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Sunday, April 18, 2010
Being Different
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Luke 4: 18-19
18“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, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Being Different means to be comfortable in your own skin and also being comfortable with other people even when they are really different from you. Rather than continue to be just like others and fit in, something most of have been trying to do our whole life, we need to keep whittling away at ourselves to find our most unique and authentic self. The bowling shoes are a bit of a gag but they are intended to drive home a point. Are we willing to be ourselves at the cost of possible ridicule? And believe me, there WILL be ridicule today.
Can we be the self we were meant to be? The self God designed us to be.
This is what Jesus was doing when he made his pronouncement in the temple. Notice that it didn’t get much positive attention. That is often one of the things that keep us from being who we really are. It is ironic, the people that are comfortable being themselves and being different are the ones we end up most admiring – usually.
The next question is how comfortable are you with other people who aren’t like you? How often are you even around people who aren’t like you? We, as a society, tend to gravitate to like minded people. People that dress/act/look/smell and conduct themselves like we do.
The problem is that the Kingdom of God is not like that. Look at the bunch of 12 guys that Jesus had around him. They were Fishermen, Tax Collectors, and Zealots. Remember Tax Collectors worked for the Romans and were totally despised. Zealots on the other hand, wanted to overthrow Roman rule and would have wanted to kill anyone collaborating with them. This was awkward.
In addition to hanging out with this rag tag bunch, Jesus spent the rest of his time with drunks, prostitutes and other assorted sinners. Notice that we are not talking about REPENTED drunks, prostitutes and assorted sinners. None of these categories could be used to describe Jesus but he is still with them. He actually seemed to LIKE being with them. JESUS VALUED DIVERSITY. And when we want to be like Jesus, we need to value that as well.
Outreach – one of the good things about this passage is that we see what it is that God, through Jesus, values. One of things that God values is those who have had a tough road. The underdog, the oppressed, the ones society has kicked to the curb. That is the team God is on.
In his 2006 National Prayer Breakfast, Bono tells that he used to pray that he always seek the Lord’s blessing in his work. Finally he says a wise man said, “Stop.” The man said to him, “Stop asking God to bless what you are doing. Get involved with what God is doing – because it’s already blessed.” And I have to tell you, what God is doing is being with the poor. God is with the poor in the slums of Calcutta, and the dying in Africa. God is with the underfed in Sudan and the people of war torn Darfur. God is right there with them and if we want to be where God is we need to find the poor and take a seat right there in their midst.
Sadly, we don’t have to go half way around the world to be with the poor. They are right in our own backyard. They are in the soup kitchen that Sara Miles works at in San Francisco. In her book, Jesus Freak, she talks about the idea of fair and unfair when dealing with the poor. I have had to deal with that myself down in Civic Center Park. There are pastors from other churches who go down to the park and serve on other days and one day one of them wrote me an email and said that occasionally someone would ask for a second lunch for “their friend or wife” and he felt like he was being taken advantage of. He asked me what I do in that situation. I told him I just give them the second lunch because of something I read in Sara’s book. In her book, she talks about the inscribed message on St. Gregory’s altar. It says, “Did not the Lord dine with publicans and harlots? Therefore, make no distinction between worthy and unworthy: all must be equal in your eyes to love and to serve.” She goes on to say “it was impossible to be taken advantage of as long as you were giving something away without condition. If it’s trade, then it’s fair or unfair,” she said, “but if I’m going to give it to you anyway, no matter what you do, then you can’t take advantage of me.”
When we let God do the judging and we do the loving, that means that, on occasion, not just the homeless, but the occasional junkie, and even the occasional drug dealer just might get a sandwich. When we love as Jesus loved, we don’t have to decide who deserves food.
AfterHours and St. Andrew has handed out over 1500 lunches in the last seven months and over 1200 pairs of new socks. This is not because the shelters and agencies aren’t doing a good job. They are overwhelmed. In fact, about half of the guys I come in contact with in the park are staying in the shelters already. But the shelters are stretched to the limit. Even if we filled every bed in the city, there would still be thousands left with no place to go.
We know we aren’t the only game in town. In fact there are lots of things that we can’t do. We don’t have the resources. But what we have now is the trust of these men and women. And with that trust, we tell them they can go to St. Francis Center to get a mailing address and that DenUM will help them get id’s. We hand out flyers with our lunches that list every place in the city where they can find food and on what days. But despite all that, I think what we give people in that park is dignity. In the same way that Jesus told “sinners” they were okay in the eyes of God, that is by allowing “sinners” to eat at his table, we remind people that God has not forgotten about them and that they shouldn’t forget about God. By feeding their stomachs AND their souls we ARE bringing good news to the poor. A poor that is very different from you and me.
Some of you might be feeling like you are being called to help the poor in a step beyond writing a check. Make no mistake, writing a check is great, please do. But there is a feeling you get when you go out to serve. It is a sense that this is how the Kingdom of God is brought to “earth as it is in heaven.” We know that we don’t earn our way into heaven, but at the same time, we also know that when we fully recognize the gifts we have been given, we can’t help but want to serve. James tells us in his first chapter, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (1:22)
There is SO much need and you don’t have to go half way around the world. In Mike Slaughter’s book, Change the World, he lays out some of the statistics: 3.9 million people sixty-five and older are living in poverty and there are 13.3 million under the age of eighteen living in poverty. In total, 37.3 million Americans are living in poverty. And these are numbers from 2007!
Some of the worst pain in this country didn’t happen overnight. It slowly, painfully slipped lower and lower. It happened in my hometown of Detroit.
Detroit might have fared better had it actually had an overnight disaster of some kind. Then it would have been dramatic and the world would have heard its cries. Unemployment is staggering. How staggering? A recent TIME magazine article about Detroit said three years after Katrina, the unemployment rate in New Orleans hit a peak of 11%. Today Detroit’s unemployment rate is 28.9%. If Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor….I have just the place. And I’m going.
This summer, June 27th through July 3rd, St. Andrew is going to a place that is about as different from Highlands Ranch as you can find in this country and we are going to show what it looks like when you live the Gospel. We have 13 people signed up and room for a few more. We wanted to take 20 but I told Jeri Dwyer to find out how many we could take. We can take up to 30. I think by the time this day is done, we will have our 30 AND a waiting list. I believe there are people in this room right now feeling a tug on their heart to go out and serve these least and last of our nation. And make no mistake, this nation has given up on Detroit. But God has not. We will be going in and planting urban gardens, cleaning up homes and working in soup kitchens. This is what it looks like to bring good news to the poor and if it’s not good news to the poor, it’s not the gospel. We will be staying at Metropolitan UMC which, in the 1930’s, was the largest Methodist Church in the world with 7,200 members. That’s not the case today. Most of the people have gone, but God has not…and we are going to prove it.
Do know this is not the normal thing to do. This is not the status quo thing to do. Some would say this is not even the most logical thing to do. While some of you might be feeling a tug on your heart, others of you are thinking, preacher, you’re crazy! This might not be normal or status quo or even the most logical but since when has following Christ been the logical thing to do? Think about our beliefs. Jesus is both human and divine? Save your life by losing it? Sell everything you have and give it to the poor? Not the best marketing plan and yet this is who we are.
This is what it looks like to be out in the world.
This is what it looks like to do the work of Jesus Christ.
This is what it looks like to be different.
Welcome to being different.