Love People, Not Money

Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 2: 4-13 and Hebrews 13: 1-8 Sermon Title: Love People, Not Money Preached on August 28, 2022 There’s a great movie called The Founder about Ray Crock, who discovered a multi-billion-dollar idea when he went to sell milkshake machines to a little restaurant in Southern California run by two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald. In the movie, Ray Crock is the kind of guy who is always looking for the next big thing. When he recognizes how many milkshake machines the McDonald brothers are buying, he goes to their restaurant to try and learn their secret to success. They happily gave him a tour of the kitchen, and Ray Crock notices the employees’ strong work ethic, how efficiently burgers move from the grill to the serving tray, and how every customer leaves with a smile on her face. Amazed, Ray wants to franchise the restaurant. The brothers have tried that before but haven’t been able to find business partners who would maintain their standards of quality. If you’ve been to McDonald’s lately, that might sound ironic. I once bought a large vanilla milkshake at McDonald’s and left it in the car for a few hours. When I came back to it, it was warm, but it had congealed instead of melted. Likewise, I heard that now McDonald’s coats their fries in an edible lacquer, which explains why they look the same hot or cold, for days on end. One ingredient in the lacquer is said to cure baldness, which makes me want to eat more of them. However, if you’re wondering how a restaurant like McDonald’s went from the ideal set by those two brothers to what we have today, then you must understand how making more money sometimes tempts us to sacrifice quality. Therefore, Keep your lives free from the love of money, the author of Hebrews tells us. Why? What’s wrong with money? On the one hand, anyone here who has opened a stack of bills without the money to pay them knows that when you don’t have enough, it’s hard to think of anything else; yet on the other hand, there is a difference between needing money and loving money. In the movie, slowly but surely, Ray Crock amasses wealth and still chooses money over quality. When he realizes that he can make more if he disregards his agreement with the McDonald brothers, he chooses money over integrity. Divorcing his wife, you might say he even chooses money over fidelity. That’s how we ended up with milkshakes that don’t melt and French fries coated in lacquer. It’s because while McDonald’s restaurants feed 1% of the world’s population every day, making money is the main thing. What’s the main thing for Christians? It ought to be love: loving God and loving people. What becomes the main thing for so many Christians? It could be money, popularity, or fitting in. It happens to all of us. We all get distracted from the main thing, so the author of the book of Hebrews tries to point us back towards what we ought to be about. If you look at the study notes in your Bible, you might read that no one is sure who wrote the book of Hebrews, though it’s likely a sermon preached and recorded. To me, it reads like a sermon: Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them. Let marriage be held in honor by all. Keep your lives free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. These verses flow and build. Like all good sermons, the preacher makes the point clear. That’s not easy to do, though our daughter Lily, when she was younger, was once telling her babysitter how easy preaching a sermon is. “All you have to do is tell a joke, mention Jesus about three times, and move your arms like this,” she said. There aren’t many jokes in the book of Hebrews, though it still sounds like a sermon to me because the author of the book makes the Gospel easy to apply to our lives. This book tells us just how to live our faith. How do you do that? Start with, Let mutual love continue. That’s what we’re here to do. It sounds easy enough. Think with me, though, about how we become distracted from love. Sometimes, I forget the words of the Apostles’ Creed. It’s true, so I look at the bulletin when we recite it together, even though it makes me feel like an inadequate pastor. A better pastor would get such things exactly right every time. That’s how I often feel, while my wife, Sara, once said to me years ago when I was in my first or second year as a pastor, “They don’t love you because you get everything right. They love you because they know you love them.” Love is the main thing. It’s not how perfectly the elders pass the communion plates or how smoothly the deacons take up the offering. It’s not how few typos are in the bulletin or how perfectly each note is sung by the choir. It’s, Did you pay attention to the one sitting next to you? Was everyone who walked in this church greeted with genuine hospitality? The preacher of Hebrews says, “Some have entertained angels without knowing it,” but did those angels make it to their seats, through the service, and out the door at the end without a soul speaking to them? That’s the main thing. We all get distracted from the main thing, but the main thing is love. How many Christians have become distracted from the main thing? Plenty of them. How many churches fail to pay attention to people locked up in prison? For this