Sermon Title: Jesus and the Obnoxious Neighbor
Sermon Text:
Matthew 2:13-17
Sermon Date:
First
I want to share a bit about last weekend’s Biennial. I shared with the Sunday school class but I
want all of you to know what a wonderful experience it was….and still is.
On Friday evening 4,000 American
Baptists, Cooperative Baptists and Progressive National Baptists gathered in
the
There are two gatherings I want to
tell you about this morning. The first
happened on Wednesday night at First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. (the
former
I went early with Shawn Zambrows,
the campus pastor at Purdue’s Baptist Student Foundation, to the ABC Campus
Minister’s Gathering. It is a small
group that comes together as there aren’t that many full-time campus ministers
anymore. The theme was about justice and
one of our tours was to the Baptist Joint Committee’s office and a meeting with
the director Brent Walker.
But the highlight of the gathering
was at First Baptist on Wednesday night when we gathered with the campus
ministers of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
was formed in 1990 when a large group of moderate Southern Baptists felt they
were no longer being represented by the conservative bent the denomination was
taking. According to their website “CBF
is a renewal movement among Baptist Christians. CBF exists because of the
belief in historic Baptist principles of soul freedom, Bible freedom, church
freedom and religious freedom. Soul freedom is the belief in priesthood of the
believer and the affirmation that every person has the freedom and
responsibility to relate directly to God without the imposition of creed or
control of clergy or government.”
They have commissioned missionaries
and have annual assemblies. This most
recent one coincided with our biennial quite intentionally. And the campus ministers took advantage of
it.
As we ate dinner together a couple
of decisions were made. One: the ABC campus ministers invited the CBF
campus ministers to join them at their annual gatherings…the next one at
I was so excited, listening to their
ideas and commonalities. It was a
beautiful day to behold! Two groups
agreeing that the primary purpose to reach college students with the message of
Jesus was more important than who gets the credit! That is Christianity at its finest.
I also want to talk a bit about the
worship service between the three groups.
There was a lot of singing. There
was communion served by people from all three groups. Our hosts – the people of the ABC of
Washington, DC – were gracious and loving, also ready to answer a question or
fix a problem. The spirit of God was all
around us as we American Baptists sat with Cooperative Baptists and Progressive
National Baptists in the city where we once began. That is why the nation’s capitol was
chosen. You see, our denomination was
formed at
That Friday evening the leaders of
these three groups were interviewed by a very engaging ABC pastor. I can’t wait for you to see this service and
the interviews. I hope you will be as
excited as I was to hear their hopes for the future and the thrill to be there
together on that day.
No, there are no plans to merge and
become one denomination. The hope is
that we will be Christians first and foremost and Baptists secondly. I told Dr. Medley afterward that the next
time someone asks me if I’m Baptist, I won’t be so quick to answer, “Well, I’m
an American Baptist.” I’m going to bask
in the larger family for a few moments first.
You see, that experience broadened the idea of what it means to really
and truly be Baptist.
And in an attempt to convey that to
the rest of the Baptists and the world, there will be a gathering in
Let’s talk more about this later and
find ways to take a good size group down for this opportunity to show the world
that there are many Baptist voices with the intention to change the world by
reaching out to others. The executive
minister of ABC Indianapolis is hoping to arrange for a bus to take a large
group and we are invited to join them.
Now if you are wondering if this has
anything to do with the sermon title and the text in your bulletin, let’s look
at it:
Scripture Mark
13Once again Jesus went out beside
the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14As he
walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth.
"Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 15While
Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and
"sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many
who followed him. 16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw
him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his
disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 17On
hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a
doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
The bulletin says this comes from
Matthew but it is really from the Gospel of Mark. This passage follows the one where Jesus
healed the man who was let down through the roof of the house where Jesus was
staying.
One has the impression that Jesus
left the house and went out to the sea and the crowds followed him. They wanted to hear more from this man who
talked about the forgiveness of sins and could heal a paralyzed man. Wouldn’t you?
Then Jesus invited Levi to “follow
him.” Levi was a tax collector and we
don’t know much about him. He may have
been one of the disciples – Matthew (also called a tax collector) or James
(also the son of Alphaeus). I used the
word “obnoxious neighbor” because tax collectors were certainly not highly
thought of in those days, often rootless persons unable to find other
work. Neither the chief tax collector
like Zaccheus or one who sat in a toll booth like Levi were above taking money
for their own gain. Certainly the
Pharisees lumped tax collectors and sinners all in the same camp and thought
themselves much better than them. Oh,
that is so easy to do. To think of
oneself as better than another.
I’ll bet that you have had a
neighbor who was obnoxious. Not
necessarily someone who lived next door to you for in the global sense we are
all “neighbors,” but you have known someone who drove you crazy. Perhaps you were even related to this person.
This person does not even have to
try to get on your last nerve; they just do it.
You are loving and giving; this person is self-centered.
You are polite and this person is
rude.
You are generous and this person is
stingy.
You are ….well, you get the
picture. This obnoxious person is
everything you are not. Like the
religious leaders of Jesus’ day the tax collectors and “sinners” were the
obnoxious people of the day.
But that says that we judge
ourselves to be better than someone else.
And we do it all the time.
I’ll admit it. I do it.
I think ill of one particular denomination because they oppose the
ordination of women and other things. I
think ill of one of their seminaries that has put into place a degree program
for Christian homemaking, believing that this will solve the nation’s problems. So I guess ultimately I believe that we are
better. But speaking ill of another
denomination isn’t what God wants me to do either. Thinking ill of another person isn’t what God
wants from anyone of us. But it is oh so
hard to quit doing it.
I don’t have to like what that
particular denomination does or says but I have to love them as
individuals. Remember that the Jewish
Talmud says the world will be saved one neighbor at a time. I have to love my neighbors, one by one. We have to love our neighbors one by one so
that when we are the obnoxious ones, people will love us too.
We have to embrace the love of God
so that we can embody it. That is what
Jesus was doing in that moment when he sat down with Levi. He was showing God’s love and he could do
that because he lived it.
Those
are big shoes to fill but it seems like the right way to go.
May the
Lord be gracious unto you and give you the blessing of embracing and embodying
the amazing love of God!
Communion Homily
I had communion three times last
week. On Thursday morning with the
campus ministers. Thursday at
The gathering of the campus
ministers was small. There were ten of
us gathered in a room at
After the gathering ended, one of
the ministers offered to drive us up to the National Cathedral for the
On Friday evening, over 4,000
Baptists gathered together as one to receive the bread and juice (yes, real
juice) and we celebrated the ABC’s 100th birthday and the fact that
we could come together like this and be one.
It is hard to say exactly what Jesus
envisioned for his church but denominations taking shots at each other was
surely not what he had in mind. I know
that I’m going to be slower to criticize others after this experience. Communion with my sisters and brothers in
Christ changed me. And my prayer is that
each time we take communion….wherever we are gathered…..we will too be changed.
On the night he was
betrayed he took the bread, broke it and shared it with the disciples. Then he took the cup and asked them to drink
from it.
This is my body,
broken for you.
This is my blood,
shed for you.
Do this in
remembrance of me.
It is strength for
the journey ahead.
Please, come and
gain the strength that only Christ can bring.