What Would You Be Willing to Do?
What Would You Be Willing to Do? by Rev. L. John Gable
May 20, 2018
If you have been with us in worship in recent months you know that we are making our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans, and we have been taking our time doing so. We started in January and have only gotten through chapter 8, and we have spent the last three weeks in that chapter alone. Romans is Paul’s Magna Carta and his teaching here is so important to our understanding of the Christian faith that it has been referred to as being “the fifth Gospel”, so for that reason, we have moved slowly, until now. We come to Romans chapter 9 where Paul gets in to a conversation with himself over the issue of God’s election and Israel’s unbelief that lasts for three chapters. I have often said that when I write a sermon I am simply talking to myself and letting all of you listen in, and that seems to be what Paul is doing here in chapters 9, 10 and 11. He asks the question whether Israel’s rejection of Jesus as the Messiah negates the promises of God that they are His chosen people, and then he debates that issue, back and forth, in his own writing. When I was laying out this sermon series I thought, “There is no way I can put you through that for several weeks in a row and no way I can cover it all in one sermon”, so I am going to leave that study to you, and use the questions he poses in a slightly different way. The only thing I’ll add is, “Good luck with that”, even Paul ends his internal conversation by calling it a “mystery”.
Given that, I want you to think for a moment about someone you know who does not know the Lord, does not enjoy the fellowship of the Church, who has not yet experienced God’s love and grace and forgiveness for themselves. I want you to think of them though, not in any kind of judgmental way, as sometimes we are prone to do, but in as loving a way as you possibly can. Perhaps you are thinking of a spouse, a parent, a child, a neighbor, a friend, someone for whom your heart breaks over the fact that they do not know God’s love; perhaps someone who was once a part of the Church, was baptized and raised in the Church, but is no longer actively involved in its fellowship. That is how Paul is thinking about Israel. His heart is breaking for them, in that even though they are inheritors of the message of salvation they have not heard it or received it or believed it for themselves.
So, the question Paul poses, and I’ll ask us to consider for ourselves, is what would you be willing to do for those people that they might come to know the love of God?
I trust you are praying for them, regularly, daily, that somehow they will be touched by God’s love and mercy, through your words and actions or those of another. I trust that you are praying that they will come to know the love of the Lord in a deep and personal way. If not, then please start.
Beyond that, what else are you willing to do?
Paul writes in Romans 9:2-3, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.” We can hear his passion and heartbreak for his family and friends. Do we have any sense of that same passion or heartbreak for our family and friends who are outside the fold of faith? Is there anyone about whom we would say, “I would be accursed by God for their sake?”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the renowned German Lutheran pastor, was arrested and eventually executed for his participation in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II. In his writings from prison he openly admits that this was not an easy decision for him to come to. He readily acknowledges that such an act of murder could lead to his own damnation, yet that was the risk he was willing to take, to be accursed by God, for the sake of those who were being persecuted at the hands of the Nazis.
I am reminded of essentially the same sacrifice missionaries make today as they are willing to go to remote places, to suffer the hardships of daily life even to the full measure of giving up their own lives for the sake of a people who do not know the love of God. There are many who have made that sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel and I am particularly reminded of the story of Jim Elliot, the one who wrote the oft-quoted, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” In 1948, when Elliot was a 20 year old Wheaton College student, he wrote this prayer in his journal, “Lord, make my way prosperous, not that I may achieve high station, but that my life may be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.” That became his life prayer and eight years later he found himself as a missionary sitting with four other young men on the banks of the Curaray River, deep in Ecuador’s rainforest. Leaving behind a wife, Elisabeth, and a young daughter, he went in response to God’s call and claim on his life to reach the Auca Indian tribe, an unreached people group, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
On Sunday afternoon, January 8, 1956, these five young missionaries sat anxiously at a designated spot on the banks of the river waiting to greet representatives from the tribe they had met and befriended just days before. But before the day was over, they were brutally murdered by the very ones they had sought to save. Quite remarkably, not long after, other missionaries, including Jim’s wife, Elisabeth, returned to the rainforest of Ecuador, to that same savage people, and by the grace of God, the Aucas heard and believed the Good News of the Gospel.
So, there are individuals who are willing to go to great lengths to share the love of God with others, even those they do not know or may cause them harm; but what of us? Is there any hint of such a willingness to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others or another? What might we be willing to do? How far outside of our comfort zones might we be willing to go for the sake of another?
After being willing to pray for them would you be willing to invite them to come to worship with you? To attend a Bible study with you, a small group, or a Dinners for 8? Would you be willing to invite them to come to Tab Jams with you some Sunday evening this summer?
