Isaiah 53:1-5; Matthew 21:31b-32
“Perhaps My Socks Don’t Match”
I was speaking to a friend of mine who is a campus minister at a college.
He was feeling, perhaps, a bit dejected.
You see there are a lot of Christian groups on the campus of this particular college—and his is the smallest.
Some groups are very large.
So, my friend said to me the other day, “I guess we’re just not pretty enough.”
I’ve spent a bit of time with his small group of college-age Christians, and, ‘pretty or not’ there is some fantastic ministry going on there.
For example, one night, a somewhat unruly young fellow showed up at their gathering.
It is fairly apparent that he has a difficult time relating well to other people.
So he tries to cover it up by saying all kinds of crazy things in order to get some attention.
I was quite impressed by how patient and accepting the other students in this group were to this fellow.
They didn’t make faces to one another behind his back, like so many people do…
…they didn’t treat him differently than the others…
…they didn’t ignore him.
Toward the end of the meeting the poor kid got a nose bleed…
…and I mean it was gushing…
…so he went off to the bathroom to get cleaned up.
And even though the meeting ended before he returned, the students stayed in their spots…
…unwilling to go lest he think “they abandoned him” until he finally came back.
That was cool!
Later my friend confided in me this young man had been part of another ‘Christian’ group on campus, but they had told him that he was not welcome…
…they basically kicked him out!
There’s a story that goes like this:
A public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden to enter the church.
He took his woes to God.
“They won’t let me in, Lord, because I’m a sinner.”
“What are you complaining about?” said God. “They won’t let Me in either.”
So when my buddy, feeling a bit dejected due to the lack of enthusiasm for his group on the campus said to me, “We’re just not pretty enough,” I replied:
“You have a fantastic ministry going on!
I have seen you all in action.
You are doing the work of Christ, and are making a huge difference in people’s lives.
So what if you are not as big as the other Christian groups on campus!
You are doing what Jesus has called you to do and that is all that matters!”
We read from the prophet Isaiah that Jesus Himself was not ‘pretty’ in appearance.
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
As author Brennan Manning would probably put it, “God came to this earth and appeared to us as nothing more than a Ragamuffin.”
Or in other words, a regular ‘Joe’.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get feel a bit intimidated or not ‘rich enough’ when I enter some of our more prestigious churches.
I remember one huge Methodist Church in Macon, Georgia that had brand new gold chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, a work-out facility that would put “The Rush” to shame, beautifully ornate oriental rugs, and furniture that I couldn’t even imagine being able to afford to put in my own house.
“What do the truly poor people feel like when they come into a place like this?” I asked myself.
“Will the folks who live meal by meal, in dingy old trailer parks or on the streets feel welcome and at home in this place?”
“Or will they feel even more oppressed and outcaste?”
Look at the folks Jesus hung around with, or the folks who hung around with Him!!!
Matthew Chapter 9 gives us a beautiful picture of God.
It reads: “As Jesus went from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.
‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and ‘sinners’ came and ate with him and his disciples.”
--Sounds like a real motley crew!!!
Just imagine the scene!
“When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?
On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’
For I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Here is a revelation as bright as the evening star:
Jesus comes for sinners, for those who are as outcaste as tax collectors and for those caught up in bad choices and broken dreams.
Jesus comes for corporate executives, street people, superstars, farmers, prostitutes, addicts, IRS agents, AIDS victims, and even used car salesmen!
Jesus not only talks with these people but has dinner in their homes…
…fully aware that this will raise eyebrows all over town…
…and eventually lead to His Crucifixion!!!
It seems too good to be true…
…but it is true!!!
And as the Body of Christ, we are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps.
We are to accept and invite all who will come!
The Church of Jesus Christ is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live here.
Instead, the Church of Jesus Christ is meant to look more like, say a bus stop…
…with all colors and walks of life celebrating and experiencing God’s amazing grace and love together!!!
In his book Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus author Mark Scandrette shares the following story:
“After reading about the kind of companion Jesus was, and knowing that he taught about love for neighbors, my friend Joseph and I decided to try some experiments in radical openness to people.”
They prayed that God would bring someone into their path that they could care for as Jesus cares for people.
Mark writes, “Riding the bus home from work one night, Joseph met an elderly man who seemed lonely and in need of a friend.”