reason, the author of Hebrews says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” Why would the author of Hebrews say that? It’s because throughout history, the heroes of our faith have been put behind bars: Joseph, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, Jesus Himself. You can’t lock the door and throw away the key because the main thing in Christianity isn’t punishment; it’s love. Do you love the people in prison? Do you pray for them? Do you think about them? Jesus was locked up once, and if you read the newspaper and watch the news then you know that He wasn’t the last innocent man to be put behind bars, so don’t forget about them. Remember them as though you were in there with them. And honor marriage. Why? Because every husband in here has been distracted from his marriage by something, be it work, worry, the woman next door, or the Braves on TV. None of those are the main thing. The main thing is your spouse. The main thing is love, but it’s so easy to become distracted from the main thing. Think about it this way: The love of money leads to emptiness. Now, I like to spend money. I’ve spent seven dollars on a cup of coffee before, and I’m going to do it again. I’m not trying to say that the things money can buy aren’t nice. I’m just trying to say that we must remember that a cup of coffee isn’t the same as Living Water. There’s only one source of Living Water. Do you know Who it is? Do you know how to get it? In our first Scripture lesson, the Lord spoke through the prophet Jeremiah saying: My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, And dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. That’s a harsh critique of humanity: We abandon God and turn to cracked, empty cisterns. Unfortunately, I think God’s right. We work so hard to buy all this stuff that we’re sure is going to make us happy, but does it? The old joke goes, “The two best days for a boat owner are the day he bought it and the day he sold it,” and when Tim Hammond died last Sunday, I knew this much is true, he never would have traded a day on a lake for a day building houses in Mexico. He never would have traded a day making money for a day with his family. My friends, the One who created us understands how we operate. Therefore, the prophet Jeremiah and the preacher who wrote Hebrews both say the same thing: We aren’t happy when we live our lives focused on ourselves and amassing riches. We’re most happy when we live our lives for the people we love. Therefore, let mutual love continue. That’s what this life is about. It’s about love, and not money, not judgement, not perfection, not punishment, and not work. It’s about love. Love people, not money, and Heaven will be yours, not just in the life to come, but today. Amen.

Come Dance with Me

Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 1: 4-10 and Hebrews 12: 18-29 Sermon Title: Come Dance with Me Preached on August 21, 2022 A great Persian poet once imagined that God speaks just four words again and again to His people through all generations: “Come dance with Me.” You might not like to dance, but pretend that you do. If “Come dance with Me” is all that God ever says, then who are we and what is the task of us, God’s people? It is to accept the invitation, which is both wonderful and terrifying. That’s how it goes in our first Scripture lesson. God appears before Jeremiah. “Come dance with Me,” God says. “Join Me and see what we’ll do together.” How does Jeremiah respond? “Who, me?” His reaction to God’s call reminds me of every middle school dance I’ve ever been to. The boys are all standing against one wall, the girls against the other. One brave girl bridges the distance. She walks up to a boy and says to him, “Come dance with me.” How does he respond? Don’t you remember? When I was in 7th grade, if I had an invitation to dance with a girl on one hand and the opportunity to stand before a firing squad on the other, I would have tied my own blindfold, for being invited to dance is terrifying. That’s why most grown-ups don’t do it. They think they can’t, until tequila convinces them otherwise. Yet God invites us to dance. Throughout Scripture are these bold and beautiful invitations. “Follow Me and become fishers of people.” “Have faith and move mountains.” “Pick up your mat and walk,” the Savior said, but powerful forces keep us from accepting these invitations. One of those powerful forces is doubt. Now, I don’t mean the kind of doubt we most often talk about in church. When we talk about doubt in the church, we think about how the preacher says, “Jesus walked on water,” and “Well I doubt it,” the cynic thinks. That’s not exactly the kind of doubt that I’m talking about. I’m talking about a more sinister force at work in our world this morning. I’m talking about the kind of doubt that keeps good, well-intentioned people from doing what God calls them to do, which is the kind of doubt that crept into my head when a good friend of ours lost her father. Hearing that news, I felt the nudge to go to the funeral, held in Florence, Alabama, which meant that I had four and a half hours for doubt to ring through my head as I drove from here to there. “This is a big waste of time,” one voice inside my head observed. “They’re not even going to notice that you’re there,” said another. Then, “I doubt that