INTRODUCTION:
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times” These famous lines open Dickens’ classic novel A Tale of Two Cities. All of human history is summed up in those lines. Throughout history there have always been births and funerals. There have been terrible plagues and miraculous cures, heroic sacrifices and barbaric cruelty.
Every year we see evidence of mankind’s nobility and mankind’s depravity. Every year we see evidence of nature’s majesty and nature’s brutality. Just this last week, we saw news reports on the unprecedented Tsunamis that devastated thousands of miles of coastland. We’ve heard amazing stories of miraculous escapes. And we’ve seen the terrible grief of thousands who lost their loved ones. Last year we could surely say, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” And you can be sure it will be the best and worst of times in 2005.
Does that also hold true for the condition of the church here in the USA? Is it the best of times or the worst of times for American churches? It seems that in terms of sheer numbers, the Christian community in America is having good times.
· A recent poll indicates that over 75 million American adults classify themselves as Evangelical Christians (Just as a basis of comparison, the same poll listed about 8 million Jews, 5 million Mormons, and less than 2 million Muslims.)
· Of the 75 million Evangelical Christians, about 65 million attend church every week.
· About 40 million say that they engage in regular personal Bible reading
· And about 35 million attend weekly small-group Bible studies.
In some ways it may be the best of times. But other trends indicate the worst of times.
· For one thing, Church attendance has been on the decline for more than 4 decades in America. The most dramatic period of decline was in the 90’s where the trend among adults in their 30’s and 40’s declined by more than 15 million in a five year period.
· In spite of the work of groups such as Promise Keepers, only 28% of adult men attend church compared with 46% of women; and men are far less likely to read the Bible, pray, or become involved in the church.
· In the early ‘90’s 53% of church-attendees were non- Christians (what we today would call “seekers”); more recently, that figure has dropped to 38%. The change is not due to conversions. It means non-Christians have simply stopped coming to church. Many seekers have stopped seeking at church!
C.B. Hogue (who is one of the foremost experts on missions) recently said, “The center for world evangelism has moved away from America. We expect the next great awakening to occur in Africa or perhaps South America. Without some sweeping changes it won’t happen in America.”
So is 2005 the best of times or the worst of times for our church? The truth is, it doesn’t really matter, because it is the ONLY time we have. This is OUR time. And if we want to build the Kingdom of God in our time, we have no time to waste.
Like us, Jesus lived in the best of times and the worst of times. The Jewish people enjoyed a certain amount of religious freedom under the rule of Rome. But it was a time when the Jewish leaders were desperately trying to maintain their distinction as God’s Chosen People.
And it was in this time that Jesus boldly challenged all their rules about who was welcome in the Kingdom of God. You see, Jesus had accepted an invitation to have dinner at the home of a tax collector. And the religious leaders saw this as completely unacceptable.
Look again at our Text in Matthew 9: 10-11 10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
Before you get too impatient with the Pharisees, think how you might react in a similar circumstance. Suppose you were walking by a Sports Bar and you look through the window to see someone with the religious status of … let’s say … Billy Graham. Then you notice he’s at a table with a crooked politician and a shady business man who was recently indicted for fraud. Across the table are a few of notorious gang members and a couple of prostitutes. Billy Graham is not thumping his Bible and preaching at them, either. In fact, he’s leaning back in his chair looking relaxed. He’s smiling, talking and even laughing. In fact, for all appearance, he seems to enjoy spending time with those no-good scoundrels.
That’s how it looked to the Pharisees. For Jesus to associate with outcasts and people of ill repute made it look like God Himself was interested in the riff-raff of society. Which is exactly the point.
The Pharisees asked why Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners, and Jesus gave this answer in Matthew 9:12-13. 12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
And that brings us to a question for our own times. What should our congregation be … not at its center where we all feel comfortable … but at the edges where we touch the community around us? How should we as Christians respond to the non-Christian people all around us? I think what Jesus says here is plain. Our Church should be like a Clinic on the Corner --- a free-of-charge, Health Clinic, where all walk-ins-are-welcome.
1. The Case
Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Matthew 9:12 It’s obvious that this is how Jesus wants us to view the CASES that walk by our church door.
Imagine walking into a Medical Clinic with a nasty infected cut on your arm. The doctor takes one look and says, “Ick! Get that gross thing away from me! Don’t you know better than to slice your own arm up? How long has it been festering like that, anyway? P-U it stinks! Go sit way … way … over there, and – uh – maybe someone can do something for you later… Then he walks off to his nice clean office muttering. What’s going on with people now days? It seems like everyone that comes in here is sick or wounded!
Unfortunately, that’s how some of us react when we see the wounded people all around us. Let’s face it; Society today is different than it was when a lot of us were growing up. It used to be that most people shared a kind of “Judeo-Christian” heritage. Whether Christian or not, most people had a basic agreement about moral standards. That is no longer true. It’s not that most people in our society have rejected Christian values. Many of them don’t even understand what Christian Values are.
So let me give all of us a little reminder. Sinners tend to sin. And sin always gets ugly. It messes people up. So stop and think a minute: how do you view the people around you who don’t share your values, tastes, and opinions? Do you feel irritated: “They ought to know better!” Do you go a step further and get angry? Or do you go even further than that and condemn them?
