8 Crazy Things Christians Do: Witness

A couple of weeks ago we had some visitors here at the church. Betty Whitehurst, who has spent many years promoting missions in our conference, came to speak to our United Methodist Women about the work of the church around the world. She brought along her husband, Walt, which was a great treat for me. I have known the Whitehursts since I was a youth. They have a son about my age and we went to many youth events together over the years.

The Whitehursts brought another guest with them, however. It just so happened that a pastor from Chile was visiting with them and so she came to share in the program. Flor Rodriguez serves a Methodist congregation in Santiago, Chile, which is where the Whitehursts were for several years as missionaries with the United Methodist Church. She serves a very poor congregation in a very poor section of the city and she talked about a ministry that the church was involved in.

The church is located near a public square where children and youth gather before school. The students come from the surrounding countryside and ride buses into this neighborhood, but because of the bus schedule, they arrive around 8:30 in the morning and the classes don’t start until the afternoon. So for several hours they are sitting in the square. Seven women from Pastor Flor’s church saw what was happening and decided that they had to do something about it.

So they started serving food. They invited the children into the church and fed them. Soon they were serving 75 to 80 meals a day. They got some help from the city government and they asked the families of the children to send in two kilos of grain when they could. When they met each week for their prayer time they all brought a thimbleful of cooking oil that they pooled together for the weekly cooking.

Then they saw that there were other needs. They were close to a local hospital and because of the health care system there, everyday people come to wait in line to be seen. They line up at 8 o’clock in the morning and often stay in line many hours. The ladies said to themselves, “We need to feed them, too.” So they do. This small group of women heard Jesus say, “I was hungry and you fed me,” and they decided to listen. They were going to be a witness to the good news. At a time when many congregations might have said, “We can’t,” Flor Rodriguez’s church said, “We will.”

In the Congo in Africa, Franktown Church has a representative. Jacques Akasa and his wife, Poto Valentine Shutsa, run an aviation ministry there. The Congo is a huge country. If you look at a map of Africa it takes up the whole central part of the continent. But it is one of the most troubled nations in the world. It is difficult to get around because there is no national transportation network. There are vast jungles separating the eastern and western halves of the country. In the west political turmoil and economic disaster have devastated the country. In the east there is open civil war and competing militia groups. Throughout there are people who do not have what they need to survive and do not have much hope.

Jacques has a plane and he goes throughout the country taking doctors and medical teams, medical supplies, missionaries, pastors and church leaders. Jacques and Poto were here not too long ago and they told us about the challenges of just finding enough oil to fly the plane. At the time he told us that it cost about $700 for a barrel of the fuel he needs for a flight – a huge sum in the Congo. But Jacques says, “When I fly sick persons to the hospitals where their lives are saved, when I fly seminary or college professors to teach, I think I am doing God's will. In some places if we don't fly in supplies like salt, soap or matches, there is no other way such supplies will get to the population. Many of our mission stations depend on the aviation ministry for survival. Through aviation, children can get shots for immunization. It's not just a means of transportation, but it is a whole ministry – the Gospel – that is preached in different ways."[i]

We got word this week that Jacques and Poto will be hard to reach for several weeks. They are going to be in the interior for several weeks and will not be near any form of communication. It’s a difficult life, but Jacques and Poto are going to be a witness to the good news. Many of us would look at he overwhelming needs of that nation and might have said, “We can’t.” They said, “We will.”

Jesus got his disciples together and said, “I’m sending you out to be witnesses. Here’s what I want you to do: Tell the people the good news that the kingdom of God is here. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Don’t take any money for what you do. Don’t take any money with you. No bag for your journey, or extra clothes or sandals, or a staff. Just trust that you are going to get what you need.

“It will not be easy. They will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues. You will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, don’t worry about how you are to speak or what you are going to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Surely they must have resisted. Surely they must have said, “It’s too much.” Surely they must have been tempted to say, “We can’t.” But even though they didn’t know what they were saying they said, “We will.” It was a crazy thing to do, but they did it.

So what is it that keeps us from being the witnesses that Jesus calls us to be? What is it that keeps us from proclaiming the truth? Why does everybody look to the preacher when it’s time to pray? Why do we turn our heads when we see a need and hope that someone else will respond? Why do we stay silent when injustice runs rampant…when lies masquerade as truth? Why do we believe that we won’t have the words when the time comes for testimony? What is it that we are afraid of?

