Is there a lawyer in the house? Somebody who can give me a little legal advice? I need to know what the statute of limitations is on destruction of church property. Can somebody tell me, is it possible to prosecute fifteen years after the crime? And especially, is it possible to prosecute a pastor for destruction of church property? Because, if it is, I’d better not preach this sermon!
Well, assuming that even if a certain pastor could be sued after fifteen years, provided we knew who that was, we will ask for immunity in order to bear witness. That’s commonly done, isn’t it? Immunity in order to hear the testimony of a witness? And today I want to give a witness. So as Marc Rich said when he bumped into Bill Clinton, "Pardon me."
Almost fifteen years ago I began my work here as pastor. One of the first things I did was to take a tour of the entire building. I had been in the sanctuary, the offices, and a few other rooms, but had never been upstairs. I have to tell you that after that tour I came down, sat in the office, put my head in my hands, and said to the Lord, "What have You done to me?" The place was a mess. It was a shambles. Now it was clean enough. Frank Jackson saw to that. And it was in relatively good repair - our Building and Grounds Committee had worked on that. But it was the housekeeping in the individual classrooms that got to me. Books and papers and chalk and scissors and crayons and Bibles and everything, scattered and shoved everywhere. Not the kind of thing a janitor would touch, because he had no way of knowing what was important to those who used the rooms. Not the kind of thing a Building and Grounds Committee could work on either. It was the responsibility of those who used the rooms. And the rooms were a mess.
Sunday School literature eight, ten, twelve years old, long since out of date. Bibles with their backs torn off, crayons worn down to a nub, pencils with no points, scissors with no points, classrooms with no point to them! I nearly wept. I felt it said something about a church that was sick and demoralized. I knew it spoke to me about the task that faced me. What was I going to do to lead a church in this condition?
Now at that point I had some choices, didn’t I? I could have chosen to scold all the teachers and force them to clean up. I could have told Mr. Jackson to sweep it out, sweep it all out, and let everybody scream at him. Still another choice, and one I must admit I have thought of many times, would have been first to check the insurance policy and then to buy a can of gasoline and torch the place. A little over the top, maybe, but effective.
Well, I did none of those things. I went for another solution. I chose another strategy. I chose to clean it up myself. I would pick up the trash, I would straighten up the shelves, I would throw out the broken down furniture, I would discard the obsolete literature. Nobody else can throw away like I can throw away. I will clean this place up.
And more than that, I thought, I will do it in such a way that they won’t see me doing it. If somebody sees me, he’ll ask by what authority I am doing this. If a deacon sees me, she’ll say that isn’t in my job description. If a financial officer sees me, he’ll remind me that it costs money to buy new junk to replace the old junk. So I will do this cleanup thing alone, by myself.
I went to work. I filled trash can after trash can. I gathered up old, older, and oldest, and got rid of it. Why, in one room, there was a collection of maybe fifty bulletins of the Sunday services from 1965. Who needed twenty-year-old Sunday bulletins? Out they went. Everything went.
And then I looked at some of the furniture. What shaky, rickety, filthy furniture some of it was! So I decided I ought to get rid not only of paper and clutter, but also of worn-out, useless furniture. I decided to start with one big old cabinet. I chose it because its glass doors were broken, its shelves were collapsing, its back was cracked, and three of its four wheels were missing. It was clearly a candidate for the wrecking yard. A little large for one person to move, but hey, my strength was as the strength of ten because my heart was pure. And so I tugged this mess out into the hall and shoved it down to the stairwell. Hmm. Now this is going to be a bit of a challenge, but I can do this. If I just tilt it and let it slide, gently, gently, down the steps, I can do this.
I got it down to the first landing. I made the turn. I got it down to the second landing. I started another turn, for that final descent. That big old cabinet, top-heavy, tilted to the side. It fell over, it got away from me, it took a slice out of my ankle, it slammed into the wall at the end of the stairwell, and it shattered into a thousand pieces of glass and wood.
Now, how much trouble am I in? Or can I finish the sermon?!
I cleaned up that mess, and so far as I know, there may be another fifteen years of books, bulletins, broken furniture, and mess upstairs. Because I haven’t returned to the scene of that crime, nor have I done anything more about it. I played out on that task. Absolutely played out. Gave it up. Quit. Played out.
Why? What was going on? I saw a need and jumped in to do something about it. Nothing wrong with that. But what was wrong? What were my mistakes? There were at least three mistakes: First, I got my priorities wrong; second, I sought out no partners; and third, I did what I did without power. The issues are priorities, partners, and power. And because I got those wrong, I played out. I didn’t complete the job. I played out.
The question then is, when you tackle what you have to do, have you dealt with priorities, partners, and power? If you haven’t, you will play out. You won’t make it. You will play out.
