Deuteronomy 15:4, 7-8,10-11
Luke 4:14-21
Recently I read an article about a church in California that has adopted its local high school, the roughest in a rough city.
Now what do I mean by “adopted”?
You see, 40 percent of the students at Centennial High School in Compton, California, are from either a group home or foster home.
So these students don’t have any adult who will cheer for their football team.
When two of the church members volunteered to help coach the football team, they were appalled by the state of the locker rooms, so they organized their church to refurbish and paint them.
One of the kids on the football team, asked a church member why she was painting his locker room.
The woman simply said, “Because I love you.”
“No one loves me,” was his skeptical response.
At that the woman set down her paintbrush and went over to the young man and hugged him.
“No one has hugged me in 7 years,” he replied, not knowing exactly what to do with this woman.
But she wasn’t done yet.
She called over a dozen other women, and they lined up to hug this young man, to kiss him on his cheek, to tell him how special he was to God, and that he had a destiny.
The boy just wept and wept.
After that, the pastor of the church, started lining up 15 adults to adopt each football player and to go to their games to cheer for them, so that they can each know how special they are to God.
And this is what each and every one of us need to know more than anything else in all the world…that we are special to God.
Recently, I was speaking to a teacher at East Ridge Middle School who told me that, due to the shifting in our city,
80% of the children at that school are on free or reduced lunches due to the fact that they come from families that live well below the poverty line.
At a East Ridge Ministerial Meeting this past week, another pastor shared with me that the number is 93% at Spring Creek Elementary just across the street from us.
And many of the students who go to Spring Creek live in hotels, such as the crack infested Superior Creek Lodge just down the road.
What are we to do about this?
According to our Gospel Lesson for this evening, the mandate for we—Jesus’ followers is clear.
Our Lord defined our mission in his inaugural message at Nazareth.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, and to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And Jesus has already given us the “action items” that will be the measures of evaluation on God’s final exam: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for the poor and oppressed.
As a matter of fact, it has been said that if the Gospel “is not working to benefit the poor and oppressed, then it is not the gospel!”
David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyon’s Book, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity,” should be a jolting wake-up call for the Church.
Kinnaman and Lyons say, “The image of the Christian faith has suffered a major setback.
Our most recent data show that young outsiders have lost much of their respect for the Christian faith.
These days nearly two of every five young outsiders (38 percent) claim to have a bad impression of present-day Christianity.”
I was speaking with some colleagues about this, and we were all in agreement that we, the Church are at fault for this—not the unbelieving world.
If we were to truly live out our calling according to Jesus Christ to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our homes, our communities, and the outermost places of the world…
…the church could rediscover and reclaim the message and mission of Jesus…
…which is a lifestyle of sacrificial mission, giving ourselves for God’s redemptive work in the world!!!
And when we live like this, not only the lives of the people around us changed, our lives are changed as well!!!
It’s been said that many Christians dismiss God’s call to mercy and sacrificial giving by quoting Jesus’ Words in John 12: “You will always have the poor among you…” as if that were God’s will.
But if we look back to the Scripture in Deuteronomy 15 which Jesus quoted from we see the context of this statement.
For God said, “However, there should be no poor among you…”
… and “do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother…
…give generously to him…”
It’s been said that “religion that honors God is religion with feet.”
And there is a lot of biblical truth to this!
Bono, one of the world’s most celebrated pop stars, has become an international advocate for fighting AIDS and poverty.
“A third of the Earth’s population is incarcerated by poverty,” Bono said in a interview with Christianity Today.
“It is, as they say, the drive of the Scriptures [to work to alleviate this]. Why isn’t it the drive of the churches?”
Ten years ago, Kevin Bradley was engrossed in the fast-paced, big-money world of Wall Street.
A stockbroker in Baltimore, Bradley and his wife led a very comfortable life.
But every day God was drawing him away from the rich to the homeless.
He’d seen them each weekday as he walked to the office and had gradually learned to love the homeless people he met, often taking them to breakfast and lending a listening, caring ear.
“I got really interested in who they were and how they got to where they were,” says Bradley.
He didn’t particularly want a mission to the homeless, but he knew God was asking him to fulfill a call.
After much prayer and Bible study, Bradley quit his job and started the Community Outreach Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the homeless become independent citizens.
At first the Bradleys live off their savings, but that became tough since they were raising less than $10,000 a year.
“There were times when I’d come home, and we probably had less food in our pantry than some of the people we were helping,” says Bradley.
Today, they have many financial backers, and the ministry continues to grow.
What is God calling you to do in order to help fulfill Jesus’ mission?
What is God calling East Ridge United Methodist Church to do?
There can be no doubt that it is scary to step out of our comfort zones, and start getting to know the people living in the most oppressive and impoverished conditions in our community.
But I believe that God calls us to be courageous!!!
John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”
Isn’t that what Jesus did on behalf of our salvation when He was praying to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane?
In Like Chapter 22 we are told that Jesus, “being in anguish…prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
What is God’s will for your life, for mine?
Does it scare you, intimidate you even?
Do you try and put it out of your mind?
The first words on Easter morning form the lips of our Resurrected and Reigning Lord were, “Do not be afraid.”
We often get it wrong, but faith is not an absence of fear.
Faith is feeling the fear and then acting on the promises and purpose of God anyway.
Faith is a positive response to God, in spite of those feelings and uncertainties to the call from heaven.
Faith is acting on God’s Word in spite of everything else!!!
Life really is a choice.
We choose our life situation.
God said in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”
And in order to experience life we must take risks.
We must trust Jesus!!!
Jesus stated, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
How are we serving Jesus by serving others, especially those on the margins of society in our city?
Will we not stand in courage and speak to evil in Jesus’ name, “Not on our watch!”
“Not on our watch will children in our community go without the knowledge that they are loved and are precious beyond measure!”
“Not on our watch will folks look at the church in this community, and think ‘What have they done for me lately?’”
God never intended Christians to sit around and wait for heaven.
Jesus calls us from complacency and places of comfort to go into all the world and make disciples.
And this calling is not just for professional clergy, but also for every person who responds to Jesus’ invitation.
Jesus is always moving ahead of the Church into the future.
Don’t look back.
God’s best days are before us.
God’s purpose is in front of us—never behind!!!
In Luke, after Jesus read from the Prophet Isaiah, we are told that “he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down…
…and he began by saying to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Let us pray.
