Provoke One Another

You came here this morning, so I’m calling you out. Pastors are professional provokers. It’s in the job description. Don’t give in to the conforming staleness, judgmentalism, and bigotry of the age. Don’t give in to the materialism and cynicism or the isolationism. We are so pre-occupied with our own personal conveniences that we miss out on what makes for a purposeful and meaningful life: service. My job is to provoke you into provoking each other.

Being a provoker doesn’t mean you have to be a perfect person, it just means you have to be a person doing your best in the situations where you find yourself. Several years ago after a devastating California earthquake, the news camera panned a devastated neighborhood. Houses collapsed horribly in on themselves, downed power lines and people had that utterly shocked look on their faces. The camera happened to spy a woman standing in the rubble of what was once her house where only one ten foot section of an inner wall was left standing. The woman looked at the wall where a single picture hung and she went over to the picture and straightened it out. Stepped back and nodded. The reporter dashed over to her and asked her why she even bothered. She said, “I can’t do much about all of this, but right now I can clean up this teen foot section and straighten out this picture.” When others heard about what this woman did, they got provoked. Signs and banners were hung around the neighborhood: Ten Feet at a Time. Everyone had a place to begin their huge task—right where they were. Ten feet at a time. It was an inspiration for the whole neighborhood. She provoked others to keep trying to keep at it when otherwise they may have been overwhelmed by the job. Focus on what is in front of you.

We are simply called to be faithful in doing what we can do and you never know how it will provoke acts of love and good deeds out of someone else. Provoking can mean simply paying attention to the small things about the people who are around you. Bill Nichols, former General Minister and President of the Disciples of Christ once told about standing in the narthex of the church before worship getting ready to process into the sanctuary with the choir when a woman, disheveled and ragged looking entered the church. He had never seen her before, so he went over to introduce himself.

She didn’t chit-chat, but got straight to the point. She took out a bottle of prescription pills out of her pocket and explained that she had been awake all night trying to decide if there was a reason why she shouldn’t just swallow all the pills at once. She said, “I promised myself I would at least wait and go to church and see if there was a reason to change my mind.” With that, she spun on her heel, walked into the sanctuary and plopped down right in the middle of the sanctuary.

When Bill told this story, he was traumatized--life and death riding on a sermon. I know He thought through his sermon, and beat himself up for not having something better to offer. Although Bill wasn’t very proud of his sermon, in the end, the woman decided not to kill herself. Eventually she became a solid member of the church. But it wasn’t the sermon. Do you know what made the difference? It was how she was treated and welcomed by those who sat around her in worship. People within--you guessed it--ten feet, the people in the pew showed hospitality to her. They may have been struggling themselves, but they noticed her and treated her with compassion and dignity. They saw her and showed some interest in her and didn’t just ignore her, as they straightened their hymnals while she rolled the pill bottle between her hands. These were just ordinary folks with their own problems who may have even argued with their families on the way over to church that morning and continued their argument in the car on the way home—as if that ever happens. But what they did made a difference.