The Apostle Paul, in most of his letters now found in the New Testament wrote with a pastoral concern, and this is seen reflected in his concerns in Hebrews 13:
Remember those who are in prison.
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.
Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have.
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Here in this rather interesting statement about "entertaining angels," the Apostle is surely referencing the visit of the three men to Abraham and Sara when they told the older couple that they would have a child. As surprised as this couple was about a child in their old age, the truth is, God seems often to surprise us with his presence and the offer of strange new opportunities.
The apostle accomplishes two things in this interesting observation — Do not neglect to entertain strangers."
1. First, he reminds us of God's eternal diligence or presence —“Wherever I flea, thou art with me.”
Whether or not there are angels which wing their way invisibly around us, I do not know. The Bible seems to indicate that it is so and Billy Graham affirms it, but as for me, I stand in 58 years of uncertainty. I do know that God is with us-has been, is and will be! Sometime in the last minute when we need him the most, he will appear and relief or guidance is discovered and his presence or his messengers or "angels" usually have a human look and feel.
A local TV station has a spot which they call "Angels in our Midst" and it is a highlight of individuals who live in Pensacola who are angelic like in their help for others.
Ann King died a few days ago but for 75 years she was an active member of this church. An Angel in our Midst.
More than a decade ago, when Mary McMillian was with us, there appeared one day a lovely Japanese girl, whose name was MeCotza, whom I introduced to Mary, because she only spoke Japanese. She came to church and smiled sweetly and bowed politely, but didn't have a clue as to what the sermon was about. Not unlike how some of you must sometimes feel. Mary told me, that MeCotza may not understand what your sermon is about, but she perfectly understands that we are worshipping God and are seeking to do the work of the Kingdom. Mary died only a few short weeks after befriending this young Japanese girl. and I called her to tell her of Mary's death and one thing led to the next and she spoke at the funeral, in Japanese. No one knew what she said, but everyone knew that she was honoring God who had given teacher Mary to the Japanese people. A couple of Sunday's after the funeral, she appeared before me and in broken English explained that she was to leave and return to Japan. I asked for an address but it never came and she has not returned. But she was here when I needed her the most. I have since wondered if maybe this Japanese girl with the beautiful iridescent white skin wasn't an angel sent from God. Perhaps that's when angels appear—when we need them the most—and that's what they do, and then they are gone.
Some have suggested that the Native American who greeted the first Pilgrims who came to America was an angel. His name was Squanto. Historians believe that around 1608, more than 10 years before the Pilgrims arrived, a group of English traders sailed into what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts. When the trusting Wampanoag Indians came to trade, the traders took them prisoner and carried them back to Spain with them and sold them into slavery.
One of the unfortunate captives was this native American named Squanto. He was bought by a well meaning Spanish monk who treated him well and taught him the Christian faith. Squanto was shortly freed and made his way to England where he worked in the stables of a man named John Slaney. Slaney sympathized with the Indian's desire to return home and in fact put him on board the first ship bound for America. Some 10 years had passed when Squanto arrived back home, only to discover that an epidemic had wiped out his entire village and his family was no more. If ever a person had reason to be bitter and to hate the white settlers, it would have been this native, but he had given his life to Christ while in Spain and when the next shipload of English families arrived Squanto was there to meet them and startled the Pilgrims as he greeted them in English. According to the diary of Governor William Bradford, Squanto "became a special instrument sent of God who showed us how to plant corn, where to fish, etc. He never left us till his death!"
You never know when you meet a stranger, how they will turn out to bless your life. Now whether they are angelic beings or Godlike human beings, I do not know. I only know that God is with us.
From the Upper Room (devotional) last week came an interesting meditation on Psalms 91: He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. The devotional writer wrote: Our nine-year-old daughter and I watched clouds late one summer afternoon as the sun began to recline onto the western horizon. The billowing clouds in the east were illuminated like fine paintings in a gallery. "Dad, I saw a humongous, beautiful cloud the other day, and there were angels on top of it," my daughter reported. "I even saw halos on them," she added, circling her hand over her head. "My friends didn't see them, I don't think. Just me."
"How wonderful!" I said as I hugged her, silently thanking God for childlike faith. I felt blessed that my daughter told me about her cloud bound angels—not clouds that looked like angels but real angels. This was neither frightening nor surprising to her. She had yet to learn how unusual it is to see angels sitting on the edges of clouds! She simply saw and believed.
2. Paul wrote of entertaining angels and certainly had reference to God's mysterious, protective, loving presence, but secondly, he was advocating the practice of hospitality for Christian believers—hospitality: the importance of making space for someone new in your life. We live today in a rather hostile world, sometimes you can be hostile and I must say, "It doesn't fit in the character of a Christian disciple". The Apostle Paul was writing out of the context of a Jewish culture where the practice of hospitality was expected and demanded by law. It was a way of "doing justice".
