Not My Way Is Still a Good Way

I want to build upon what we started last week with the Parable of the Talents. Do you remember the words the parable started with?

“It is like a man going on a journey who entrusts his property to his servants. . .”

It is like. . .what is it? The Kingdom of God is it. The kingdom is the way God does things – his rule, his order, his values, his demands and his rewards; God’s economy if you will.

This week, we get another the Kingdom of heaven/God parable. It is like this. . .

A landowner went out early to hire workers to pick the crop and he agreed on the usual wage with them. Then the owner went out mid morning and found some other guys and put them to work. The owner went out again at noon and then yet again at three in the afternoon, hiring more people each time.


How is the kingdom of God like this? How is life like this?


We are not all the same. We are equal in eternal value and the love of God, but we are not all created the same. I remember when the boys were little they watched a video of the Muppets. This one was called Billy Bunny. The story is, Billy Bunny goes around and meets new friends and each time he meets a friend they sing a song for him. One song I remember all these years later was a song called, “We are Different.” It was sung by a large group of moles that looked exactly the same. They kept popping out of their holes in different order and places singing we are different, and maybe because they looked exactly alike and you were tempted to want to play a game of Whack-a-Mole on their heads, the point of their song was oddly, well-received.

We are all different, even if we look a lot alike on the outside. Just as when someone looks a lot different from us on the outside we can’t assume we have nothing in common or treat them with suspicion, we in the church can’t assume we will always agree on the same issues and same courses of action.

How we disagree is more important than what we disagree about. The best way to work through differences of opinion is for everyone involved to begin with an attitude of humility. This is, after all, the Church of Jesus Christ. It’s not my church or your church alone. Church is not about me.

Here’s a video that reminds us of this truth – it’s called MeChurch:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGEmlPjgjVI

This is not about me. Let’s all say that together:
This is not about me!


The early church had issues of disagreement over issues like, Is it better to eat only vegetables? Stuff like that. Good thing we don’t disagree over stupid stuff like them, huh?

Personally, I’m a meatatarian. I eat meat whenever I can get it. It’s a lifestyle choice.

The early church argued over whether everybody should abstain my meat on Fridays as a holy day. Some said isn’t this a great way to honor Christ and the meatatarians among them said hey, I honor Christ in my freedom to eat.meat.

How did Paul speak to this?

“Welcome those weaker (or younger) in the faith but not so you can foist your opinions upon them.” (my paraphrase) Romans 14.1

We’re not supposed make our own little disciples, our own mini-mes. We’re supposed to make disciples of Jesus!

When you are tempted to give someone “a piece of your mind,” stop. Ask yourself, what might this look like if I give that person a piece of Jesus mind?

“Jesus’ mind is like this: . . .he didn’t regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself. . .humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death – death on a cross.” Philippians 2.5-8

Jesus is God. He’s right all the time. But instead of taking advantage of that, he deferred. He got low. He never used the truth as a bludgeon on people.

I don’t know how it is at your house or your work, but I know that in my world there are different ways of doing about everything – different ways of doing dishes, different ways of folding the laundry, different ways of cooking bacon. Some ways probably are better than others. Some ways are not better or worse, they’re just different. Marriage has taught Jennifer and me that we both have our preferences and we do things differently, but we’ve learned that “their way is still good.”

Not my way is still a good way.


The Food Channel was doing a feature on donuts yesterday. We must in America. We have a Food Channel and there is a whole episode on donuts! Anyway, this one donut shop was called Voo doo Donuts and they were known for their crazy concoctions. Bacon-Maple Donuts is a feature. The owner said, “Many people balk at that when they first hear it, but I say. . . it’s a good thing. Bacon-Maple donuts are not my thing, but they are a good thing. Because variety is good.

Diversity and difference of opinion can be a very good thing. The Trustees found that out over the course of this summer as they asked questions about our Fresh Air Project. The Trustees have done tremendous work because they were not afraid to voice their opinions and discuss the issues.

I was in a church once where there was never any disagreement, diversity, or minority opinions. Everyone pretty much agreed on everything. That church had seven people for worship on regular Sunday. It was basically one family. Even in that one family, I bet half of them just stifled their opinions to stay in lockstep with the hierarchy.

