June 24, 2007

“Give Me a ‘J’!”

John 17:1-11

In one of his books, Father John Powell includes this illustration:

Some time ago, a friend told me of an occasion when, vacationing in the Bahamas, he noticed a large and restless crowd gathered on the pier. Upon investigation, he discovered that the object of the attention was a young man making last-minute preparations for a solo journey around the world in a homemade boat. Without exception, everyone on the pier was vocally pessimistic, reminding the ambitious sailor of all the things that could go wrong. “The sun’ll boil you! . . . You’ll run out of food! . . . That boat of yours won’t hold together! . . . You’ll never make it!”

After listening to all these discouraging warning to the adventurous young man, my friend felt an irresistible urge to encourage and cheer him on. As the little craft began moving [out to sea], my friend went to the end of the pier, waved both arms like he was giving semaphore signals and shouted, “Bon voyage! You’re really something! We’re with you all the way! You’ll make it! We’re proud of you! Godspeed!”

We all need encouragement and we need to give it to others. Perhaps because the pace of modern life is so hectic and strained, we often overlook and forget the fine art of cheering each other on. In fact, it sometimes seems today that most people accentuate the negative and “mess with Mr. In-Between,” feeling obligated to point out all the things that can go wrong, to predict the worst. Because life is a challenging journey we make into the unknown, we need all the courage we can gather. Moreover, because faith in God and commitment to Christ are a risky adventure, we need all the support and affirmation possible.

It’s always been so and that’s why much of the New Testament is a kind of “cheering on” of Jesus’ followers to stay faithful, a shout of encouragement, if you will. “Give me a ‘J’!” “Give me an ‘E’!” “Give me an ‘S’!” “Give me a ‘U’!” “Give me an ‘S’!” Our Bible reading this morning is such an example. The message of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples was intended to strongly urge and rally the early church as it lived out the faith in a world that treated it as a despised minority.

It was difficult to be a Christian in the first century, and everyone who claimed the name of Jesus paid a price for it. Not only were Christians harassed and hunted down by zealous Jews who saw them as traitors and perverters of the true faith of Israel, but later they became the objects of Roman persecution and scapegoats for the frustrations of its unhappy and bored people. Even those who were Roman citizens were arrested and without due process, condemned to die when it was learned or they confessed to being a follower of Jesus. Families were separated, people were tortured and made slaves, women and children were exploited to satisfy Rome’s perversions and their possessions often taken from them. Later, Christians were executed when they refused to bow down to the image of the Roman Caesars who claimed to be gods.

For the past twenty-five years orso, Dr. James Kidd has been senior pastor of Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut. Under his leadership, “Asylum Hill” has become one of the success stories of that denomination. When people say to Dr. Kidd, “Asylum Hill—that’s a strange name,” he informs them it’s called “Asylum” because “we have a lot of ‘committed’ members.” Well, many in the early church had second thoughts about whether it was worth it to claim Jesus’ name and honor their commitment, and when threatened with persecution many fell away. That’s why we find Peter, Paul and John and others writing their stirring words to rally sagging spirits and to encourage people to persevere. What those early Christians endured in order not to deny Jesus or give up on their promise is similar to what Christians previously faced in the former Soviet Union and Communist China, and now in many Muslim dominated societies. A young woman from Japan who had been raised in a strong Buddhist family was brought to Christ by a loving teacher. However, when she told her family about her new life in Christ, she was threatened, disinherited, and completely disowned and told that from now on she was the same as dead. So, for more than thirty years she never saw or talked to her family. Only when she was dying of cancer did her Buddhist priest-brother finally bring the frail father from Japan to her bedside in Oregon for a farewell. In many places, it’s very difficult to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord and follow him in discipleship.

But for most of us, it’s easy to be a Christian today. I mean it’s easy to claim Jesus’ name in a country that considers itself to be “under God” and in a society shaped by the Judeo-Christian ethic and heritage. It’s easy to be a Christian when 90% of those around us profess to believe in God. It’s easy to be a Christian in a culture that has accommodated itself to certain Christian concepts, practices and holidays. It’s easy to call ourselves Christians when there’s no demand to be one, where there’s no accountability, no crisis of truth that we face, no proof of identification required.