me showing up is going to make any difference.” That’s the kind of doubt that I’m talking about: the kind of doubt that keeps us from doing what God calls us to do, for doubt, in its most sinister form, convinces us that we’re not worthy of God’s invitation. That’s how it happened with Jeremiah. God issued an invitation to come and dance, only Jeremiah came right out with his self-doubt, saying, “But I am only a boy!” “God, I hear Your voice,” he said, “but You can’t mean me. I have two left feet.” This response must be the most human response out there, for again and again in the Bible, everyone who is called by God to do something special reacts this same way: “Who, me?” Just go through the list: Moses says he can’t speak. Isaiah says, “But I am a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips.” God says to Esther, “Come dance with Me” and save your people. She rightly protests, saying, “My life already hangs in the balance living in this palace, and You want me to go talk to the king?” There are a million rational reasons not to accept God’s call. Just as there are a million rational reasons not to get out on the dance floor; however, the life of faith isn’t an episode of So You Think You Can Dance. This isn’t about what you can or can’t do. This is about what God will do through you if you quiet the doubts in your mind long enough to accept the invitation. I knew that well enough to keep driving to the funeral. When I got there, I could see in my friend’s eyes how much it meant that I showed up. She and her husband had been hugged by a thousand people, and while not a one of them could replace being hugged by her father, I’ve been to enough funerals to know how much it means when people show up. I’ve been the pastor at hundreds of funerals, and so I’ve heard them say, “I can’t believe she drove all the way down here.” “I can’t believe they showed up for this. I haven’t seen them in forever, and yet they’re here.” The day turns into a fog for the family, so later they go through the guest book. They read the names, not because a funeral is a popularity contest, but because no one ever remembers what’s said at a funeral; the comfort comes from those who show up. There is power in our presence. God comforts broken-hearted people through us, and everyone who has shown up for you contended with the same doubts I did on the way to that funeral in Florence, Alabama. Everyone on her way to anything important is doubting herself, asking, “Are they even going to notice that I’m there? Who I am that my presence will make a difference?” That’s what Jeremiah was contending with. “But I’m only a boy.” Yet God said: Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’. Because this isn’t about you. This is about what I’ll do through you. Stop doubting and believe. Then God put out His hand and touched Jeremiah’s mouth. God also touched the Prophet Isaiah’s mouth, though it was with a hot coal, and so I imagine that with God’s touch, the doubts and anxiety go up in flames long enough for Jeremiah to hear these words: I will be with you to deliver you. And by My power, I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, To pluck up and to pull down, To destroy and to overthrow, To build and to plant. That’s what God did through Jeremiah once he accepted the invitation. Can you imagine what God would do through you if your doubts, fears, and anxieties melted away? Can you imagine the life you might have and the good you might do if you didn’t have to contend with your self-centered fear of looking like a fool out on the dancefloor? Our second Scripture lesson from the book of Hebrews speaks of stuff getting burned up, the earth shaking so that only what cannot be shaken will remain, for our God is a consuming fire. Maybe you’ve heard all that before. Preachers talk about fire all the time: How hot the fires of Hell are. How the sinners must turn to Jesus or burn in the flames. That’s not the Gospel message exactly, for while there’s fire in this passage from Hebrews, we must understand what is it that God consumes. For Jeremiah, it was the worry that he wasn’t good enough. That’s what went up in flames: doubt, worry, self-centered fear. For the Prophet Samuel, it was the trauma left by being a boy abandoned at the temple by his mother and the lingering worry that he wasn’t worth hanging on to. For Esther, it was the fear of being rejected by a powerful king. For me, it’s the doubts that my presence will make a difference. For all of us, it is the fear of looking like a fool out on the dancefloor. Yet remember with me what God does through people once their doubts and fears become fuel for the fire. A member of our church told me about how he took his wife to Longhorn Steakhouse. Leaving the restaurant, she left her wallet in the booth where they were sitting. Of course, they didn’t realize it was missing until they got home. He called the restaurant. They couldn’t find it. Not able to give up the search, the next day he stopped by just to check again. This time, a server named Ashley, who was not usually the hostess but was working a double shift at the front desk, went to check with the manager. The manager had it, and Ashley brought the wallet back to the man. So relieved to have the wallet back, he gave Ashley a tip, and that’s when she started crying. This church