Forks In The Road

             As we walk through this text from Luke 11 I want you to think of it as a backdrop to the conversation we are about to have. The Pharisees and the religious lawyers had gotten so good at the details of their religious belief that they lost the relationship with God that was supposed to be the motivation for their belief. They had not only put up barriers to people on the outside (so that new people weren’t being invited in) but they were putting up barriers to the people on the inside keeping them from getting closer to God.

            Today’s conversation is about those barriers.

Luke 11:37–54

                  ³⁷While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. ³⁸The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. ³⁹Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ⁴⁰You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? ⁴¹So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. ⁴²“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. ⁴³Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. ⁴⁴Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.” ⁴⁵One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” ⁴⁶And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. ⁴⁷Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. ⁴⁸So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ ⁵⁰so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, ⁵¹from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. ⁵²Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” ⁵³When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many things, ⁵⁴lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

            When I lived in Eau Claire I would get a fair number of people who would either call or stop by the Church looking for help. This ranged from people needing diapers or baby formula or gas for their car or to be put up in a hotel for the night. Most were looking for cash which we tried to avoid handing out. In fact, we had so many people coming in asking for money to buy diapers and baby formula that we bought cases of both of those items to give to people. I wasn’t really surprised, but we had quite a few who wanted money for diapers and baby formula but wouldn’t take either of those items if they were offered.

            Most of the people who called for help would talk about being raised in the Methodist Church and about how important the Church was to them. I would hear story after story about how much they loved Jesus and how they spent time in Sunday school and other Church activities. At the risk of sounding cynical I got to a point where I thought every person who called was reading off of the same script.

            I eventually figured out that many of these people were “professional” transients”. Living off of the charity and good will of individuals and churches was their every day job. Most of them were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. They were just trying to “butter me up” or “grease the skids” so to speak.

            However, there was one call that kind of “broke the mold.”

            A man called who was traveling from Indiana to Minnesota and he was looking for gas for his car and something to eat but instead of giving me the “I love Jesus” speech he started right off by telling me about how awful Christians were.

            He was loud and angry and obnoxious and he spent a good five minutes outlining the hypocrisy of our faith and talking about our spiritual phoniness and our lack of true compassion. The summary of his approach was “you aren’t going to help me because you don’t really care” and “you Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites.” It was an interesting approach; I started to think of it as confrontational freeloading.

            He didn’t realize that I was a pretty easy mark. My natural tendency is to help people and I wasn’t going to not help him simply because he was insulting everything about my life.  However, if I could have schooled him, I might have mentioned that even though my natural tendency was to help he had pushed it right to the edge. I almost hung up on him.

            I think the reason I stayed on the line was because much of what he said was accurate. He could talk about spiritual phonies and it was true; there are lots of people who talk about religion BUT who have NEVER learned to practice a meaningful faith. He could talk about “religious” people who use their belief system as a way of manipulating other people’s lives and being in control AND again HE WAS RIGHT. FOR SOME PEOPLE RELIGION IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF POWER. He was also right that there are some people who believe everything that the church says for no apparent reason. THEY DON’T REALLY WANT TO KNOW, THEY JUST WANT SOMEONE TO TELL THEM WHAT THEY NEED TO DO TO GET INTO HEAVEN AND THEY WILL GENERALLY SHOOT FOR THE MINIMUM DAILY REQUIREMENT. ALL OF these kinds of people have given our faith in Jesus a bad name.

            Maybe what was happening was that I wanted to prove to this particular gentleman that there are actually believers in Jesus who care about people. SO, AT LEAST WHEN IT CAME TO ME, CONFRONTATIONAL FREELOADING WORKED LIKE A CHARM. HOWEVER, IN MY DEFENSE, I CAN SAY THAT I WENT INTO IT WITH MY EYES WIDE OPEN. I knew that he was trying to play on my guilt but knowing didn’t change anything. He got the help he was looking for.

            BUT THE PROBLEM this man highlighted was something THAT WE (in the Church) NEED TO DEAL WITH. We will never bring Jesus to our world if we don’t first clear up some misunderstandings and some misconceptions. FIRST, WE NEED TO DEAL WITH OUR OWN ATTITUDES TOWARD THE FAITH. We need to work on our personal relationship with Jesus so that the faith we live out every day is genuine and compassionate; a reflection of who we really are. This won’t happen over night and (I hope you understand) it only takes one misstep on our part for people to be convinced that what they’ve always thought was true is true.

            This is where the Church should come in to play. We are not only here to be a support group for each other as we face the challenges of living in the real world. We are here to be an accountability group. Just as we surrender our lives to Jesus, we are suppose to surrender our lives to each other and help each other become the best that we can be.

