Well kids, I had a short week and a LOT to do in it, so Exposing Thorns got a little down on the priority list. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Make yourself a turkey sandwich and read my most recent sermon if you'd like.
Watching TV Land…Feeling Like a Goat.
OR
A Perfect Culture Referencing Sermon 14 Years Ago
OR
Feed. Quench. Shelter. Clothe. Visit. Love.
I had an epiphany a couple of weeks ago that I want to share with you. It happened late at night while I tried to shut my brain down, as I was watching TV Land or Nick at Nite. It began like this…
(Music Plays)
Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.
You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.
This song is etched into my brain from first runs and countless reruns of that beloved TV Show.
If you are unfamiliar let me tell you briefly about the 80’s sitcom Cheers. This show follows the regulars at a local bar in Boston. Sam “Mayday” Malone, a former Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, recovering alcoholic, and noted womanizer owns and tends the bar. Carla Tortelli, an Italian, often single, otherwise pregnant, tough as nails waitress with a wisecrack for everybody serves the drinks. The perpetually between jobs accountant Norm Peterson who is there everyday, same stool, is greeted by the bar with a collective “Norm” as he enters. Local postman and scholar of all tings benign Cliff Clavin is often perched beside Norm sharing anecdotes and stories about his mother whose house he’s never escaped. Psychiatrist Frasier Crane is there quite often as well sprinkling literary quotes and psychoanalysis amidst the bar’s proceedings, of which he is a spectator/participant. There’s good hearted but simple minded Woody Boyd from southern Indiana behind the bar as well and depending upon which phase in Sam’s life (or season in the series) a graduate student waitress intellectual love interest named Diane Chambers or a career minded business woman manager for a corporate owner and would be lover for Sam named Rebecca Howe to referee and instigate much of the hilarity.
Where everybody knows your name, that was the tag on the bar; the memorable lyric turned philosophy of the inhabitants of Cheers. I sat watching TV Land enjoying the show and it struck me this was much more than a sitcom to me, this was showing me something more…
In the movie About a Boy Hugh Grant plays an isolated character who is trying to avoid a relationship with a boy he’s met. After the boy’s mom attempts suicide he delivers this commentary, “The thing is, a person's life is like a TV show. I was the star of [my] Show. And [my] Show wasn't an ensemble drama. Guests came and went, but I was the regular. It came down to me and me alone. If [this boy’s] mum couldn't manage her own show, if her ratings were falling, it was sad, but that was her problem. Ultimately, the whole plotline was a bit complicated for me.“
Our lives as sitcoms, has it ever occurred to you? Or cartoons, dramas, or cop procedurals, depending upon who you are. There I was in TV Land…
As I watched Cheers I thought of what a wonderful bar it was; how the patrons took care of each other and cared for one another, chanted each other’s names, sought each other out for advice and help, laughed at one another, cried with one another. Not only was it an inviting space for them, but there is a real camaraderie in their gathering together and a family understanding to their dealings with each other. I began to write a sermon, as I often do while trying to shut my brain down, as I watched this sitcom. I began to think it the model for the perfect church.
Open to all, full of characters and laughter, full of wisdom and knowledge (both experiential and intellectual), and genuine friendship. After all, it was the place where you could go when the world had got you down; to take a break from all of your worries, to get away.
Because life is hard and It does take everything you’ve got. I believe we are a culture that makes life about us. I don’t think that’ll be a revelation to anyone here. We are a pretty sharp set of knives. You can think of some great examples right now of how in your lifetime the world has slipped further away from community and closer to ‘me’ driven existences for all. We all see the kid whose mom is falling and think, too complicated, this is my show.
And we can understand easily what that would feel like and be like to find a place in the midst of dealing with life and trying to star in our show to come to where every body knew you and were always lad you came! We have a pretty great church here; an inviting space where people seek to be in genuine friendship and treat one another as family. When we think of Kingwood Christian Church there are smiles on our faces, we look forward to being here and seeing one another. Some of us it seems, too, are here almost daily doing something. We are regulars. And perhaps we should yell one another’s names when we enter; we know each other so well.
And suddenly I saw all of TV Land one sermon after the next, a sermon series in the making. I watched Golden Girls and began to sketch out a message about Women’s Ministry; complete with hugs, desserts, dealing with the roadblocks of life, all the while spending time with your friends, who’ve traveled down the road and back again! Men’s Ministry, I could see us like the A-Team, repainting the van black with a red stripe and traveling the country like wanted men helping people with problems that no one else will help with, if they simply find us. I thought about my own work and the TV classic Charles in Charge where an innocent young man helps guide goofy kids through adolescence and the Children’s Ministry Team dealing with rambunctious kids who are full of sass and wild ideas, like Punky Brewster. A whole 80’s TV month of messages came flooding in, but none as vivid as this bar like a church where people come to when they are in need. If only all churches could be like that. If only this church could be like that.