member of ours, now really paying attention, stayed and listened. Ashely suffers from MS, she’d just gotten out of the hospital and had missed a week of work. The man then gave her all the cash in his wallet. Ashley asked him why he was doing that, and he told her that, as a Christian, he always tries to be ready to help his neighbor. Then Ashley cried some more. The next day, the man told a men’s group the story. They all cleaned out their wallets, and Ashley ended up with about $400. Now that’s a good tip, but I tell you the story just to say that God is always calling. Are you ready to dance? I hope so. Back in Tennessee, we lived in a small city called Columbia. All those outside of Columbia thought it was small, but that’s because they didn’t know how small the towns outside of Columbia were. Outside Columbia is a small town called Culleoka. Culleoka had a unit school – all grades, kindergarten through 12th grade – and many years ago, a man named Jim Jones went to school there. This was back in the 50’s, and Jim grew up thinking that everyone who lived in Columbia was rich because everyone at Columbia Central High School wore shoes. Well, Jim made the Culleoka football team, and before they played Columbia Central High School, there was a dance. The football coach told Jim and all his friends to take a bath before the dance, put on their church clothes, borrow their fathers’ shoes if they had none, and should any girls ask them to dance, they were to answer “Yes.” Now there may be days when you feel like a small-town kid with no shoes and a bad accent at a middle school or high school dance, but pay more attention to God’s invitation than to the doubts in your head. God stands ready to change you and me and this entire world, but we’re going to have to accept His invitation to dance. If we’re going to change this world for the better, we’re going to have to do more than sit, watching it burn on the evening news. This week, instead of waiting for someone else to do something or wishing that God would choose someone else, when you hear that still, small voice, the whisper of a neighbor, or the ring of the phone and see the name of the person you can’t stand coming up on the caller ID, know that God may be saying through them, “Come dance with Me.” Don’t ignore it. Let your self-conscious fear and doubt to go up in flames. While we might look or sound like fools in the process, by accepting the invitation to come and dance, we will be a part of the good that God is doing in the world. Amen.

Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter of our Faith

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 5: 1-7 and Hebrews 11: 29 – 12: 2 Preached on August 14, 2022 Sermon Title: Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter of our Faith The first day of class for Marietta High School was on the Wednesday before last. Along with several others representing institutions in the community, I was asked by our new principal to be there to welcome students back from summer vacation as they got off the bus. Being there reminded me that there’s nothing like the energy of the first day of school. While I was there, everyone was happy, even the students. They were excited to greet friends they hadn’t seen. They smiled as teachers greeted them by name. They all looked bright and new in their first day of school outfits, although some of those outfits, I just couldn’t believe. Of course, that means I’m getting old. That’s what that means when you think young people should dress differently, and of course there were trends when I was in high school that my parents thought were weird and that my children now make fun of. This has always been the case. It has always been the case that the most fashionable students of this school year, the ones whose parents will buy them all the stuff that everyone wants, will be the ones whom the children of the 2023 graduating class will be making fun of 20 years from now. That’s true. 20 years from now, the children of the 2023 graduating class will be pointing at the pictures in their parents’ yearbooks and saying, “Who would ever wear jeans like that? Who would go out of the house with their hair that way? Why is she showing off her belly button?” for it’s all temporary; be it the clothing trends of high school or the suffering that comes from not having the trendy clothes, it’s all temporary. I haven’t always known it, but I know it now, that fitting in today might hold you back from fitting in tomorrow. Bill Gates wasn’t cool in high school, but look where he is now. In the same way, our second Scripture lesson tells us about those of whom the world was not worthy. They lived here, and as they did, they suffered. We just read all about it. They were mocked and flogged, put in chains and imprisoned. They were stoned, sawn in two. They went about in skins of sheep and goats. Can you imagine how the kids in high school would have talked about them on the first day of school when they showed up in the skins of sheep and goats? However, while they suffered and didn’t fit in, they could see that over the mountains of hardship were green pastures and flowing streams that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, was leading them towards. That’s one of the names we have for Jesus: The Good Shepherd. We also call