So if I’m going to think like Jesus, then I welcome the gifts and passion I see in others. Variety and diversity are a good thing for the church. The more the church grows the more diversity there will be.

In Jesus’ parable, the workers all come in from the fields. They look around, and especially those who went out first thing in the morning, finally see just how many workers there are. They might have been inclined to say, “Wow, great! The owner hired more help. I bet we got more done than we ever imagined! Good job everybody!”

They might have said that.

But they didn’t say that. They grumbled and complained. They said it wasn’t fair that the workers who came late to the job should also be paid well. They said it stinks how generous the owner is being with those Johnny-come-lately’s.

Is this gonna be us? Are you going to spend your time complaining about other people who think and do things differently than you do? Are you going to complain simply because they arrived later than you did to this church?

Or are you gonna rejoice that God is blessing the church with new workers, new disciples of Christ? Are you rejoicing that God is doing a new thing among us?

Invest

If you go to the Black Dog Café on Allegheny St. in Hollidaysburg you will meet a waitress that works there. There is more than one waitress there but the one I’m talking about, well, you’ll know her when you hear her. She is constantly talking to the customers, asking “How ya doin’ honey?” and laughing at small jokes. You might say she is joyous. When I go in she always looks to see what I am reading and sometimes she has read it too and we talk about it. The other day she asked what I was doing there and I told her I was thinking about my message for this Sunday.

I asked her, “What do you invest your life in?”

She told me about a cancer diagnosis some years ago. She said after that her life changed. She found a church where she could grow. She quit a better paying job to work more at the Café for less money. The other job, she didn’t like how they treated people. She likes it at the Black Dog because she works with other Christians and she gets to do what she likes best. What does she like best? Talking to people. She loves to talk. She also brings you your order once in awhile too. She is investing her life into people who walk in the café.

Here’s another coffee shop story: In San Francisco there is a place called Bake Sale Betty’s. The food is very good and the service is friendly. But what makes it really special goes beyond friendly service. Say you order their delicious chicken pot pie. You finish your meal. You’re stuffed and satisfied. You go to pay and the clerk steps to another part of the bakery and hands you a fresh apple pie and says, “That will go great with your chicken pot pie.” You start to object but by the look in the clerk’s eyes you realize that he is giving you the apple pie. This kind of thing happens all the time at Bake Sale Betty’s. People line up around the block to get in. Though the neighborhood is nothing special and the building itself has been the site of many failed businesses, Betty’s is thriving. It’s not just the free apple pies, its something else. It’s the care that goes into the food and the service. It’s the magnanimity of the place.

Bake Sale Betty’s raises some interesting questions for the church. Is such magnanimity the spirit and reputation of our church? I heaped up, open-handed goodness without strings the love we share with people who come to our doors, whether they are regulars or not? Why do so many of us who claim to be ambassadors for abundant grace live lives of stingy scarcity?

The Parable of the Talents tells us that each one of us is given time and a certain amount of resources. What we do with our time and resources really makes all the difference. The word, “talent”, in this parable comes from a Greek word, talanton, that literally means “weight.” A talent is something of substance. It has economic value. So in this sense we are not talking about whether you can play the piano or not – Jesus is talking about money.

Not every servant receives the same amount, but every servant is expected to be good stewards what is given to them. And lest we miss the point, the parable makes it clear that a good steward does something positive with the money on behalf of the master.

The master returns and judges each servant for the kind of steward they have been. Who is the only one that receives a negative review? The one who did nothing with their money for the master.

The servant who received the smallest amount, who could have risked more and lost the least, instead played it safe and just hid the money. The master not only has a negative opinion of this servant, but stings with biting criticism – “You are wicked and lazy.”

Ouch.

If Jesus took a tour of garages and basements and attics and saw all the stuff we have bought with our talents only to throw it away in the corner never to be used again, I wonder what he would say to us? I wince when I think about just how many bobbleheads we have around house, yes, that’s right, bobbleheads.