In the roots of our faith is the awareness that God was hospitable to us and it is expected of us. In Creation, God made a place for us. In Christ he again, in spite of our sin, made a place for us, which such a moment was so radical that Paul calls it "A New Creation”. So it is clearly in the norm of expectation that God who made space for us would expect it of us in relationship to others.
This hospitality, this making room for someone, is an act of one like the Creator. John would later observe, "Our love for one another is a direct expression of our love for God. "Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen."
Perhaps the problem is that we don't see each other as a brother or a sister. The great religious followers see the holy in all persons. Mother Teresa's followers to this day write that she saw Christ in the sick and the suffering. I believe that Jesus himself said: "when you do it unto the least of these my brothers, you do it unto me."
Increasingly we live in a land that is multi-cultural and it would behoove us to take to heart Paul's admonition: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers." Strangers represent new opportunity and new friendship. And you never know who you may meet and you never know who God will send your way.
I meet and get to know at least two new people every week. If they haven't come to me by the middle of the week, I start looking for them. If they haven't stepped into my spear of influence, then I step into theirs.
For me "hospitality" is a Christian discipline. Just like prayer, worship, communion, charity. Reach out to the stranger, because you just never know.
Practice hospitality, create space in your family, your neighborhood, here in the church.
This week, you might see on cable TV a number of spots by our denomination called "Igniting Ministries," it has to do with inviting people to church and creating church as a warm and inviting place. You have over the years done pretty well with being hospitable, but you must do more.
We have new persons come into our church and you rejoice in their coming, as long as they don't sit in "Your place” I have said to you before: No one owns a pew in this church. Just because you have been sitting in a certain place a long time, it does not mean it is your territory. Sometimes God sends someone to sit in your place for you to meet and befriend. You will know when someone is new to the church, because they will be sitting in your place. Introduce yourself. Find out what God is doing in their life and how you can make them feel welcome in their new home.
Never forget this: When you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto Christ." And, who knows, you may be entertaining an angel that God sent for you.
Our Lord in Luke 14 is doing two things: First, encouraging his disciples to plan ahead. "Keep your lamps trimmed and burning.” Secondly, He is giving a clear warning to would be disciples as to what they might expect from their discipleship.
1. Planning ahead is a necessity for those who want to be successful, happy, or free of regrets. Poor Planning will do you in every time.
If you are bungee jumping, you had better be absolutely sure of the length of rope needed to keep you above the ground, unlike a 22 year old in Australia this past month who jumped with occy straps (stretchy ropes) off of a railroad trestle and over estimated the length of rope needed by 5 feet.
In London, England, there is an abandoned 9 billion dollar building called Centennial Park or Tony Blair's Folly. Supposedly designed to portray 20th Century life that years from now people would come back to view, but no one living wanted to pay to see what they could see on the street, so the park, way over budget, never opened.
In Paris, The American Center was forced to close 19 months after opening because of runaway construction overruns of 41 million which consumed the endowment leaving nothing for running the literature, language and dance classes originally planned for the building.
Planning ahead is absolutely essential. Thank heavens our building committee continues to do well, within budget, although a state requirement of a new fire extinguisher system for the Youth Center cost us $55,000 giving us whiplash. Plan ahead and sometimes even then you just don't know.
My parents, having been devastated by the depression years, became masters at Planning Ahead.
To go on a car trip of over an hour's drive meant you gassed up the car and checked all of the fluids the day before.
It was a requirement to lay out your clothes for the next day of school before you went to sleep.
There was absolutely no TV During school week because you had to prepare ahead for next week's tests.
And they always lived carefully, because you wanted to keep more than enough money in your checking account saving for a rainy day.
Joseph must have taught his son, Jesus, to plan ahead because Jesus, the teacher in the scripture for today reminds us of the importance of planning ahead..."Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?" Or what King going to war will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with 10,000 to meet whom who comes against him with 20,000." Planning ahead -- Our Lord considered it a wise and prudent part of wise living.
2. And secondly, in this scripture He is giving a clear warning to would be disciples as to what they might expect from their discipleship. Their discipleship would not necessarily mean a bright future. Christianity doesn't have to do with your personal success or your wealth or your health. Granted you are healthier, and wealthier and more successful in regards to what is of utmost importance. Their discipleship does have to do with giving yourself to a greater cause than that which can be seen or bought and sold at the market place. Discipleship will require personal sacrifice, taking up a cross. "Any of you who does not give up everything cannot be my disciple."
Here the Gospel confronts our narcissistic attitude of self-love and calls for personal sacrifice. Many who would have heard Jesus would have said: "Well, what am I getting myself into here?" And that's what Jesus wanted his disciples to ask themselves.