Him: The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Light of the World and the Bright Morning Star. Maybe you call Him friend, or maybe you know Him as the embodiment of love. The Bible calls Him by many names, though only this second Scripture lesson from the book of Hebrews, as far as I know, calls Him the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith. What does it mean to call Jesus the Pioneer? Who were the pioneers? What do you know about them? Back when I was growing up, we had video games, but they weren’t any good. One was called Oregon Trail, and as the leader of a wagon train, you led group of pioneers from Independence, Missouri to Willamette Valley, Oregon in 1848. However, I always ended up dying of dysentery about half-way there. Pioneers suffer, but that’s not what defines them. I’ve been watching a TV show about them called 1883, which follows a group of people who left their homeland, boarded ships, sailed across the Atlantic, bought stagecoaches, and hired a stranger to lead them west into the unchartered territories of North America. Worse, according to Sam Elliott’s character, they’re doing so without much hope of ever making it. They have no horses, no guns, they can’t ride, and yet they think they can travel two thousand miles with no skills to survive what’s ahead. That’s not exactly true, for they have one skill that is most essential. They have faith. What is faith? According to the book of Hebrews, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Translation: Faith is enduring the pain of the trail because you know you’ll make it to Oregon. Faith is never letting the suffering of today get to you because you have your eyes on tomorrow. Faith is looking around at your reality and trusting, not just what you see, but your imagination, your dreams, and the promises of God because you know that just as God made a way out of no way long ago when the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, so God might make a way out of no way today. That’s faith. It takes faith to be a pioneer. Jesus had it. He perfected it. Do you remember what He said to the man hanging next to Him on the cross? Now think about how He was doing up on that cross. His friends had all abandoned Him. One of them betrayed Him. He had been whipped, falsely accused, tried without representation, stripped of His clothes, and they put a crown of thorns on His head. If you’ve ever been the kid walking the halls of a high school down, dejected, friendless, and betrayed, then you need to know what He said to the man next to Him on the cross. If you’ve ever been fired from a job you loved while you’re fighting with your wife, then you come in the door, your daughters make fun of your clothes, and you open a bill that you can’t pay, then you need to know what Jesus said to the man next to Him on the cross. If you’ve ever been forced into early retirement, felt like you’ve been sidelined from everything, looked at the future and assumed that your best days are in the past, felt like your baby is never going to sleep through the night and is never going to give up her pacifier, then you need to know what Jesus said to the man next to Him on the cross. If you’ve ever wondered why the caged bird sings or not been able to get yourself out of bed, then you need to hear what the Pioneer and Perfector of faith said to the man hanging next to Him on the cross. He said, “Today, you will be with me in paradise,” and He said it because He is the Pioneer and Perfector of faith. Faith is looking around at today and knowing that it’s temporary. Faith is knowing that, being rejected from one crowd, you’ll still be OK because you’re a member of the household of God. Faith is dreaming of something better than what you see, but it’s more than dreaming because faith is rooted in the mighty works of God from the past. That’s one reason Bible study matters so much. When we study the Bible, we learn about what God has done, so we have an idea of what God might do next. What then has God done? It’s all right there: By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land. By faith the walls of Jericho fell. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish, because she had received the spies in peace. And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of everyone who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, or escaped the edge of the sword, so suffice it to say that if you know your history, then you’ll dare believe that the Pioneer and Perfector of our faith has more in store for us than what we can see right now. That’s faith. Do you have it? Not everyone does, and no one besides Jesus has it all the time. I’ve said before that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt but certainty. Some people are certain that their current sufferings are all that there is and all that there ever will be. The great Christian author C. S. Lewis wrote that once we are thinking that way, believing that our temporary suffering is not in fact temporary but permanent, that’s when the evil one has us right where he wants us. On the other hand is that great cloud of witnesses who were stoned, sawn in two, killed by the sword; went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented, wandering in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground, yet