THIS PASTOR’S VIEWPOINT

I have seen it from young children in school and I have heard it from grown-ups in adult studies. Although, I can’t remember ever voicing the feeling myself, however, in honesty, I admit that I have often submitted to it. What is this seemingly universal human failing?

It’s our reluctance to persist in asking questions until we fully comprehend the answer. Almost all of us reach some point where we just quit asking, even though we still don’t really get it.

I clearly remember one occasion ten years ago, after having chased all over two counties for some material to finish a lawn project, I finely had a lead on the place that had what I required. Only one store had just what I needed and it was in an unfamiliar part of Charlotte and even further from home.

It was getting late in the day and I was anxious to complete the job before the promised rain storms hit, so as the directions were given I tried very hard to get them right. I even asked the person to repeat it so I was sure I had it right. I hate being lost in an unfamiliar area…especially when I’m in a hurry. I also hate pulling into gas stations and asking again. Hey, I’m a man.

I rushed out to the car, started it up and it hit me! Was I to take a left and then a right or was it a right and then a left? Go on or get clarification? Pretend I’m smart and get lost (not smart) or admit I’m not sure and don’t get lost (smart)? Boy, was I glad I asked again, and after apologizing for bothering the patient direction-giver I left, and was able to go right to the place I sought.

A line in my Bible reading this week brought this all back to mind. In Psalm 86:3 (NLT) David beseeches God, “Be merciful, O Lord, for I am calling on you constantly.” David did, indeed, call upon the Lord constantly and he did so because he wanted to get it right.

Given, then, our natural propensity for not asking until we fully understand, do we also quit asking God for directions. Do we blunder off seeking to find our own way, because we were too ashamed to ask, “Lord, will you give me those directions again, please?”

However, if we do ask again of God, perhaps then, we can also say as did David in verse five, “O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask your aid.”

The God who would send his Son to die for us is surely not bothered by our prayer questions. Lost? Ask away! Confused? Ask away! Ask, ask, ask…but then, pause to listen.


Sermon for Sunday, April 10, 2011



A GREEN COUCH FOR GOD
Choosing Christ at The Crossroads, #5

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Former boxer Muhammad Ali has charmed the world with his swaggering self-confidence. But he is quick to admit that he wasn’t always so sure of himself. In the book The Entertainers by Timothy White, Ali recalls a particularly humbling moment from his teen years. He had a crush on a girl named Areatha Swint. Seventeen-year-old Ali sometimes walked Areatha home from school.

One day, as they reached the top stair of her apartment house, Ali worked up the courage to turn around and kiss her. And then he promptly fainted. When he came to at the bottom of the steps, Ali was so upset that he ran all the way home. The champ was K.O.’d by his fear of kissing a girl. That’s a surprising story to hear about the boxer who claimed to be invincible.
But we all have experiences like that from our past, memories that make us cringe, even years after the fact.

In the June 2002 issue of Biography Magazine, a number of celebrities shared embarrassing memories from their school proms.

Actor Matt LeBlanc recalls that he stuck out like a sore thumb at his junior-high prom in a powder-blue tuxedo.

Lorenzo Lamas’ date walked out on him when she saw his tux: it was made of yellow polyester.

Anchorwoman Katie Couric looks back at her prom picture, in which she and her date wore all-white outfits, and inwardly cries.

Actress Lauren Holly went to her prom with the most popular boy in school. She had a great time. But when she got home, Lauren’s parents informed her that she had a piece of broccoli stuck in her teeth.

These stories are humorous, but they’re also painful. That’s part of the humor. We can empathize with the horrible situation of looking like a fool. We’ve all done it at some point in our lives. Sometimes, we can laugh at the situation. Sometimes, we can’t. But there is something in every human being that cringes at the thought of looking foolish. We want to fit in. And that’s one of the reasons that it’s hard to be a follower of Christ.

Listen to our Bible passage for today:
“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.”

For the last few weeks, we have been following the theme Choosing Christ at the Crossroads. In today’s Bible passage, the apostle Paul reminds us of one more difficult choice followers of Christ are called to make: the choice to join the “Fellowship of Fools.”

Paul wrote these words to the Christian church in Corinth, a wealthy and famously immoral city. Corinth was a center of learning and philosophy. It was also famous for its many temples celebrating many different religions. Among these was the Temple of Aphrodite, where 1,000 male and female prostitutes serviced their clients as part of their worship ceremonies.

Money and exotic goods flowed through Corinth’s major trade routes, making it a wealthy and materialistic society. To a Corinthian citizen, learning, money, and physical pleasures were the reason for living. Does that sound like contemporary America? So imagine how the Corinthians responded when a new church appeared in their city. This one didn’t have temple prostitutes. It didn’t feature learned scholars holding debates in the courtyard. It didn’t use magical incantations or promises of wealth and power to draw people in. In fact, this new church accepted rich and poor, men and women, slaves and free men, educated and uneducated persons on an equal basis.

Its followers didn’t value money and material possessions; they shared their wealth with one another equally. They didn’t exalt the body by offering sexual pleasures, nor did they exalt the mind by stimulating philosophical debates. Instead, this new church emphasized the Spirit of God living in each believer.

