The Spoken Word

When we start reading about Jesus’ adult life in the Gospels we read that he was baptized, tempted in the wilderness, and then “filled with the power of the Holy Spirit” returned to Galilee to begin his public ministry. When he came to Nazareth, the town where he grew up, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath as he always had done. He stood up to read from the Isaiah scroll that was handed to him. After unrolling the scroll, he began to read –

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

The he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And then the gospel of Luke tells us that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him”.

When I first read these words my eyes were fixed on Jesus for the first time, and these words struck me as quite odd. How could it be that Jesus’ gospel was foremost about bringing good news to the poor, and I had been a Christian all my life and could never remember a time when I ever had shared good news with the poor, or even shared anything with a poor person. This bothered me and made me uncomfortable. At that time the 19 or 20 some years I had spent in church I had learned that church was simply the place where one goes to learn and be guided on how to be a well-mannered, well-dressed, and moral person so that we could all get into heaven when we died. When I started to actually read my Bible, especially the Gospels, my idea of church and being a Christian unraveled.

I realized that Jesus consistently talked about a “kingdom of God” and that he himself was homeless. I realized that he chose to hang out with immoral people – such as tax collectors, prostitutes and even murderers and that religious people gave him a hard time for doing so. I realized that it was the people who considered themselves religious that Jesus was particularly harsh with and he felt at home with the people we would consider to be the gravest of sinners (which is quite backwards from us Christians today).

- and I have come to realize that one of the essential truths about Jesus was that he came to bring comfort to the uncomfortable and to warn the comfortable of the dangers of their lifestyle. This Jesus and this gospel that I was reading was backwards from everything that I knew to be true.

Recently a fellow youth pastor once told me how disappointed he was that several of his students chose football or band over weekly church activities. I gently reminded him that if the church was doing its job it would not be trying to bring more people within its walls, but send more and more people out into the world equipped to model with their lives the good news of Jesus. We have put so much effort into taming the beauty, mystery, and danger of being a Jesus follower that its as if when we make the conscious decision to be a follower of Jesus we are handed a box to remind us that we are never allowed to think or act outside of it again because there’s too much risk involved.

I’m here to remind you that there is risk involved. And if you have spent more time in a church pew than serving the poor and the hurting then you are too comfortable and you have not risked much. It’s so strange to me that we can worship a homeless man on Sunday but ignore the homeless Monday – Saturday. We must all take a deeper look into who Jesus was and if we’re willing to follow his call to help the broken not just as individuals, but as the body of Christ. And the essential question we must ask ourselves is – Did Jesus mean what he said?

The first time I started seriously asking myself this question back in 2006 I had taken some middle school students on a winter retreat. On the way home we routinely stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s that was off the highway. I happened to notice as we were ordering that there was man sitting by himself eating a single hamburger. And this seemed so strange to me that a grown man would not have more to eat than one single burger. So, I asked him how his day was going, and he replied “not so good”. I seized the opportunity to start up a conversation with him. He pointed over my shoulder across the street and told me that he went to worship at the church across the street earlier that morning. He stayed all morning and went to 3 services. In between each service he ate donuts and had coffee and enjoyed having conversations with everyone. He told them that he was homeless and he slept under the highway overpass last night. He was really hoping to get a ride to the next town over to where the homeless shelter was and he asked many people for a ride or any help but no one was willing. At this point I couldn’t help but notice how red his face was. When I asked him about it he said that that the wind was so strong and cold last night under the bridge that he was badly wind burnt. He said that the worst part though – was all of the people talking to each other in the fellowship hall and listening to his story and acting caring they all began to make lunch plans together right in front of him. No one was willing to help in any way. No one was even willing to invite him to lunch. I had a blanket in the church bus I went and got for him and gave it to him. I ordered him some more McDonald’s and talked with him a bit more as my students stared at us. He could not understand why the church would not help those in need. My heart was broken. I told him I could not understand either.
We parted ways and I watched him walk back towards the bridge. One of my students remarked – “we’ve got these old donuts in the bus from when we first left that nobody wants – do you think he wants them?” I knew I had failed my students – if they thought that a homeless man would be appreciative of their trash – I had not taught them the value that Jesus has for every person on this earth.

