Gordon E. Ellis
February 26, 2006
LET’S NOT FORGET THE MISSION !
My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression of the 1930’s, as some of YOU did. And even though I didn’t experience it, I heard lots of STORIES about it. The Great Depression was TERRIBLE time, a SOUL-KILLING time, a time when MEN were without JOBS (and I say MEN because THAT was most of the workforce then). It was a time when FAMILIES were without INCOME, and FORECLOSURES were PLENTIFUL! I remember stories of MANY families had to just stand by HELPLESSLY as their farm equipment and furniture were being AUCTIONED off.
Well, DURING that dreadful time, SOME men RODE the RAILS, hitchhiking in BOXCARS, to try to find a BETTER place. They were called HOBOES! And WHEN they got to a new TOWN, they would KNOCK on people’s DOORS asking for FOOD. MANY, of course, turned them AWAY. OTHERS refused to answer the door. But, there were always SOME who OPENED their doors and gave them FOOD, water and maybe even a clean SHIRT. And I’m told that IF you were ONE of those people, who gave FOOD to the hoboes, they would MARK your FENCE, or your TREE, in order to tell their COMRADES: THIS is a FRIENDLY house! The people in THIS house will GIVE you something to EAT.
Well, I’d like to THINK that I would get one of those MARKS on MY fence, that I would be someone who would FEED the hungry. To ME, the mark on my fence would be a BADGE of HONOR. The PROBLEM, of course, is that a MARK like that would bring LOTS and LOTS of people to my door, looking for a HAND-OUT. And I SUSPECT that I would get pretty TIRED of it after awhile.
One of the things about being a BIG, VISIBLE church in the center of town is that we get LOTS of people coming HERE, asking for HELP and HAND-OUTS. And I work very HARD in my ministry to build NETWORKS with people and organizations, and to stay CONNECTED in the community. And I DO that so that we can HELP people in NEED. We’ve helped people get JOBS. We’ve helped people get MEDICAL attention. We’ve helped people fight ADDICTIONS. We’ve helped people find CARS and HOUSING. We’ve helped people pay BILLS. We’ve helped LOTS of people through the years! But a few years ago, we went through a period when DEMAND was just TOO high! It was taking WAY too much of my TIME, and I found myself getting VERY aggravated with it, and LESS than patient.
Well, I THOUGHT about that period of time as I read our Scripture Lesson for today. JESUS, here, has the SAME problem, only much BIGGER. You see: when people found out that Jesus could HEAL the sick, they came to Him in DROVES. And Jesus didn’t seem to MIND healing the SICK. In fact, I suspect He rather ENJOYED it! However, He had OTHER things to DO and NOT much TIME. HE was on a man on a MISSION! He just couldn’t SPEND all of His TIME healing the SICK and the BROKEN. And in our Scripture Lesson for TODAY, so MANY people have come to Jesus for HEALING that He HAS to get away, and He goes off ALONE to PRAY. And His disciples get UPSET with Him for LEAVING all those SICK people, and they try to get Him to RETURN to Capernaum and HELP the crowds. But JESUS will have NONE of it. He says: Let us go ON to the NEIGHBORING towns, so that I may proclaim the message THERE also; for THAT is what I came out to DO (Mark 1:38).
You see: Jesus has to set PRIORITIES! HE has important WORK to do, and the CROWDS are getting in the WAY! HE’S come to PREACH, but THEY just want to be HEALED. HE’S come to establish the KINGDOM, the sovereignty of GOD, but THEY care about LESSER things. And He feels His time slipping AWAY! And He NEEDS to be doing GOD’S business! So, He struggles!