In times past, great teachers have sought to answer the question of the essence of Christianity and their answers have differed:
Amos said: Do justice, to love Kindness and to walk Humbly with God. John Wesley would by the 18th century say: Do all the good you can, Do no harm and Practice the spiritual disciplines.
Jesus answered: "Love God with your whole heart, mind and soul and Love your neighbor".
In the wonderful book, “Tuesdays With Mori,” the author describes a day when his old and dying professor can no longer talk for long periods of time, but who in a weak voice says, “It’s all about Love.” These are his last words and also mine.
You have perhaps heard the rather uncomplimentary statement "He can't see the Forest for the trees." It is right down there with such statements as: "One shovel short of a load." "The elevator doesn't go all the way to the top," "One card short of a full deck."
"He can't see the forest for the trees," it is a colloquial description of a person who can't see beyond the immediate to the larger picture of life. It describes an individual who becomes so focused on the details before them, or the immediate situation of their life, or so overwhelmed with what was happening to them that they can't see beyond themselves.
You may know someone who can't see the forest for the trees. You may be one of those individuals.
At various times in our life's journey, we all fall into this trap of "tunnel vision" or the inability to see beyond what is to what could be. We tend to see what we see, and become so overwhelmed that we become at risk of missing the greater dimensions of life's possibilities. Sometimes in great pain we become shortsighted.
A few years ago, there was an awful blight on the fir trees in the Blue Ridge Mountains around Mt. La Counte in North Carolina. It is estimated that 70% of the spruce-fir forests have been lost due to a tiny bug called the Balsam Wooly Adelgid. When Jane and I backpacked into the mountains it was sad to see so many of the trees dying. It was only when we intentionally forced ourselves to raise our heads above the trail, beyond the blighted trees, that we saw and enjoyed the majesty and magnificence of the Smoky Mountains and the great forest, which surrounded us for miles and miles and miles.
Sometimes if you are not intentional: You can't see the forest for the trees. When there is a blight in the trees on your farm, you become at risk of not being able to see the health of the forest beyond.
When there is blight in your life, you become at risk of not being able to see beyond your pain to the healthiness of the human family.
When there is blight in our nation, we become at risk of not being able to see the oneness of all humanity.
When there is a tragic hateful event of terrorism, as we experienced this past week, we become at risk of not being able to move beyond our anger or depression, or our divisions.
When you become overwhelmed with immediate problems, which can come every day, in such rapid succession, it is easy to lose the larger perspective. When your own pain reaches a threshold beyond your tolerance, you cannot feel or see anyone beyond yourself.
You can't see the forest for the trees. When you are hurt by another person and you begin to hate people like the ones who hurt you, or you begin to hate a race of people or a nation of people, your anger and confusion may cause you to spread unfounded rumors or lies which will hurt innocent people. It happens all the time when people function out of their own limited experience or their myopic pain.
This happened in our nation in the 1940' s when anyone of Japanese descent was suspect because of what the nation of Japan did to our servicemen at Pearl Harbor. Good American citizens of Japanese descent were rounded up and placed in Detection Camps in California.
This happened in the early 18th century when a few Indians raided white settlers’ homes, and what did our government do? We rounded up all of the Native Americans and herded them west to reservations on scrubland.
This will happen now when you become suspicious and uneasy when you are around a person of Mid-Eastern descent.
You can't see the forest for the trees,
Did you read about this crazy couple that corresponded with each other on the Internet? Each fell in love with the mystery person and arranged to secretly meet each other under cover of darkness. As it turned out, the mystery person was their current spouse. That's the kind of person who can't see the forest for the trees.
Are you at risk of not being able to see the forest for the trees? We become at risk when we start thinking that we’re right and everybody else is wrong, that the balance in one's bank account determines the value of a human being.
When we think that we are strong, self-sufficient, invincible, that's when we can't see the forest for the trees.
Or….well this could go on forever…
In the scripture read today, Jesus talks about the lost lamb and the lost coin. It is not about dumb sheep or misplaced money. If you could not see the forest for the trees, then you might think that it was. Rather, it is about a God who created human beings in His own image; a God who, in spite of our misplaced values, our stupidity, our lost ness, our dumb sinfulness, seeks us out, calls to us, looks for us, mourns for us, and reaches out to us. That's the larger picture.
If Christian people are to be criticized, and we will, we are not exempt from criticism or pain or terrorist attack, but if we are to be criticized, then let us be criticized for looking beyond; not for being unable to see the trees for the forest.
Let us be a people who look at life through the eyes of the Creator and thus begin to see what can be rather than what is.
We will begin to see what God wills rather than our mischievous plots.
We will begin to see the Kingdom of God rather than the confusion of the nations of men.
We will begin to see the power of love and the weakness of hate.
We will begin to see the magnificent forest beyond the blighted trees.
