Sermon, Lost and Found

Pentecost 24.07
Herb Palmer
Faith Lutheran Church, Bellaire
September 16, 2007
Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 51:1-10; I Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10
“Lost and Found”

My son bought a new house this summer and he has been doing some renovations before he moves in. Major work was done in the kitchen and the bathroom to update the place and make it look like a guy lives here. Turquoise, pink, and green tiles from 40 years ago had to go. The subcontractors, who did this work, put the broken tile and concrete in plastic bags and piled the bags on the back patio.

The challenge was: what do you do with these bags of broken tile and concrete? Or, better yet, what is the cheapest thing to do with it? Heavy trash pick-up day for that community is on the first Monday of the month. So, that was the plan. In September, the first Monday of the month is Labor Day, so the pick-up day was on Tuesday. It wasn’t how I wanted to spend the morning of Labor Day, but my help was needed.

It took two of us to lift these bags of tile and concrete. We put them on a utility truck and rolled them out to the curb. I am not sure if we made 50 trips to the curb or moved 50 bags out there. Either way, it was a lot. Needless to say, by the time I was finished, I was hot and sweaty, and ready to go home. I was putting some things in my car and I heard someone from the street yell, “Good Morning.” I looked up and saw a man coming toward me.

At first, I thought he was a neighbor or someone from the neighborhood association, coming to complain that we had put all this trash on the curb. I didn’t want to talk with someone. I just wanted to get home, get cleaned up, and get to my Labor Day plans. This man wasn’t a neighbor. He was looking for work to do with yard care, repairs, cleaning gutters. I told him that this was my son’s house… and… I am thinking “Great, now that all of this work is done, NOW this guy shows up!” I wanted to keep this conversation short, get home and get to my Labor Day plans but that wasn’t happening.

The man kept talking. By some of the things he was saying, I could tell that he was religious. You know how religious people can get. If he starts talking about religion, I’ll never get out of here, especially if he finds out that I am a pastor. I knew it was coming. I couldn’t avoid it. I was trapped. He got the question out before I could do or say something: he asked, “And where do you work?”
“I am a Lutheran pastor, serving with a congregation in Bellaire.” I said.

“I am a minister, too, with our congregation in Southwest Houston.” he said…. And then he began his story. “Every Day I am thankful that I am alive.” I am thinking: “I am so happy that he is a Christian, but he is not obligated to share Christ with me. I’m in. I just want to get home.” But he keeps talking.

“I wasted 30 years of my life”, he said. “I was addicted to drugs, spent years of my life in prison. I just wasted my life away. God rescued me; and now I am giving my life to God to help others who are in the same situation as I was.”

I am getting curious now. “How is it going?” I asked.
“We are working with some very tough people, but God is doing tremendous things. I am so grateful to do something. I wasted my life for 30 years.
I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

Our conversation did not go very much longer. He gave me his business card and he went on his way. When I was driving home to get cleaned up and get on with my Labor Day plans I couldn’t help but think about Tjuri and what he was doing. As much as I would like to think I could, I would have a huge learning curve to do what he is doing. I am worlds away from his world.

What seemed to motivate him was that he knew what it was like to waste his life. He knew what it was like to be snatched from death. He knew what it was like to know his life has a purpose.

With that kind of motivation he didn’t mind getting dirty. He didn’t mind being with irreligious people. He didn’t mind associating with people who were part of a life he walked away from. He doesn’t mind sharing that his life was snatched from death. He didn’t mind any of that… because he didn’t want anyone else to make the same mistakes.

He lived what it meant to be lost. He was living what it meant to be found. His name is Tjuri, but I think I saw the face of Jesus that day. He is casting out demons, Eating with sinners. Rescuing the lost.

There have been times lately when I was very discouraged about the church and what we are doing with the time we are given and how easily we get distracted from the main thing. Tjuri was one of those grace moments for me, reminding me that it matters what we are doing…as long as we get it straight what exactly we are suppose to be doing.