The next day Joseph took Mark along with him to where this man lived.
Mark continues to write, “Come on in boys. Will you smoke a joint with me?’ the old man said as Joseph and I climbed the steps of the rusty old school bus, searching for a place to sit.
The bus, parked in a vacant lot…was painted in bold letters that read: ‘I have been conducting experiments on myself for 30 years”
…and it went on to describe some pretty lurid stuff.
Mark continues, “Joseph and I glanced at each other and wondered what we were getting ourselves into.
Shaking my hand, the small old man, wearing a black evening gown, took a bow saying, ‘You may call me Emperor….’”
When Joseph and Mark told the Emperor that they were Christians, the Emperor went into a rage and kicked them out of his bus.
But this didn’t stop the two from seeking to share with this man the radical love of Jesus.
They would knock on his door and ask him, “Emperor, is there anything we can do for you?”
Mark writes, “Along with other friends from our community we began visiting the Emperor several times a week, bringing groceries, helping to cut his hair or clip his toenails, and cleaning up around his camp.
Gradually he began to trust our friendship and revealed more about himself.”
One day the Emperor told Mark that he was planning to kill himself on New Year’s Eve.
“I would be really sad if you chose to kill yourself,” Mark told him.
“Why should you care if I live or die?” he asked.
Mark replied, “Emperor, you are valuable to God and to the people who love you. We would miss you.”
“Nobody ever cared about me,” the Emperor replied bitterly.
To this Mark said, “I’m really sorry you feel that way.
After all the time we’ve spent together the past few months, I hoped that you might consider Joseph and I to be your friends.”
Mark writes, “At Christmas we decided to throw a party for the Emperor, including his favorite foods and a birthday cake….”
“There was a full moon on that December evening when I knocked at the door to the Emperor’s bus.
He came out wearing an elegant purple bonnet, with freshly painted fingernails.
A thin young woman, who we knew worked as a prostitute, lived in a trailer on the street nearby, joined us, along with one of her ‘clients’.
Mark continues, “We ate by candlelight serenaded by music from a transistor radio.
The Emperor declared that the food—a collection of favorite dishes he requested—was delicious.
After dinner my wife Lisa put candles on a cake.
‘Let’s sing Happy Birthday to someone who hasn’t celebrated their birthday in a while,’ I said.
‘Who could we sing Happy Birthday to?’”
Mark writes, “Just then, our three-year-old son Noah blurted, ‘It’s Christmas, let’s sing Happy Birthday to Jesus!’”
Mark continues, “I panicked.
The name ‘Jesus’ was the worst thing I could imagine mentioning in front of the Emperor, and I waited to see how he would react.
Slowly, with a big toothless grin, he said, ‘Yes, let’s sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.”
Mark writes, “Under a clear and starry night the eight of us sang together—Lisa and me, a streetwalker and her john, a sixty-three-year-old transvestite, and three small blond children with red cheeks.”
Mark finishes, “As I helped the Emperor back into his bus, he turned to me and said, ‘This was the best night of my life. Thank you!”
My minister friend said, “I guess we’re not ‘pretty’ enough.”
Not pretty enough?
Why, look at me, even my socks don’t match!!!
Jesus told the religious leaders of His time who looked down on everyone else, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
East Ridge United Methodist Church—YOU are a fantastic group of Christians!!!
Are we ‘pretty’?
I don’t know.
Do we have a huge $100,000 dollar digital sign out front that beams the time and temperature for all to see?
Certainly not!
Do we have the most ‘posh’ church building in town?
Do we have chandeliers made of gold and oriental rugs in our bathrooms?
What have we got?
We have the grace and love of Jesus!!!
And that, my friends, is…as the credit card commercial goes—“Priceless!!!!”
Let’s go out and share that love with the world!
In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, author Brennan Manning writes, “The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become—the more we realize that everything in life is a gift.
The tenor of our lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving.
Awareness of our poverty and ineptitude causes us to rejoice in the gift of being called out of the darkness into the wondrous light [of Jesus]…
…the poor in spirit are the most nonjudgmental of peoples; they get along well with sinners.”
Let’s pray to God that God will lead us to persons to whom we can love as deeply and as truly as Jesus Christ loves them and even us!!!
Amen.