were able to keep going for they knew that their suffering was temporary and that they were on their way to joy. Jesus Himself, on the cross, knew He was on the way to Paradise. Do you know what you’re on the way to? Or has the evil one convinced you that this is it? I know the feeling. I do. When I get too sad or too frustrated, I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep, guess what happens? I get more sad and more frustrated. It’s like the negative thoughts spin through my mind like a record on a record player, stuck on the same groove. Then I walk into this place, and I hear the stories again, and it’s like a fist on the table. The needle moves. I hear the song again, and the sun comes back out. My friends, the sun comes back out. Do you have faith in the sun? Do you have faith in hope? Do you have faith in God, believing that just as God made a way through the Red Sea, so also will God open a way for you to get from where you are to where you were meant to be? That’s what being a pioneer is all about. Pioneers cross rivers, survive tornadoes, walk for miles, all the while holding a picture in their minds of where they’re going. Be it Oregon or Heaven, we must keep a picture in our minds of where He’s leading us, or we’ll be up all night worrying over global warming, the war in Ukraine, and Monkey Pox so that the next morning we don’t have enough faith to do anything besides give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. The pain of today will give way to the joy of tomorrow. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Paul Tells His Story

Scripture Lessons: Daniel 10: 4-11, 16-19 and Acts 26: 12-18 Sermon title: Paul Tells His Story Preached on July 31, 2022 The week before last we were on a family adventure. I say adventure, which is different from vacation and almost the same as a disaster. If I’ve told you about it before, let me tell you again. The Evans family flew into Pittsburgh, rented bikes, and started down a 150-mile bike trail built on an old railroad bed. 150 miles is a daunting goal, made worse by our daughter Cece’s tire going flat four different times. When we were on our last spare inner tube, I called for help. Directed to a bike mechanic in the town we stopped in for lunch, Confluence, Pennsylvania, I felt relief until I saw that the bike shop was closed. There was a note on the door with a number to call in case of emergency. Encouraged to call the number, I spoke with a man named Ed. Ed doesn’t own the bike shop, but he’s friends with the owner. He was too far away to help in person, yet wanting to be of assistance, he talked with me on the phone for about half an hour trying to troubleshoot the problem of a reoccurring flat with me. “Have you checked the tire for a nail or a tack?” I told him I had. “Have you checked the wheel for spokes sticking through the rim?” I told him I had. “Have you checked the rim for deviations that might be poking the inner tube?” “Yes, I’ve done that, too,” I said. “Then your best bet is to get it to the next bike shop about 20 miles down the trail. I know the owner. He lives next-door to his shop, so even if it’s closed, he’ll come help. His name is Lynn; he took a job with the highway patrol,” on and on Ed told me. When I thought he was about to tell me Lynn’s favorite color, I started thinking, “That’s if we can make it 20 more miles without getting another flat.” Maybe sensing my anxiety, he signed off with this: “Remember that in between the plan and disaster lies the adventure. You’re right there in the adventure.” Now at the time, I didn’t fully appreciate the sentiment. I was thinking, “My daughter is tired, she keeps getting flat tires, we’ve got to get on down the trail, and this guy is quoting me Henry David Thoreau or somebody. However, imagine if the Apostle Paul were unable to embrace the adventure. Imagine with me what the world would be like had he been solely focused on getting back down the road. To Agrippa, an official of the Roman Empire, Paul tells a familiar story: I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. Along the road he was traveling when his plans were disrupted. At midday along the road, I saw a light from heaven. Jesus appeared to me and said, “I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen.” That’s where it all started. He was on a trip, commissioned by the chief priests, when his plans fell apart. Does he dig in his heels to stick with his plan? Does he fix his tire and get back on the road? Does he kick the dirt and shake his fist in frustration? No. He listens and trusts God’s plan for his life, which is the greatest adventure of all: answering the call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Looking back on this summer, I realize that’s what this summer has been all about. Your preachers, Cassie, Meri Kate, and I, have been trying to get it across in our sermons. We’ve been challenging you to get a little beyond your typical plans and see what God will do in your life. Many of you accepted our challenges. I know that after hearing a sermon based on the account of Peter going to eat with Cornelius, Helen Hines and Minette Rutenberg went out to eat Korean BBQ. I asked Helen about it. She didn’t like what she ordered much, but she liked her waitress. Likewise, Emily Adams went and ate Cuban food. She