And who was this new church’s god? An all-powerful Spirit who chose to reside in a human body. Not the body of a king or a warrior. The body of a humble carpenter. A body which experienced sunburned skin and chapped hands and aching muscles.
And once this god manifested himself in human form, what did he do? Did he establish a powerful kingdom? No, he allowed himself to be arrested, tortured, and killed by the ruling authorities. And his death wasn’t just an ordinary punishment. Crucifixion was the most shameful form of death. It was reserved for the lowest criminals.

So imagine how these words from Paul affected the Corinthian church: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Paul was not preaching the cross and other stuff. He was preaching the cross--Jesus Christ crucified. As Porky Pig would say, “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”

Our God, the Creator of all things and the Ultimate Power in all the Universe, suffered humiliation and rejection and death. No need to water it down or dress it up. No wonder the surrounding society rejected the Christians. No wonder the Corinthian church tried to alter the message, to make it more acceptable, to divert people’s attention from Jesus and his death. No religion on earth had ever made such a horrifying, mystifying, amazing claim about its god. And Paul claims that this horrifying, mystifying, amazing idea is the absolute truth and the central foundation of knowing God.

No wonder others called them fools. No wonder society still calls us fools today.
The message of Jesus is no less radical today than it was then. It has never lost its power to change lives or to draw fire.

Turn to the book of John, chapter six. In verses 25 through 65, Jesus says that he is the bread of life, and that no one can enter God’s kingdom unless they eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Of course, he is referring to his crucifixion, but not all of Jesus’ listeners understand this. Many of them think he is speaking blasphemy or nonsense. Verse 66 records, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Jesus turns to his original twelve apostles and asks, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” And Peter answers for all of them when he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus’ life and his message leave us no room for hedging. He is not just another god, another side dish in the Corinthian buffet of religions. Either he is the one true God, or he is not. And Jesus’ crucifixion is either the pivotal moment of all time, or it is an insignificant blip on the radar screen of history.

So what about us? Are we willing to proclaim this message as the central truth of life?
Are we willing to identify ourselves with the Fellowship of Fools? Are we willing to bet our lives on it?

Pastor Tommy Barnett shares a story of his friend, Jack Wallace, who is leading a successful ministry at an inner-city church in Detroit. Jack Wallace once lived on the streets.
Through Pastor Barnett’s ministry to the homeless, Jack gave his life to Christ. He went on to get his degree and become a pastor.

He was then sent to a dying church in a rough neighborhood in Detroit. Through prayer, commitment, and visionary leadership, Jack Wallace and the people of his congregation turned their church around. The church is thriving, and it offers many vital ministries in the surrounding community.

One side note to this story is that in the few years that Jack Wallace has led this church, he has been stabbed eighteen separate times. You’d think Jack Wallace would change his mind after the third or fourth assault. You’d think he would pack his bags and move to a quieter neighborhood, get a cushy corporate job, and settle down into comfortable anonymity. Start looking out for number one. Why not? Everybody else is doing it. Our society would call Jack Wallace a fool. What do you call him? A fool --- or simply a follower of Christ?

A young woman was walking around with a T-shirt that read, “I Am a Green Couch.” Underneath this odd statement was a Scripture reference. Occasionally, people would walk up to her and ask about her shirt. She would direct them to look up the Bible verse. Yet the Bible verse had nothing to do with green couches; it was about salvation through Christ.

When someone asked the young woman why her shirt read, “I Am a Green Couch,” she replied, “If I had something about being a Christian on my shirt, would you have bothered to ask me about it? Or would you have ignored it?

I just put that there so people will ask me about it and look up the Bible verse. It sounds stupid, but it causes people to come up to me. Then, I can share my faith with them.”

This young lady earns an honorable mention in the Fellowship of Fools. She is willing to make herself look foolish to spread the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. She and the apostle Paul are kindred spirits.

God could use any method God chooses to communicate God’s truth to us. God could create a spectacular light show of falling stars and exploding volcanoes. God could write God’s message in the clouds for all the world to see. Jesus could have called down fire from heaven. He could have set up an earthly kingdom that rivaled the riches and power of King Solomon. And Jesus’ followers could have used signs and miracles and philosophical debates to prove their points.

Instead, they chose to tell the truth. The plain, unadorned truth: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) It may be foolishness to the world, but to those who believe it is the power and wisdom of God.

Just before being named President of the United States in 1976, Jimmy Carter spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention. He was on the schedule with the Rev. Billy Graham and another man, a truck driver.

Rev. Graham spoke first. Of course, his message was powerful and inspiring. Carter spoke next, and delivered a fine talk. And then the truck driver stood up to speak.
He was visibly nervous, and barely spoke above a mumble. He had once been an alcoholic, he said. After he became a Christian, this man still hung out in bars. It was the only place he felt comfortable. He began talking to the other bar customers about Jesus. At first, they made fun of him.

After a while, they began to ask him questions. The man ended his talk by saying that he had brought fourteen of his friends to Christ.

Jimmy Carter claims that no one remembered his or Billy Graham’s talk from that night, but people are still talking about the truck driver’s testimony.
The pull to conform is so strong. Don’t we all want to fit in? Won’t our life be easier if we don’t rock the boat? --- Sure, it will.

But how can we believe in an earth-shaking message and NOT rock the boat? Are you willing to identify yourself with the Fellowship of Fools? Are you willing to be a green couch for God?

It may not earn you respect at the office, but it will grant you eternal life with God.

Amen