Newsweek did an interview with Woody Allen recently. They talked about the great filmmaker’s work and the undercurrent of despair that runs through even his comedies.

One of my favorite Woody Allen lines:

Interviewer: Would you like to live in the memories of your fans?

Allen: I would rather live on in my apartment.

Allen admits to lying awake at night terrified at what happens after death. He’s terrified because he believes nothing happens. He looks at life as “a meaningless little flicker.”

“You have a meal, or you listen to a piece of music, and it’s a pleasurable thing,” Allen says. “But it doesn’t accrue to anything.”

That’s a depressing view of life. It doesn’t get much bleaker than that. But Woody’s right about that last part – the pleasures we accumulate do not accrue to anything.

It’s only what we give to others for the sake of the Kingdom that has any lasting significance. The Cross says “Give it away.”

St. Paul writes to the church at Corinth, a city known for its high pleasure quotient, about the meaning of our giving:

“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” 2 Corinthians 9.6


Will we fritter away the money, time, and resources that God has richly blessed us with or will we invest our best selves and resources into a life serving the Kingdom that will have no end?

Dude, Where’s My Life?

The following is from John Ortberg’s book, When the Game Is Over It All Goes Back in the Box:

Once upon a time in Silicon Valley there lived a busy, important man. He routinely logged twelve to fourteen-hour days at his job and sometimes on weekends. Even when he was not working, his mind drifted toward his work so that it was not only his occupation but also his preoccupation. He found the forty-hour work week such a good idea he would often do it twice a week.

His wife tried to slow him down, to remind him that he had a family. He knew that they were not as close as they once had been. He had not intended to drift away. It’s just that she always seemed to want time from him, and that is what he did not have to give. He gave at the office.

He was vaguely aware that his kids were growing up and he was missing it. From time to time his children would complain about books that he wasn’t reading to them, games of catch he wasn’t playing with them, lunches he wasn’t eating with them. But after a while they stopped complaining, because they stopped expecting that their lives might ever be different.

I’ll be more available to them in six months or so, he said to himself when things settle down. And though he was a very bright guy, he didn’t seem to notice that things never settled down. Besides, he said to himself when he felt guilty, I’m doing it all for them. Of course this wasn’t even partly true. He would have lived this way if they didn’t exist at all. He lived this way even though they begged him to change. But because they didn’t move out to live in a cardboard box, because they lived in the home and ate the food and wore the clothes and played the video games that his money provided, he could say to himself, I’m doing it all for them. And no one knew him or loved him enough to tell him the truth.

He knew that he was not taking great care of his body. His doctor told him he had some pretty serious warning signs – elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol – and told him he needed to cut down on the Twinkies and red meat and start an exercise program. So he stopped going to see his doctor. There will be plenty of time for that, he said to himself, when things settle down.

Well, one day the CEO of the company came to him and announced with great excitement an emerging opportunity that would absolutely guarantee the company long-term brilliance, but it would require even longer hours on his part. He went home and told his wife that this was the opportunity they had been waiting for. After this they would be set for life. Things would settle down. We can finally go on the vacation you’ve been pestering me about. But his wife had heard this sort of thing before and had learned not to get her hopes up. At 11:00 she went up to bed by herself – as usual.

He was a man in control of his environment. But there was one microscopic detail that escaped his attention. An artery that had once been as supple as a blade of grass was now as dry as plaster and as stiff as old cement. Every day, every cigar, every pat of butter, every angry word and every tension-filled drive had done its work. Quietly, efficiently, irresistibly, his body was preparing to do him in. For more than half a century his heart had been pumping 70 millileters of blood with every contraction, 14,000 pints a day, 100,000 beats every 24 hours – all without ever sending a memo or giving it a performance review. Now it skipped a beat. Then another. And a third. He gasped for air and clutched his chest. For a moment he was given the gift of blinding clarity. Even though he sat at the top of a hundred organizational charts, it turns out he wasn’t even in control of his own pulse.

His death was a major story in the financial community. His obituary was written up in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. It’s too bad he was dead, because he would have loved to read what they wrote about him.