The truth is that even though we have said that God has made us and this world…even though we have affirmed that Jesus has the power to cleanse us from our sin and redeem us from every infirmity…even though we have called on the Holy Spirit to come and fill us with the power to speak a word of hope…even though Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you to the end of the age”…even though he has commanded us not to worry about what we shall say because the Spirit will speak through us…even though it’s not about us; it’s about God…even though we have given our hearts to Jesus, we’re not so sure we want to give him our tongues and our hands and our feet and our bodies…even though Jesus tells us that all things are possible we…are…not…so…sure. We have a trust problem.

I remember when I was about six years into ministry I made a startling realization. I suddenly realized that I had been conducting my ministry as if the adults would show up some day to set everything straight. It sounds strange, but one day I realized, “Hey. I am the adult I’ve been waiting for. Nobody else is going to show up to be the witness Jesus calls me to be. It’s me.”

It is not the role of the saints to speak for you. It is not the role of the paid professional to speak for you. You can’t wait for the moment to be right because it will never be right. You can’t wait until you arrive at perfection. You can’t wait for the cavalry to show up. You can’t wait for the right program. You can’t look at the needs of this dying world and say, “I can’t,” because Jesus is calling you.

When the United Methodist Church met at our global gathering back in May, the General Conference, they changed our membership vows. Since 1932, Methodists, when they join the church, have pledged to support their congregations with their prayers, their presence, their gifts and their service. Beginning next year the liturgy will add a new word. In addition to those things, new members will also pledge their witness. It’s a way of recognizing that every person, lay and clergy, man and woman, tall and short, Hokie and Cavalier…every person is to be a witness to what God is doing in the world through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There will be times when the world will want to hear that witness…when the world will be dying to hear that witness. This week as we watched the devastation of Ike and saw the financial markets crash…when they started using phrases like “the worst meltdown since the Great Depression”…we were reminded, as if we needed it, that the world is an unstable place with many terrors and many uncertainties. In the midst of all of this, the church has a unique message to give as it testifies to hope in the midst of hopelessness and resurrection in the midst of death.

There will be other times, though when the world will not want to hear that witness…when it will stop its ears and refuse to listen. Once I went on a mission trip to a small town in the high deserts of central Mexico. This village was miles from the nearest paved road and two hours from the nearest city. We were there to help the Methodists build a new sanctuary. They had been meeting for 50 years in the home of one of the families and it was a great testament for them to build a new place of worship.

There were a lot of tensions between the Methodists and Catholics there as there is, unfortunately, throughout Mexico. The village was dominated by the Catholic church and the evangelicos, the other denominations, were often persecuted. In fact, the Methodists had not been able to get any land in the village to build their church. They had a small plot on the edge of a corn field outside of town.

Being there was the first time I had ever really experienced open opposition because of my faith. As we walked through the streets of the town one night around 10, a group of drunks accosted us and jeered at us for helping the evangelicos. On Sunday morning, as we gathered to worship in the new church, an ice cream truck with a very loud speaker on top came and parked outside of the church with music blaring and stayed there for about 30 minutes, even though there were no houses within a quarter-mile. He was trying to disrupt the service. It was small, but a reminder that what we give witness to, though it is good news, is not good news to many who believe that something sinister or threatening is going on under the name of Jesus.

One final story. Back in June floods came and wiped out large parts of Iowa. One of those places was Cedar Rapids where so many people lost everything they had. Salem United Methodist Church has been in downtown Cedar Rapids for over 100 years and it has always been an active place. The congregation is about the size of ours and they have been active in serving the community and in things like the Emmaus movement. Linda Bibb, who was the pastor there during the floods said, “We have housed 134 consecutive Emmaus weekends in this facility since 1987 … (and) 17 Chrysalis flights…There’s been so much ministry that has been poured out.”

When the floods came, they hit Salem Church like they did the rest of the city. While they were helping their neighbors, members of the congregation also put up sandbags around the church, but in the end the waters got in and the church was swamped. The church made a decision though. On June 11 they put the last sandbag in place but they didn’t go back to the building. It’s not clear if they will ever be able to go back. Instead they moved out. Pastor Bibb said, "We discover who needs us most in the community and we go there first because the church is not the building," she said.