Well, friends, it’s into THIS tension that the LEPER comes to Jesus, asking for HEALING. And we can certainly understand the LEPER’S point-of-view. This disease had just RUINED his life. It’s eating away at his body. He can no longer live in the community. He can’t support his family. And he can HARDLY beg enough FOOD to get him through the DAY. PLEASE, Jesus, HELP me! he says, IF you choose, you can HEAL me! I beg you, Jesus: GIVE me my LIFE back! And Mark says that Jesus was moved with PITY. Of COURSE, He was moved with PITY. Who WOULDN’T pity a LEPER? Lepers were called the living dead in those days. Lepers were FORCED to live out in the countryside, where they wouldn’t INFECT people. And pretty soon, they would just DIE, often ALONE. So of COURSE He was moved with PITY! HOWEVER, only SOME of the early Greek manuscripts of the gospel SAYS that Jesus was moved with PITY. OTHER very early manuscripts say that Jesus was ANGRY! WOW! What a DIFFERENCE! SO, WHICH one IS it? Is He moved to PITY here, OR, is He ANGRY?
Well, when scholars try to figure out ANSWERS to questions like this, THEY follow certain principles. And ONE principle is to FAVOR the more DIFFICULT reading. And the REASON for that is SIMPLE. They didn’t have MASS printing in those days, so EARLY manuscripts were copied by MONKS. And a monk copying a manuscript which said that Jesus was ANGRY at a LEPER might well be tempted to CHANGE it and to make it say that Jesus was moved with PITY, so that Jesus would be more LIKEABLE. But WHO would change it the OTHER way, from pity to ANGER? NO one! Well, IF you follow this PRINCIPLE, then perhaps Jesus WAS angry. ALSO in the original Greek are two OTHER angry-sounding words. BOTH of them come AFTER Jesus heals the leper. Mark tells us that Jesus sternly warned the leper NOT to SAY anything (v. 43). Well, in the original Greek, the word for sternly warned is an ANGRY word. And THEN, Mark tells us that Jesus sent him away (v. 43). Again, the GREEK word for sent him away is an ANGRY word, which means that Jesus DROVE the man out.
Therefore, the MORE I study this STORY, the MORE I think that Jesus IS angry here. After all, HE’S trying to do the WORK that He’s been SENT to do, but the CROWDS keep DISTRACTING Him. And when He FINALLY manages to ESCAPE the crowds, this LEPER shows up, BEGGING and PLEADING. And he’s such a PITIFUL creature! And while Jesus MUST be moved with PITY, He ALSO must be ANGRY, because He’s being DISTRACTED again. And while Jesus KNOWS that He could EASILY heal this guy, He ALSO knows that IF He DOES, the STORY is SURE to get around, and the CROWDS will become even MORE consuming. Yes, Jesus is ANGRY -- NOT at the LEPER, but at the SITUATION. On the ONE hand, He wants to HELP this poor guy. But on the OTHER hand, He wants to get ON with His MISSION. And He CAN’T do BOTH! He HAS to CHOOSE! So He’s TORN and FRUSTRATED! Well, of COURSE Jesus HEALS the man! And THEN He tells him to keep QUIET about it! RIGHT! Like THAT’S going to happen! Of COURSE, the leper goes out and tells EVERYONE! (CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE!) And it’s DEJA VU all over again, with crowds EVERYWHERE! And it must have been SO very FRUSTRATING for Jesus!
But WE in the CHURCH have the SAME problem TODAY! We NEED to be doing a thousand things, from FEEDING the hungry to creating lots of programs for people, to keeping up our FACILITY. BUT, even though ALL of these things are IMPORTANT, we CANNOT let them DISTRACT us from our PRIMARY task, which is the SAME task that JESUS had. After all: WE are His BODY! WE are to be HIS hands and HIS voice in OUR world today, DOING and SAYING what HE would DO and SAY if HE were here in the FLESH. And SO, HIS mission is OUR mission! And AS it says in verse 38, HIS mission is to PROCLAIM the message! HIS mission is to go out and PREACH the Good News. HIS mission is to go forth into ALL the world and MAKE disciples, and BAPTIZE and teach, just as He commissioned His FIRST disciples to DO at the end of the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 28:19-20)! And WE know that that’s OUR mission as well! In fact, ISN’T it the ONLY thing that WE really have to offer this world that nobody ELSE in our society HAS. LOTS of people and organizations feed the hungry and help the poor. LOTS of groups enjoy fellowshipping with one another! LOTS of organizations maintain BUILDINGS. But ONLY the CHURCH has the Good NEWS of Jesus Christ to proclaim. SO, we NEED to be DONG it. We even SAY that in our PURPOSE of the CHURCH statement! Let’s READ it together! It’s #A-16 in our Worship Books! Open it up!