Jesus did not see the people around him as evil and disgusting. Instead, he saw them as weak, sick, and in need of care. And Jesus described the CURE when he told the Pharisees: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” Matthew 9:13
2. The Cure
The Pharisees were committed “churchgoers.” But “Church-i-ness” will never impress the Lord. You see, when Jesus talked about sacrifice, he was referring to their religious traditions and ceremonies. We can paraphrase Matthew 9:13 this way, “Until you can look at all people with mercy and compassion, your church attendance and worship are meaningless to me.” In other words, Jesus was saying that sick people need Treatment not Tradition
If you’ve ever been in the hospital, you know that you will be constantly interrupted for treatments. You’ve just drifted off to sleep when the lights blare on and some nurse wants to test this or get you to swallow that --- or sit you up or stick you with something.
But imagine a Hospital where they just go though motions. They turn the lights on and wake you 3 times a night without fail. But they don’t give you any treatment. You ask why they keep waking you up, and they say, Hey, it’s just our Tradition. We’ve done it that way for so long that no one actually remembers why…
That’s the way church can become if we’re not careful. We sit and stand and sing and bow our heads --- we smile and greet and say “Amen” ---all at the proper times. But no one remembers why. It’s just the way we “do church.” Actually, it’s possible for the church to become its own god, worshipping its own ways, refusing to make any changes, or even to examine why it does what it does.
The sad truth is that the church is perceived as being irrelevant to the lives of many Americans. To some it seems the church is living in the past rather than reaching out to the realities of the present.
· Today’s reality is that many American families are fatigued and stressed with both parents working long hours away from home.
· Family tensions and financial difficulties are on the rise.
· Many people have suffered through a divorce. And among the divorced, there’s a feeling that they must always be second-class citizens in the Church.
· Many children are growing up apart from one or both parents, through no fault of their own.
· Young people are growing up in a society where “tolerance” means there is no absolute truth. People set their own standards of right or wrong.
· And even though “Boomers and Busters” often feel a need for God, they are not drawn to Church if it seems stiff and stuffy.
John Ortberg wrote a book called The Life You’ve Always Wanted where he described this conversation:
Someone once asked me whether I thought that the church where I worked might be worldly.
“What do you mean by ‘worldly’?” I asked him.
“Well, you use drama, and people are used to that in the world. And you play contemporary music just like they’re used to hearing. So how will they know you’re any different? Everybody knows that as Christians we’re supposed to be different from people in the world by being more loving and more gentle. --- And everyone knows that we’re not. --- So don’t we have to do something to show we’re different?”
John Ortberg concluded this way: In other words, if we can’t be holy, shouldn’t we at least be weird? (p.39)
Jesus tells us that the world is sick, and in need of Mercy, not a bunch of “churchy” traditions. The people around us need our Compassion, not our Condemnation. As a church, I hope we will show the mercy of Jesus Christ to each other, and to everyone God sends our way.
But we can do more than that. Jesus did not just sit back and wait for the lost to come his way. He gave them an invitation. Look at his last statement in Matthew 9:13: “For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
3. The Call
It is very difficult for those who are on the outside of the church to believe that God loves them when we who are inside the church don’t even like them. We need to remind ourselves every day that God loves the outsiders. Romans 5:8 reminds us that all of us were outsiders until someone told us about Jesus. It says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Like Jesus, we can issue a call to everyone who cares to listen. Our testimony is this: “Come with me to the Clinic on the Corner. I want you to meet the Great Physician. He healed me and he will heal you, too.”
And then we need to have the patience to wait while the Great Physician does His healing work. A couple of weeks ago I heard a testimony on the Focus on the Family radio program. The testimony was given by a woman who had come out of a Lesbian lifestyle. I think her story illustrates what the church should be.
One Sunday, this young woman got the urge to go to church. Since she’d grown up as a Presbyterian, she chose a Presbyterian congregation nearby. When she and her partner walked in the church door she realized she’d made a big mistake. The church was full of gray hair, blue hair, or no hair. It was a small congregation of mostly elderly people with a few middle-aged couples sprinkled in. She and her partner stood out like two sore thumbs.
But that congregation greeted her with such warmth and acceptance that she was drawn to come back again and again. She was invited to potluck dinners. She was urged to join a small group Bible study. And eventually she accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior.
Through her Bible study she came to see her lifestyle as harmful and as sinful. But she did not leave the Lesbian life right away. She said the congregation was unfailingly patient with her as --- over and over --- she took two steps forward and one step back. Her little church family waited and let the Great Physician do His careful work. Gradually, gently, and with great Mercy, Jesus healed and transformed her --- from the inside out.
You see, a church does not have to be “cutting-edge.” It doesn’t have to be a huge Megga-church or have perfect professional programs in order to accomplish the work of God. The church simply needs to give Mercy and Compassion to those who are in need of healing.
CONCLUSION:
I hope that in 2005, our congregation will make a commitment to put Mercy above Tradition. I hope every one of us will view the people around us with compassion and lead them to the Great Physician. I hope we will have the patience with each other to allow Jesus to work in each life and bring us into perfect health and wholeness.
Let’s take a fresh look at OUR time and see the good and bad with clear eyes. We can rejoice in the good. We can take lessons from the bad. The times may require us to make changes. The times may give us new opportunities to show mercy to a world in desperate need of the Great Physician. Let’s be that Clinic on the Corner where Jesus Christ can do his miraculous healing work.