So what happened? The church went on without the building. They had a wedding ceremony in a local hotel. Sunday worship services have shifted to another United Methodist Church. An infant was baptized using water from a dehumidifier, since city officials restricted the use of drinking water in the wake of the floods. The church has gone on even though the building didn’t.[ii] They were going to be a witness to the good news. At a time when many congregations might have said, “We can’t,” Salem Church said, “We will.”

What’s the crazy thing Jesus is calling you to give witness to? What can you do to show how this love we talk about each week makes a difference? When will you stop saying, “I can’t,” and begin to say, “I will”? Thanks be to God.


Matthew 10:5-23 (NRSV)
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.
Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
"See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

[i] http://new.gbgm-umc.org/work/missionaries/biographies/index.cfm?action=details&id=8.
[ii] Marta W. Aldrich, United Methodist News Service, July 1, 2008, http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=4347979&content_id=%7B0432C5A9-5A95-4F6B-B3F9-448785CD8B95%7D&notoc=1

8 Crazy Things Christians Do: Pray

When you consider all the crazy things that Christians do, praying has to rank near the top of the list. For the last two weeks we have been looking at things that Christians do that make them stand out from the rest of the culture – things that make us look different from the world around us. To borrow a phrase from Cardinal Suhard, we are exploring, in this 8-week series, the things we would not do if the gospel we proclaimed were not true. There just would be no reason.

Now you might protest about prayer. You might say, “But Alex, praying is a natural impulse. When we’re facing a major illness, it’s a natural thing to want to pray. Last week we remembered the awful tragedy of 9/11 and we remember that what the whole country wanted to do after that happened was to gather and pray. When Hurricane Katrina hit three years ago and when Ike came ashore Friday night, what we felt we were supposed to do was to pray. When a child is born we want to give thanks and pray. When I get ready for a test I haven’t studied for…it’s natural to pray.”

Is it? Or is that just a cultural residue? Is it just something that we have grown accustomed to having as part of our landscape like singing the national anthem before ball games or having Dick Clark at Times Square on New Year’s Eve? Like them, we turn to prayer because we’ve always done it that way before.

No, I think prayer, especially prayer in the name of Jesus, is something that seems odd to people who don’t go to church or who don’t know Jesus. What does it do for you? Does it help you heal quicker? Does it change things? What’s the proof that prayer makes a difference?

There’s an old Burt Reynolds movie called The End in which Burt’s character, Wendell, has become so discouraged with life that he decides to do himself in. In the final scene of the movie he goes to the ocean and just starts swimming out to sea. The camera shows the scene from above and we hear Wendell’s thoughts as he is swimming. He gets far out from the shoreline and he realizes that he really doesn’t want to die. There are too many things he wants to live for. But now he is a long way from the beach and he doesn’t think he can make it back.

So he starts to pray to God. He says, “God, I know I haven’t been a great guy, but if you’ll just give me the strength to get back to shore I will change. I’m going to start giving half of all I make to the church. Fifty percent, Lord. I’m talking gross! Just let me live. I want to live!”

As he returns to shore he starts to realize that he’s not going to die. “I’m going to make it. I’m going to make it,” he says. “Thank you, God! I’m going to start giving that 10%. I will!”

His prayers were a matter of convenience and he didn’t really change. This is the cynical way our culture often looks at prayer. Prayer expresses our aspirations and our best intentions, but we don’t really see it as dialogue between us and God. Prayer can easily become us telling God what we’re going to do, or us asking God to do what we want…to give us what we want. We don’t consider that a real relationship based in prayer means that we will be transformed, that we will need to listen, that we will need to be open to having some new thing done in us.

The Bible tells us many things about prayer. It’s there from the beginning of the scriptures. In the Old Testament men and women pray for children, for salvation, for relief from their enemies. We find David praying for forgiveness for his sins, Solomon praying for wisdom, and Jonah praying for deliverance from the belly of a great fish.

In the New Testament Jesus regularly goes away to a quiet place to pray. Luke tells us that in the garden of Gethsemane as he awaited his betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus prays with such earnestness that his sweat is like drops of blood. In the book of Acts, the disciples pray and the Holy Spirit comes and shakes the whole place and fills them so that they can speak with boldness. Later Paul tells his churches to pray without ceasing. James tells the Christians to pray for healing for those who are ill. Prayer is all over the Christian story.

