Sermon for CATM on September 2, 2007 - “How Does God See our Community?”
Luke 13:34 Jesus said: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Rev 3:15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other!
Luke 6: 37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
We’ve started a conversation over the past few weeks about connecting with people in our community. First we were challenged to consider the impact of small acts of radical love. Then last week we were challenged with the notion of reaching out to our community as a church.
Outreach is a hot topic. The whys should be pretty obvious. As a local body of the church of Jesus Christ, we have a mandate to make vital connections to the people around us. We looked at our mandate last week. Jesus said “Go!” Go and do what? Make disciples.
Bring others to the knowledge of the living God. Help them to see that life in its fullest is lived in relation to Jesus. That all the things that diminish our experience of life...fear, guilt, anger, sin, brokenness to name a few...all of these things that rob us of life find their cure in Jesus.
When we come to Him in faith he begins this deep and profound work in our lives of renewing our hope, of replacing our despair or our feeling of worthlessness with the exact opposite. His joy becomes our strength. Our joy in knowing and being known and loved by the Saviour of the world adds fire to our eyes. And then we gradually learn that God means our lives to be loaded to the brim with purpose and with loving relationships and that He means our lives to be the fragrance of Jesus to a hurting world.
How? He wants us simply to care for others. And in caring there will be opportunities for relationship. And some will choose to follow Jesus as a result.
I ended the message last week by asking us all as a church, “Are we ready to ask God: “How might we serve you more fully in this community?” Are we ready to say: “Here I am, O Lord. Send me to do your will?” And each of us in our own hearts needs to answer this question.
But for this to mean anything, and for us as a church family to really mean it when we say we want to reach out to our community, we need to look perhaps first of all at a very simple question:
How do I feel about my community? How do I feel about the people here? What is my core attitude to those who also occupy my surroundings?
Gregory Boyd writes in his book “Repenting of Religion”, of an experience that transformed the way he looked at people. He found himself in a mall, sitting on a bench and watching people go by. He found himself looking critically at different folks.
He writes this: “As I sip on my coke and relax, I study people. I notice some are pretty and some are not. Some are slender, some are obese. On the basis of what they wear, their facial expressions, the way they relate to their spouses, friends, or kids, I conclude that some are “godly” while others are “ungodly”. Some give me a warm feeling as I watch their tenderness toward their children. Others make me angry or disgusted”.
He goes on to describe that he then realizes he is behaving like a judge, and that doing that is making him feel good about himself. Then he recalled that Jesus taught that wherever we go, our first responsibility is to bless people.
He recalled that Scripture teaches us to think and speak evil of no one (Titus 3:2; Jas 4:11). He writes: “I was convicted by how many nonblessing thoughts - indeed, how many cursing thoughts-I had been entertaining without even being aware of it”.
“So”, he writes. “I stopped. I determined to have only one thought and one thought only, about every person in the mall on that afternoon; it was to love them and bless them as people uniquely created by God who have infinite worth because Jesus died for them”.
He describes how something extraordinary began to happen. He began to see the worth that he was ascribing people and he began to feel the love he was giving to them. “In fact”, he writes, “at certain moments I felt as though I would explode with love. I realized that I was experiencing the heart of God toward people”. [Pause]
Eyeing the Neighbourhood
So, how do we see our community? What kind of eyes do we see through when we walk through our neighbourhood?
Do we have critical eyes that make judgments about people who are different from us? When we walk by a single dad or mom who’s having trouble with their children misbehaving, do we judge their parenting style from that incident, or do we have compassion because we know how unbelievably hard it is to be a single parent?
When youth walk by us and they’re dressed in black, with black make up and rings through their eyebrows, their noses and their lips. A pentagram on a ripped t-shirt. What thoughts fill our minds?
When people of different faiths who dress in their traditional clothing walk by, or when whites or blacks or East Indian or First Nations or Middle Eastern or Asian people walk by, how do we feel on the inside?
Are we critical of others? Do we, if we’re honest, without even really thinking about it - do we spend some our time out in public evaluating, judging, criticizing others...either in the quiet of our own thoughts or out loud to anyone who will listen?
I love how practical Jesus’ teachings are. But did you know that there’s can be a real problem with reading Jesus’ teachings without thinking about them in their original context...or in the context of our own lives. For instance, a few moments ago ______ read one of our passages for today.
Luke 6: 37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
It is super easy to read or hear that, nod...and then move on...without doing much application to our own lives.
[[ But what if we did that right now. Thinking about what we’re talking about so far today, how might what Jesus says here apply? [Solicit answers] ]]
Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. What we’re not talking about here is any kind of prohibition from Jesus about using common sense. Intelligent discretion.
It’s when we eye the community with judgment that we miss the mark. We set ourselves at a distance from others, and we use our energies for something that Jesus suggests is not useful to the Kingdom.
So again, how do we see our community? It’s possible to be mostly or entirely indifferent to the community. Either to not care about it or to see it as almost a necessary evil that we’ll use to walk through to get to where we’re going, but we’re sure not going to invest anything of ourselves in it.
The language that scripture uses here is hot and cold. Rev 3:15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!
You know, when someone’s looking for something and your being playful and you say “Warm, warm, warm....hot!” when then they’re getting close and “Cold, cold, colder...freezing!” when they’re far away from the mark.
