From Terminator to Transformer

Acts 9:1-20

Back in the ‘80s, there was a cartoon for kids on TV called, “Transformers”.  These clever little doohickeys resembled any average robot-like alien creature.  But, as the theme song tells us, there is more here than meets the eye for they are robots in disguise.  With a pull, twist, flip and click, these action figures can be transformed into a car or tank or flying-killer-attack-weapon. Wheels and wings and guns were cleverly hidden inside the robot bodies of these toys giving them their dual identity.  The Autobots are good while the Decepticons are bad.  Fascinated by this toy's ability to change before their very eyes, "Transformers" became enormously popular with young children.[1]

Back in the summer of 1991, the second Terminator movie was released, Terminator 2 or T2 as it became known.  All the characters from the original futuristic, sci-fi, run-for-your-life movie were there, but with one important difference. Schwarzenegger's character, the "terminator," had been transformed - or in this case re-programmed - into a kind of guardian angel for John Conner and his mom. Other equally death-dealing villains awaited the protagonists. But the "good guys" were immeasurably aided by the protection and guidance of their former enemy. The Schwarzenegger-droid had threateningly vowed "I'll be back" at the conclusion of the first "terminator" movie. His promise is fulfilled in this movie, but in a totally unexpected manner. He returns as a "good guy."[2]

This must have been what it was like for Paul and Ananias as they experienced the transforming grace and forgiveness of Christ.  If ever there was a "terminator"-like character in the Bible, it had to be Saul.  Saul was a Pharisee and a fervent, intense persecutor of the Christians.  His reputation as a harsh, merciless, law-driven man was well established throughout the ancient world.  He was hunting down members of the “Way” and bringing them to be tried by the Sanhedrin all in order to end this “heresy” as Saul calls it.  I can understand why Ananias reacted with such strong skepticism to God’s request.  Wouldn’t you?  When Ananias hears that Saul is headed for Damascus, he expects nothing less than the worst - a nightmare, a horror, a holocaust.  Ananias had made up his mind about Saul and so much so that he is willing to argue with God about it.

Yet both men are transformed from the inside-out. Saul, through his encounter with the living Christ on the Damascus road, turns his life around.  He went as a changed man.  Quite a change indeed; the one who had intended to enter Damascus like an avenging fury was led by the hand, blind and helpless.  The bitter well of hatred from which he had been drawing his sustenance is sweetened by Christ's touch and changed into an eternal spring of love and dedication.[3]  Ananias' fear and loathing of his persecutor is also changed by Christ's words into openness and acceptance of a true "brother" in the faith. 

Part of what children love about the "transformers" toys is that the robot-aliens usually changed from being body-shaped creatures into some kind of vehicle or weapon. Their transformation was usually into - a tank, a plane, a car - which was capable of doing all sorts of things they could not perform in their original form.  Christ's transforming love empowers us in the same way.  We become vehicles for the love of God, and like Saul, we too are charged with "carrying" the Gospel into the world. It is under the power of Christ's love that Saul becomes the apostle Paul, from terminator to transformer, perhaps the single most influential figure in the history of the church.

The Rev. David Ostendorf is the director of the Center for New Community based in Chicago. Ostendorf and his colleagues are tracking a particular kind of anger and hatred in the United States. They work particularly with rural and small-town congregations whose members and neighbors are feeling the tremendous pain of the transformation of rural life in North America. As people lose family farms, as small-town life becomes increasingly unable to compete with life in the major metropolitan areas, resentments, anger, depression and hatred mount. The center is monitoring the rise of hate groups (many of them neo-Nazi), paramilitary organizations and other movements that can become seedbeds for the kind of anger that led to the Oklahoma City bombings, for example. The center does more than track the anger, however. It conducts programs that teach congregations how to build new patterns of healthy community life transforming their ministry and transforming the lives of so many. Ostendorf and his group are helping congregations and their leaders learn that they are on a very important front line. The center equips them with the skills to listen, to hear the words of hope in the Bible, and to organize and address the circumstances that give rise to the anger.  There are lessons in their work for the rest of us on the front lines.[4]  We are in the business of making disciples of Jesus Christ, in order to terminate our old selves and to transform us into new creations.  Conversion experiences are not about us, but about God.  Like in the conversion of Saul, we are called to enable others to have a powerful encounter with our risen Lord.  We must remain open to what God is doing in and around us.  Our faith experience is not a private affair.  It is for spreading the Gospel and building up the church community.  We are called to stand on the front lines fulfilling the needs of our community.

