Community Church Sermons
June 15, 2008
Pentecost
5
Matthew 10:1-8
Listen To This Sermon
Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Drive out demons.
No one ever told me, in 12-year old Conformation Class, that THAT is my job as a Christian!
In my church, growing up, we had pretty much reduced those provocative and powerful instructions of Jesus – “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and drive out demons” – to “go to church, use your pledge envelopes, and keep your nose clean!”
Somewhere between Jesus and the Church – between Jesus’ time and our time – the instruction manual got changed!
Let me ask you: How many of you “go to church, use your pledge envelopes, and keep your nose clean – well, pretty much keep your nose clean”?
And how many of you “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and drive out demons”?
See what I mean?
Things have changed. And I wonder why that is? After all, most of us would rather have adventure in our lives than boredom. I know that when I go to the movies, I almost NEVER go to a movie about going to church, using pledge envelopes and keeping my nose clean. Do you? I’ll bet that, like me, you’d rather go see the latest “Indiana Jones” flick which – when you think about it – is all about things like healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and driving out demons – along with a lot of explosions, violence and special effects.
Oh, give us some adventure and excitement! We are wired for ACTION!
But when it comes to faith, something changes, and suddenly we become the most boring people who ever lived!
Go to church. Use your pledge envelopes. Keep your nose clean.
And we can add to that list other scintillating things like “don’t sit in someone else’s pew,” “don’t be too friendly,” “don’t think for yourself, especially if it goes against the grain of popular opinion,” and “whatever you do, don’t clap or tap your toe.”
Not much adventure in any of that unless it is the joy of passing it on to others as expressed in this great hymn, sung to the tune of “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad”:
“I want a church
just like the church that I was brought up in!
Oh, I loved it so,
good ol’ status quo, where action was a sin!
A good old
fashioned church with – FELLOWSHIP!
The Easter crowds
we had would make you sick!
Oh, I want a
church just like the church that I was brought up in!”
Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Drive out demons.
That’s not exactly like the church I was brought up in!
Why do you suppose we Christians hide from the adventure of faith that reaches to the highest purposes in life, and choose instead a religion of essential meaninglessness?
I wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with self-doubt.
When I read this passage of scripture where Jesus sends out the disciples, I find myself thinking, “Well, look at who Jesus is talking to. Peter. Andrew. James. John. Philip. Bartholomew…the twelve APOSTLES! These are the great heroes of our faith who learned from the Master Himself! This is the All-Star Team of Christianity! Of course they are called to great things like healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons! They are the proud, the few, the APOSTLES! And I’m – well, I’m just ME.”
And honestly, I have a hard enough time just going to church, using my pledge envelopes, keeping my nose clean, and holding back from tapping my toe to a peppy tune!
Is Jesus just talking to a select few?
No.
When I ask myself why Matthew included the names of the apostles in this passage, I begin to realize that he could just as easily have left them out. He could have simply written that Jesus told the apostles to go and heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and drive out demons. He could have left the names out. But he didn’t. In fact, he even included the name of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. There must have been a REASON Matthew listed their names.
Perhaps it was to show us that the calling of Christ is made to PEOPLE, not categories. And the twelve PEOPLE listed here are some of the most ordinary, flawed, weak human beings ever to come down the pike. They walk with Jesus for three years before they can even confess that he is the Christ – and then, only one of them does. They constantly complain that they do not understand Jesus’ teachings and why he does the things he does. They doubt. They argue about which of them is Jesus’ favorite. And at the end of the journey, when Jesus is arrested, they all run away. This is not any “A-Team.” If anything, this is the “XYZ-Team.”
And Matthew, in citing the names of these ordinary human people, invites us to insert our own names alongside theirs. Simon. Andrew. James. John. Philip. Bartholomew. Thomas. Matthew the tax collector. James the son of Alphaeus. Simon the Zealot. Judas Iscariot. Add your name here.
You may have noticed in the sermon title that I’ve included the name Martin. That’s for my dad, on Father’s Day. If ever there was a frail, faulty, human being, it was my dad, Martin.