Jesus showed the valueless of society that they were truly loved and had immeasurable worth to God the father. Jesus showed the broken that they were loved by listening to them, feeding them, throwing parties for them, and by touching them. Think about the some of the outcast in Jesus’ day. There are people who had a debilitating skin disease called leprosy. People were not even allowed to go near someone with leprosy – but then we have Jesus who is not only willing to talk with them but actually willing to physically touch them. He loved the unlovable and touched the untouchable.
In our culture today who are the people on the periphery that need the most love? Prisoners, forgotten veterans, and the homeless. How can it be that our churches, people carrying on the actions and teachings of Jesus Christ are not willing to physically stand beside them, spend time with them, and share our lives with them. It’s as if we – the church do not even have faith in Jesus. Remember what Jesus tells us in Luke chapter 6 vs 46-49 – He says why do you call me Lord Lord and do not do what I tell you? I will show what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house. You see, the foundation of the faith set before us by Jesus is simple. It’s not memorizing creeds, or saying certain prayers, it’s not about what you wear on Sunday morning, let alone even where you are on most Sunday mornings. It’s simply about acting on Jesus’ words. When you hear Jesus’ words and create a lifestyle out of them, out of loving your enemies, and your neighbors, out of seeking out and helping the hurting, then you have laid your foundation on rock, and it is well built. Do we even have faith in Jesus? Or do we listen to the parables and stories and think – man, that dude did some awesome things, but no way I’m doing that. You’ve got to. If we’re going to call ourselves Christians our lives have got to start looking like Jesus.

Paul knew this. When Paul was writing to the Philippian church he reminds them to “live their lives worthy of gospel of Christ… standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.” Paul is speaking directly to problem that we face as Christian’s today. Is one defined as a Christian because of what they believe or how they live? For the Israelites, for Jesus, for Paul, there is no disconnection between how one lives and what they believe. But it is quite evident that we have a disconnect with this today. We have a comfortable church because we have pews of people who believe all the right things but few who’s lives show it.

This idea is expressed greatly in the book of James – we read to be “doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, ongoing away, immediately forget what they were like.”

So what does this look like? How can we start looking like Jesus, and taking seriously what he said?

Christians seem to have 2 ways of doing this. The first camp goes out into the world and shares the good news of Jesus Christ by holding up signs or handing out pamphlets that remind people that they are going to Hell unless they repent. The second camp of people is very active within their church walls and will try their best to show the love of Jesus to people by trying their hardest to hold activities and programs at the church that we hope attract people.

I am telling you – I truly believe that if you want to share the love of Jesus with someone and for them to really take you seriously – you cannot hand someone a pamphlet that asks them if they know where they’re going when they die. You cannot hand someone a funky colored bible, that albeit free, you’ve got to have a magnifying glass to read it and expect them to experience the love and grace of Jesus. Even inviting someone to church is not the equivalent to sharing Jesus’ love with someone. We don’t see Jesus in the gospels going around inviting everyone to attend Shabbat at the local synagogue with he and his disciples. Jesus and his disciples went out into their world and showed the hurting they were loved. And here’s how we do this – we spend time with them. It’s really as simple as that – you want to show someone that they are important to you, then you spend time with them and you are consistent in their lives.