Then came the memorial service. Because of his prominence, the whole community turned out. People filed past his casket and made the same foolish comment people always make at funerals: “He looks so peaceful.” Rigor mortis will do that. Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down. They ask the same foolish question people ask when somebody rich dies: “I wonder how much he left?” He left it all. Everybody always leaves it all.


I thought that extended story was worth hearing. We are not as in control as we think we are. And the harder we try to control things the easier our lives slip away from us.

At home we have a new favorite show we watch called Nanny 911. The premise is that these English Nannies are called into American families in crisis to help them learn how to be a functional family again. There are beastly children and overwrought mothers and clueless dads – a real circus. It’s fascinating viewing. I guarantee you you’ll feel better about your family after watching the families on this show. One recent episode showed a father who had no positive relationship with his young son using taunting as a form of discipline. He took all his sons toys away and the son screamed, “GIVE ME MY TOYS BACK!” Dad responded with, “GIVE ME MY LIFE BACK!”

That told me all I needed to know about dad. He felt like he was no longer in control of his life. These annoying kids and wife were taking away from his precious time. They were a burden to him.

It reminded me of a similar scene from the movie Parenthood where the dad, played by Steve Martin, is under similar stress. He can’t control things at work. He can’t control things at home. Nothing is going according to plan. He cries out in frustration,

“My whole life is have to!”
Maybe you have felt this way too at times. Life keeps giving you more and more pressure and “have to” kind of things.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus never talked about life this way. Oh, he talked about obeying the Father in everything, but it never sounded like a burden, a have to. It always sounded like something he wanted to do. Even in his death he didn’t change his view much.

Think about that, the view from the Cross – nothing could bring greater clarity about your life. Even the two thieves beside him seemed to get that clarity in one way or another. But even that cruel death was not a have to. Jesus insisted, “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down.”

That’s the way of the Cross. If you want to know how to have life, give it away. It’s the opposite of our control-obsessed, selfish selves. Give your life away and it will come back to you.

“If any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16.24-25

Jesus invites us all to take a look at life with the view from the Cross. It’s really the only way to see with clarity.

I think maybe people hear that invitation to take up the Cross and something in them feels like they’re going to have their lives taken away. You know, they’re going to lose something. What you lose won’t compare to what you gain in the end.

Jesus isn’t trying to trick us.

“I have come so that you may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10.10

Jesus wants to give us our lives back from the selfishness and the darkness that has taken over.

I was listening to a song by James Taylor this week, and part of it goes like this:

You can’t get no light from a dollar bill
Don’t get no light from a tv screen
When I open my eyes I want to drink my fill
From the well on the hill
Do you know what I mean?


What good is it to suck up everything this world has to offer and lose your life in the process? Do you know what I mean?

The Church Is Unstoppable

There’s an old story about a preacher and a congregation one Sunday. The preacher was preaching on the nature of the church.

“In order for the church to crawl, we’ve got to read the Bible more.”

To which one of the faithful exclaimed, “Crawl on, preacher.”

The preacher continued, “In order for the church to walk, we’ve got to pray more.”

“Walk on, preacher, walk on!” a man called out.

“In order for the church to run, we’ve got to serve more,” the preacher declared.

“Run on, preacher, run on!”

And finally, crescendoing in volume the preacher shouted, “In order for the church to fly, we’ve got to give more!”

After a pause, a voice from the congregation was heard, “Walk on, preacher, walk on.”


It is all too easy for us to see our limitations as a church. We get caught up in “the natural.” “The natural” is looking at challenges and situations only by what we think we can do, only by the resources on hand, and only by safe measures.

Sometimes, folks, we need to get caught up in the supernatural. We to need to consider what God has done through us, what God is doing through us, and what God wants to do through us.

Is the church merely the sum of people in the pews, money in the bank account, and projected income for the year? Is this all there is to the church?


Well, let’s consider what Jesus intended the church to be. After all, the church is His idea. In our Gospel lesson Jesus asks a question about his own identity.

“Who do people say I am?” Different answers are given – none of them are bad, but none are correct either.