He was born and raised in a small town in western Massachusetts, and had a pretty rough upbringing in a difficult home situation. Although they say my dad was a gifted athlete as a boy, he never got a chance to play competitive athletics because he had to go to work at a young age to help support his family. Then came World War II and at 18-years of age my father found himself on the islands of Guam and Okinawa fighting for his country. After the war, he married his high school sweetheart, and they had three children – my older sister Karen, younger brother Steve, and me. Dad got a degree in accounting and built a pretty successful career. But he battled some personal demons, not the least of which was a very volatile anger.
When we children came along, my dad’s long-frustrated athletic prowess found an outlet. He became our coach, and even after we had grown up and left home, he continued coaching. He was good at it – very good. He taught sound fundamentals, and would work long hours with kids to help develop their skills. I remember how he spent great amounts of time with me out on the street in front of our house trying to teach me how to throw a curveball. And finally, I did it! I threw a ball that actually curved – right through the windshield of his car! But he was okay with that because after all, the ball curved!
My dad was extremely competitive. He hated losing. And his anger did not serve him well with referees and umpires. I think he holds the record for being thrown out of more games in more sports than anyone who ever lived.
He was not especially religious, although my dad had a faith – the “go to church, use your pledge envelopes, and keep your nose clean” kind of faith we’ve been talking about today. But all that changed one weekend when a Faith At Work Conference was held at our church. I don’t know exactly what happened, except to say that God’s grace caught up with my dad. Jesus became real to him. And his life began to change.
Now, when he erupted on a ballfield and got thrown out of a game, he’d call the umpire up later that night and apologize! Now, when his team was safely ahead, he wouldn’t squeeze bunt in another run just to intimidate the other team. But he still loved to win and hated to lose.
Then one Fall, a young 15-year old named David – the star pitcher on my dad’s team – suffered a terrible accident. He and some friends tried to hop onto a moving train, and David missed. His leg was severed just above the ankle.
My dad visited David in the hospital, but what do you say to a 15-year old whose life has been changed like that? So my dad told David about God, and shared some inspirational books, and held out hope. But David wasn’t swallowing any of it. “Yeah, I have a future,” he said, “but I’ll never pitch again.” My dad didn’t know what to say, except what popped into his head. “David,” he said, “when you’ve got your artificial foot and have had rehabilitation so that you feel okay about it, you put on your uniform and come to the field. You’re still my number one pitcher.”
Days, weeks and months went by. A new baseball season came. My dad’s team – as usual – was battling for first place. He was in his glory. And then on the night of the most important game of all, David came limping across the parking lot. He had his glove. He was wearing his uniform. The other kids ran out to greet him with great joy. My dad, on the other hand, looked pale, like he had just seen a ghost. What was he going to do with David considering the importance of this game?
He and David looked at each other. And then my dad reached into the ball bag and pulled out the game ball. “Go warm up,” he said.
Those of you who know about baseball realize that strong legs are the key to pitching. David’s legs weren’t really strong enough at that point to support his ability, and so things didn’t go very well. I think the other team scored 500 runs. Or at least it seemed so by the pained look on my father’s face. I was home from college that weekend, and I could see all that competitive juice stirring up inside my dad. Several times, he looked over at the relief pitchers on the bench. But he fought back the impulse to take David out of the game.
And so they lost.
But from the look on David’s face, he’d won something far more important than a ballgame.
And my dad? Well, from the point of view of his son, the day my father lost was the day my father truly won.
Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Drive out demons.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a sick person healed, or a dead person raised, or a leper cleansed, or demons driven out of a person, but I’ll tell you what – I saw it all that day in the life of that little 15-year old boy.
All it takes is ordinary people willing to take a chance on Jesus. And wherever and whenever you encounter someone in whose life there is brokenness, death, ostracism, or the pain of some evil force – you refuse to reduce this faith to going to church, using your pledge envelopes, and keeping your nose clean – and take up instead a daring faith that heals the sick, raises the dead, cleanses lepers and drives out demons in the best ordinary human ways we can - with God’s grace providing the power – then you’ll see that Jesus is indeed the Savior, and that your name is written there in that scripture passage too…
…Simon, Andrew, James, John…Martin…YOU!…
Go heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and drive out demons.
Happy Father’s Day, dad.