Those of you who were in my Vacation Bible School class know what happened – the class was supposed to run from 7:15 until 9:00 each night. At 8:57, what did I say? Something like: I know you have to go, but there are just a couple more points I want to make. And so, at a few minutes after 9, with kids clamoring at the door, the air conditioning no longer cooling, yawns intruding on your faces, every night I said, “Well, I guess we’ll have to stop. I’m out of time.”
These long-winded preachers, who feel they have to say everything three times! Why do we seem to think that the world could be saved if we just had a few more minutes of pious palaver?! In the “Beetle Bailey” comic strip this week, the chaplain is about to begin his sermon, and he says, “Today my sermon will be short and sweet”. From his congregation arises a huge, “Hallelujah”! In the second panel a chastened chaplain asks, “Was that for ‘short’ or for ‘sweet’?” Some of us like to talk and keep on talking; others seem to have trouble with that.
With fear and trembling, I bring you today to a funny story in the New Testament. Funny, that is, unless you are Eutychus, who fell asleep while Paul was preaching, dropped out of the window, and knocked himself out! I am tempted to call this message, “Why the Youth Should Not Sit in the Balcony”. But you no doubt would rather call it, “What’s Wrong with Long Sermons.” I’ll make you a deal – if you will promise not to go to sleep, I will promise to stop preaching somewhere short of midnight! Do we have a deal?
We all have lots of funny stories about people falling asleep in worship services. My favorite is about the usher who woke up when he heard music playing. He assumed it was time to receive the offering, and so he marched down front with his offering plate, only to learn that it was the invitation hymn. When he figured out his mistake, he said to the pastor, “Well, I’ve already been baptized, I’m already a church member, I’m too old to surrender for the ministry, so I guess I’ll just collect a special offering.” A special offering -- I like that!
Falling asleep in a worship service may be funny. Falling down and suffering a fatal accident is not so funny. And falling out of life, falling away from God, falling into hell itself – none of that is funny in the least. That’s tragic. That’s serious. But that’s what happens with myriads of people. They fall asleep, they die, they are lost, they are forgotten.
The good news for today is that Jesus Christ, through our arms, can embrace the fallen and can give them new life. That’s the good news. And the even better news is that you and I can receive the power to give new life through intimate partnership with the Lord Himself.
A military commander shouts, “Present arms”. By that he means, “Get your weapons into combat position.” Our great captain, Jesus Christ, also calls, “Present arms”. He means, “Get ready to embrace the fallen; get ready to embrace for life.”
I
Do you realize how many people are counted among the fallen? Our city, our neighborhood, even our own homes are filled with the walking wounded. All around us are men and women who are spiritually dead. I am thinking of several kinds of people.
a
I am thinking of those in destructive lifestyles – drug addicts, alcoholics; prostitutes and pimps; the vagrant and the violent. If you imagine that you are living in some little idyllic corner of the world, where nothing damaging ever takes place, then I don’t know where that spot is, but it isn’t Takoma. This is a community in which there are the fallen. They have fallen by destructive lifestyles.
b
But there are other fallen comrades as well. There are those whose lives are falling apart because of emotional issues. Those whose anger is unmanageable and who feel death in their souls because anger has lashed out and poisoned significant relationships. Or those whose critical spirit leads them always to see the failures of others and never to acknowledge their own shortcomings. Or those whose anxieties get the upper hand and who never seem to be able to get on top of their own lives. They seem dead, these whose emotional lives are so negative. No life, no vitality, nothing but fear or hostility. They live without hope. Just an endless drudgery of day after gloomy day, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Many are fallen, like the young man in the Bible story, dropped out long before they even had time to mature. They are lost and without hope in the world.
c
The Bible has a key word for people like this. It speaks of them as lost. Lost people are fallen from God; they are fallen from meaning. Lost people are fallen from joy, fallen from hope.
And the Bible also describes the cause very succinctly. The cause is sin. Sin is that willful turning away from God and His love. Sin is that powerful desire to do our own thing. But it does not lead where we think it will lead. It does not lead to happiness. It leads to lostness. Sin does not lead to success; it leads us to fall and to die. When you go to sleep and fail to hear God’s word addressing your life, you will fall and you will die. Many have done so. Many others are in the process. Be alert to your own spiritual condition! Some of us are on the edge of the windowsill, about to go to sleep, about to fall. Be alert!