Then there is the passage which we read from the gospels this morning. The disciples see Jesus praying and after he finishes they ask him to teach them how to pray. Evidently John the Baptist had taught his disciples a prayer and they thought that it would be good for them to have a prayer, too. So Jesus teaches them a prayer that has come down to us as the Lord’s Prayer.

As a prayer, it is very brief. In Luke’s version it only takes three verses. “Father, hallowed is your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who are indebted to us. And lead us not into the time of trial.” That’s it.

Jesus seems to be giving us a model for prayer that keeps us straight. We praise God, recognizing that God is holy and wholly other than anything we can imagine. We pray that God’s kingdom will come. Matthew adds, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is a reminder to us that our prayers will be answered, not when we get our way, but when God gets God’s way.

There is a plea for our daily bread, which is just a way of saying, “Give us the basic necessities of life. No more than we need but no less.” There is a request for forgiveness but notice that it is tied to how we are forgiving others. (We’ll get back to this one in a few weeks.) Finally, the prayer asks that we be spared the time of trial – that we have our minds focused on good so that no temptation to evil will lead us astray.

This is a prayer that lifts up our basic needs but it happens within larger networks. We are always already embedded in the life of God to whom we pray as a child. We are always already connected to others whom we are called to love and forgive.

Notice what is not in this prayer. It is not a prayer that tries to straighten God out. It is not a prayer that presents a laundry list of desires. It is not a prayer that depends on a lot of flowery language. It is simple and open to what God is going to do.

Which means that like so many things in the Christian life, prayer is ultimately a lot more about God than about me. I will find my life in Christ; that is the promise. But only if I give myself over to being remade. So in my prayers, it really doesn’t matter how I say it. You don’t need a preacher’s degree to be a pray-er. You don’t need anything more than these words that Jesus gives us.

Then, see what Jesus says, after this prayer. He tells some stories about prayer. He says, “Suppose you have a friend who comes in the middle of the night and asks you for three loaves of bread. Even though you’re settled in for the night, you will get up and give him what he asks for because he is persistent.” The implication is that God will also respond to us when we are persistent in prayer.

“What if your child asks you for a fish?” Jesus asks. “Would you give your child a snake instead? Or if they asked for an egg would you give them a scorpion?” Of course not. And neither would God withhold what you need if you ask. Notice that these petitioners are not asking for a lottery ticket. They are asking for bread, a fish, an egg – good things for sustaining life. Notice that all of these petitioners are also already in a relationship with the person from whom they are requesting something. A friend, a child to parent. God does not hold back from giving to those who are in relationship with God.

There are so many more things to be said about prayer. Perhaps one day we’ll do a series just on this. But here’s what I want to say about prayer today. You are invited and charged to pray as a Christian. Not because it is a ticket to prosperity. Not because there is a direct correlation between the quality of your earthly life and the frequency of your prayer. You are invited to prayer because when you pray, things change. You change. The world changes. And the most important relationship you could ever develop begins to grow and deepen – the relationship you have with the one who created you and called you and claimed you and reaches out in love to save you from sin and to remind you of who you are and can still be.

A few years ago when I was still in campus ministry I took a group of students on a pilgrimage. We went to a place called Taizé in eastern France. Now if you know anything about Christianity in Europe these days, you know that Europeans are becoming very disconnected from their Christian roots. All over Europe churches are being converted into restaurants and coffee shops. One old stone church in the Netherlands has even become a skate park. Those that are still open are almost deserted. The few churches that are alive and vibrant are those of Christian emigrants from the Caribbean and Africa.

So even though Christians have been going on pilgrimage in Europe for many centuries, it might seem a strange thing to take a group of students there to learn how to pray. But something very unusual has been taking place at Taize – young people are coming. In this small village in the middle of World War II a Swiss man by the name of Roger came with a vision. He said, "The defeat of France awoke powerful sympathy. If a house could be found there, of the kind we had dreamed of, it would offer a possible way of assisting some of those most discouraged, those deprived of a livelihood: and it could be a place of silence and work." He found a house and began to pray for fellow Christians to join him.