Theologian and author Reinhold Niebuhr tells of a wealthy man he knew who set out one day to improve a public image that had been badly tarnished in his rise to wealth and power. He began to give liberally to various philanthropic foundations, agreed to serve on committees promoting one good cause or another, and started treating his employees in a somewhat more humane fashion than had been his custom. His motive in all this, Niebuhr would point out, was quite cynical. He wanted to improve his IMAGE in the public mind, NOT his way of life. 

But then a strange thing happened.

The man discovered to his own surprise that he enjoyed his new role in the community. It was pleasant to have people think well of him, and the civic work that he was doing gave him genuine satisfaction. The upshot of the whole process, Niebuhr concluded, was a profound, not a superficial transformation of the man's character.

Now clearly this experience was a manifestation of grace and the strange ways in which it moves in life. But it was grace mediated through judgment. Niebuhr's friend did not undergo some mysterious warming of the heart while reading the Bible. Nor was he stirred to love by a poignant encounter with some dramatic human need. Grace reached him through the judgment of God mediated by the disapproval of his neighbors. The indictment of his way of life by the community wrought changes more profound than any he contemplated.  It was no longer about me, myself and I.  It was about God in Christ Jesus.  Up until this moment the rich man had been doing what HE liked, what HE thought best, what HIS will dictated. 

It is true with Saul, now Paul.  Christ said to him, “Go into the city, and you will be told what to do.”  From this time forward HE would be told what to do.  The Christian is the one who has ceased to do what he or she want to do and who has begun to what Christ wants that person to do.

Are there "terminators" in our church?  They are the ones who live to disrupt any spontaneous outbreaks of Christian love and harmony that might crop up.  You know the type - they always have statistics on declining church membership right at hand, they can come up with a dozen reasons why the new evangelism program won't work, and they will let you know that the church has just installed the ugliest carpet they've ever seen in the new sanctuary. Can we go to them like Ananias, buoyed by a new boldness in Christ, and offer them transforming love and acceptance?

Transforming terminators is the legacy of the church includes Paul, Constantine, and Augustine.  There is also Zaccheus, Matthew the Tax Collector, Nicodemus, the Arnold Schwarzenegger droid, Charles Colson, and John Newton.  Are these terminators among us willing to be transformed by an experience of Christ so powerful that it completely turns their lives around and right side up?  The prescribed representation of what God would do with each person stands as a reminder that God would deal with each of us according to who we are.  In Paul’s case, his fierce energies, which had been expended in persecuting Christians, are now redirected so that they are employed in winning women and men to Christ.

And such an intense, extraordinary conversion for such an intense, extraordinary man!  It wouldn’t have worked any other way for Saul.  All of us will not have such a blinding, going- kicking-and-screaming fight with God.  I never personally experienced any extraordinary conversion experience to the Christian faith like what happened to Saul.  It’s always been a part of my life and an important part at that.  Perhaps some of you can recall an extraordinary moment when your life was turned right side up by Christ.  It doesn’t matter how it gets done, just as long as the Holy Spirit is the one getting it done.

Our text today declares that God’s love knows our personal needs and steps forth to meet them, even if it does not always knock us to the ground and blind us in the process.  When God is the agent of change, all things are possible.  Amen.

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[1]  Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer for Homileticsonline.com, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer for Homileticsonline.com, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.

[4] James P. Wind, On the Front Lines Against Violence, CONGREGATIONS: The Alban Journal, September-October 1998, 3.

Can I Get a Witness?!

Acts 5:27-32; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31

Many years ago when I first started in ministry I gave a children's sermon on the creation story.  I began my time with the children by asking them, "What did God make the first day?"  What did God make on the second day?  They answered both questions correctly.  "And what happened on the third day?"  I asked.  One little boy, who I had never ever heard say a word, shot his hand into the air, with his face shining with enthusiasm, and exclaimed, "He rose from the dead!"  It took about ten minutes before I could continue due the waves of laughter sweeping through the congregation.  It was a priceless moment that I have not forgotten.

            He rose from the dead.  He probably had no idea at the time, but that young boy on that Sunday was a witness to the resurrection.  He might not have known what God created on the third day or he did know and was trying to be a “wise guy”, but God used him to witness to the resurrection in a powerful way.  It reminded all of us of what lies at the very heart of the Gospel message.  It reminded all of us of our vocation as God’s people to be witnesses to the resurrection.

