Read the Lectionary Texts

If you are an atheist – or an agnostic – or a doubter – or one who struggles with questions like, “How can you believe in Someone or Something you can’t even see?” – or if you are one who has been disappointed by God, hurt in some way by God’s followers, put off by religious fanatics, concerned about religious militants, or in any other way alienated from religion in general or Christianity in particular…I want to introduce you today to a couple I once ran into in a grocery store.

They attended the church I was serving at the time, although very sporadically. That’s why, when I ran into them at the supermarket that day, the young woman was a bit embarrassed – perhaps a bit guilt-ridden – and confessed, “Gee. Pastor, I know we haven’t been to church for a while. We really miss it. Been busy, you know? And we really need to get back. We want our kids to be involved in Sunday School.” She sounded as if she thought I had come into the market that day specifically hunting for her and her husband so I could scold them about not attending church more regularly! Actually, I was only there to buy hot dogs!

But for all the defensive regret coming from the wife, the husband took another tack. He went on the offensive. “Actually, Pastor, I’m not sure we’ll be coming back. I don’t want my kids growing up believing in silly myths. Most of the church people I know are hypocrites. They’re very narrow-minded, and look down on other people, and some of them are just plain hateful. I don’t want my kids exposed to that.”

Wow! All that in about 30-seconds, and in the middle of the meat department of a grocery store!

Isn’t it funny how sermons may be preached in a church, but real-life faith is engaged and debated in the marketplace!

What are we to make of people like this young married couple?

I think they are representative of a lot of people in our world who struggle with the meaning of faith and its relationship – or even its relevancy – to life. And these are not bad people! They are just folks like the husband in the grocery store who see stuff in religion that’s unhealthy, or ignorant, or destructive – and they call us out on it! They challenge the status quo and ask important questions that many of us never dared ask – like the little boy who after a Sunday School lesson about Noah’s Ark came to me and asked, “What about the children?” I assured him that Noah’s children were all safe and sound in the Ark. But he said, “No, what about the other children – the ones outside?”

The ones who drowned in the Great Flood.

This little child saw something I’d never even thought of: the Church’s stories of salvation sometime include the destruction and murders of innocents – including children!

Can you see why people might see something objectionable about that?

And yet, we are drawn to God. That grocery store dad wanted out of the God thing. But his wife wanted in.

This is the spiritual dichotomy of our lives. We feel the tug of God upon our hearts. But there are so many things about God, about Christianity, about the Bible, about the Church, that confuse us and give us caution. So what are we to do?

I’d answer that question this way: plug yourself into the power of God, and see what happens!

That’s what Jesus was getting at when he said that he is like a grape vine and we are the branches extending out from the vine. If the branches are pulled away from the vine, they shrivel and die. But if the branches remain plugged into the life-giving vine, they live and grow and become productive enough to make a good Cabernet Sauvignon!

Plug yourself into the power of the vine!

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely disdain the company that is our local provider of cable television. Have you ever tried calling them about a problem, or tried to resolve a billing error? It’s like getting thrown into the 7^th level of hell! And you’ll never get out!

But I’ll say one good thing about them. If you’re having a problem with your cable TV reception they have this automated troubleshooting guide that tells you to try certain things to restore your reception. And the very first thing on the troubleshooter is, “Make sure your cable box is plugged in and connected to your TV.”

Duh!

I wonder how many people solve their reception problem with that one step? Not many, probably. But if we all followed that one step when it comes to faith, I think you’d be amazed at the difference it makes.

Make sure you are plugged in and turned on to the vine that carries the power of God.

Now I know this may be a problem if you don’t believe in God. But you’re not the first to not believe and you won’t be the last. I think that may be one of the reasons why the writer of the little letter of First John tries to present God in a way we can all understand and relate to. Even people who don’t get God, theologically or philosophically speaking, can get this. He writes:

“God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in God,

And God in you.”

Do you believe there is such a thing as love?

You’ve never seen love, or touched love with your hands. But you know the reality of love.

Even my friend in the grocery store believes in love, experiences love, and wants his kids to experience and learn about love.

Who among us doesn’t believe in love?

Plug yourself into the vine, into the power of God which is love…and see what happens!

You see, this is the main drama of the Bible and it is the central teaching of our faith. From the time of the prophets to the days of Jesus and the early Christians, God’s power was experienced through acts of compassion. People of faith are called to ministries of mercy toward those who are dispossessed and damaged by life. Read the prophets and hear them calling us to care for the poor, the outcast, and those who never get a fair shake out of life.

Don’t you remember the judgment scene in Matthew 25 where our lives are ultimately measured by, and accountable to, not what we think in our heads, but what we do with our lives caring for others as though we were caring for Jesus. “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.” And in this amazing parable, the people say, “Lord when did we see YOU in any of these circumstances?” And Jesus replies, “Whenever you did it to any of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me.”

In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, one of New York City’s most courageous and tireless workers against the disease was a physician by the name of Joyce Wallace. Her office was a Ford Econoline van stuffed with medical supplies that she drove around the city at night looking for prostitutes. She gave medical assistance to those with the disease and paid others $20 to let themselves be tested. Dr. Wallace offered these women words of encouragement, and even words of liberation, saying that if they wanted out of that life, there were people like herself who would help.

The New York Times wrote a piece about this remarkable and unconventional doctor, noting that her work in the streets was not well-accepted by the larger medical community. The reporter also pointed out the futility of it all, since most of these women would end up dead anyways – from AIDS, or violence, or drug overdoses.  Why even bother?

Joyce Wallace said it was because of her mother. Her mother taught her a lesson that became Joyce’s central motivation. Her mother used to say, “Joyce, don’t look at the damage, look for the image.” She meant, of course, to learn to see the image of God within the damaged lives of people.

Her mother was an inspiring figure. She was a Special Needs teacher who taught brain damaged children. Joyce remembered a time when her mother was asked if her class could provide the program for a PTA meeting. Her mother agreed and started working with these little Special Needs children. She taught them to sing songs from “My Fair Lady.”

When the night came for the meeting, the parents and teachers were reduced to tears when they heard these children sing. And they totally lost it when a little brain-damaged girl in a wheelchair rolled herself across the stage singing, “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

Don’t look at the damage; look for the image!

That’s what it means to believe in God. That’s what it means to live as a Christian.

And when you go out into this world and plug yourself into that vine – the life-giving vine of God’s limitless love for all His children – you’ll change!

In fact, what many skeptics don’t realize is that when you scrape away all the religious mumbo-jumbo and get down to what Jesus really taught, we hold much more in common than we realize.

What my friend in the grocery store did not know about me – or even about our church – is that I had just gotten home the day before with a bunch of teenagers from our church who had spent the last week in Roses Creek, Tennessee helping to build a house for a lady who did not have a home of her own. They had poured themselves out in love for another human being, and in the process, her life – and their lives – were transformed.

That’s the power of God.

And who among us would not want that for our kids, or ourselves?