Because sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name!
I sat a couple weeks ago thinking about how much I enjoy this church and the people who come inside and sit beside me as I worship. I sat and thought about how good it makes me feel when I come here and I would imagine that is at least in part why you are here today. But then, like always happens when I am trying to shut my brain down, another thing flooded my brain as I watched TV Land and it was much starker and harder to take. And this question ahs not left me for a while.
Are we even fit to call ourselves disciples of Christ? And I don’t mean, are we worthy of the denominational distinction, this is much more damning if it’s damning at all.
Are we fit to call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ?
Am I?
You see I am very comfortable here. I feel accepted and loved. I feel uplifted and encouraged. And I am not about to propose that I shouldn’t feel those things from my church. But a lot of the time I just feel like I’m missing it and I’m just a goat in Jesus’ eyes. I’ve never read where Jesus says, make yourselves as comfortable as possible until I return. I am a goat for the best of reasons, but I am a goat all the same.
Turn with me to Matthew Chapter 25.
This week I sat with a friend as we tried to get our simple minds around Jesus’ message and he asked me a question that I’ve been wrestling with for days. He asked me why Jesus made his message so hard to figure out. He asked me why he didn’t just come right out and say it plain. I told him I had come to believe Jesus wanted us to work for the meaning and keep working on it as we journeyed through life. But I don’t think he always did that. This parable Jesus tells starting with verse 31.
Let’s dig into it together:
As Lissa did I will be reading from the translation called The Message. Sometimes when we take things from this translation, the language is really different from other translations, where language is updated and images fleshed out more fully. This passage will sound similar, I believe because it is in fact simple and plain.
Matthew 25:31-46 (The Message)
The Sheep and the Goats
31-33 "When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.
Whenever this is, the end of time, the end of our lives, the end of this world; Jesus is coming and we will all be called before him and separated.
34-36 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
37-40 "Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
Let me put it this way: when you took time from your show, when you made it about someone else and accepted costars-even lesser players, you served the one who saved you.
41-43 "Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'
44 "Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'
45 "He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'
46 "Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."
Eternal doom. Not for hurting someone, not for some sin that you are unrepentant about, but for missing those around you in need. Jesus says eternal doom comes when you make your life, your show, entirely about you and fail to serve those who need help in this world.
Are we doing that? Are you? Am I?
Think about it. Specifically, when was the last time you cared for any of the following: the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the naked, the sick and in prison? And I have a sneaking suspicion that if Jesus were here and saw churches piling up mashed potatoes, cranberries, school supplies, and especially money to send off to these people he’d say, ‘Good start. But is your heart in it?’
Do we have cover charges in our little bar here? Bring a dish, buy a ticket, make a donation-that’s being a part of the family.
Lucky for us the parallels with Cheers are but a few.
Do you know that the entire first season of Cheers there wasn’t a single scene shot outside of the bar?
It didn’t mean they weren’t a part of the city; they just functioned within it confined to their cozy bar. Later we see the crew at Cheers get into a long running competition with the bar down the street. It seems Cheers wants to be known as a jock bar and if they keep losing at sports to the bar down the street they’ll also lose their identity. What’s funny is they aren’t a jock bar. They’re overweight blue collar workers, an accountant, a shrink, and an ex-ballplayer way past his prime.
They start sparring with the restaurant upstairs. They don’t like the kind of people they bring in and they want to use Cheers as a lounge and use their stairs. Business has never been better, but they start yelling some other guy’s name instead of Norm and the Cheers gang isn’t having it. When someone takes Norm’s barstool he stage an elaborate plot to distract everyone to the back room while he calmly reclaims his seat.
Come to think of it we never see Norm’s wife, Cliff’s mother rarely visits and is always a nuisance, Carla says the most awful things about Diane and Cliff especially, they steal one another’s girlfriends and fiancees, they talk about Sammy’s exploits openly, complain about their work and families, and rarely give Woody any credit for his kindness whilst consumed with his idiocy. They chase people from the bar and don’t know all the names of the people sitting there. One actor was in over 150 episodes and was called three different names.
It is easy it turns out to believe you are one thing long after you’ve stopped being it.
Cheers is a hideaway, a retreat, a place to ignore your real life and your real problems. It’s a place to fill up on laughs and beer, maybe the Celtics game and a free round if you’re lucky, but it is only rarely more than a place to get away.