”Woe to you Pharisees!” (vs. 43)  “Woe also to you lawyers!” (vs. 46)

            When Jesus was with the hypocrites of his day his approach was to confront them with their failure. The advantage that Jesus had was that the Scribes, the Pharisees and the religious lawyers weren’t going anywhere. He could accuse them of killing the prophets and deluding the people with their teachings. He could call them “blind guides” and they would all still show up for work the next day. In that sense, he had a captive audience. The people Jesus was trying to teach weren’t going to move to a different country or join a different religious group.

            The world today is a different place. In fact, the world is a different place than it was 50 years ago and people come to church for different reasons than they did when I was a child. Today our world is filled with options and people are used to picking and choosing what they want to hear which means that if I tried to do today what Jesus did with the Pharisees and religious lawyers it would be EITHER my last sermon in front of this congregation or you would all be moving down the road to find another church HOME.

            What this means is that we need to begin to think of the Church differently. This is not simply a place where we attend; in theory this is a place where we come to be changed. We come here to place ourselves in the presence of God. We spend time in bible study, worship and prayer in order to allow our relationship with the living Jesus to reshape our character. We come together to spend time in fellowship and service with the assumption that we will learn from each other and grow in faith.

            The first step in confronting hypocrisy in our churches today is to stop being hypocrites. In order to show people what Jesus is able to do in the lives of ordinary people like you and me we have to be willing to let Jesus be at work in the lives of ordinary people like you and me. If our relationship with Jesus doesn’t mean something to us then it will never mean anything to the people we interact with. The first step IN “BRINGING JESUS TO OUR WORLD” is to let Jesus work in our lives.

            The second step is even harder. We need to give each other permission to meddle in our lives. We need each other to take an interest in our becoming the best human beings we can be AND the best followers of Jesus we can be. The only way that will happen is if we learn to trust each other deeply; deeply enough so we can have open and honest conversation about who we are and how we live our lives.

            The questions just keep coming. HOW DO WE get to that place where we really love each other and where we learn to trust each other with our lives? Some of this is obvious. We need to be present for each other. I can’t expect you to learn to trust me if you only see me once a quarter or even once a month. Even getting together once a week may not be enough.

            I WOULD LIKE TO SUGGEST (AGAIN) THAT THIS ISN’T SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE. Relationships are built in living rooms not in auditoriums. Relationships are built person to person not on the Internet. Our challenge will always be TO create spaces where we can interact and where we can get to know each other. Part of this challenge is getting close enough to people so that they can see that we are understanding, compassionate and “trustable” people as well. The Church (not the building but the church, the “ecclesia” of God) the gathering of believers is meant to be that place where our lives are changed.

            Then and only then can we begin our own personal public relations campaign that focuses on who Jesus is, what Jesus has done and who we are as Jesus’ servants in the world. Jesus needs advocates and that would be us.

            I was given the opportunity to sing the national anthem at a Brewers game because my wife was my advocate. She made it possible for me to stand on that field and sing that song. It wasn’t a hugely complicated process but she had to be intentional about it. When I was recording my musical CD she had me ask the recording engineer if I could do an “a capella” version of the National Anthem and have him burn it to a separate CD; which I did and which he did. Then she got the information regarding the application process, wrote a nice note that said (in part) that I was able to hit all the high notes and I would remember all of the words and then she sent all of that in to the Brewers organization. It wouldn’t have happened without her commitment.

            Jesus needs advocates; maybe we should call them “field agents.” Jesus needs people who will say some kinds things about him and make sure he gets the right kind of exposure.

            When I was in seminary, among the many books that I was required to read was one little book that was about 60 pages long entitled, “Say A Good Word for Jesus.” The book was written by John Watson, who was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor who served in Liverpool, England for 25 years. In this little book Watson tells the story of his call into ministry and how the only advice he got from his mother was that whenever he stepped into the pulpit he should make sure to “say a good word for Jesus.”

            We are all called to be advocates and to “say a good word for Jesus.” We are responsible for doing whatever is necessary to introduce people to this savior whom we love.

            This generally isn’t a complicated process but we need to be intentional about it. It means that we need to take advantage of opportunities that come along when they come along. We need to remember that we are a walking advertisement for the faith we have committed ourselves too.

            So, get ready to “say a good word for Jesus.” Help each other become the best that you can be and then go out and “say a good word of Jesus.” Grow closer to God, grow closer to each other, learn to love the Lord and your neighbor AND then let your life “say a good word for Jesus.”