            A witness is someone who speaks from first-hand knowledge.  He or she knows from personal experience that what he says is true; and it is impossible to stop someone like that because it is impossible to stop the truth.[i] 

Our scripture readings witness to the resurrection of Jesus in different ways.  They do so through proclamation, confession and praise.  All three are risky endeavors for any of us to take on.  

There is a clash in our world between Christ’s vision of what human life should be, on the one hand, and, on the other, the power of all those contrary visions that dominate the social and cultural and religious setting in which daily life is lived.  When forced to choose, we as Christ’s disciples must be faithful to their Lord’s calling no matter what. 

The ministry of Peter and other disciples began to gain some public interest.  Along with this new interest in their ministry, they angered some of the same authorities who were culpable in Jesus’ death.  They were carefully watched by those in power.  They arrested them once for proclaiming the Gospel, but escaped by divine intervention.  The authorities, frustrated both by their own apparent inability to stop this activity and by the disciples’ boldness, bring them before the Sanhedrin.  This trial provides Peter and the others with an opportunity to proclaim their message to some people who really needed to hear it.  They proclaim Jesus is no longer dead, but alive, raised by God.  Jesus is the living “Leader and Savior” who is at work, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of those who obey him.  This is how Peter and others witnessed to the resurrection of Jesus to the world by proclaiming the Gospel to all whom they encounter.  Every time we proclaim our faith in a worship service, we witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  Every time we proclaim the Gospel to an individual or group of non-believers, we witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  Every time we proclaim the Gospel, we witness to the resurrection of Christ and await his return with anticipation.

We witness through proclamation as well as through confession; confessing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  One of my favorite characters in the Bible is the disciple Thomas.  He wasn’t hiding in the room with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them the first time, but he was there a week later when Jesus returned.  Thomas has been quite skeptical and unsure of everything he has heard, but Jesus comes to change all that.  Jesus knows his heart and invites him to take the test that he had demanded: “Unless I see the print of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the print of the nails, and unless I put my hand into his side, I will not believe”.  And Thomas’ heart was filled to overflowing, and all he could say was, “My Lord and my God!”

Through this encounter with Jesus, the character of Thomas is revealed and made clear.  For Thomas, it’s all or nothing.  There is an uncompromising honesty about him.  He refused to say that he understood what he did not understand or that he believed what he did not believe.  He confessed openly and honesty his doubts and uncertainties.  This leads us to another part of his character: when he was sure about something and had made his mind up, he went all the way.  There is no straddling the fence with Thomas.  He doubted in order to become sure; and when he did, his surrender to certainty was complete.  Thomas fights his way through his doubts.  As he does, his belief in Christ is strengthened and empowered.  Thomas does not take Christ simply at face value or at someone else’s word about what Christ did for us on that first Easter.  We have all at one time or another arrived at a point in our lives when the doubts and uncertainties we held onto so tightly for so long melt away.  We may have been through some thrilling experience that led us to God.  We may have experienced a trauma in our lives, a wake-up call, that gets our attention directing us to the one knows our thoughts and our hearts before we can express them.  During these major events in our lives when we are overwhelmed by the Spirit of the Living God, we too don’t have the words to speak except to confess, “My Lord and my God!” 

How do we witness to the resurrection?  Confess our belief and faith in Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out by the grace of God.

We witness through proclamation, we witness through confession and we witness through praise.  In the first chapter of Revelation, John opens his letter to the seven churches in Asia Minor with words of praise for Jesus. 

One of those roles is as a witness on whom we can rely and trust.  For John, the first such witness is Jesus himself, the “faithful witness”.  Because of the witness Jesus gives to God, because of the witness embodied in Jesus’ ministry, we know how to witness and what our witness needs to include: love one another; love God and love your neighbor as yourself; forgive one another as God has forgiven us.

We praise Jesus as the “firstborn of the dead”.  As ‘firstborn”, Jesus becomes the promise, the absolute conviction that neither death nor Satan nor the powers of Satan have the last word.  Resurrection becomes the promise of the “new heaven” and “new earth”; the renewal of creation itself.

We praise Jesus as the “ruler of the kings of the earth.”  Although most of the rulers of the earth are not yet aware of it, and many of the residents of the earth fail to recognize it, Jesus already rules as the chief among the kinds of the earth.  That is certainly worthy of praise. 