I wonder how often people come to church wanting to be filled with something that can’t actually fill them. I wonder how often we make this thing we do in this room here, and throughout the week about us-our needs and wants and desires, or even our problems and obstacles. This is not a retreat! This is not a hideaway! Renee and I are not bartenders doling out some tonic that makes all that is wrong in life go away for even a moment. We are here for the same reason you are; to center ourselves for every moment we are not here. To equip ourselves for going out of this room and being away from on another.
Because Jesus time and time again is calling the disciples, and that’s us now, to action! Go and make disciples of all the world. Preach the good news. Baptize. Feed. Quench. Shelter. Clothe. Visit. Love.
There is this other way Jesus kept calling people to live; he called it the Kingdom of Heaven; and he said it was coming, he said it was near, he said it was among us. And we wonder what that means while we simultaneously divorce his teachings from passages that are clear.
Feed. Quench. Shelter. Clothe. Visit. Love he said! Above all love.
So we need examples, stories to tell one another as Jesus did so we might get what this looks like.
I had the privilege of seeing Rob Bell last week speak in Dallas and he told this great story about his neighbor and friend. She was on her porch and watching as a woman came by with quite a few belongings piled in a golf cart. She felt compelled to ask her where she was going and the woman explained she had been kicked out of her house and was moving down the street, but didn't have a car so she was using this cart. The woman on her porch came off of it and reached into her pocket and offered her car keys to the woman for her move. After using her vehicle to move for the day, the woman with the cart returned the keys and shared with the woman on her porch that 'no one has ever trusted me like that.'
This is the kingdom Jesus spoke of...
The man most like Cliff Clavin that I have known is Fred Robberts, an art teacher full of knowledge, from southern Indiana. He was the speaker on weekend at a retreat I attended a few years ago and he told a story I would liek to share with you. It seems Fred was driving and saw a man on the side of the road walking through town in the middle of a winter night. He ran an errand and was headed back that way and saw the man a half mile or so out of town still walking on the side of the road. Fred pulled over and asked if everything was all right.
"Are you okay?" Fred asked. The man looked up and said humbly, "Could you help me?" Fred offered him a ride and heard his story. he was trying to get a few hundred miles away and had falen on ahrd times; he had no money or way there and was kind of begging his way from place to place, out of options. Fred offered to put him up for the night, he knew the manager of the local motel, and get hiim some food. He also arranged for another friend to drive him to a train station and get him a ticket. Fred put some money in his hand as he left the motel after getting him situated. As he was about to go, the man asked if he could give him something and Fred thought he'd better say yes. The man reached into his satchel and pulled out a machine shop rag, all he had to offer, and handed it to Fred with a teary-eyed thank you.
A few years later Fred was hauling stuff into a meeting room for a presentation he was supposed to give and parked on the edge of a college campus, only to find out he was far away from where he needed to be. He got directions, but quickly found himself lost. He had sweat through his shirt and was breathing heavy, not sure where he was, and cutting it close with time. He began to have a panic attack. All of a sudden he heard a voice ask "Are you alright?" Fred looked up to see a middle aged man standiing on the lawn acrossed the street. Fred simply asked, "Can you help me?" The man not only told Fred which way he needed to head, but isisted on carrying some of his things and walking him there. When they were done Fred stuck out his hand and turned to say thanks only to find that the man had grabbed a machine shop rag from his pocket and was wiping sweat off his brow.
This is the Kingdom Jesus spoke of...
And then last week, right here, Renee shared with us that a Thanksgiving dinenr with all the fixings cost $43.71 this year and someone immediately said out loud that that much money would buy x number of bags of beans for a mission project he worked with.
The United States will spend $450 billion on Christmas, yet this man in oour congregation new how many bags of beans $43 could buy.
This is the Kingdom Jesus spoke of...
So what should a church be? NOT a retreat. NOT a hideaway. Rather a place that is alive with our stories. Alive with our testimonies of the work we are doing outside of these walls. A family we lean on to gear us up for the week ahead so we might serve those in need. A community that is alive with feeding, quenching, sheltering, clothing, visiting, and loving the greater world around it.
We should feel blessed to have one another and certainly we can invite others to join us, but we are missing it; we are missing it unless what are doing here is the beginning of the work we will do elsewhere. We are just goats gathering to hear the stories of the sheep. We are just disciples in name unless we are serving those overlooked by the world. Unless we engage in the serving of our Savior. And to do that? Feed. Quench. Shelter. Clothe. Visit. Love.
Amen
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