because for the most part, we think of getting to know one another in time.
READER 2: You see, we think of the people we know only as those we meet in the course of life. And we remember some as having impact and influence, while some seem less important, and they fade from memory.
READER 3: Only heaven knows, they say, what became of them.
READER 4: And you know…that’s right.
READER 5: It really is. Heaven does know.
READER 4: God knows. All of us here,
READERS 3 & 4: and all of us there…
READER 3: And all of us everywhere touch one another.
READER 6: Sometimes we’re aware of that and sometimes we aren’t.
READER 3: Or perhaps we simply don’t recall.
READER 7: I’m sure that’s true, though just why it’s true, I don’t really know. But I do know truth when I see it…and so do you. Now, you might see truth with your own eyes…physically. But most often, I think you see it better when you look out a bit further…
READER 1: When you see past what God shows you to the way God shows you…
READER 6: To the reason God shows you.
READER 7: Now, I’ve been around many years. In fact, you’ve heard of me, though you don’t know my name. Yet, I’ve never heard God speak in exactly the same way I hear other people. And I’ve never looked into God’s eyes, not the way I can look into person’s eyes.
READER 8: Of course there was that one time…but I’m not to that part of my story yet.
READER 9: Now where was I? Oh yes.
READER 8: I am as sure as I can be that God sees and God speaks
READERS 4 & 8: God has a face and a voice…
READER 4: The sweetest voice you’ve ever heard.
READER 3: I learned long ago, that when I think God’s hiding,
READER 1: It’s me who’s not looking.
READER 6: And God is never silent, but many times I’m not listening.
READER 1: There have been many times I’ve searched for God in the wrong place. Or I’ve tried to hear God speak.
READER 9: Yet no words have been spoken…not yet.
READER 10: You’ve heard it said, “There is no time like the present. The best time to do anything is now.
READER 2 & 10: Right now. Live for the moment.”
READER 2: This moment. I once asked God, “What does that mean exactly? How am I supposed to figure that out? God said,
READER 10: “Now you’ve got it!”
READER 3: But I didn’t understand. And God said, “You leave that part up to me. I don’t use time as you do. Everything I do is always.
READERA 3 & 10: Always was, always is…
READER 10: Always will be.
READER 8: Time is something I gave you.
READER 7: A gift.
READER 4: So unwrap it and use it. Then don’t worry about it anymore.
READER 5: And don’t be concerned with what’s down the road until you get there.
READER 2: Now I’m here.
READER 1: You’re here.
READER 6: God is here. And we’re going to witness what some might call a miracle. Now most of us think that miracles are a thing of the past…like walking on
READES 2 & 6: water.
READER 2: into
READERS 2 & 9: wine.
READER 9: For many
READERS 9 & 10: days
READER 10: in the desert attended by
READERS 4 & 10: angels.
READER 4: That rolled away the stone from
READERS 3 & 4: the tomb.
READER 3: of Lazarus,
READERS 3 & 8: the dead.
READER 8: raised to life.
READER 9: But, in heaven, miracles are just the way of things. Remember what Jesus said when he taught his followers to pray? He said,
READER 3: “Father, do your will on earth as it is in heaven.”
READER 6: And everything in heaven is always. And remember when Jesus fed all those people on the hillside? There were over 5,000.
READER 5: The gospels record only the number of men, not including the women and children. And everyone was amazed.
READER 7: There was a little boy in the crowd that day who had a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish in his knapsack. And Phillip was terribly worried because Jesus told him and his friends to feed all the people. And neither Jesus or Phillip, or any of the other followers had any food.
READER 10: So Phillip asked for help from anyone he could find. He’d all but given up.
READER 4: When he came upon
READERS 4 & 8: this young boy…
READER 8: Who said he would share what he had. Phillip brought his small meal to Jesus, saying that’s all he could find, but it wouldn’t be enough. Jesus just smiled at him and prayed.
READER 6: “Thank you Father for what we have today.” And then he gave some to the lady standing next to him
READERS 5 & 6: and she gave some…
READER 5: …to the man next to her,
READERS 5 & 8: And he gave some…
READER 8: to a little girl,
READER 1: and before long, everyone had all they wanted. I know that’s a familiar story. And I know it seems like quite and accomplishment…nothing short of a miracle. But, my friends, God gives you your breakfast, lunch, and dinner the same way today as it happened then.
READER 6: If you’ll simply give to Jesus what you have, he will take the gift and use it in
READERS 6 & 9: the most perfect way.
READER 9: …is to realize that what you have to give to God is what God has already given. Do you want to feed 5,000 people? Or tell the whole world about love? Or build houses?
READER 10: Would you like to educate people? Then begin in the same way as your sisters and brothers on the hillside.
READER 1: Have lunch with Jesus. You’ll be more satisfied and
READERS 1 & 3: You’ll have enough left over to feed anybody…
READER 3: and everybody that’s hungry…no matter what they’re hungry for.
READER 4: Now, you may think me a foolish old man…rambling on like this…some kind of dreamer. But I come from my world to yours for one purpose.
READER 5: I came to tell my story…
READER 6: Because it’s not mine alone. In heaven it’s always forever. So my story is your story.
READER 7: Jesus came to me just as he comes to you. And when you tell your story,
READER 8: When you give God what you have, God will touch others through you. You see, when Phillip went looking for food to feed that crowd, it was me he saw…
READER 2: It was my lunch he found.
READER 1: And each time I sit down to eat my daily bread, I thank the Lord for goodness and grace and hope…and I pray:
READER 4: Take this little bit, what I have to give…
READER 9: See all these hungry people…
READER 5: Remember what you did way back then…and do it again.
READER 7: Dear Jesus…do it again!
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