II
Now I do think it’s worth noting that some people are among the fallen not just because of their own willful choice. Some are there because of the actions of well meaning but self-centered Christians. Some people are among the fallen not only because they have chosen ways of life or emotional patterns that are destructive, but also because they have been marginalized by well meaning but insensitive, self-centered Christians.
a
Why was Eutychus, this young man, sitting in the window, high above and apart from everybody else? Obviously, we don’t really know. But it is tempting to wonder if he felt marginalized. Was he made to feel welcome only on the outer edge? Can you imagine the adults in the church there in Troas deciding that young people don’t matter? “These kids, they don’t need to be in the center of things!” Is it possible that somebody had been less than welcoming to young Eutychus, so that he nursed his pain by sitting in a far corner? I don’t really care where somebody sits – whether it’s balcony or back pews or in the parlor – but I do care what that means to them. God forbid that we as a church should ever, in any way, send to the edges our young people!
Present arms! Embrace young people for their life’s sake. My friend John Roberts, who serves as a pastor in Baltimore, likes to tell about what someone did for him when his church first began doing children’s moments in worship. John says that he would stand up straight in front of the children, proper as proper could be, and would give them their Bible lesson for the day and then send them on their way. After a few weeks one of the ladies of the church caught him and said, “Pastor, I need to tell you something you obviously do not know. Guess what? If you touch children, they will not break!”
Touch the children; embrace the youth. They need to be at the focus of what we are about. They need to influence how we spend our money, how we staff our church, how we reconstruct our properties.
For consider: counted among the fallen are young people who have been sent to the edges by our insensitivity. Oh, God, forgive!
b
And then there are those fallen, largely because Christians loved hearing themselves talk more than they loved listening to the heart-cries of others. There are those, like poor Eutychus, fallen because somebody was so in love with his own oratory that he never took the time to listen. Nobody ever spent quality time, one-on-one, ferreting out the real heart.
Someone said to me once, “I don’t see why churches need evangelism programs. If somebody wants to go to church, there are churches on every corner.” Yes, there are. Eight hundred and more in the District of Columbia alone. But that’s not the point. Every church is preaching, but who is listening?
I heard yesterday about a Church of England vicar who hopes to set a world record this weekend; he intends to preach for thirty-six hours, non-stop. Whether there is anybody in his congregation seems to be beside the point. He just wants to be in the Guinness Book of Records for soporific sermonizing.
Everybody is preaching. But who is listening? Who is sensitive to those whose hearts cry out with wordless voices? Who cares about that widow in a lonely room? Who is accessible to that young couple whose marriage is hurting? Who stops to find out what is behind the tears of that child? God forgive us when we are so enamored of the sounds of our own voices that we push off the edge those who need to be heard.
When I was trained in counseling, they taught me simply to listen and to ask questions. My professors insisted that I resist, at all costs, that urge to approach every subject with an open mouth. Men and women, when, like Paul, we go motor mouth and just hammer away at people, without taking the time to find out who they are, we will deaden their nerves, we will bore them to tears, and worse – we will encourage them to fall. We will help the lost stay lost.
People are fallen and lost not only because of their own sin; they are also fallen and lost because of our insensitivity. We have pushed them to the edge.
III
Nonetheless, I have good news this morning. I have good news. The good news is that, flawed though we are, we can embrace others. We can embrace them for life. We can embrace them for salvation. “Present arms” – is the call of Jesus Christ, our great captain. “Present arms” to lift up the fallen and to embrace them for life.
Our text gives us the picture of Paul, no doubt a little chagrined that his wordy sermon had put somebody to sleep – but reaching out his arms and lifting up Eutychus. Paul, in faith, prays for this young sleepyhead, and gives him back his life. Presenting arms, he lifted up the fallen and embraced him for life. We can do this too, even though we make the same mistakes Paul made.
