Available to All

There are some folks these days who very earnestly maintain that for a church to grow, it should not seek out persons who are in any way different from all of the present members.

This is the same old game that dates right back to the beginning.

We are always trying to grab control of things.

It is as if we were to say

Jesus loves me, this I know

...but about you I'm not too sure,

and about those other people, I don't really care.

Think how often Jesus confounds his disciples when they try to control things:

--The stir he caused in eating at the house of the tax-collector Zacchaeus.

--The amazement when he speaks with and interacts with the Samaritan woman at the well.

--The confusion we heard last week on the Mount of Transfiguration, with Peter's futile attempt to control things.

These situations involve persons and events which are not at all the usual or “normal” ones, yet Jesus breaks down the usual barriers and reaches out to the disciples and others following him and makes himself available to them all.

“All who confess 'Jesus is Lord' will be saved.”

--and that includes folks who live in single-family homes

--and those who live in apartment projects.

It involves our pals and those with whom we bitterly disagree.

It involves those with publicly announced sin as well as those who sin is a little better hidden or more quietly kept.

On an episode of the TV show “Blue Bloods” the police commissioner was being asked by church officials if he would support their petition being prepared to send to Rome concerning a particular priest whom they wanted to have officially recognized as a saint.

The commissioner had grown up in the neighborhood served by that priest, and he knew things about the priest which would surely disqualify him.

After lots of investigation and thought, the commissioner finally observed that the roster of perfect persons was very short, and if the Lord wanted to use that priest's life and work to encourage someone else in the faith, the church could do far worse than to recognize this particular old priest.

It is a very mixed group, this gathering which we call his church, and which Christ is willing to call his own body.

There are key differences between the church and a club.

For a club, we make up our own rules, we makes up our own qualifications for membership.

In a club, the group decides what are the goals of the organization.

We join a club in order to get something out of it.

A club throws out wrong-doers, and thus tries to keep itself pure.

On every one of those points, the church is profoundly different.

Everyone who hears gladly that God loves him or her is qualified for membership.

We don't make the rules, God does.

God sets goals in front of us, and we simply hear and discover what they are.

Paul summarizes God's goal [Colossians 1:20] “... to reconcile to himself all things in heaven and on earth....”

And Jesus tells us how to move toward that goal: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.[Mt 28:16-20]

The church doesn't throw out wrongdoers, but rather works at repentance, that is, turning things around in peoples' lives, so that they will be living in a new way, with a fresh chance.

Years ago in another congregation, there was a person who had done serious wrong and abused a public trust.

A certain civic organization dismissed this person from membership, and its members refused to ever speak with this person.

The church did not do that, however, but tried to get the person and the situation straightened out.

I heard on the rumor circuit that the congregation was derided because it did not throw out such a sinner.

I wish someone would point out to rumor-mongers like that that if all the sinners were dismissed from the congregation, there would be only a membership of one... but I suppose that comment would get twisted out of shape as well.

Instead, I am glad that Jesus makes it clear that he has room in his church for sinners like me and you and ….

We are w]here not to grab what is our “rights,” or what we have earned and “deserve”, but to receive what Jesus freely offers to us, sinners, and to learn how to give just as freely as he does in all of our relationships with others.

And all this is possible because Jesus breaks the-old pattern of grabbing that Adam and Eve started, and initiates the new pattern of giving.

This is the Good News for you and me and all around us who will listen: this Jesus is available for all!

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.