4th Sunday after Pentecost [Pr. 5] June 8, 2008 “Series A”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the healing power of your Son, Jesus the Christ, who offers to each of us forgiveness and the opportunity for a restored relationship with you, that author and giver of life. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to be instruments of your redeeming love to those around us. Enable us to forgive as we have been forgiven, and to embrace each other as brothers and sisters of your kingdom. We ask this in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
I would like to begin with a little ecumenical story, which you may have heard before, but bears repeating. Two clergy serving parishes in the same town, happened to meet while walking down the street. One was a Lutheran pastor, the other a Roman Catholic Priest. During their chat, the Lutheran pastor was just bubbling over with enthusiasm as he described his congregation’s decision to build an enlarged nave to accommodate their growing worship attendance.
The priest offered his congratulations. But then the Lutheran pastor, half jokingly, asked the priest, “Wouldn’t you like to make a contribution to our building fund?” With little hesitation, the priest responded, “I’m sure my bishop would never approve of my contributing to the building of a protestant church.”
A few days later, the Lutheran pastor received a letter from the Roman Catholic priest, along with a check for two hundred dollars. In the letter the priest said, “Although my bishop would never consent to my making a contribution to the building of a protestant church, there surely must be some expense involved in tearing your old nave down. I’m sure he would never object to that.”
Aside from the humor in this story, there is a sense of wisdom displayed by the priest. In nearly every addition to an existing facility, there is some demolition work that needs to be done. Even when we built our new addition to the other end of our facilities, adding much needed office space, the plans included tearing out the old office to make our narthex more inviting.
In our Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus does some amazing things, not the least of which is coming upon Matthew, a tax collector, sitting at his booth plying his trade, and inviting him to be one of his disciples. Jesus simply said, “Follow me,” and Matthew did just that! He got up from his booth, left a very lucrative, although despised occupation from the point of view of the Jewish community, and followed Jesus.
Later, perhaps even that night, Jesus was having dinner with his disciples. The implication is that Matthew was with them, and perhaps because of his being among Jesus’ disciples, many tax collectors, and known sinners, were drawn to share in this meal. And did that arouse the scorn of the Pharisees, those who prided themselves on being righteous, and upholding all those laws from the Torah, designed to set Israel apart from the Gentiles, sinners and pagans, laws that gave them their unique identity.
“Does Jesus know what he is doing, by sitting in table fellowship with these tax collectors and sinners?”, they asked. “If he is a rabbi, if he is from God, surely he should know better. He is tearing down the walls that set us apart, distinguish us as God’s people in this world. It’s bad enough to call a tax collector as a disciple, but to sit and eat, to share a table with such a bunch as this, is like joining the enemy of our faith. It is scandalous.”
To the Pharisees, Jesus responded, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but hose who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
What a statement, according to Thomas Wright, in his book, Jesus and the Victory of God, [Eerdmans, 1996]. If I might paraphrase his comments, “Jesus was tearing down old walls in order to build something new. Wright believes that Jesus was ultimately crucified because of his expansive notion of the mission of Israel. Wright believes that by the time of Jesus, Israel’s faith had retreated away from being a light to the nations, to being defensive about maintaining its own identity.
Jesus attacked this defensive posture. He ventured forth, calling those who had been previously excluded from the community of faith, with the invitation to repent and become a part of the kingdom of God. But Jesus not only announced God’s kingdom breaking into our midst, he also acted in ways in which the kingdom took concrete, visible form.
That is what is happening in our Gospel lesson for this morning. God’s new kingdom was being built, taking form around the table with Jesus. But the old walls of Israel’s past were hard to tear down. And as a result, Jesus encountered tremendous resistance from those who considered themselves, not only be a part of the established faith of Israel, but to be the defenders of their faith. End Paraphrase.
Here lies a real problem for me, and for any pastor of Christ’s church, as we near the age of retirement, and see that there are movements in our society, as well as within the church, that seem to push the envelope of what we have grown and trusted to be our wall of faith. Throughout the course of my ministry, I have seen some walls fall to the benefit of the church, such as the ordination of women, and lay persons authorized to serve vacancies as a pastoral presence.
So as I contemplate this text for this morning, I have to wonder if I am not a little like the Pharisees in this text, wanting to impede Jesus from building his kingdom anew in our present day society. For example, a member suggested just last week, that due to the decrease in worship attendance that has resulted from our summer worship being at 9:00 AM, we might include more persons if we kept our worship at 10:00 AM year round.
In response to this person’s comment, I brought up the old wall of saying that our current worship schedule was determined 15 years ago, when we reached a compromise in going from two services to one. Those who preferred the early service agreed to the one service on Sunday, because they would have their early time in the summer. But does that still hold after 15 years? I don’t know the answer to that question. The last poll that we took of the congregation ended in a tie, even if only a few participated in it.
Whatever the time we worship is the time that we have chosen as a congregation to gather to give God our praise and thanks for all that he has done for us. If our worship schedule excludes members of our congregation from participating in communion with God through Word and sacrament, perhaps we need to reevaluate our schedule.
Other matters concern me more, such as some of the contemporary styles of worship in which there is no sermon, and Scripture is not even read. Proponents of this style of worship have seemed to attract a larger, younger congregation on Sunday mornings, but at what price. To gather around Word and Sacrament is a wall that I would fight to defend, even though I am open to different styles of liturgies.
More importantly, however, our text for this morning challenges us to consider our mission as a congregation of Christ’s church. In many ways, we are a very caring congregation. We have many persons involved in leadership, teaching Sunday school, caring for our facilities, participating in worship leadership, etc.
But what are we doing to reach out beyond our congregation? What are we doing to share our faith with others, especially those who could benefit from the redeeming grace of God in Jesus the Christ? Have we built a defensive wall around our faith, which prevents us from reaching out to invite our friends and neighbors, even those who differ from us, to join in fellowship with our crucified and risen Lord?
In our Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus gives us an example of the mission of his church – to reach out to those around us with the light of the Gospel. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, God took these persons who were considered sinners and ignored by the religious people of Jesus’ day, and made them disciples.
May God’s Spirit work within each of us, that we might break down the walls that inhibit us from reaching out to others with the healing power of the Gospel. For to witness to the grace of God in Jesus the Christ is the true mission of the church.
Amen.