We are doing God’s work: and God’s work is pursuing people.
God loves people inside and outside of the church. God loves the baptized and the unbaptized. God loves people even more than the rules God gives us to live by. Jesus shows by his words and his actions that God desires a relationship with every human being. God doesn’t want anyone to be missed. God desires for every person to know that they are a child of God, deeply valued by God.

I wouldn’t encourage anyone to take the path Tjuri took to be where he is today. But the same God is in pursuit of each of us for the same outcome. When we are not in a relationship with God, we are lost, and God will not rest. What I admire of Tjuri is his passion and I wish that the whole church had it.

Often when we think of people who are lost we think of those who are like Tjuri. But that is not true. Lost people are often people like us who let the things of life get in the way.

Very soon we are going to be in our Spiritual enrichment time with 40 Days of community. It is our goal to invite others in. Invite them into worship, into study, into Faith Groups. We want to invite them into our lives and invite them into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We are also going to seek invitations to be invited into their lives by serving them. Maybe some of them will be like I was: hot, tired, thinking about my plans. But will we be like Tjuri, keeping at it because this is about life and death.
I hope that this will be an opportunity for some people who have not been close to God find that God is in pursuit of them. I want to pray that there will be celebrating all over the place.

Here is what the good news for us today is: Get in touch with the work of God in your life and on your behalf. You are likely doing a wonderful job serving God and taking care of your spiritual life. Keep it up; but keep your eyes on God who’s Spirit has been working to keep you close to God. God is celebrating every bit as much about you as he is about someone Tjuri helps out of their death traps.

Get in touch with the work of God in your life and also celebrate the work of God in the lives of others.

The point of each of the parables told by Jesus is that the owner, found what he valued, and he invited everyone else to celebrate with him. Go ahead; celebrate the work of God in your life and in the life of one another. When we do, we are told that we get in tune with what is going on beyond this place in a place where there are angels and heavenly beings. Heaven and earth are rejoicing even when it is just one of us. That is pretty amazing. AMEN

Sermon, Luke 14:1, 7-14, A Humble Presence

Herb Palmer
Faith Lutheran Church, Bellaire
September 2, 2007
Ordinary time 22, Series C
Luke 14:1, 7-14
SERMON theme: the Humble Presence

I am very excited and I can sense the growing excitement in the congregation that in just a few weeks a number of you are going to have some people sit around your kitchen table or your living room coffee table when you open your home for our 40 days of community Faith Groups.

We need 40 host homes but I hope that your response will blow us out of the water because so many more of you want to host this exciting spiritual enrichment in your home. 40 Days of community is for 8 weeks and for 6 of those weeks, throughout this city, we will be gathering into homes just like yours. Some significant things are going to happen around your table at home. I believe that for years to come every time you sit at your table you are going to remember the transformation for some people that took place in your home.

In our Faith groups we are going to get to know one another. You will sit with people you might not know very well or not at all; but you will begin to look forward to seeing them every week. That is what happened for many people since we began forming into Faith Groups on Sunday morning. A number of people have shared with me that they have been blessed by getting to know some people in their Faith group that they never knew before.

In our 40 Days of Community Faith groups we are going to grow in our faith through study and prayer. Every week you will have time to study the Bible and talk about things that matter in your life. You will have time for prayer, inviting God to journey with you in the things that matter to you and your group.

In our 40 Days of Community Faith groups we are going to find ways to serve others. Each of our weekday Faith groups will get involved in a meaningful service project; and by doing so, in a sense, they will widen the circle around the table group to share with other people in our communities.

Imagine with me our host homes, scattered around this city. At kitchen tables and coffee tables… chairs have been placed around the table; and there are 100’s of people every week coming together filling those chairs around those tables. And they are involved in conversations that matter.

Just imagine what God can do with that!? New relationships will be formed; lives will be forever changed. When lives are changed it has an impact on everything around us. And that is what I want to spend the rest of this time talking with you about.

