June 21, 2008
Centered on Jesus Matt. 10
G&P
When Michigan residents Christine Bouwkamp and Kyle Kramer got married in the spring of 2007, they held a wedding reception that was anything but traditional. Instead of hosting a formal dinner, they held a simple reception at their church where guests were invited to help distribute food to people in need.
In the weeks leading up to their wedding, Christine and Kyle had decided they wanted to begin their marriage with an act of service to Christ. With that goal in mind, they figured out how much money they would have spent on a more extravagant reception and instead used that money to purchase five thousand pounds of food for those in need. The week of the wedding, the couple spread the word that a truck with free food would be at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Immediately after they exchanged their vows, Bouwkamp and Kramer put on aprons marked "Bride" and "Groom" and joined their wedding guests in distributing food to 100 neighborhood families.
When asked about the charitable act, the happy couple simply said they wanted to "bless God for blessing us with each other."
Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky, and Brian Lowery, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; source: Anne Cetas, "Serving Together," Our Daily Bread (June 2008
A blessing. Imagine for a moment that this event was more common place. It is difficult, is it not. Because it goes agains the convention of the day. The Wedding day is the Brides day, it is about her. But not for this couple, they wanted all to know what their faith was all about.
This story echoes the text from Matt.
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’[b]
37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
What kind of world is Jesus painting for us this morning? The key to understanding what Jesus is teaching this morning is the word “Deny.” In the greek, it means a whole list of things:
Failure to claim completely Jesus Christ as your savior.
Failure to do justice for; the neighbor
Failure to acknowledge Jesus Christ in how one makes decisions in everyday life.
Failure of humanity in seeing Jesus Christ as the total Truth of God.
It is not just a matter of turning ones words around. It is a matter of where my life and your life are centered. It is not a matter of who we put first on our list. Or second. Or third.
Jesus wants us and teaches us to throw those kind of lists out. They are not helpful. Rather Jesus gets our attention by bringing family into the equation. Because in Jesus the family will be redefined. Those who follow Jesus will see their families with new eyes, they will see forgiveness work in restoring the relationship. They will see the neighbor as part of the family.
In Jesus, we will be able to love father and mother with the love of God, we will be able to love our sons and daughters with the love of God. We will be able to love our enemies with the love of God in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Totally turning the conventions of the way the world works upside down.
You see a bride and a groom putting on aprons to serve the poor the wedding feast. This compassion of Jesus touches us with faith to see and to live with Jesus at the center of our life.
But we are still human. We are pulled in many directions. We do forget.
We do leave that compassion of the crucified on the front seat of our car with the bulletin for the day. We go back into the world refreshed but also forgetful. Because we fall back into what we know best, to be the harassed and helpless sheep without a shepherd.
Why is this? Why is it that we forget this compassion of the crucified so easily? We get distracted. We see eggs going for almost $3 a dozen and we wonder where it is going to end. We see gas leapfrogging past $4 a gallon and wonder how we are going to balance the home finances. We hear of those making the laws in Washington taking kick backs and receiving special treatment on their mortgages that the average citizen could never dream possible. It is so easy for us to fall into the cynical life. It is so easy to live a life of blame and victim. Or play the role of politics today in which you do not seek to reconcile with ones enemy, but rather to destroy them by publically killing their character and family.
When this happens we grow a part, community is broken because when we are a victim and find blame in others, it becomes impossible to trust others, the very glue of a community.
When Beth Moore and her husband, Keith, spent time in war-torn Angola to draw attention to tens of thousands of malnourished people, they were changed forever. "I learned something in one of the rural villages that will mark my teaching and response to the Word of God,"
Beth says. "As we stood there, trying to absorb the sights and smells of living death, our new friend, Isak Pretorius, said, 'One of the most frustrating things is that in villages where they received seed, they often eat the seed rather than planting it and bringing forth the harvest.' I couldn't get the statement out of my mind and suddenly had an answer to the question I most often ask God: Why do some people see the results of the Word and others don't?"
Beth continues: "Why have many of us read books on forgiving people, known the teachings were true and right, cried over them, marked them up with highlighters, yet remain in our bitterness? Because we ate the seed instead of sowing it."
Beth Moore, Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent (LifeWay Press, 2007); submitted by Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky
But then we see a glimpse of the compassion of the crucified one in a wedding celebration in which we see not the Bride as center but rather the neighbor. We see neighbors rescuing neighbors from flooded houses in Austin, MN and Cedar Rapids Iowa. We see glimpses of the Compassion of the Crucified in the hands of those who reach out to an elderly neighbor and into a rescue boat. The seed is being sown.
For when we are touched by the Grace of Jesus Christ, we are changed, our eyes are opened to see the presence of God's Holy Spirit here and now. Bringing healing of the heart so that we can stay on the journey of grace. SO that we can continue to see others who need the hug of the crucified one and have their cynical heart healed.
This past week, we were at funeral in Moorhead for the father of a close friend. I did not know Jon's father, but I knew Jon. We go back 33 years in friendship. We set aside plans and we went, no question about what we were going to do. The service was one of celebration for this father had lived in the grace filled compassion of the crucified one.
The grandson got up to sing, “On Eagles Wings.” He had a tenor voice that soared like the eagles. He sang to this group of 30 some who had gathered at the funeral home for this service. As he sang, the emotion of losing his grandfather began to overcome him. The emotion was so great that he began to falter, tears welled up, his throat closed.
I felt for him. I started to sing the song in my heart, hoping that my feeble prayer would help him finish the song. A moment later he lifted up his hand as part of his singing and his voice stopped, and the community of believers who had gathered began to sing the song without missing a note. We had all been singing that song in our heart and on our lips for this grandson who loved his grandfather so much. We all sang the chorus and the verses from memory as the Holy Spirit moved in that place that afternoon. It was one of those moments in which you say, Wow, the Holy Spirit has moved us with the compassion of the Crucified One.
There were tears on all of our faces as we picked up this child of the crucified with the compassion of God in song and prayer. We were all touched. We were all filled.
Come and receive the grace filled compassion of the Crucified One, Jesus Christ.
Amen
Posted by phadland at June 21, 2008 10:35 PM