His Name Was Earl

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday August 28, 2016, the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

This is an odd story, as many stories are. Of course if all stories were "normal" there would be no point to recording or telling them. This is the story of someone I met one day at First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas named Earl. I'll let you decide if this story is worth recording and telling.

Early one Wednesday afternoon I had a meeting with my Spiritual Director. According to the Spiritual Director's International Website, Spiritual Directors are folks "who share a commitment to the art of contemplative spiritual compassionate listening." The closest certified Spiritual Director to Weatherford is the Rev. Carol Waters in Clinton.

Spiritual Directors aren’t counselors. They are fellow travelers who listen and ask good questions like a counselor, but their concern is with spiritual health and development instead of mental health. The image they use to describe their work is called The Three Chairs. This description of The Three Chairs Concept comes from their website:

In one chair a seeker sits, desiring a deeper relationship with God, a Higher Power, or Ultimate Reality. In a second chair, a spiritual director listens, inquires, and holds the space for the seeker to encounter the true Spiritual Director in the third chair.

On that Wednesday afternoon, to help me encounter God, he asked me how I had been blessed lately. I talked about my second anniversary at the church (celebrated about ten days earlier) and about other stuff, but he knew there had been so many stresses in my life that sometimes the tiny diamonds of blessings got buried under tons of dung. One comes sprinkled like pixie dust and the other comes dumped from a bucket truck. Ever feel like that? Can I get an "Amen"?

Not long after my Spiritual Director left, a man rang the church doorbell. He was a black man at the door, maybe in his late 20's but looking much older. He told me his name was Earl and he could not read or write; and he sounded like someone who could not read or write. I hate using what we from Kansas called "discouraging words," but it was true. He was dirty. His clothes were in tatters. He looked, moved and sounded like the walking-talking stereotype of an illiterate black man in deep east Texas. God forgive me for this overgeneralization, this stereotype; but then again, this might have been a part of some sort of test. More on that in a couple.

When I answered the door, he said that he was sent over to us from another church because he was looking for some bibles. While he couldn’t read, that was no problem because his mamma could. While he couldn’t read them for himself, he knew some bible stories but he had no idea what they were called or where to find them.

I said "Sure" and headed toward the chapel where there was a surplus of bibles. Georgia, the church secretary, offered to go and get some from the spares stored in the choir room instead. That was perfect. So he came into my study while she went to the choir room for the bibles. I also gave him a Gideon New Testament-Psalms-Proverbs book. He asked for three of those. No problem, there are plenty more where that came from.

He asked me to mark some things for him. No problem. He asked me to mark "that place where it says 'the Lord is my shepherd.'" No problem, the 23rd Psalm coming right up! By this time Georgia got to my office with the other bibles and she started marking them. Then he asked for that story of the guy who "Satan took everything he had but God returned it seven times. "No problem, Job coming right up!”

This is when Georgia told me she had to leave. She had an appointment. No problem, it had been in the works all week. That left us alone, Earl and me, just the two of us.

This is when Earl made a less precise request. He said that he was watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network the other day and they mentioned a scripture "where God brings two people together who have nothing in common, but it blesses them both."

I thought about it for a moment. By this time, I had begun to believe Earl was a soul God placed in my day so I could be blessed, and be a blessing too. Kind of the on the nose about what my Spiritual Director said not twenty minutes earlier.

I told Earl that I didn't know the verse they used on TBN or what they were talking about, but I wanted to share Hebrews 13:2, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." I told him that as much as we were a blessing to him by giving him the bibles, he was a blessing in my life. He was the man I needed to see that day. So I marked it in the bible he handed me and that's when it got weird.

Suddenly, Earl's demeanor completely changed. He stood taller. His eyes became clear. His voice took on a power and command I did not expect. He blessed me. I mean he blessed me, not in some general “you are a blessing in my life” way, he blessed me. I don't know exactly what he said because I was so taken aback that I didn't hear everything he said. What I did hear was, "We won't see each other again for a long time, but we will see each other again," and that's where it got fuzzy again.

As he started to leave he dropped one of the small Gideon testaments, and when it hit the floor, the moment was over. The electricity in the room was gone. His old voice returned, he smiled and said "Whoops."

It's said that the vast majority of people never have a spiritual experience while in church. Well, I had mine that day. I met a man who seemed to shrug off his human facade like I’ll take off this robe after church. He blessed me and told me that we will meet again one day. He spoke with a voice of peace and authority that I haven't ever heard another human being use. Was Earl an angel? Perhaps, I think so. Biblical Greek translates the word we use for “angel” as “messenger” and I got a message.
Does that make me crazy? Well, if I’m crazy, that’s not the reason.