Eight years after he arrived, the first brother came. Soon others came. Though Brother Roger was Protestant the community belonged to no denomination. Catholic and Protestant came. They dedicated themselves to work and prayer. Three times a day - at 8, 12 and 8 – the brothers set aside an hour to pray. It is very simple. Chants and scripture readings in several different languages. Prayers for the reconciliation of the world. And silence. Ten solid minutes of silence in the center of each service to pray and listen for what God has to say.[i]

Over time something very interesting happened at Taize. Young people began to show up for the worship and to work with the brothers. Thousands of young people. Now on summer weeks there are over 6,000 young people from all over the world in this little village. They are not fanatical. Most of them have no desire to live in a monastic community. The atmosphere is like a rock music festival. But three times a day they sing and pray. In between they have small group studies and everyone has a job to do whether it is cleaning toilets or welcoming new arrivals. The food is very sparse – perhaps a bowl of green beans for dinner. A roll and stick of chocolate for breakfast. And they are all 29 and younger, plus a few hangers on like me who come to stay in the old folks camp up the hill.

I had a strange experience at Taize. I came not knowing how I would like the services. It was very simple. You sit on a carpeted floor with a canopy of orange cloth and candles in front of you. You don’t understand most of what’s being sung or said because it is in other languages. And while I was recovering from jet lag, for the first three days I was there I fell asleep every time we got to the silence.

But on the fourth day I got it. We were having communion. The brothers were serving us all following the silence. And when I had received the wafer and the cup and went back to sit on the hard floor with my students and 5,000 French, Swiss, Dutch, Spanish, and German young people, the cumulative power of being in that place and praying in that place came through. I knew that if I let myself stay in prayer long enough my own true self would start to emerge. Maybe that’s what draws those young people – the chance to find something new about yourself in practices that are as ancient as God’s people. I came back dedicated to establishing daily prayer in some way in my life.

Prayer is the heart’s sincere desire. So goes an old hymn in our hymnal. Most of us would not claim to be experts in it. Most of us still wonder how to pray and what it means for us to pray. In the end, Paul tells us in the letter to the Romans, we don’t know how. So the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words to continue the prayers our hearts seek to offer.

We will never know the depths of what God has to offer us in prayer, though, unless we do it. Just do it. With whatever method we have. With whatever words we have or don’t have. Maybe you’re saying, “I don’t have time to pray.” Two of the busiest and most productive people who ever lived, John Wesley and Martin Luther must have been tempted to say the same. Yet John Wesley wore out the knee rail on his home prayer altar which he kept in a closet that looks out a window facing a brick wall. And Martin Luther said, “I’m so busy these days that I find I can’t get by on less than three hours a day.”

Hey, I know you’re overwhelmed and overworked. But there is power in prayer and God is waiting to form a relationship with you. The world is dying to change and waiting for you to change. Prayer is a crazy thing to think about doing. But don’t think about it. Just do it. Thanks be to God.

Luke 11:1-13
Now he was praying in a certain place and it happened, as he finished, that some of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just like John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
'Father, may thy name be held in reverence,
may your kingdom come.
Give us the bread we need for the coming day,
and forgive us our sins
for we also forgive all those who are indebted to us.
And do not lead us into a time of testing.'"
He also said to them, "What if one of you has a friend and you go to him in the middle of the night and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because my friend has arrived on a journey and I do not have anything to set before him.'? And he answers from within, 'Don't bother me; the door has already been shut and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even if he doesn't get up and give it to him because he is his friend, then because of his shameless persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
"And I tell you this as well: Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For all who ask receive and all those who seek find and to the one knocking the door shall be opened.
"Is there a parent among you, who, when their child asks for a fish will then, instead of a fish, give the child a snake? Or if the child asks for an egg will give a scorpion? So if you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?"

[i] Patrick J. Burke, “The Spirituality of Taize,” Spirituality Today, Autumn 1990, http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/904234burke.html.

8 Crazy Things Christians Do: Love Their Neighbor

Leonard Stout was just putting his favorite lawn chair back onto the front porch when Paul Hodges stopped by. Leonard had worried it might blow away in the recent storm so he had pulled the chair in but now he was thinking he’d like to take in the fading light of the late summer evening in that lawn chair so he pulled it out again. Reba was fussing over her plants in the back of the house. After decades of marriage they had settled into some comfortable routines. Leonard knew she’d eventually join him on the porch so he set up her chair, too.