God has given us the Sabbath Rest, the experience of Divine Worship, Prayer, the ability to read the Bible, to meditate, to give charitable gifts, to love, and to go the second mile.
These spiritual disciplines help us see beyond what is to what can be.
These spiritual disciplines will heal a broken heart and move us on.
Turn off your TV. Walk away from destructive thoughts and relationships before it is to late. Let go of hate. Close your eyes and breathe deep and let go of your own pain.
The more I mature in Christ, the more I am able to see the forest rather than the trees. Some one said to me once, "You need to get your head out of the clouds and see what's happening here." No, I don't think so. I believe we need to get our heads in the clouds, in the presence of God, to see the bigger picture, to see beyond what is to what can be, to see the forest rather than the blighted trees immediately before us.
One of the wonderful professions is that of teacher.
We have all been influenced by individuals who were our teachers. Dick Allen, a used car salesman, taught me in Sunday School when I and about eight other third graders were terrorizing our small church in Linden, Alabama. I went back to Linden to marry the granddaughter of John Drinkard, a respected lawyer in our little community. Mr. Drinkard and Mr. Dick, as we respectfully called them, smoked cigars, or chewed cigars and always had a big Tampa Nugget in their mouth when they were outside. But when they would come to church they would very carefully lay their carefully chewed cigars on the ledge of the brick at the entrance of the church. A couple of friends of mine and I would just as carefully, Sunday after Sunday, switch those cigars and laugh and giggle half way through the opening exercise in Sunday School. We stopped doing that when we finally grew up and our daddy's caught us one Sunday when we home from college. But Dick Allen was a great teacher.
And there was Mrs. Mashburn, who taught the excitement of reading the newspaper and news magazines "for extra credit." And there was Mrs. Monroe, who taught Art Appreciation and World Religion and Middle Eastern History at Huntingdon College. How they went together, I do not know, but she taught such a varied curriculum because she loved it. She taught with a gleam in her eye and a vision beyond the present.
I know a number of individuals who are 60-80 years old who have a mastery of the English Language, Southern style, who come from Monroeville, Alabama. They are seen in literature through the writings of Harper Lee and Truman Capote, but in the language of how people describe things from that area. I have often wanted to research, who taught English in that small Monroeville High School. Fran and Glenn Lambert are from that era, maybe we need to talk.
There are great teachers today, in our Sunday Schools and in our schools. Jesus was a wonderful teacher. We observe this interestingly enough in the scripture for today.
1. At times he seems to confuse us when he uses words which sound like riddles: "If you want to save your life, you must lose it. And those who lose their life for my sake, and the sake of the gospel will save it." "Many who are first will be last and the last will be first." "If your eye causes you to stumble, then tear it out, it is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell"
2. But Jesus was at his best when he would tell a parable, hold up a coin or point to the birds of the air or the flowers of the field. In the scripture today he uses a "word picture." To be great is to be like a servant, and then he drives the point home when he takes a child and holds him in his arms saying, “when you accept a child, you accept me.”
Jesus’ style of teaching was to use something very familiar to represent a deep, profound truth. And some of the finest examples are before us today in Mark’s scripture: “Who ever wants to be great, must be the servant of all." "Whoever receives a child, receives me… "When I was hungry, you fed me; imprisoned, you visited me; naked, you clothed me.
He used word pictures or familiar objects. For example: “take this bread, my body broken for you. This juice of the vine, my blood shed for you.”
3. The Church historically has used a variety of art forms to communicate truths like the pictures depicted in stained glass to portray and teach Biblical truths…look all around you and you will see…originally the cathedrals of Europe were built when the people could not read nor write, and the Bibles were in only large manuscripts chained to the pulpit in the churches, until Martin Luther translated the Latin Vulgate into the German language of the people and the Protestant Reformation multiplied his translation ministry. But before the 16th Century, and the invention of the printing press, Bible stories were read only from the pulpit by the learned scholars in the Ministry, and proclaimed through the medium of stained glass art, or stories or word pictures.
Look with me at Jesus’ teaching, which is before us today: to be great is to be like a servant and in so doing, we are to show respect to all persons, even this child.
I was privileged to attend Huntingdon College for my college work where engraved over the entrance of the main building was the statement: “Enter to Grow in Wisdom: Go forth to apply wisdom in service.” Even to this day there are individuals who came from that small Methodist school who are teachers, Christian educators, ministers, judges and social workers who are using their knowledge and developed skills for the good of others.
I believe in a consideration of greatness as servant-hood and the importance of respect for even a child, we are getting very close to the mysterious fulfillment of human life at its best. When we are given a gift by life, an ability, money, an affection, a thought, an opportunity, these gifts come from the creator of life, then unless they are used to enhance our lives and be helpful for others, they are lost.
Let me suggest the following this week: