Community Church Sermons
Year B
May 10, 2009
Fifth
Sunday of Easter
John 15:1-8
Acts 8:26-40
Rev. Martin C. Singley, III
We want to wish you all a happy Mothers Day! This is the day when – in our church - we honor all the women in our lives – mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends – and give thanks to God for creating us in a divine image that is inclusive of gender. Remember how the Bible tells us that God, at the dawn of creation, decided to make human beings in the divine image, and so God created us – female and male. Had it been any other way, we would not be here today!
So happy Mothers Day!
I’ve shared with you from time to time about my mother, but I’ve been thinking these past few days about Sandy’s mother. Her name was Eva. Sandy and her sister Gail were Eva’s late-in-life children, born into her second marriage when she was well into her forties, and into a family of older siblings from both her and Jim Angell’s earlier lives. When Sandy was about 12-years old, Eva suffered a massive stroke that left her paralyzed on the left side. In those days, the importance of rehabilitation was not well understood and so Eva never regained the use of that side of her body. Without assistance, she could not move about, and so, when Jim Angell left for work in the morning, and the girls went off to school, Eva was left to sit in her chair at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and looking out the window.
That image of Eva sitting at the table sticks with me even after all these years - for a couple of reasons. One is a funny memory. Eva had been raised Catholic, but when she married Jim Angell became a Congregationalist. This fact greatly distressed one of Eva’s sisters who was convinced that Eva’s stroke was God’s punishment for leaving the fold. And so this sister used to light candles for her, and send her mass cards, and even bring over little bottles of Holy Water for Eva to rub on her left side in hopes of being healed…and leading her back to the Church.
Well, when Eva started asking her sister for more Holy Water all the time, the sister thought that it might be working – that Eva might be coming home to Catholicism! There was hope! But what the sister didn’t know is what Eva was really using all that Holy Water for. You see, as Eva sat at the kitchen table every day, smoking cigarettes and looking out the window, she would once in awhile drop her lit cigarette into the waste basket beside her! And a fire would start! So Eva did the only thing she could do! She grabbed that bottle of Holy Water and…poured it on the flames! Eva went through a LOT of Holy Water as she sat there at the kitchen table!
And that image of Eva at the table brings back another memory – of Sunday dinners at the Angell house. Jim Angell did all the cooking, and he was a GREAT cook! And after church, the family started arriving – sons, daughters, grandchildren, boyfriends, girlfriends, complete strangers – and around that kitchen table where Eva sat, everyone was welcome – everyone found a place – and everyone was embraced in the gracious love of Eva Angell.
Someone recently asked me why we are starting the Tellico Joe Café.
Can you figure it out from the story I just told you?
The Christian Church was never intended to be a shrine – a place people go to for the purpose of performing some obligation of worship. No, Jesus intended the Church to be something like Eva Angell’s kitchen table – a loving gathering place where everyone is welcomed, everyone belongs, and where people are nurtured in the grace of Jesus Christ. It is no mistake that the central sacrament of our faith is a Communion table – representing Jesus welcoming his followers to the Passover Meal, an ancient Jewish tradition where families gather and strangers are included around the table. It is no mistake that the 23rd Psalm tells us that when life gets rough for us, our Good Shepherd prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies.
The Church is not to be thought of so much as a sanctuary, but as a dinner table – a gathering place where people become friends, where strangers are welcomed, and from which grace is extended out into the world.
And that’s the purpose of Tellico Joe.
Here is an opportunity for us to get to know each other better, to develop new friendships, and to welcome newcomers into a fellowship where they will be cared for and find a place to belong.
A short while ago, one of our new members shared about her first experience coming to our church. Her husband wasn’t here yet, so she came to church alone. She sat in one of the back pews – which, you know, is where visitors most often sit – and was greeted by a woman sitting in the same row who nodded to her and said, “Hello.” Well, the service started and it was a nice experience. But what happened after that made it really special. The woman who had greeted her came over and said, “You know, I love to shop. Do you like shopping? I’m going shopping on Wednesday. Would you like to come?” And she did!
But then, there are other stories about visitors who came to our church and no one spoke to them, no one welcomed them, no one invited them to the “kitchen table”, so to speak. And they never came back. Now, our church is not for everyone. But no one should ever come here and not be welcomed.
So we’re putting together this new hospitality ministry, and developing a team of people who know the importance of Christian friendship. And we’re creating the Tellico Joe Café so you’ll have a “kitchen table” to invite visitors to where they can get to know you, and you can get to know them.
And together, we can reach out to others who are outside the little box of our church.
In today’s reading from Acts 8, we meet a Christian man named Philip. This is not the same Philip who was one of the twelve disciples, but one of the seven people chosen in the early days of the Church to serve as deacons – making sure that widows and orphans and strangers were fed and taken care of. Philip seems to have known the power of the “kitchen table” as a place where people meet Christ, and become a community of friends, and from which people go to reach out to others with the love of Jesus Christ.
One day, Philip heard a whisper in his heart. He described it later as an angel speaking to him. The angel said, “Philip, go down south to the desert road that runs between Jerusalem and Gaza.” So Philip went.
Well, along comes this chariot, and in it is an Ethiopian guy! The voice whispers again to Philip, “Run up alongside that chariot and stay close to it.” So Philip starts running. He catches up to the chariot. I like to picture him running alongside it like that old funny song about the Cadillac and the little Nash Rambler! Remember? Beep-beep!
Well, Philip hears the Ethiopian guy reading. And Philip recognizes that what he is reading is the book of Isaiah. So Philip says, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” The Ethiopian says he does not – how can he understand it unless someone explains it to him? Philip says, “Well stop your chariot and I’ll explain!” So the Ethiopian man puts on the brakes and Philip climbs up into the chariot and – once he catches his breath - explains to this Ethiopian how Isaiah was predicting the coming of a Messiah to save the world. And he shares about his own experience with Jesus and how he now knows that Jesus was the one Isaiah was speaking about. And then he tells the man all about God’s love for him that was demonstrated in Christ’s death, and the hope of the resurrection, and how accepting that love and hope for yourself and the world can change your whole life. And that Ethiopian man tells Philip that he wants to receive God’s grace right then and there and be baptized into the family of Jesus Christ.
And so another human being is welcomed to the “kitchen table” of the Lord.
Yes, Tellico Joe is for us to get to know each other better. And it is for us being able to welcome visitors and newcomers.
But Tellico Joe is also for all of us being able to reach out with God’s love to Ethiopians, and Hittites and Jebusites and Canaanites…and even some women who you and I will never know.
The coffee we are serving at Tellico Joe was grown and picked by women in Peru. They – like most women across Latin America and Africa – have very few rights, and often suffer great abuse and poverty. So a coffee importer in Seattle came up with an idea. If some of these women could be empowered to grow, pick and export their own coffee, they could make better lives for themselves and their children.
Our Tellico Joe coffee is a blend called Café Femenino Peru. It is a certified Fair Trade coffee, meaning that more money goes back to the growers and pickers in the form of better wages and benefits. And Vienna Coffee Company of Maryville – the local distributor of this coffee – is required through this program to donate 45% of the proceeds to help support a local agency through which women are empowered – in this case, Haven House, which is a domestic abuse shelter in Blount County. So just by drinking a cup of Tellico Joe coffee, you are helping women in Peru as well as women right next door!
What amazing things happen when people of faith think outside the box – and reach outside the box – to come alongside Ethiopians in chariots – women coffee growers in Peru – abused families in Blount County – and people who need a Christian family to love them.
But it all hangs on you and me helping our church become that “kitchen table” of Eva Angell – that Passover table of Jesus Christ – that Good Shepherd’s table set before us in the presence of our enemies.
I’m asking YOU to help us with this.
And what better day to ask you than on Mothers Day when we give thanks to God for women everywhere – who bring great gifts to the world – love to their families – and even delicious coffee to the Tellico Joe Café!
May we bless their lives even as they bless us!
Happy Mother’s Day, Eva.
Happy Mothers day to you all!