We must always remember that our calling, our vocation as Christ’s disciples is to be living, breathing witnesses to the resurrection.  Paul writes in Romans that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.  But how are they to call on one in whom them have not believed?  And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim the Gospel message?” (Romans 10:13-14)

We are the ones who are called to proclaim the Gospel message so that the world will know the amazing grace of God through our words, our actions, our entire lives. 

 “The proof of Christianity is not a book but a life.  The power of Christianity is not a creed but a Christian of character; and wherever you see a life that has been transformed by the grace of God, you see a witness to the resurrection of Jesus.”

Can I get a witness?

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[i] The Acts of the Apostles from the Daily Study Bible series by William Barclay (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976) p. 48.

Falling Upward

Easter Sunday 2013

Psalm 118:1-2; 14-24

I Corinthians 15:19-26

Luke 24:1-12

Once upon a time, twin boys were conceived in the womb. Seconds, minutes, hours passed as the two embryonic lives developed. The spark of life grew and each tiny brain began to take shape and form. With the development of their brain came feeling, and with feeling, perception—a perception of their surroundings, of each other, and their own lives. They discovered that life was good, and they laughed and rejoiced in their hearts.

One said to the other, “We are sure lucky to have been conceived and to have this wonderful world.”

The other chimed in, “Yes, blessed be our mother who gave us life and each other.”

The twins continued to grow and soon their arms and fingers, their legs and toes began to take shape. They stretched their bodies and churned and turned in their little world. They explored it and found the life cord which gave them life from their mother’s blood. They were grateful for this new discovery and sang, “How great is the love of our mother—that she shares all she has with us!”

Weeks turned into months and with the advent of each new month, they noticed a change in each other and in themselves.

“We are changing,” one said. “What can it mean?”

“It means,” said the other, “that we are drawing near to birth.”

An unsettling chill crept over them. They were very afraid of birth, for they knew that it meant leaving their wonderful, comfortable world behind.

One said to the other, “If it were up to me, I would live here forever.”

“But we must be born,” said the other. “It has happened to all the others.” Indeed, there was evidence inside the womb that the mother had carried life before theirs. “And I believe that there is life after birth, don’t you?”

“How can there be life after birth?” cried the one. “Do we not shed our life cord and also the blood tissue when we are born? And have you ever talked to anyone that has been born? Has anyone ever re-entered the womb after birth to describe what birth is like? NO!” As he spoke, he fell into despair, and in his despair he moaned, “If the purpose of conception and our growth inside the womb is to end in birth, then truly our life here in this womb is meaningless.” He clutched his precious life cord to his breast and said, “And if this is so, and life is absurd, then there is no mother!”

“But there is a mother,” protested the other. “Who else gave us nourishment? Who else created this world for us?”

“We get our nourishment from this cord—and our world has always been here!” said the one. “And if there is a mother—where is she? Have you ever seen her? Does she ever talk to you? No! We invented the mother when we were young because it satisfied a need in us. It made us feel secure and happy.”

While the one raved and despaired, the other resigned himself to birth and placed his trust in the hands of his mother. Hours turned into days, and days into weeks. And soon it was time. They both knew their birth was at hand, and they both feared what they did not know. The one who was first conceived was the first to be born, the other followed. They cried as they were born into the light. They coughed out fluid and gasped the dry air. And when they were sure they had been born, they opened their eyes—seeing life after birth for the very first time. What they saw was the beautiful eyes of their mother, as they were cradled lovingly in her arms. They were home.

The Apostle Paul writes, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

It is hard to believe in something you’ve never seen before, especially something that has radically changed the world as has the promise of life after death through belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In writing to the Christians in Corinth, Paul talks about the resurrection of the dead, in response to some who were saying there is no such thing. He argues that there is such a thing as the resurrection of the dead, and for proof, he points to the resurrection of Jesus. In his most profound reflection on the resurrection of Christ, Paul does not tell a story in the customary sense of an Easter story. Yet, for Paul, the resurrection plays an essential role in a much larger story, a story that extends back at least to Adam and forward to the final triumph of God over the power of sin and death. The resurrection of Christ is the central cornerstone of the Christian faith.

Paul gives us a glimpse of the larger story of God at work here and the place of Christ’s resurrection in that story. Christ is the biblical “first fruits” of those who have died. It’s not an isolated event. It is the first fruit on the tree. It signals that the full harvest can be relied on to follow. Just as Adam introduced death into the world and all human beings die because of Adam, so Christ introduced resurrection into the world, so all will be made alive in Christ.