I
When Jesus had finished a series of healings, He set out on a trip around the towns and villages of Galilee. He went to see the people as they really lived. He wanted to discover what their real needs were. It’s one thing, as we have discovered in our family life ministry planning, to read statistics about divorce and child abuse and all the rest. It’s another thing to be among people for whom it is happening. So Jesus went where the people were, and began to respond to their needs. He healed, He taught, He preached, and He did something else too. In addition to all His doing, the Scripture says that "when He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them." Jesus, as He saw how people lived, and as He began to work among them, developed concern and compassion for them.
People say to me sometimes, "Pastor, you tell me I ought to get involved in the church and its work, but I don’t feel any particular calling. Nothing really just reaches out and grabs me. And until I feel that the Lord wants me to do something, it wouldn’t be right for me to do it." Well, that sounds good, but it misses something. It misses the truth that sometimes you will not feel anything until you do get involved. Get involved with one case of need and it will create in you a deeper concern for other needs. Get involved in feeding one hungry man, and you will feel compassion for all who are hungry. Pray at the bedside of one sick person, whether you feel like going or not, and you will deepen your compassion for all who are sick. Jesus just went out to meet needs, and let that feeling of compassion grow and grow.
But there is another side to the issue, and that is that some of us just do without ever getting the compassion part. Some of us just are busy being busy and we lose the human side, the compassion side, because when you are busy being busy it is not really about others, it’s about you. It’s not really about serving others in need, it’s about feeling secure. So what some of us do, when we see a need, is to jump in with both feet and trample all over it and make it our project, thank you very much. And it’s really about ourselves. It’s not really about service born out of compassion. It’s about making ourselves feel good.
I had a supervisor once who said he wanted his workers to be the kind of active people around whom a little cloud of dust hovered even while they were sitting in their chairs. I loved that. I could do that. I can do busy. Don’t we just love it when others say, "Oh, you’re so busy, you do so many good things." When they say that, we cast our eyes down modestly and we say, "Oh, it was nothing, nothing really." But of course what we want is for them to reply, "Oh yes it was, it was tremendous, I know you must be exhausted, you poor dear." And that makes us feel so good. But what we’ve done we’ve done for ourselves. And we think that’s what justifies our existence, we think that pays the rent for the space we take up on this planet. Being busy about something, anything. It’s about our own insecurity.
A minister friend of mine told me that he had noticed that he felt fulfilled only when he had done something tangible. He would spend his day at his desk, and as he wrote letters and prepared other documents, he would stack them over on the side of his desk. At the end of the day, he would lean back and look at the height of that stack of paper. The more inches of paper, the better he felt about himself. The more paper produced, the more accomplished he felt. But in order to do that, he had shunted people away and had turned .a deaf ear to their needs. My friend was getting things done ... busy, busy, busy. But it was all about making himself feel fulfilled. And there was no compassion in it. The priorities were wrong.
But as Jesus worked, and saw the people, His priorities were in order. His compassion arose. He didn’t think, "What a chance for me to make a name for myself!” He thought, "These people need help." He didn’t fall into the trap of thinking about what He felt, how He looked, and whether they would applaud Him. His only priority was compassion born out of seeing the needs of others. What could be done to help those who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd?
It’s not the mere doing that is the priority. It is doing out of compassion for others. Pushing cabinets down the steps can wait; people cannot.
II
Jesus’ next instinct, however, is even more important. His next move is even more critical. Not only did He let His compassion for others’ needs take priority, but now His instinctive response was to call for prayer, and to pray for partners in labor. Jesus turned to His disciples and said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest"
If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing with partners. If anything is worth doing, it is worth sharing with others. It’s not only that many burdens, like that grungy old cabinet, are too great for us to carry alone. It’s also that when we work alone, we are sending the message that we don’t trust others and we don’t trust God.
The task of the church is not just to "do church". We are about a whole lot more than budgets, buildings, and busy-ness. The task of the church is to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples who make disciples, in an endless and ever-widening stream. Our task is to grow people, not just to do things.
And so it wasn’t just that Jesus was saying, "I can’t do this job alone, it’s too big for me." It was that He knew that others needed to be involved in Kingdom business. He knew that God has a plan for every life. And there is no greater calling than calling others out for Kingdom business.
And not only calling them out, praying them out. Asking God’s guidance for others. Praying others into partnership, praying them out of the woodwork, praying them off the sidelines, praying them into the action. If you are not prayed out, you will eventually play out. You will get tired. But if you have been prayed out into action, you will never be played out.
Only this week I attempted to get involved in someone’s life at a point of need. I worked long and hard at it. I contacted, I called, I visited, I did all I knew to do to resolve that person’s situation. But to no avail. Nothing worked. But after a couple of days I got smart. I asked some folks to pray about that need. Some of us asked the Lord to intervene and make a difference. The very next morning one of our members who had heard about this situation called me and said, "I want to go. I want to try to make a difference." And I want you to know that later that day this brother phoned me again and said, "I got through. I was able to work with the person, I was able to make a difference." Now do you know, there was a time when I would have secretly resented that? There was a time when, although my mouth would have said, "Congratulations", my heart would have said, "I should have done that. That was my job. I’m the pastor around here."
