Sermon for Friends Congregational Church
“The Future is the Blessing of God”
Delivered by Reverend Dan De Leon
World Communion Sunday, October 7, 2007
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 137:1-9; Matthew 10:5-14
Our children expect a lot from us, whether they’re ours or not. Kids expect us to watch out for their best interests: help them out of they get lost, get them a Band Aid when they get a boo boo, and to always express utmost interest in whatever they’re doing: coloring or singing or dancing or re-organizing a room in their own creative way that you just got through cleaning. And if you’re a parent or guardian of a child, then you know that they expect you to take care of them always. Folksinger Loudon Wainwright III says, “Being a dad isn’t so bad, except that you’ve gotta feed ‘em. You’ve gotta shoe ‘em and clothe ‘em, try not to loathe ‘em, bug ‘em and hug ‘em and heed ‘em.” Kids excpect that.
And when kids don’t get what they expect, they get frustrated. And frustration leads to tantrums. I have a vivid memory of just such an occasion from my childhood. When I was in the 1st grade, our class was expecting to go on a field trip to the Butterkrust Bakery. This was like a 6-year-old’s Mecca: the field trip to Butterkrust. What’s more, my best friend in the class who sat right next to me was named John Buttery. I was really excited to go to Butterkrust with my crony John Buttery at my side.
The day came for the field trip, and the kids lined up at the door to get on the bus with butterflies in our tummies and visions of giant ovens dancing in our heads. And as we walked out the door, our teacher, Mrs. Archer, took up our permission slips that our parents had signed. So, I handed her my permission slip and walked out the door, but John didn’t join me. John had forgotten his permission slip.
I watched our teacher get down on one knee in front of John, and I heard her say, “John, I’m sorry, but if you don’t have your permission slip from your parents, then you can’t go on the field trip.” Mrs. Archer had shot an arrow right into John’s heart, and I was there to witness the moment of impact. John went pale, and one of the teachers who wasn’t going on the field trip put her arms on John’s shoulders like prisoner restraints to keep him from leaving the room. It was really a preemptive measure against the tantrum that would ensue.
I felt awful for John, but I kept marching to the bus with my classmates, because in the back of my mind I was thinking, “They’ll let John go on the trip. They’ll fix this.” But we all got on the bus with our partners sitting next to us, and the spot next to me remained empty. John wasn’t coming. And here’s the memory I can’t shake to this day: As the bus driver let off the brakes with that noise that sounds like a giant sneezing, I looked out the bus window to find John standing there flailing his arms and legs around in a hopeless effort to break free of the teachers’ grip. He had somehow escaped her clutches and run out to the bus—John had the will of an ox, you know—but the teacher caught him just as he was making his getaway.
John Buttery expected to go to Butterkrust, and when his expectations were shattered he got frustrated and threw an unforgettable tantrum.
Children have expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met, they get frustrated and they throw tantrums—some of them as unforgettable as the one John threw outside that bus window. Now, let’s get back to us adults. Adults are just overgrown children, because we sure have a lot of expectations.
A lot of times the older we get, the more frustrated we become. And, boy, do we get frustrated when those expectations aren’t met. The trouble is that when we get frustrated we don’t throw tantrums anymore—at least not the way kids do. When we get frustrated, our frustration often times turns into hostility. The adult whose expectations aren’t met gets frustrated and then he gets hostile. These are such hostile times, my friends.
Plummer Professor of Morals at Harvard, Peter Gomes, offers this recollection: “I remember a time not so long ago when to ask a senior what she was going to do next year was a sign of friendly interest and not a hostile remark, and round about this time of year the air used to be filled with the purple prose of great expectations; the future beckoned to those at the top of the tree. Now the more cautious message is, ‘We have barely got ours and we hope you manage to get yours.’” Lower expectations. Greater frustration. Hostile times.
These are the same times that Jesus and the 12 disciples were living in when Jesus sent them out into the world. Early on in the story of his ministry, Jesus says to them, “My friends, it’s time for the rubber to meet the road. Go out there with a message: The kingdom of heaven is near. Let the world know by your words and deeds what kind of world God is hoping for us to make together, share together and make possible for our kids. And when you go out there, avoid the Gentiles and the Samaritans. We’ll get to that later. You need to tackle the tough terrain. Go into hostile lands and share this message.”
Twelve unlikely disciples, 12 men who looked at their world with about as much anxiety and apprehension as you and I do when we walk into unfamiliar situations; these men go into hostile lands. These men stumble into lands riddled with low expectations and high frustration, lands plagued with inequality, violence, fear, and oppression. And they have no illusions about it: They know that the job isn’t going to be easy. They know that even though what they’re doing is just and true and good, very few of these hostile folks will care for their good works.
Jesus knows their concerns, just like Jesus knows our concerns. And Jesus says to the disciples, “My friends, search for some worthy person to stay with, some worthy person to share your time with, and if they aren’t willing to receive you, just shake the dust off your feet. When you meet hostility, just shake off your feet, right then and there, and walk away. Keep moving. Keep searching. Keep working.”