Paul was unexpected. Paul was much younger than Leonard, a man in his 40s who ran an upholstery shop in downtown Mattaponi Courthouse – Paul’s Plush Palace. The two had struck up a friendship a few years back when Paul invited Leonard to join him and his son on a fishing trip. It had stuck and now, whenever Paul had things to wonder or worry about, he found Leonard. This was one of those times.

“Leonard,” Paul asked as he sat down on the edge of the wooden porch with his legs dangling off the side, “does Reba ever surprise you?”

“Surprise me?”

“Yeah, you know. Does she ever do something you didn’t expect her to do and catch you off guard?”

“Reba’s been surprising me since 1957. One time she forgot to tell me the Junior Women’s Club was coming over for a meeting and they caught me watching pro wrestling in my boxers. Does that count?”

Paul laughed. “Well, that qualifies as something. But I guess I’m thinking more about who she is more than what she does.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what Belinda did to surprise you, Paul?”

“Right, right. Well, she went on that mission trip with the church, you know. They went out to Kentucky and they were working with kids at a clinic. And she hasn’t been right since she got back.”

“She’s not feeling well?”

“No. I mean physically she’s fine, but…I don’t know. She’s, uh, nicer.”

“Belinda always struck me as pretty nice, Paul.”

“Well, yeah. She was. But this is different. It’s like she has a bigger heart. Like she’s got more space for me.”

“More space?”

“Like you know how we can get so busy with the kids and work and life. She pulls crazy shifts down at the hospital. Weeks can go by and the most we talk about is who’s going to the grocery store. There’s not much space for anything else. But now I sometimes get the sense that she’s actually looking at me sometimes.

“I mean just last night I was sitting down to pay some bills and I noticed she was standing in the doorway looking at me. Made me kind of nervous so I just kept staring at the checkbook. But then she came over and touched me on the shoulder and said, ‘Thanks’ and walked off. What kind of person does that, Leonard? It’s unsettling.”

“So you’re complaining, Paul?”

“No, I’m not…well, yes, I am. The other day I was talking about this problem I was having with a chair Lunker Peabottom left for me. It’s not really a problem with the chair. It’s a problem with Lunker ‘cause he left me no instructions for what kind of fabric he wants to use in reupholstering the chair. And you can’t get the man on the phone ‘cause he’s always out working on his tree stand or working his dogs. So I’ve left like 14 different messages on his voice mail and he never returns my calls. The last message I left I got kind of ugly and I said, ‘Now Lunker, if you don’t call me back I’m going to redo this chair with purple and lime green paisley and it’ll be on you, dawg.’ And I told this whole story and do you know what she did?”

“She listened?”

“Yeah, that’s right. She listened! Not only that, she listened sympathetically. What’s up with that? It’s like there is this woman that I never really knew who has suddenly decided to show up. I blame this mission trip.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that if she changes, I’m going to be under some pressure to change, too. I didn’t bargain for that.”

“Have you talked to her about what you’ve noticed?”

“Yeah, and that’s why I blame the mission trip. She said that what she discovered while she was out in Kentucky was that she had more to give than she thought she did. She fell in love with those kids she was working with and she says she said to herself, ‘If I can love those people in another part of the country, maybe I can love the people right next to me, too.’”

“That’s pretty radical stuff, Paul.”

“You’re darn right it is.”

“You know, I do remember one time when Reba surprised me like that. It was when our daughter Naomi had her little girl, Tara. That was our first grandchild. I knew I was going to be a mess because I’m the sentimental one in this family. But we went up to the hospital that day and we were looking in through the glass in the nursery and we saw that little thing there sleeping with her hands up in the air and I laughed and I looked over at Reba and she was crying. Tears just rolling down her face. That may not sound like much, but Reba does not cry. That just doesn’t happen. This is a woman who thought Walter Cronkite was too emotional when he wiped his eyes after the Kennedy assassination. But there she was looking at that baby and I knew I was seeing something I hadn’t often seen.”

“It’s a funny thing living with these women, isn’t it, Leonard?”

“It’s a strange and wonderful thing. You blame the mission trip. I blame love.”