Even street and high level corporate crooks call themselves Christians and no one seems to be bothered about the contradiction. So a certain bank robber in Minneapolis told arresting police officers that he had been converted in a Billy Graham Crusade and that’s why he didn’t brandish a weapon during the holdup. And how many political leaders charged for everything from sexual harassment to the taking of bribes have been at the same time Bible-thumping orators and church goers, who apparently saw no duplicity between what they espoused and the ethics they practiced.

Yes, it’s easy to assume we’re Christian today. I’m often called on to preside at a funeral of someone who reportedly was Methodist as a child. When I inquire about their relation to God, I’m told, “Oh, he was a good Christian. He practiced the golden rule.” Or a couple will come wanting to be married. When I ask if they are Christian they say “Yes,” but when I ask what that means for them, I’m greeted with a blank stare or defensive posturing. I remember what one young man said when I reviewed the vows he would take during the ceremony. When I asked if he could honor the vows, he said casually, “Oh sure, I’ll just say ‘I do’—it’s no big deal.” I saw a cartoon not long ago that had a husband protesting to his wife: “Certainly I like the ballet, but not to watch.” It’s easy to assume we’re a Christian today.

And because it’s so easy, that’s why it’s so difficult to be an authentic Christian today. While we look back on the period of the early Church as a radical time of testing for anyone who was a Christian, our times present an equally frightening challenge. We may not be thrown to lions or face persecution or execution for our faith, but the temptation to compromise that faith, to treat it casually and pervert it may be greater today because it’s so easy to claim we are believers. When faith is hardly worth living for, much less dying for, we face a greater test than Peter, John and Paul ever did. When we tame and domesticate the Holy Spirit’s power until it soothes rather than inspires and sends us, we have made faith more a heresy than those early believers did who returned to their pagan ways. When today we can believe in God without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without integrity of witness, then we face a more desperate challenge than those early martyrs did who died for their faith while singing God’s praise.

It’s difficult to be a real follower of Jesus today, to rise above nominal belief and a cosmetic religion of self-improvement and obey the radical claims of the Gospel. It’s difficult to believe the Gospel in a “feel good” society that allows us to say we’re religious while at the same time living out secular values and practices, to say we believe in God while worshipping cultural idols and living as if God did not exist. It’s difficult to follow Jesus when the world tells us that we don’t have to follow him all the way, just far enough to say we did.

A member of another church I served, who now lives and works in Washington, D.C., wrote me a note in a post-Christmas letter describing an experience that underscores what I’m trying to say this morning:

I’m writing this to you because I need to share it, and I believe you’ll understand. Jesus came to me last week and I turned away from him. It was two days before Christmas. I had been working 16 hours a day and had done little shopping for Christmas. I went out in the early afternoon to pick up a couple of gifts. I was wearing a down coat, but had just purchased a new one and I wanted to give this coat away. It had been on my mind all day.

I walked out of a bookstore and within half a block, I saw a woman holding out a paper cup, begging for money. I looked in my purse to give her a dollar but all I had were two twenties, and of course I couldn’t give her that much. So I emptied my change purse into the cup. Two dimes fell on the sidewalk and when I knelt to pick them up; I saw that she was wearing house slippers. The wind had picked up; it had rained earlier in the day and was very cold. She said to me that she was cold; her jacket was wet and asked me to feel it. I did, but my eyes were still blind. I walked away! I was embarrassed at the thought of giving her my coat, of taking it off there along the street and handing it to her.

I had not gotten to the corner before I realized what was happening. I removed my keys from the pocket of the coat and turned back, but she was gone. Usually the street people stay in one place most of the day, and I couldn’t believe she was gone in less than one minute. I walked around the block looking for her, then walked another block in each direction, but could not find her. I am still looking each time I go out, but I probably will never see her again. I believe it was Christ in that woman asking for my coat, but I had all kinds of excuses not to give it to her. Please tell everyone, Jim, to answer when the Spirit calls, to follow Jesus when he appears to us in the needs of another human being. I hope I have another chance and I pray I will answer “Yes.”

It’s difficult to be a Christian because it’s easy and so we need the Lord’s prayer of encouragement more than the early church did. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world . . . protect them in your name that you have given me, that they may be one as we are one.” So be it! Let us pray:

Teach us to hear, O Lord, to recognize your voice, to respond with great expectation to your call to worship, to faith, to prayer. Teach us to see, O Lord, with the eyes of faith, to sense your presence. Give us the courage of your vision, to see our lives through your eyes in order to spot honest hurt and redeeming hope. May we not keep you love a secret but proclaim it to all the world with joy and gratitude. Amen.