It was obvious that eight-year-old Stephen’s mental disabilities were becoming even more severe. His Sunday school teacher did her best to include Stephen in the classroom activities and to avoid situations which might prompt his classmates to make fun of him. In April, she gave each of the eight children in the class an empty plastic egg and instructed them to place inside the container an object that represented new life in spring. Fearing that Stephen might not have caught on, and not wanting to embarrass him, the teacher had the children place all the containers on her desk so that she could open them.

The first had a tiny flower in it. “What a lovely sign of new life,” said the teacher. One of the students couldn’t help but erupt, “I brought that one!”

Next came a rock. The teacher assumed this must be Stephen’s, since rocks don’t symbolize new life. But Billy shouted that his rock had moss on it, and moss represented new life.

“Very good, Billy,” agreed the teacher.

A butterfly flew from the third container and another child bragged that her choice was the best of all.

The fourth container was empty. This must be Stephen’s, thought the teacher, quickly reaching for a different one.

“Teacher, please don’t skip mine,” interrupted Stephen.

“But it’s empty, Stephen.” said the teacher gently.

“That’s right,” said Stephen. “The tomb was empty, and that represents new life for everyone.”

Later that summer, Stephen’s condition worsened and he died. At his funeral on his casket, mourners found eight plastic eggs—one from each of his classmates—and all of them empty.

Reality is that one day we will all die. Our bodies will eventually give out or be snuffed out. The reality of death is a threat to life. It’s the power that stands in complete opposition to the essence of God. It’s from death’s clutches that God has recused us through our savior Jesus Christ. It is this rescuing power of God that has made us righteous in the eyes of God. It is what has brought this community of believers together to become the body of Christ. This community consists of those who have known God’s great work on their behalf and who live their lives in glad response to what God has done. The righteous are not smug, arrogant or rude. They are extremely grateful to be recipients of God’s amazing love and thankful for delivering us from death to new life in Jesus Christ.

The church knows that Easter would not have happened and new life would not have been given, except by God’s powerful intrusion into human events. We must remember that death is a powerful force. It is a formidable power which wants to take control of you and me and God’s creation, but God will not allow it to happen. Evil is no match for the power and resolve and authority of God. Christ’s resurrection inaugurates the end, the final triumph of God over every ruler and every authority and power, even over death itself. All this makes it possible for us to have a new, spirit-filled, radical style of new life. Worlds once closed off are broke open. Old perceptions of what is possible are shattered to pieces. The future becomes the promise of sharing in the resurrection of Jesus.

In the meantime, the call is to remain steadfast and growing in the word of the Lord; to live and serve each day with boundless gratitude for what God has done for each one of us. God has answered. God has heard your need. God has rushed to intervene. God has changed death to life. God has overpowered the doom and gloom of Friday for the renewing, transforming, life-giving, history-making new life of Sunday. The rejected one, left for dead, is now the treasured one.

We do not gather on Easter morning merely to celebrate a miracle that happened to Jesus 2,000 years ago. No, we gather to declare that because he defeated death, Christ is the Lord not only of our lives, but also of our future. We live in a fallen world, but we follow a risen Savior who has come to release our world from bondage to death and to put the shadows that are on our lives into a context of hope, until the day when the kingdom of God comes in its fullness.

What a day! This day of rescue is a day for joy! What a day! It’s Easter day, new life day, new beginning day! When we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior every day is a day of new life.

What Easter continues to promise is not that all the battles have been fought and won, but that God’s power has assured us that the final victory will belong to God.

Whatever It Takes

Maundy Thursday Service 2013

John 13:1-17; 31-35

There is a great scene in the movie, “The Legend of Bagger Vance” with Mr. Rannulph Junuh and Hardy Graves in the locker room during the Crew Island Invitational golf tournament between Mr. Junuh, Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones.  Set during the Great Depression, Hardy is whining and complaining about how embarrassing it is to see his father sweeping streets in the middle of Savannah where everybody can see him.  After having lost his store because of the depression, it was the only work Hardy’s father could find.  Lots of men in Savannah were trying to find work.  Some lost everything and ended up on the street.  Others filed for bankruptcy.  Hardy shares with Mr. Junuh that Wilbur Charles’ dad couldn’t find, but he would rather do nothing at all than something beneath his dignity. 