Think back to the first time you meet Paul in the Bible; think back to the first time you heard about anything Paul did with his arms. At the end of the 7th chapter of Acts, Stephen is being put to death at the hands of an angry mob. And off to the side stands Saul of Tarsus, holding their garments while they wind up to throw their stones. Saul of Tarsus, later known as Paul, shows up the first time we see him as one whose arms are engaged in the unsavory business of playing, “Let’s you and him fight”. Holding their cloaks while they killed a man. What arms those were! Profoundly committed to death!
But now look at them! Arms that reach down and lift up the fallen and give life! Arms that embrace rather than destroy. Arms that instead of enabling the agents of death transfer the power of life! What a change! What a difference! Imagine: the same arms that once shared in everything wrong, everything destructive, everything against Christ – now those same arms embrace with love a young man who needs life. Now those same arms lift up somebody who needs help. Now the arms that once were folded in stern defiance of the truth reach out and care. Those same arms tenderly care for one of God’s children. Those same arms!
Friends, if God can transform the death-dealing arms of Saul into the life-embracing arms of Paul, He can do it for you and for me. If God can take the one whose intent was to do nothing but damage and can make him into His chief apostle, there is hope for you and me too.
Do not tell me that your arms are too busy, with too much stuff to do; God is able to empower you. God will empower you to carry a child, to lift up a broken heart, to embrace a lost and desperate soul. God is able. “What He’s done for others, He’ll do for you.” We can embrace others for life. “Present arms”!
For when you teach, when you witness, when you comfort a neighbor, when you simply hug a child or stop to listen to someone’s pain – do not cut it off, saying, “I’m not comfortable doing this.” Do not sell yourself short, supposing that you have no skill for witness or for ministry. You do have what it takes! If Jesus Christ has entered into your life, and if you allow Him to work through you, you have what you need. If God can transform devious, heartless, sinister, scheming Saul into life-giving Paul; if God can change arms that crush into arms that embrace, He can do it again. “Present arms.” Embrace someone for life!
IV
In fact, today we are about to be in touch, once again, with the source of that transforming strength. We are about to share, once again, in something that will empower us to reach out in love and to give this gift of life. We are about to come to the Lord’s Table. At the Lord’s Table, we will renew our strength, we will revive our resolve, and we will empower our embrace. Listen to this clue in our text,
“On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread …”
When those early Christians met on the first day of the week to break bread, it was not just to have something to eat. They came for the Lord’s Table. It was not just about food for the body, fried chicken and grits; it was about food for the spirit. Paul’s power came from intimate fellowship with the living Lord. Paul’s power came from this table, this bread, this cup. It was from being at a place like this that he was able to “present arms” and embrace Eutychus for life.
“On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread …”
At this Table we know, each time we come, of the power of other arms. We know of arms that reached out for us and drew us in. At this Table we respond to arms that reach out for young people and touch them, “Let the little children come to me.” At this Table we know of arms lifted to calm the troubled waters, “Peace, be still”. At this Table we know of one who told a matchless story of a prodigal son and a waiting father, a father who, when he saw his lost son a great way off, ran to meet him and threw his arms around his son and loved him. That’s the one we meet at this Table – the one who loves us unconditionally, the one who hurries toward us, loves us home and then throws a party for us and celebrates, flinging His arms in the dance of delight! That’s the one we see at this Table.
And most of all, at this Table we know the one whose arms were outstretched one day, outstretched in pain. Arms flung out, wild and high against an eastern sky, arms nailed to a cross. Arms spread by the cruelty of sinful, fallen men, yes; but, more than that, arms spread because God loves us that much. If you ask a little child how much he loves his mother, and you say, “This much?” holding your hands close together, he will say, “No, this much”, and his arms will spread as wide as they can go. That’s the way God loves us; with His arms spread upon a cross embracing every lost and fallen soul that ever was or will be. His universe-creating, star-flinging, earth-shaping, waters-forming arms. And when we see that we are folded into the arms of a loving God, we can do whatever needs to be done in His name.
“On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread … Paul took [Eutychus] in his arms, and said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.”
Come to this Table, prepare to “present arms”. By the power of His arms, embrace for life.