I want you to hold onto the image of the people around the table. You many think it is just a few people at your home, but it has everything to do with what God intends for this world. What you will be part of is the revolution Jesus, himself, started.

What you are part of will go to such places as the boardroom tables and operating room tables across this city. The people who spend most of their time at such tables will be the people who are transformed by God at your table. Jesus started a table fellowship revolution that changes everything about how we think about who sits at our tables. This table fellowship revolution is what Jesus brings up in the home of a Pharisee on a Sabbath. Jesus is a guest at the table for the evening meal.

There are a couple of things going on that evening that were part of the culture. First of all, the people at the table were the “in-group”. The host and his guests were expecting to personally benefit from one another. This Pharisee host intentionally invited the people who were around his table because their presence could advance his status in the community.

Secondly, in this culture …invited guests were obligated to reciprocate. Strings are attached. This was not just a relaxing meal with friends on a Sunday evening. This was a working supper, where decisions were made and relationships are formed. These were the mover and shakers of the community seated at this table.They were the elite. They are: “the good ole boys”. This was every bit of a boardroom of a corporation or of the government.

We don’t think of Jesus as a “good ole boy”, particularly among the Pharisees. Why was Jesus a guest? Luke tells us that Jesus is invited because “they”, meaning the other guests, “were watching him.” You have heard the saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. They saw Jesus as an enemy, so they were going to keep him close; and perhaps be fortunate enough to catch him in a mistake by which they can do him in.

Jesus doesn’t disappoint them. He turns the table and points out their mistake. He has also been watching them as they negotiate and take their places with one another. He challenges their system of doing business. He proposes to deconstruct their world of privilege. Make no mistake about it, he is not offering a different table etiquette. He is proposing in this corporate boardroom a revolutionary way of being a community. In this new community there are no insiders and outsiders. No one has privilege over another. And it is about what is good for everyone.

What Jesus observed 2000 years ago still goes on today: many people today hang with the right people if they are going to get ahead; and they will do what they can for people to be indebted to them in order to get what they want.

In many workplaces you soon become aware of what is right and wrong for success in that environment. You learn what you will need to do if you plan to advance in the organization.You learn what is good for you and what will hurt your standing in the workplace. You may have to do certain things in order to survive in the workplace. You may have to honor some people and have others indebted to you for doing business.

That may be the world you live in every day, as did the movers and shakers with whom Jesus shared supper. Jesus said to them, and to us, we must critically evaluate to what extent we will follow these rules, and… understand… that as a person who honors God… there are boundaries that we don’t cross nor compromise.

That boundary has to do with our use and understanding of power. Everyone has some kind of power. You may not have the power to move millions of dollars around, or the power that influences major decisions around the world. The power you can unleash, however, is from the conviction that as far as you are concerned that the person who signs your paycheck is not more important than the person who cleans your office or files your papers.

Jesus watched his host at work and people were a means to an end. His host had the opportunity to do something for the greater good and he didn’t. Jesus not only challenged them but he made it clear that God doesn’t want any part of it. Jesus lets them know that they have missed opportunities to serve God in their workplace and they have misrepresented God as a person of faith.

Every day can present issues for you to negotiate within these boundaries. You are not alone in this, however. The faith community is a place to learn and practice the values of God’s revolutionary table fellowship… learning as we are gathered that the only status is that each person is a child of God.

God, himself also will show us by example. God invites us to a table fellowship where the story is told that Jesus, the host, humbled himself and took on the role of a servant; washing the feet of those who were there; and offering up himself for their sake and for the good of all. And we are told: go and do likewise, taking God’s values to boardrooms, offices, and even the table at home. This probably won’t advance your career; but it does advance the reign of God among us. And when you begin to see the big picture, which is more important? And just imagine what happened may have had its start by a conversation or a prayer at your table when you hosted a few people from church. Amen