learned her waiter’s name was Jayden, and he was fabulous and fun to talk to. Notice that both went out to eat but told me more about the waitstaff they spoke with than the food they ate. That’s what happened with Paul and the disciples. They are being pushed out into the world by the Holy Spirit to meet people beyond their comfort zones. On Pentecost, at the beginning of the book of Acts, the disciples were first given the gift of speaking in other languages so they could talk with all the foreign people who were around Jerusalem at the time. Later, Ananias was pushed by the Spirit to show kindness to Paul: a man who, at the time, was a known persecutor of Christians. Later, Peter went to the bedside of Tabitha, though she was dying. Peter ate with Cornelius, though he ate non-Kosher food. Lydia invited the disciples to stay at her house, and they went. Paul proclaimed the Gospel to an enslaved fortune teller who was getting on his nerves. Then he preached in Athens among the idols before being arrested in Jerusalem. Here he tells his conversion story to Agrippa, a person he never would have met had he stuck to his plan to get to Damascus. Therefore, I call you today to think about how abandoning your plans might enable you to embrace your missionary journey of meeting people who need to hear your story. How does that sound? Now, I don’t mean walking the streets and handing out leaflets. I tried that once, and people just ran in the other direction. That’s not really our style anyway. Here’s my favorite Presbyterian joke for any who haven’t heard it: What do you get when you mix a Jehovah’s Witness and a Presbyterian? Someone who knocks on your door but doesn’t know what to say. We are called to go out into the world, but how? What do we say? Look to Paul and notice what he says and how he treats this Roman official. He neither judges nor preaches. All he does is shares his story, that miraculous story of how Jesus walked into his life and changed his life’s course for the better. Now, that’s not what Christians are famous for doing. When Christians are on the news, we’re not portrayed as being kind to the people God places in our paths; however, we can change the world’s perception of the Church by doing exactly what Paul did. Certainly, lives have been changed simply because members of this church were kind to the people God placed in their paths. It happened with Andy Nismal. Andy’s husband has been transferred to Philadelphia, so she just left her position with our Food Distribution Ministry. Under her leadership, we distributed more than 1.5 million meals out of our parking lot. The good that God did through her is so obvious to me. That she brought this church gifts when she came to us is clear. Thanks in large part to her, we were named the Marietta City Schools Partner of the Year, but did you know that she believes she is the one who received the gift from this church? She moved to Marietta with her husband not knowing anyone. He worked all the time. She was lonely and bored. Somehow, she heard about food distribution here. She was curious, but it took her five weeks to work up the courage to come up here. Five weeks. Why? Her mother and sisters kept telling her not to come. “Those church people won’t like you,” they said. Finally summoning the courage, she walked up, though it was raining. She ran into Nancy Bodiford, who asked her where her jacket was. Then Nancy took her under her wing, and Andy met members of this church whom she describes as wonderful, loving, and kind. Today, Andy thinks of Nancy Bodiford as one of her best friends, and Andy told me week before last, “I’m going to see my mother and sisters back in the Philippines, and I’m not sure my family will even recognize me so changed am I by this place.” It took her five weeks to get here, though. When she finally made it inside, what did she find? A miracle around every corner? If kindness is a miracle, then yes. If you are lonely, then community is a miracle. If you are bored and without purpose, a means to make a difference is a miracle. If the world is cold, then love is a miracle, but what does it take for those who need what we have to find what they’re looking for? First, they must know that these church people will like them. That’s why we must let go of our plans in order to get out into the world. That’s the missionary journey. As your fearless leader, listen to what I did yesterday. I was a bartender from 4:00-7:00 down at Two Birds Taphouse. Why? For one thing because the profit from every beer sold went to our Food Distribution Ministry. For another because the people who need this are showing up over there, so when I was given the opportunity to go where they are, I took it. That wasn’t part of my plan. I didn’t have a class on mixing drinks while I was in seminary, but Paul didn’t accomplish God’s plan for his life by getting back on the road to Damascus. No, he accomplished God’s plan when he allowed his plan to fall apart. That’s what faith is: trusting that the next time your plan falls apart, God’s plan for your life may be just beginning. Next time your plan falls apart, remember that Paul never made it to Damascus. No, he made it to heaven. Let go of your plan to get from point A to point B to walk into others’ lives by letting them know how Christ walked into yours. Amen.