I was asked if I had been blessed lately and not an hour later, there’s a man who in his own way is giving me the message that “God said ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” Don’t get me wrong, at that moment my life didn’t turn around. Life wasn’t a bowl of cherries. Every moment hasn’t been “happily ever after.” There is struggle, but as much as I have ever felt helpless I have never felt hopeless.

If Earl had walked into most offices, he would have been ushered out as quickly as security could get there. That’s the nature of most offices. Not so in the church, thank God. So it was my good fortune to be blessed that day to offer him a seat and because of that he blessed me.

There was nothing tangible, physical on this earth he could offer me. Nothing. He had nothing, he owned nothing. He was waiting on his mamma to bring back the car. They might have been sleeping in it for all I knew. All he wanted was the Word of God and I had plenty of the printed variety. He wanted some instruction too and so I could offer him the Word of God proclaimed. He had nothing, but he had a lot of it.

So in a way, without intending to, purely because I was living in the moment, I was doing as Jesus commanded in Luke 14:12-14. There was a man in my office who could never repay me. He had nothing to give me; and I didn’t know he had anything I wanted. I was able to have him sit at the table and feed him with the bread of life and give him the living water that satisfies hunger and thirst, the Word of God. By this I was blessed. I was blessed by an angel named Earl.

Come to think about it, maybe those were the verses the folks on TBN were talking about. “God brings two people together who have nothing in common, but it blesses them both?”

After he left, about five minutes later our Worship Leader, a man named Al, came in to pick hymns for Sunday’s worship. I asked him if he saw a black man leaving, either getting into a car or walking away on foot, because I wanted to tell him this story. He said he didn’t. I didn’t think there was any way Earl could make a “quick getaway” and was sure Al would have seen him. No, Earl was gone.

Friends, I keep asking if you have had any experiences like this. Last week’s board meeting included this story and three others from three board members. So that you know, the other six aren’t off the hook, there’s another meeting in two months.

There are so many questions of faith, but here’s one for the people of faith: How have you been blessed? How have you been blessed lately? How does your faith make a difference in your life? As Christians in a world that has a warped view of Christian values, we are like Jesus, we are being carefully watched, and when we live our lives like our faith makes a difference, the world sees. That’s when the world begins to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s time to show the world the Gospel again.

A Most Unlikely Sword

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday August 21, 2016, the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Reading Paul’s epistles to the churches is a lot like reading a Jeopardy board. The board is filled with answers and the contestants come up with the right questions. His first letter to the church at Corinth contains the answers to questions from that congregation which are still used. The latter part of Chapter 14 deals with answers about worship.

Starting at verse 26, Paul gives instructions about psalms, doctrines, tongues, revelations, and interpretations and their use in worship. The verse ends saying that the purpose of these things is to edify, to build up the Church. Through verse 39, Paul goes into who can, who must, and who mustn’t participate in worship. He also speaks to propriety in worship. He sums up his talk in verse 40 which I share with you from the King James because it cuts to the chase, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

There is a joke among Presbyterians that this verse is tattooed on us before leaving seminary. Actually Presbyteries quit mandating the tattoo in the early 80’s. (Small joke, very small.) But I say this because pastors, especially freshly minted pastors, often get wound a little tight. Everything has to be just so… I was a basket case on my first Easter Sunday in the pulpit. If I knew then what I know now. A couple of years later, I was so comfortable in worship that on a Sunday when preaching on “good gifts” my children’s sermon included me taking a bite out of a Milk Bone brand dog biscuit.

Just so you know, you will never find a Milk Bone in the Communion tray replacing our traditional wafer, and that is not a joke.

I imagine all denominations have their own stories about “decently and in order” and today we hear one where Jesus is the star of the story.

We begin with a woman. There isn’t much we know about this woman. There is much we assume, but not much we know. We know she has what the King James calls “a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.” While the NIV’s language may be more accurate, “she was bent over,” there is a poetic quality to being “bowed together” which captures her plight better than “bent over.”

We really know nothing else about her. She could be in her late 20’s, her back bowed because of an accident. She could be in her 30’s and bowed from childbirth and work. She could be older and with these same conditions and have a disease like arthritis. We know so little about her, she could have a birth defect and this eighteen year “spirit of infirmity” may be visited upon an eighteen-year-old.

There is no talk of other family. Is she a teen? Are there children? Are they young or adult? Is she a respected woman, a real “Proverbs 31” gal whose body has paid the price? Is she a widow? We know nothing. What do we know?