But I have learned one or two things as I stay around this globe. And one of the things I have learned is that when I insist on doing all by my lonesome, it suggests to others that they aren’t worth anything. It tells them I don’t trust them. And worse, it says that I do not trust God to call out from His people those who are anointed for given tasks. If I do not call you out for Kingdom service, it means I don’t trust you, and that’s bad enough; but if I do not even pray you out for Kingdom work, that’s even worse, because it means I don’t trust God. We need partners for our own spiritual health as well as for theirs.
Someone said to me one day, "You are trying to do the work of ten people. Wouldn’t it be better to get ten people to do the work?" That stung a little bit. But it’s true. The best work any of us will ever do is the work of leading others, not just to ease our own burdens, and not even just to get more work done. But because leading others sends them a message that they are valued, trusted. And doing as Jesus did, praying out partners tells them that we trust God. Remember, if partners are prayed out, they will not be played out.
III
So the issues are first, priorities, and second, partners. And then the issue is power. Power. The confidence born out of knowing that you are in the will of God. If you have not set priorities about what you do in accord with compassion; if you are unwilling to seek partners in what you do; then you will inevitably tire of it all, and play out. But if you pray and seek the will of God about where you invest your energies, you will be able to work with authority, with confidence, and with power.
Jesus asked His disciples to pray for more laborers for the harvest. They did. And what happened? They themselves went on mission, doing what Jesus did, and with authority. "He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.”
It’s often said that you’d better be careful what you pray for, because you might just get it. I’ll extend that one more notch. You’d better be careful what you pray for, because God may answer your prayers through you. Jesus asked His disciples to pray the Lord of the harvest, that more laborers might be sent, and guess who ended up going? Guess who ended up being sent? The very ones who did the praying!
When God puts a burden on your heart, and you pray about it, likely He will call you to be a part of the answer to the problem. When James and Peter and John and Matthew and Simon and all the rest began to pray about the countless thousands of hurting people out there, little did they dream that they would be the ones to answer God’s call for more laborers. And even less did they dream that they would be able to do what Jesus had done, working with authority and effectively healing the diseased and the hurting. But prayer makes it all possible.
Without the power of God, every task, however small, is too difficult; without the power of God, every burden, however light, is too heavy. Without the power and the presence of a God who answers prayer, every one who undertakes Kingdom tasks will play out. But if you are prayed out, you will never be played out.
Today I pray, and invite you to do so as well, for new laborers for the harvest that is all around us. We in this community are surrounded, as Jesus was, by harassed, hurting, and helpless people. I pray out a new colleague in ministry, not just to maintain what we are already doing, nor to take any load off of myself or anyone else, but to lead us to growth. Let us pray her out, or else she will eventually be played out.
I pray out today resources for a full-scale family life ministry. I pray, and invite you to pray, about the challenges of intervening in the brokenness of the homes in our community. I pray out today the dollars we must commit, the facilities we must use, the energies and the brainpower we must expend, and the partnerships we must forge. If we do not do this, if we do not pray this out, our family life ministry may start bravely, but it will soon be played out.
I pray out today the people to lead new and deepened ventures in the life of our church. I pray out new teachers to begin new discipleship classes. I pray out new leaders to deepen our work with children and with youth. I pray out, and invite you to pray out, musicians and artists, dramatists and poets, to claim the arts for Christ. I pray out, and invite you to pray out, planners and dreamers, architects and builders, so that our facilities might serve us better.
I pray out today every ounce of commitment, every fiber of our energy, so that, seeing the needs around us and feeling compassion for them, we might be partners, fully and completely partners, praying ourselves straight into mission. If we fail at this, if we do not set ourselves to be a praying church, then all our efforts will come to naught. There will be no power. We have but one choice: either to be played out or to be prayed out.
I was in another church building this week. It was more like what I had in mind fifteen years ago when I shoved a cabinet down the steps. This building I visited was beautiful, immaculate. The pews shone with wax. The carpets gleamed, with no hint of dirt in them. The rooms were neat as pins, with nothing out of place, nothing tossed aside. A lovely church building. A neat freak’s heaven
But it’s lovely because it’s nearly empty. It’s neat because there is almost no one around. There is no clutter in the children’s classrooms because there are no longer any children. There is no mess in the youth room because there are no longer any youth. The pews look good because only thirty or thirty-five people sit in them on Sunday mornings. Someone told me the story behind this church. It seems that a number of years ago one person - one person - was made trustee for life. She holds a veto over everything. If she does it, it gets done. If she doesn’t want it, it doesn’t happen.
In that church, you see, priorities got lost. Compassion got lost. It was buried under church politics. In that church, partnership died. Partnership died a victim to Mrs. Do-it-all-myself. And not only did priorities and partnership die; power also died. Power died an agonizing death. For if we are not prayed out into priorities, partnerships, and power, we will be played out.
We got some new tables delivered this week. I helped one of our men put them inside the door. But that’s as far as I’m going.