“Love.”

“It’s the only thing that ever changed anything for good, Paul. I mean we live with friends and spouses for years on end and we call the comfortable feeling love but it’s really just routine. After awhile we start taking the people around us for granted. We start projecting ourselves onto them. They kind of become part of ourselves and we stop expecting to see anything new there.

“But every so often they come back from a mission trip or some such fool thing and you remember, ‘O yeah…this is that mysterious and wonderful person I was attracted to in the first place. And I was attracted to her because she was different than me.’ You know, Paul, if you don’t watch it, you’ll end up seeing God.”

“What are you talking about, Leonard?”

“I’m just saying that the one thing I’ve learned from living as long as I have is that there’s nothing more interesting than people. They can annoy you. They can provoke you. They can do some incredibly stupid things, but they can also surprise you into believing that the world is a miraculous place.

“You know that place in Romans where the Apostle who’s got your name tells the Roman Christians to be ready because Jesus is coming? I believe what he tells them is that they ought to get their armor on. They have been kind of partying and doing their own thing and not really paying attention to what God wants from them. So Paul says, ‘Y’all need to take off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.’

“So what that means is that they are going to start looking different with this armor on. They are going to have to do things to keep them focused on God and Paul tells them what they need to do.” Leonard paused to see if Paul would take the bait.

“All right, Leonard. I give. What did he tell them to do?”

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Didn’t Jesus say that?”

“He did. It was part of the Great Commandment. It’s in the Old Testament, too. But Paul was telling the Romans that if they wanted a shorthand for all the commandments this was it. Love your neighbor and you’ve just about got it.”

“And that helps you understand Reba and see God?”

“Well, in a way it does. Helps me understand you, too, Paul. I reckon Jesus must think a lot of love. You know he says the most important commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind and then he says this other commandment is like it – love your neighbor as yourself. So if we love our neighbor it’s like loving God. And who’s a neighbor except the person right in front of you? Doesn’t really matter who it is. That person right in front of me is the person I’m supposed to love and I can’t love them unless I see them. I mean, really see them. And if that happens, well, they’re going to surprise me.”

“You’re telling me not to take Belinda for granted?”

“I’m telling you not take any single soul for granted, Paul. Because if you love them you’re also going to learn what it means to love yourself. I don’t have any illusions that I know who I am in full. I need to love somebody to know how to love this mysterious person I am, too.”

Just then Reba came to the door. She opened the screen door and stood there looking at Leonard and Paul. She was covered in potting soil. Her hair was sticking straight up and she looked very perturbed. Obviously something dramatic had happened while she was working in the back. She opened her mouth as if to say something and then turned abruptly around and went back into the house.

Paul looked over a Leonard. “Did that surprise you?”

“No.”

“So what happened?”

“She turned over a pot in the back. It probably broke. She was going to come holler about it and maybe even use a few choice words then get me to come help her clean it up. She came to the door, saw you talking to me, thought better about it and turned around to go clean it up herself.”

“You know all that?”

“Seen it plenty of times. But if I go back there now she might surprise me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I usually laugh and that sends her over the edge. If I go back and help without a word, she’s likely to be caught off guard.”

“Love?”

“Yep, Paul, I reckon that’s love. If you love people they don’t know how to handle you. It’s pretty unsettling.”

Leonard got up to go into the house and Paul headed back to his house down the street muttering to himself all the way. “Fascinating.”

Last week we talked about loving our enemies as the ultimate expression of what it means to follow Christ’s commandment to love. Jesus says, “What does it show if you only love those who love you? Even tax collectors and Gentiles do that.” But Jesus also sums up the law with the command to love our neighbors. And sometimes our neighbor is the person right next to us…the person right in front of us…the person we take for granted…the person who is right there waiting for us to discover the mystery that is at the heart of the universe. God is waiting for us in our neighbor. Thanks be to God.

Romans 13:8-14
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For this--Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not covet, and any other commandment--is summed up in this word--You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not bring about evil for a neighbor, so love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this you know the time, how now is the time for you to wake from sleep, for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is far gone and daylight is growing near. Therefore let us take off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
As in daylight let us walk about properly outfitted, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and debauchery, not in strife and envy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and do not give your concern to the flesh and its unrestrained desires.