Well, when we’re far from the mark of caring for our community, we’re neutral. Maybe we’ve been around here and we’ve heard bad things about the neighbourhood. Maybe we’ve had some bad experiences. Maybe none of that applies and we’re just kind of emotionally indifferent to the community.
But the interesting thing here is that in this passage God says: “I wish you were either cold or hot. Just don’t be neutral”. Neutrality...sitting on the fence ...apparently that’s not a good thing in God’s eyes.
Now some of you might wonder about my use of this passage. Most often this passage is referred to in the light of our faith...that if our faith turns neutral, that’s a really, really bad thing. But notice, again, that God says: I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.
It’s actually not about having faith or not having faith. Being spiritually dry or spiritually alive and vital. It’s about how we choose to express out faith. Again I refer to James as I did last week
James 2 vs 18, “I will show you my faith by what I do”. Do we express our faith in a way that communicates caring...or indifference?
But there’s another way to see our community. What’s cool about this way is that it’s God’s way of looking at us and the people around us. You know, I have to say that some people still think of God firstly as a judge.
Looking at all the bad in the world and in us and handing out punishment for our sins. God save us from that distorted notion. What did Jesus say: “ John 12:47 For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it”.
How does God see our community? I believe it’s similar to another Scripture that was read today where Jesus stands over the great city and says: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
God sees the city with longing. With compassionate eyes. Eyes that are passionate about the suffering in the city. About the poverty that is here. He sees people living without Jesus, without the knowledge of God, without knowing their worth.
He sees the people you and I see. The addicts standing outside grocery stores. In our alleys. The business people running around like chickens missing their heads, but really missing out on life’s potential in Jesus. The sincere seekers from others faiths or no faith. He sees everyone as we see them...but actually He sees them differently.
He sees them from the inside. He knows every thought. Every whispered prayer. Every worry. Every burden. Every tear. And He means to do something about it. Something very, very good. Now what might that be?
Well, He also, of course, sees us. His church. We meet here every Sunday. We’re out and about in the community each day. Normally we’re getting together a lot during the year to learn and grow together (that’s just about to start up again in a few weeks). Some of us volunteer at the mission or maybe work here.
And of course everything we do, we do under God’s watchful eye. Not judging eye. Not condemning eye. Again...please...let’s lose that silly idea.
And I guess the question is “What does He see us doing?”, and, perhaps more importantly, how does He sees us doing what we do? Do we look out into our world with compassion? Do we spend enough time with people and empathize with people enough to start really, truly caring about their lives.
Can I share a dream that have with you? I’ve had it for a number of years as I lived in this community for eleven years with my family and as I’ve served here as a pastor. My dream is sort of simple, sort of not.
It is this: Us, the church, along with other brothers and sisters in Christ, streaming out into the neighbourhood and blessing our community and the other communities that many of us travel here from. People in the community being cared for, encouraged, nurtured, educated, emboldened to embrace life.
The fragrance of Jesus so filling these neighbourhoods that people are just blown away by how much they are loved. And feeling that love so much that some of them...not all but some...start asking us a great simple question: “Why?” Why do you people love us?
“Why is that mission and the people from that mission and church...why are they everywhere...doing good?” “Why are they known for their love...for each other and for the rest of us?”
And won’t it be awesome to be able to answer each one? To be able to say: “We’re here because we’ve learned that Jesus loves, and He’s chosen to love you through us”.
And you know what? This dream is not just for the community at large. This dream is also about us. It’s about us finding God’s purpose, and finding the deepest kind of joy imaginable as we together live out what it means to be a people in love with the living God and full of hope and compassion for our neighbours.
I want to add a caveat here. Not all people can be excited about outreach. This message is really not intended to be about “something we ought to do”, as if to not be excited about this is to be inadequate. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Those of us who have gone through the Network: Ministry Gifts and Passions course know that
any service that we give, any ministry that we are about doing must be based on our spiritual gifts and our ministry passions.
I have a confession that might illustrate what I mean. Although I am very passionate about reaching our community, I am not, by gifting, an evangelist.
Evangelism is a big part of what we’re talking about here, and I as a pastor do not have the necessary gifts. But you know what? Some of you do. Gary and Rob do. Keitha does. Jan does. Many others of us do but might not know it yet.
Whatever your gifts and ministry passions are, they will end up connecting with what we’re talking about today, because ministry is about people.
So the first step in reaching out as a church is to ask ourselves: “How do I feel about my community? How do I feel about the people here? What is my attitude to those who also occupy my surroundings?”
I was so deeply encouraged as I read Gregory Boyd’s story of moving from a place of judgment toward others to a place of overwhelming love for others. Seeing their worth. Discovering God’s heart of love toward people.
May we as a church choose to walk away from judgment. May we hear Jesus say: “Don’t judge. Instead...just love”. And may we find the joy that God intends for us as we reach out and watch Jesus through us enfold our community into the love of God.
[Prepare video - http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00007]
For Jesus, love is everything.
Optional Prayer After Video:
Let’s pray. God, Your eyes see clearly and Your eyes brim with love and compassion for us and for our hurting community. Could it be that You are calling us into this community. To be the fragrance of Jesus to our neighbours? To love them. To do small acts of radical love...as a part of an average day in communion with You. How might you bless this community, O God, if we choose to be available to You, that you might love through us. Let us see with Your eyes, O God. Let us see with Your eyes. In Your name we pray.