Then Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”

Peter correctly answers, you are Messiah, the Son of the living God. Well done. But here’s the thing – is Peter the only one who knew or suspected this? Did Peter have special Bible training that all the other Jews of that day, including Pharisees, Rabbi’s and Scribes, didn’t have?

Of course not. What makes Peter special is he is the first one to make the commitment. He dared to say what no one else yet would – You are the Christ. You are the One.

Jesus blesses Peter for his commitment. His blessing is, “Here, you are the Church!” Your commitment is the foundation. Here’s the keys to the Kingdom.”

“You’re a rock, Peter. You’re the church. Nothing can stand against you. Not heaven, not Hell.”

Somehow Peter’s commitment to Jesus unleashed the commitment of Jesus to the Church. It follows that anytime and anywhere the Church fully commits to Jesus, Jesus blesses the Church.


The blessing is not a blessing of “You’ll never face anymore problems.” No, the blessing is one of God’s presence – “Lo, I will be with you always.” That’s God’s promise. In fact, when we experience difficulty and resistance, this is often a sign that we are in God’s will and doing the right thing.

Look at the Israelites in Egypt. They were led there by God. They found a good life there for many years. But things began to get harder. Pharaoh piled burden after burden upon them, made them second class citizens, and then made them slaves. Pharaoh pushed them and pushed them – they worked harder and harder with no end in site. But what Pharaoh hoped would happen never happened. He hoped the Israelites would give up and die. They kept on living, and in fact, living stronger in the face of the persecution. They kept growing. And what God promised would happen did happen – God was with them all the way.

George Whitfield was perhaps the greatest evangelist this country has ever seen. Whitfield was a colleague and friend of John Wesley. Thousands of people came to Christ through his ministry. But Whitfield also faced a lot of hostility as well.
Some skeptics would come to hear him preach only to heckle and jeer and throw things. Apparently one hostile crowd brought some dead cats with them and began to dismember and throw the cat parts at the evangelist.

“I can put up with. . .”

Now I know we believe in Jesus and believe He can do anything. Do we believe in the Church as much as Jesus believes in the Church?


I know all about limitations. I know all about obstacles. But never are we called to fix our eyes on the problem, but rather, on the prize.

Hicks Church as been through some lean times in its history, both distant and more recent – which bills are we going to pay, what currency – eggs or chickens – is the preacher gonna be paid in, that sort of thing. But we never closed the doors.

We faced building project after building project, renovation upon renovation. Every time some doubted that it could be paid for. Some said it wasn’t responsible, times were too hard. But every time the project was paid for. Somehow the church found a way.

The most recent renovation was the Sharing the Vision project. It was probably the most financially ambitious project we have attempted since this building was built. But you paid for the project. You did this even though you changed pastors, which is never an easy thing to do, especially in the middle of a financial campaign.


We have quite a record of success. Do our attitudes reflect this success? Or do we project an image of failure and weakness? Do we act poor and needy most of the time?

Here’s a remark I over heard the other week - and let me say that this was in a positive context – this person was saying what a great service we had the other week with Dave Felty. It was a great service! His music and testimony was a blessing. But this person expressed that by saying that it was “something quite above our station!”

What? What is our station? Why should we not expect God to rain blessing down upon us? Be thankful. Don’t take it for granted. But don’t stop expecting good things either!

Now I’m not saying that there are never times to be prudent or to say no to a vision or a goal. Of course there are those times. But the question we must answer in those times is, “Does God want us to do something about this or not?”

Questions like, “Do we have the money?” or “Do most of our people approve of this?” are really secondary questions. I’ve been pastoring for seventeen years – from 1991 to today. Economists tells us that roughly that period up until the last two years was one of the most prosperous economic periods in the history of our country. It was boom time. By almost every measure, the U.S. economy did well.

But in all that time I have been a pastor, in those very years, not one of those years, I think, has gone by without me hearing this in the church, “Times are tough. People are on fixed incomes. We can’t afford this.”

Maybe it’s one of those things that “times are always tough.” But thankfully, God is not limited and the Church is not defined by tough times. We work harder. We pray more. We grow more.

The Church is an unstoppable force. But only if we let her be. The only thing that can stop us is . . .us.