No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service

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Loving My Neighbor

What you believe about God alters how you act towards others.

Now we all have favorites: foods, holidays, clothes, preachers, books, flowers, colors, web sites, and people.

  • It is natural to feel closer to some people and not as close to others. The scripture only designates one of the 12 as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Having good close friends, even a best/favorite friend, is not what I’m talking about this morning.

 

  1. Suppose an ill-clad person comes into our sanctuary and sits on the back pew.

  • The choicest seats today are on the back row; best seats in the house; the favored seats. For the most part, we have learned how to be polite. We would greet them with the peace of God. In most of our assemblies, Miss Manners would be quite pleased.
  • Yet I’m reminded of the day Chuck came into the assembly… the teacher asked rhetorically, “None of us knows what it feels like to be like Paul and stoned and left for dead, do we?” Chuck’s hand went up. Now it is not what you think. One cold night in the ghetto of Gary, IN, Chuck found himself in the wrong territory. The bricks left him with broken legs. … Three years later, in a small group Bible study, Chuck was asked, “What do you think about that text?” Chuck’s eyes began to water as he said, “In the three years I’ve attended this church, no one has ever bothered to ask me what I think.”
  • After her comes Smelly Mr. Smith, he lives in his station wagon. He sometimes has to choose between a can of beans and a bar of soap. He can’t afford both. You don’t want to sit beside him because his clothes reek with the stench of stale smoke with just an undercurrent of urine mixed with wine. Mr. Smith may leave with a sack of groceries from the church pantry, but he will have no place to lay his head. He has no address preventing him from applying for a job; and no job so he can’t afford an address.
  • Then there is Nosey Ned. Because he is tied to a respirator, he is not able to come to the assembly. He may stick his nose out the window whenever the neighbor’s car door closes. But he is not nosey; the neighbor may be the only human he will see the rest of the week. He is not nosey; he is only lonely.
  • We build comfortable church buildings that offer invitations of hospitality to our services, but our attitudes sometimes function like a neon sign that says “No shirt, No shoes, No service.” Like building a city park and inviting families to play, with signs posted everywhere saying “Keep Off the Grass!”
  • So it’s really not that hard to suppose if someone who is not like us comes into our assemblies.

 

  1. Now let us suppose if some of these folk came into an assembly where Jesus preached.

  • Two readings today, the first was from Mark 7, have long been associated in church history with James 2.  In an uncomfortable conversation, the lectionary oddly couples this text in James with two stories in Mark.
  • After a lengthy discussion on traditions, ceremonial cleanness, and proper religious decorum, Jesus left that place and immediately went into the assembly of Gentiles, and enters one of their houses, and eats at table, making himself unclean…and rejects a Syrophoenician woman; he dismissed her. But she spoke up, and for her faith, she received the mercy of God just as the other children of the household.
  • Jesus then travels to another region of the Gentiles and meets a deaf man who had a speech problem—Jesus puts his fingers into his ears and his spit on his tongue—for the mercy of God demonstrates that Gentiles can hear God and speak for God.
  • If God favors anyone, he favors preaching good news to the poor, proclaiming freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, and release to the oppressed.
  • So if these folks came to church where Jesus preached, we know they would have been received with open arms.

 

  1. So how does that play out in our churches?

  • Two years ago, after a Wednesday Night Strike with Love & Care Ministries, a student reflected in her field notes the following:

“The man and his dog stepped out of his cardboard home and greeted us with open arms. He was proud of his home and showed us around. He bragged on his décor. He was a well-spoken man who was, to my surprise, employed in Abilene. He talked about not being burdened with the day-to-day worries of bills, repairs, inflation, or insurance. He talked about being free from possessions that would hinder him leaving tomorrow and walking to Houston if he wanted. He seemed truly sorrowful about our being burdened with gadgets, credit cards, hair styles, and wardrobes… I met a man today who was content. I wonder if I have ever known anyone as peaceful and joyful as him.”

  • In 1999, Charles Siburt and I visited some inner city ministries in Vancouver, CAN. As we entered into one soup kitchen, coffee was just being served. I sat down next to one of the street people and said, “You really got a nice place here.” He corrected me saying, “No. You have a nice place here.” I reacted, “You don’t understand. I am just visiting. I’m from Texas. But I like your place here.” But he looked at me and slowly repeated, “You have a nice place here.” A place of welcome, a place of hospitality, a place where even if you are from Texas, you can belong. Everyone is the same in a soup kitchen line.
  • We entered a church building of a congregation that a few years earlier was on the verge of dying. Revitalization came to that fellowship when they opened their doors so folks could spend the night on their pews, have a place to shower, wash clothes, and store items securely.
  • In such places, I can only imagine the difference in their conversations. The difference in the content of sermons (I’ve preached at an inner city church for two years and the sermons on my hard drive did not resurrect that church), the difference in the agendas at meetings, the difference in the line items in the budget ($350 for party balloons and a fatted calf), the difference in the messages put in the suggestion box in the corner.
  • The difference: here is a place where the consciousness of the community expresses the mercy of God. A place where God’s blessing ≠ financial success, God’s blessing ≠ the size of the building, God’s blessing ≠ the bottom line of the budget. A place where being fully human ≠ to possessions; Mercy ≠ relieving folks of their poverty before they can claim human dignity. Being & Having are not an equation. The value of every person is determined by blood not mud.

 

  1. So in our churches, what law do we follow?

  • The royal law or the law of favoritism? The royal law found in scripture, “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself.” Favoritism breaks the royal law. Favoritism exploits people and discounts dignity. Favoritism ignores. Favoritism disregards. Alternatively, Mercy is God’s way of dealing with humanity, for mercy triumphs over judgment.
  • The poor have been chosen by God to be heirs of the kingdom. The hope of the poor is in God who gives every perfect gift to all without grudging, and a crown of glory without partiality to all who love him. God is not a respecter of persons; God does not show favoritism; God does not close his eyes to the poor.
  • “What you believe about God alters how you act towards others.”

–Sermon preached on September 6, 2015 @ Winters Texas.