I have been on a journey with the students of Leo UMC in working together to try and figure out what it means to live this Jesus way of life. We truly want to live out what we believe so we started a little ministry called the Revolution of Hope. And it started out with us the first couple years going around to extremely random places in Fort Wayne and handing out free Starbucks and doing other little random acts of kindness. But this past year, we believe that our hearts were prepared to take this to the next level and actually sought out the homeless in Fort Wayne. So, we started hanging out in the parking lot of the rescue mission before the men’s curfew and brought with us items that we knew would help us be able to interact with people – like clothes, food, water, coffee, and socks. And as a group of about 25 we would walk amongst the men and ask them if they needed anything. But, in the process we would ask them their names, how long they’ve been at the mission, what their future plans were. In that process we would hear stories of prison, being in Vietnam, illness and health care costs, lost jobs, broken marriages, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and attempted suicides. We would see ragged pictures from wallets of families that once were so happy. And we knew – from then on that it was our responsibility as Christians to just sit and listen to the stories of brokenness and actually care. And when we would show up week after week to spend time with the homeless it was almost as if we were throwing a party every week – talking sports and throwing a football around – sharing jokes and having good laughs. And yes, at their prompting, talking about Jesus and why a group of teenagers, parents, and their naive leader were out hanging out with homeless men on school nights. Eventually, the men started trusting us enough to tell us where they lived when they were not able to stay at the mission and they invited us to come and spend time with them. So we did – under bridges and in homemade tents in vacant lots, under stair steps of busy buildings, and under trees. We knew week after week exactly where to find our friends.

One man we know – named Drew we found out was had a birthday coming up. So we got him a card and a cake. We went to go visit him and found him sleeping in his home. We ended up slipping the cake and card next to him. A couple weeks later we found out that Drew was bragging all over town that he had got for the first time in his life a birthday cake with his name on it. And – that this was the first birthday in many years that he did not spend in jail. Drew felt blessed. We found out this summer that Drew is attempting to be sober, after decades of heavy drinking. I am not willing to stand before you all and say that it is because of our group or other groups sharing our time with him that has caused him to attempt soberness, but I am willing to say that Jesus can use a group of students to change lives through the power of his love if they are willing to live lives worthy of the gospel.

Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 14 that they will always have the poor with them. He was not telling them that poverty is a lost cause and that they shouldn’t care too much about poor people. He was reminding them that if they are truly following Jesus that in their lives they will choose to have the poor amongst them always.

They were not to be people who believed in the doctrine of “cheap grace”. Deitrich Bonhoeffer referred to cheap grace as grace that does not cost you anything. However, he reminds his readers that true followers of Jesus embrace costly grace. When we embrace the unwavering love of Jesus Christ is costs us our lives and especially our comfort. If you want to spend time with homeless, you’re gonna get smoke blown in your face and probably beer spilled on you at some point. But you’re also going to find out that many of the homeless are just like you or your family and that’s not comfortable.

So I encourage you – if you are a person who identifies yourself as a Christian. If you are a church who identifies itself as Christian, then be like Jesus. Do not adhere to a system of beliefs, but rather a way of life that shows the world you truly believe. Find out in your community who the forgotten and hurting are. And go to them. Be sent out as apostles and run to them with arms wide open. Do not judge them, because they’ll see the plank of wood sticking out your eye, but rather love them and they’ll see your heart radiating with the love of Jesus Christ. Do not expect or hope that you’ll come up with some clever way for them to come to you. Go to them. Whether its a nursing home, a veteran’s home, a homeless shelter, an orphanage. Start a garden here at your church and take fresh fruits and vegetables to people who can only afford processed food full of preservatives. Hand out water cold water to construction workers on a hot day. Do something. Do something with your faith – show the world that your faith is built on solid rock. Bring people worth and value and love.

Bonhoeffer wrote that the “response of the disciple is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus”. Being a Christian is not about believing the right things remember that even the demons and Satan believe, its about acting on our beliefs and creating a lifestyle from our beliefs. Listen to James 2.14-19.

And its not so much about John 3.16, but more about 1 john 3.16 –

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action, and by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that –

Does your way of life reflect that you believe Jesus meant what he said? Is the way you live your life good news for the poor?