Mr. Junuh is visibly angered by what Hardy said and he tells Hardy why his dad is sweeping streets. 

“Your dad is out sweeping streets because he took every last dime he had and used it to pay back every man and woman he owed and every business that worked for him instead of declaring bankruptcy like everyone else in town, including your best friend Wilbur Charles’ dad, which is why he is able to sit around all day long on his dignity.  Your daddy stared adversity in the eye, Hardy, and he beat it back with a broom.” 

In mind, body and spirit, Hardy’s dad believed that you take responsibility for your life, you keep your promises and commitments, and do whatever it takes to support yourself and your family during difficult times.

Our reading tonight from the Gospel of John is unique.  Jesus washing the disciples feet is found in no other Gospel and for John it takes place during the institution of the Lord’s Supper.  Some may argue about which moment in Jesus’ life was the most important.  For John, this most important moment came when Jesus “got up from the table…tied a towel around himself and poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciple’s feet.”  He went from serving as their master and teacher and instead took on the role of a lowly household servant.  But why does he do this?

In those days it was ordinary hospitality to offer guests water to wash their feet after a journey in sandals on dusty, sometimes muddy roads.  The host was not expected to wash his guests’ feet for them, but a slave or servant might be assigned this task, or disciples might wash their teacher’s feet.  So for Jesus to take off his outer robe, tie a towel to his waist and wash the disciples’ feet was the last thing they expected.  And they are confused about what was happening.  All the disciples, except one, accepted his gift.  Peter is Peter.  He doesn’t get it.  He doesn’t understand what’s happening, what this all means.  He thinks it’s a bout foot washing, but It’s actually about a lot more than that. 

When Peter resists, Jesus warns him, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”  The only way to belong to Jesus is to receive his cleansing service, to let him do what he came to do.  The humiliating death of Jesus is sufficient to provide thorough cleansing.

The washing of our feet by Jesus is an interpretation of his serving, saving death.  Jesus is giving us a radical example of what it means to serve and to love one another.  It’s a teaching tool to enable us to understand how everyone will know that we are his disciples.  It’s radical because foot washing is very personal, private and intimate.  It is more than simply kind deeds to our neighbor, more than an apple pie in a time of crisis, more than money donated to a worthy cause.  This action of Jesus subverts the regular hierarchical structure.  The accepted patterns of authority are undermined.  Authority is redefined in new, vivid images – a towel and a basin.  Jesus is willing to do whatever it takes to show and live God’s love in the world.  If we want to follow him, we must do the same.

When we commit to following Jesus’ radical example of service to one another, we create a community of equals where the status of superior/inferior is reversed in the act of service.  We live in a tough world that requires a pecking order in which everyone knows their place and power is kept secure.  In school, your class rank is very important.  Where you stand on that list will determine whether or not you will go to college and what kind.  In corporations, the CEO and the executives are considered to be at the top of the hierarchy.  Underneath them you have a range of different employees with middle managers next in line from the top all the way down to the secretaries and the maintenance staff.  The further up you are, the more prestige, notoriety and salary you have.  Jesus rejects structures such as these.  We are called to be a community where such reversal of roles is the norm.  The church is blessed when if follows Jesus’ example.

Jesus twice mentions that one of them will betray him, but never gives a name.  We, the church, are essentially a mixed body.  There are faithful members and unfaithful members.  There are washers of feet and betrayers.  I believe the life of faith is very much a journey; a moving from place to place.  It’s physical and spiritual.  We are all at different points on that journey.  We come here tonight with certain expectations, wants and needs, based on where we are on our faith journeys.  Each of us has unique experiences, gifts, challenges and shortcomings.  Not one of us is any more loved than anyone else.  To serve the faithful and ignore the rest is not what Jesus commands us to do.  We are to do whatever it takes to serve God and love one another no matter what.

What distinguishes us as Christ’s disciples from everybody else?  How will people know we are Christ’s disciples?  How can we show others that we mean business?  We say what we mean and mean what we say.  We’re not a club you join like Meadowbrook Country Club or Park Fitness, but rather we are an intimate body of believers committed to one another through the good, the bad and the ugly.  I firmly believe that true, authentic disciples will do whatever it takes to share God’s love with others.  True, authentic disciples will do whatever it takes to serve the needs of others, do whatever it takes to love our neighbors as ourselves, do whatever it takes to live selflessly, sacrificially, understandingly and forgivingly so they made know we are disciples of Jesus Christ.  Amen.