We know this. Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues. The crippled woman was there. Jesus saw her. Jesus called her forward. Jesus said, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he laid hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. This we know. Then we get an earful from a synagogue leader who seems to have been a fan of Paul from his “decently and in order” Pharisee days.

Back to the King James, “And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people,” Notice his indignation is toward the people, not Jesus, “‘‘There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’” The synagogue leader is doing what he’s supposed to be doing, keeping order in the assembly. If he doesn’t, worship doesn’t glorify God. Right?

Jesus made a rookie mistake, he’ll get a talking to in the coach’s office in the clubhouse after the game, but not in front of the press or the other players.

But Jesus isn’t going into the clubhouse. This is the second time in two weeks of readings Jesus has called people “hypocrites.” Last week he dropped “the H-Bomb” on the crowd who couldn’t tell what direction the wind was blowing. This week he drops it on religious leaders who think order is more important than relationship. Hypocrite is a word that’s bandied about often, especially these days, so what does it mean?

Random House tells us a hypocrite is somebody who pretends to have virtues, morals, religious beliefs, or principles that they don’t actually possess. Especially a person whose actions go against those stated beliefs. Another slightly different nuance is someone whose public persona doesn’t match their private attitudes.

In biblical Greek it literally means to judge or to decide from under. Not very helpful, is it. It’s because it’s an idiom, an expression, one that came from the theater. It means “to act from under a mask” like the Greeks did in the theater, using masks so you could see what character they were portraying. Another way to approach that, two-faced. That’s what Jesus was calling the people when he was calling them hypocrites. He was calling them two-faced.

Jesus is saying that it’s time for the church to take the lead and make a difference in the lives of the people who need the Church to make a difference. It’s time for the church to take the lead and make a difference in the lives of the people who need the Church to make a difference.

There’s more flooding in South Louisiana. The Disciples of Christ and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance are already on the ground in South Louisiana, and do you know why? It’s because they’re still down there because of Hurricane Katrina. There is still so much to do post-Katrina that the people of God are still on the Gulf taking care of God’s business. They are there ready to meet the challenges of this new crisis. What they need is reloading.

Our denominations are working with disaster assistance in Syria and throughout the Middle East. They are in Nepal after the latest round of earthquakes. They are working in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Sweden, and other nations to help settle refugees. Here in Oklahoma they have helped provide emergency relief and helped rebuild after tornadoes and ice storms. They do this seven days a week, even on the Sabbath.

Last week our Gospel reading talked about how Jesus would separate families. Jesus wields a most unlikely sword, a sword of love, separating the people of faith. Today he separates those who only serve in robes from those who serve with their heads, hearts, and hands. Jesus shames the leaders, all powerful, affluent men. They untie their livestock so they can get water on the Sabbath, but they disgrace a sister, a daughter of Abraham who has been bowed under crippling pain for eighteen years. They will free their animals, but not their own people.

Eighteen years of crippling pain, Jesus sees her and “Plan A” takes a back seat to grace and mercy. “Decently and in order” get put on the back burner and a relationship is kindled instead. Jesus could have gone along with the liturgy, but his spirit is grieved by the condition of one of his lambs. She is lifted to a place she never imagined being, a place known only to those who know Jesus.

We end hearing, “When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” We have to be careful with this though. Forgive my foray into the political, but there’s a problem with people who delight in gaffes, when someone powerful is disgraced. There are people who wait for the humiliation and find elation. They find joy in others’ embarrassment. They delight in shame. They don’t find relief or relationship.

What our reading says is “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” They were not delighted in the humiliation of the powerful, but in the lifting of the infirm. They found joy in the building of the synagogue through the new work of Jesus Christ, the work of relationship and service. Joy was found edifying the body as Paul would tell the church in 1Corinthians. As tempting as it may be to delight in the shame of others, it never glorifies God.

You know, there’s a funny thing about Jeopardy. The questions the contestants give aren’t always the ones that go with the answer Alex Trebek reads. We read Paul’s answers, but we really don’t know the Corinthians’ questions, just like we don’t know exactly who the bowed together woman is. What we know is Jesus, the fully human and fully divine Lord of all chose that moment, stopping all that was seemingly holy, to make a holy moment of gracious connection.

It was out of everybody’s comfort zone, I imagine the leader, the woman, and the crowd wondered what Jesus was doing. I imagine the woman was both physically and emotionally uneasy coming forward too. But she did, and she received the blessing of encountering God. Let us rejoice! It is good to worship decently and in order, but we can’t let decency and order become a straightjacket that prevents us from encountering God and being healed.