Every study I have ever read about evangelism and faith-sharing always comes to this same conclusion. The number one reason most people enter in to a relationship with God or with the Church is by the invitation of another. They don’t come on their own. They don’t come because of a flyer in their mailbox or an advertisement they hear on the radio. All of those methods have their purpose, but the single most identifiable factor which influences a person’s decision of faith is the invitation of another.
The story is told of two neighbors who were walking out of their homes at exactly the same time one Sunday morning, one on the way to church and the other off to play golf. The golfer called over, “Hey, neighbor! It’s a beautiful day, want to come play a round with me?” “No, thanks” came the reply. “I’m headed to church.” This conversation repeated itself several times during the summer, until finally one morning the golfing neighbor asked the church-going neighbor, “Can I ask you a question? Why is it that I have asked you to come play golf with me several times, but never once have you asked me to come to church with you?” Who might you be willing, not only to pray for, but to invite to join you? I wonder how many people don’t know the love of God or the fellowship of the Church simply because they have never been invited.
Then take that question one step further, who do you care enough about that you would be willing to engage in a faith-sharing conversation with them? I’m not talking about a collar-grabbing, arm-bending conversation, but a heart-to-heart conversation with them about what God’s love, His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness has meant to you in your life? Or how much the welcome and fellowship of the Church means to you now? As intimidating as it may sound, I have found that for me most faith-sharing conversations are not that hard to get into, whether the other person knows I’m a pastor or not. Most often all we have to do is listen carefully enough to what the other is saying to us that we can hear them speak of a hurt, a longing, a fear, a desire that we can then offer to pray for or give assistance to. It is always amazing to me that if I am willing to sit quietly long enough to listen to someone else I invariably will have the opportunity to say, “I’ll pray for you about that” or “ I had a similar experience and my faith gave me great strength and comfort in the midst of it”, then let the Holy Spirit guide you through the rest of the conversation.
So, I wonder with you today, who do you love enough, care deeply enough about to pray for them, to invite them, to engage them and then to welcome them in to a relationship with God and His Church? Paul makes it very clear throughout his letter to the Romans that all of us have been welcomed freely by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Our relationship with God is based, not on who we are and what we have done, but on who God is and what God has done for us, and while we may understand that for ourselves we haven’t always been very good about extending that same grace to others.
Theologically the Church, and by that I do meant the Church, not just Tab but the Church universal, is open to all people, but somehow we don’t always get that message across. It is easier to love and accept and welcome people in the abstract than it is in the particular. But it is in the particular that we are called to share the love of Christ. We can’t be like the fellow who said, “I love the whole world, it’s people I can’t stand!” You and I, everyday, but particularly when we come in to this place, have the opportunity to share the love of God in our words, in our welcome, with our smiles and in our making room for the other in our pew, even when that other doesn’t look or act like we do, or when she straggles in with her dirty, restless little ones in tow. As we do that, we extend the welcome of Christ.
Just a month after the announced ending of the Civil War in April, 1865, people were clearing looking for signs of healing and one of the more poignant signs occurred in Richmond late that spring. It was Sunday morning at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church when an elder statesman, one of the church’s many distinguished communicants, who had spent four years in war, was sitting in his customary pew. Naturally his presence attracted the attention of the rest of the church, but then so did the presence of another parishioner.
As the minister was about to administer Holy Communion, a tall, well-dressed gentleman, a recently emancipated slave, unexpectedly advanced to the communion table – unexpectedly because this had never happened in that church before. His kind were supposed to wait until the others had been served. The congregation froze; those who had been ready to go forward and kneel at the altar rail remained fixed in their pews. Momentarily stunned, the minister himself was clearly embarrassed and his silent retreat was evident.
The gentleman slowly lowered his body, kneeling, while the rest of the congregation tensed in their pews. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time – although it was probably only seconds – the elder statesman rose, his gait erect, head up and eyes proud, and walked quietly up the aisle to the chancel rail. His face was the portrait of exhaustion, and he looked far older than most people had remembered from when the war had begun. Yet these Richmonders, like all of the South, still looked to him for a sense of purpose and guidance. With quiet dignity and self-possession, General Robert E. Lee knelt down to partake of communion, beside that former slave, and the other congregants slowly, perhaps reluctantly, followed in his path, going forward to the altar and into the new future. (April, 1865, p.362)
The Church, by Christ’s design, is intended to be a place of reconciliation: each of us individually with God and all of us collectively with one another, those who look and act like us and those who don’t; those who are a part of our fellowship and those who are not. The Church must always live with the realization that it exists not for those who are a part of it, but for those who are not.
On this Pentecost Sunday we are reminded that on this day in history God blew the doors off of the formalized, ritualized way of religion and by the power of the Holy Spirit reached out and welcomed in those who were otherwise considered outcasts from the grace of God, including the likes of you and me.
If God was willing to do that for us, what would we be willing to do for others?