A READING: The Purpose of Our Church
The purpose of the First Congregational Church of Southington is to:
You see: the PURPOSE of The First Congregational Church of Southington is to make MORE and BETTER disciples of Jesus Christ. Now, we TALK about our OTHER 3 purposes a LOT more than we talk about THIS one, but we NEED to talk about it, because THIS purpose, LIKE the others, needs to UNDERGIRD everything that we DO as a church. IF something we DO doesn’t somehow fit with at least ONE of these purposes, then WE shouldn’t be DOING it! It’s what we do when we PREACH! It’s what we do with our MUSIC! It’s what we DO when we bring our children for BAPTISM; when we partake of the Lord’s Supper together; when we TEACH our KIDS the great stories of the Bible; when we invite our NEIGHBORS to come to CHURCH with us; when we gather for a church PICNIC or DINNER; when we reach out to help our neighbors in NEED and DO it in the name of Jesus; AND when we take stands for JUSTICE and peace in our NATION and around the globe, and do THAT in the name of JESUS as well. Yes, AS we do EVERYTHING that we do, we NEED to be fulfilling THESE purposes. And ONE of them is proclaiming the GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ, so that WE can make MORE and better disciples!
But THAT’S not EASY, is it? It makes us feel UNCOMFORTABLE! At least it does ME! It’s MUCH easier just to get SO caught up in whatever we’re DOING, maybe even in doing good DEEDS that help LOTS of people, that we FORGET that one of our PRIMARY purposes is to PROCLAIM the Good News, and to make MORE and BETTER disciples. It’s MUCH easier just to DO the WORK and NOT talk about WHY we do it. In fact, I sometimes think that WE even forget ourselves WHY we do it. But, it’s IMPORTANT! I remember starting a CHILDREN’S sermon one day by saying to the kids: I will say a WORD, and I’d like YOU to respond by saying the FIRST word that comes into your mind. Are you ready? And the kids said, YES. SO, I said: Frog! And one little boy shouted out, JESUS! So I said: Johnny, WHY did you say JESUS when I said FROG? And Johnny said: Because I KNOW that you didn’t bring us UP here to talk about FROGS. And of course, little Johnny was RIGHT! Even as YOUNG as he was, he KNEW what the church is ABOUT. He KNEW that the preacher OUGHT to be talking about JESUS. He KNEW that the church’s PRIMARY responsibility is to TELL the story, to SHARE the Good News! But MOST of us are NOT comfortable with it, ARE we? It’s HARD when we live in a CULTURE where we’re DISCOURAGED from talking about our faith. You can’t DO it at WORK. You can’t DO it in SCHOOL. Some of the “IN your FACE” Christians have made EVANGELISM a BAD word these days. But STILL, we are CALLED to DO it. So the question is HOW do we DO it in a way that is NOT threatening to people, and that is NOT considered “in your FACE”, and that WORKS?
Well, I’d like to give you some HOMEWORK. I’d like you to HELP me STRUGGLE with this issue. I like to ASK you THINK about it, and PRAY about it, AND to TALK about it in your various groups, or at coffee hour, or WHEREVER you TALK with people from church. And TOGETHER, LET’S try to figure out some STEPS that we can TAKE to make OUR church more EFFECTIVE when it comes to fulfilling THIS part of our mission, when it comes to EVANGELISM, when it comes to PROCLAIMING the Good News of Jesus Christ in order to make MORE and BETTER disciples, and thereby, advance God’s REIGN of LOVE, peace and GRACE. Yes, please WORK on it, my friends, and let me KNOW what steps YOU come up with, because it’s an EXTREMELY important ISSUE for the church, both THIS church and the WIDER church. Let’s be CREATIVE! Amen.