Can you imagine the kind of courage this method gave to the disciples? Jesus didn’t say, “When people meet you with hostility, double your efforts to win them over!” Jesus didn’t even take the more patient route. He didn’t say, “When people meet you with hostility, give it a day or two, and then humbly knock on their door again. They’ll come around, because God is on your side.” Nope. None of that “Will-of-God” confidence. Jesus just said, “When people meet you with hostility, shake the dust off your feet and move on.”
Can you imagine the courage that Jesus placed in his disciples by this method? Can you imagine the kind of courage a human being can demonstrate when they only take certain hope in the future? Can you imagine the things that human beings can do who are united by their hopeful efforts, just like Jesus’ 12 disciples were, when we are confident that the future is always a blessing of God? My friends, the message today is that we cannot only imagine it, we can live it, because our shared charge and commissioning could be—should be—that the future is always the blessing of God.
Some of you might have noticed that I strayed from the lectionary today in the Gospel selection. I chose to preach on a Matthew text instead of today’s Luke passage. I could’ve easily preached on the Luke passage, where Jesus tells us that faith is like a mustard seed that has the power to move mountains. But I feel that God is speaking more directly and more disarmingly to us through the Gospel reading from Matthew: “If you find yourself in the presence of low expectations, high frustration and blatant hostility, shake the dust off your feet and move on, because once you find a place to share your courage, your hope and your deep faith, you can demonstrate to the hostility of this world exactly what it means to be a Christian.
“Shake the dust off your feet and move on, so that you can find a context, a situation, a community, an opportunity, a ministry in which you can show this hostile world exactly what it means to do justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with your God.
“Shake the dust off your feet and move on, so that you can find people whose hopes are slipping in this turbulent world, because these are the lost sheep that Jesus is talking about. Shake the dust off your feet and move on so that you can bring all of the lost sheep back into the flock that we all share, this flock where your hopes are my hopes and my hopes are yours, and this flock where our shared, united future is always the blessing of God.”
We’ve encountered a hostile situation with this Angel Tree obstacle. Our sisters and brothers at Prison Fellowship have lowered their expectations of our God to say that God approves of and loves some, but not all. And our sisters and brothers at Prison Fellowship look at Open & Affirming churches, like our little flock in College Station, and they scratch their heads at how we can share our lives and unite behind a vision that extends God’s love to all peoples, and it’s frustrating for them. And that frustration turned into hostility when we received the letter from Prison Fellowship that said, “Thanks for offering to help us with children of incarcerated parents, but no thanks.”
The letter we received was formal enough, but in that formality was blatant hostility, and now we are left wondering, “Jesus, what do we do? Do we accept this hostility and go home? Do we fight this hostility tooth and nail with our own version of it that says: if you don’t think like we do then you’re wrong?” Jesus says, “No, just shake the dust off your feet and move on.”
After last week’s worship services, I looked around the room, and I could feel the intensity of your conversations and the weight of your shock after we all heard about our disqualification from the Angel Tree Ministry. And I could see your passion when some of you approached me with anger on your faces and sadness in your eyes saying, “What can I do? I want to do something! What can I do?”
So, you don’t need to hear that you’ve got faith like a mustard seed that can move mountains. You’ve got that and more. What we need to understand is what we do when such great faith is met with hostility, because such frustration can drive us one way or another. We choose to shake off our feet and move on, because the future is always the blessing of God.
I want to close today by sharing with you a few excerpts from emails I’ve received over the course of this past week in response to our letter being posted on our website. Hear these shared, united words, and take courage in that blessed future.
From Matthew in Dallas: I received your letter via a friend of mine. We were at lunch and he whipped-out his blackberry and said, "You have to read this!" Needless to say we spent a great deal of time discussing it. I would like you to know how much your church’s fearless leadership strengthens me. I am blessed by your letter. Although I am in Dallas and certainly would not be able to sign your letter in person, I would like to sign my name electronically. Thank you for being blessed.
From Pastor Dave Barber of First Congregational Church in
Fort Worth: I first learned of the reprehensible behavior of the
Angel Tree folks this afternoon when one of our members mentioned it to me. I
will be on retreat this weekend at Slumber Falls
with some members of my congregation. We will read your church’s letter
of response in our Sunday worship there and I will ask that it be read here in Fort
Worth in both of our worship services.
We are not formally open & affirming yet, though we hope to move in that
direction. My own take is that this is a simple matter of what it means
to some people to define others as unclean in our day. The Christmas
presents donated by a person of homosexual orientation are thought to be
unclean because they have been touched by a person thought to be unclean.
It's biblical, but unfaithful!
May God bless you and your congregation, your courage, and your ministries.
And finally, from Jeff, who found our church from the
podcasts of the sermons, and who will probably hear this message later this
week (So, this is my shout out to Jeff). Here’s what he had to say: One of my
favorite quotes is by an alternative'ish rock band called Marillion, and it
goes: "The open road is infinitely hopeful." That end of
your mission seems to be on the open road.
Your Michigan Podcast-Listening Friend,
Jeff
Sisters and brothers, on the open road, let us take courage, take hope and keep faith, shaking off our sandals when we get frustrated, so that justice, mercy and love would emanate from this church in refreshing new ways. The mentor of a mentor of mine, a storied Baptist minister named Carlyle Marney, once said, “The glory is in the struggle.” Shake off your sandals and give God the glory, because with Christ as our certain hope, our future is always the blessing of God. Amen.