MVP: Community of Christ-Followers

Make the Vision Plain: Community of Christ-Followers
(Joel 2:12-16, 25-29; Luke 18:9-14)
10:30 am, Sun, Oct 27, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White

     For a few days last week I didn't bother shaving.  When I did, with my electric razor, I was trimming off stubble that is mostly white on my chin, not black.  A dozen years ago my beard was dark, there was hair on the top on my head, and I'd hunt with curiosity for stray white hairs at my temples.
     I'm always seeing changes in me; not just my hair.  And a decade ago I looked out on a different congregation here.  How many of you have arrived after I did?  What we are doing and how we're doing those things shifts a bit; definitely.  Sometimes I look upon my congregation like I look at the hair on my head: I see what has been lost, and if not lost, just gotten older.  I wonder about what opportunities have been missed, what mistakes made, what sins unforgiven, what time unredeemed. 
     The Lord will restore the years that were lost.  So preached Joel, 2400 years ago, in the Middle East.  Inspired by a famine brought on by a locust plague, Joel the Hebrew prophet preached severe warning and great hope to a struggling people.  I want him to talk to us today.  I'll make up for the years of the locust... (Msg)
     Windsor Baptist, my faith family – we change.  Are we and the Lord doing this well?  How much is what we are becoming different from what we are today?  The new vision statement we are dabbling with says we will be a Community of Christ-Followers.  This is of course what we are, and have been, for almost 194 years.  We are a gathered people of many ages.
The ancient poetry of Joel 2 says
     Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast;
     call a solemn assembly; gather the people.
     Sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders;
     gather the children; even nursing infants.
     Let the groom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.
The sense of being a gathered community is strong in a Church like us.  We are focused on this – on Sunday mornings.  It's the heart of what we are, eh?  And oh, how we want more of everyone to gather like this: the older, the children and babes, the husbands and wives.  A big happy family, following Jesus.
     And we want this – us – to be spiritual and positive.  We might say “spirit-filled”.  Joel claims that God was saying
     I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. 
     Positive enthusiasm, and everyone right with God.  We want this for all!  It would be a fulfilment of our prayers.   What Joel promised was a fulfilment of Moses' desire, centuries before.  Moses had once said to Joshua, “Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29)
     We, today, are still praying for this.  We want our children and grandchildren, our brothers and sisters and parents, our neighbours and friends to be filled with God.  So, we want them to know Jesus and the salvation He brings.  That spirit-filling, prophesying, dream-weaving vision from 2400 years ago got brought into the story of Jesus 2000 years ago.  A guy named Peter takes this Hebrew Bible prophetic text through Jesus Christ, who sent the very Holy Spirit who was filling people one particular day. 
     Plenty of people today are looking for that connection with the Divine.  Seeking that personal unity with God or the Universe or whatever they think they need.  Our story (in the Bible) celebrates how available God is to human beings.  The Holy Spirit comes upon and into people... because of Jesus – the story of Jesus – what his life and death and coming back to life does.  When Peter, 2000 years ago, preached a sermon, he used the scroll of Joel, and went on to tell the story of Jesus.  Having the Divine Spirit with our spirits depends upon what Jesus did – the One who was executed by crucifixion, and later was alive again. 
     And that pouring out of God's Spirit that Joel predicted resulted in really amazing communication about the Gospel – the powerful story of Jesus.  Everyone in Jerusalem that day heard and understood.  It transformed them.  And what a multicultural, motley crew surely got united that day, in that city.  Thousands of people joined Jesus, and one another.
     Here, we are a variety pack of folk saved by Christ and filled by the Spirit.  We are sons and daughters, old men and old women, slaving servants and pensioned people.  Shall we get along and love to be with one another?  Allison Friars spoke a great little image yesterday here.  To be multi-generational is like having a chocolate cake by setting the flour, eggs, coco, milk, butter and so forth in a bowl together.  It ain’t a cake.  To be inter-generational is to put all the ingredients together to interact, and create a lovely layered cake.  MmMmm.  But will the eggs want to get cracked and integrated?  Will the flour willingly be sifted?  Will the butter line up to be creamed?
     We must soul-search: do we really want everyone in on the party – a festival of the Holy Spirit, an army of Christ's ambassadors, a family of faithfulness?  Am I willing to welcome whosoever may come?
     Luke 18: two men went to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray.
     Look at whom this parable was told to by the Master: whom.  It was told to those who trusted in themselves and despised others. (NRSV)  Peterson's translation says He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people. (Msg)
     We shall be a Community of Christ-Followers.  So we've got to behave like a community, a family, a body, etc.  Not just for the sake of getting more into the body.  For the sake of being on mission with the Lord God today!   But it starts with being a team and a family ourselves, with Christ as head of the household, head of the body. 
     We're going to follow Christ – be saved, believers, regenerate, Christians, disciples, etc.  But we also are reaching with open arms to those who are on the way, on the fringe of faith, and those not even close yet.  Shall we include them?  Shall we focus on reaching them... not just inviting church people? 
     Listen to Clarence Jordan's “Cotton Patch Version” of Luke 18(9-14), Bible with a southern accent. (1969) 
     Jesus gave this Comparison to certain ones who had a high regard for their own goodness, but looked down their noses at others: “Two men went into the chapel to pray.  The one was a church member, the other was an unsaved man.  The church member stood up and prayed to himself like this: 'O God, I think you that I am not like other people – greedy, mean, promiscuous – or even like this unsaved man.  I go to church twice on Sunday, and I am a faithful tither of all my income.'  But the unsaved man, standing way off, wouldn't even lift up his eyes, but knelt down and cried, 'O God, have mercy on a sinner like me.'  I'm telling you, this man went home cleaned up rather than that one.  For everyone who puts himself on a pedestal will be laid low, and everyone who lays himself low will be put on a pedestal.” 
     It can be very easy for me to put myself on a pedestal: of traditional church as usual – centred on Sunday mornings of enjoyable music and entertaining sermons that hint at being practical.  The pedestal of a solid wooden pulpit at the centre of a large sanctuary where we can imagine this space filled with people praising God, the organ resounding – band playing, and me out-singing everyone. 
     I likely have plenty of people to support me on my pedestal!  And I'm already good at looking down my nose at those who don't appreciate my way of worship, the words I use in my sermons, and they patterns of my conversation. 
Instead of me, maybe there are two others who should be put on the pedestal of my life.  God.  And those whom God cares for deeply. 
      You and I must behave like a community of Christ-followers.  It's not a matter of saying we are.  It's not a matter of coming out on Sundays.  It's a matter of interactions and actions and attitudes. 
     Only by the grace of God found in Jesus Christ will this happen in you and me, sinner.  Only by the outpouring of the Spirit of God will this happen in you and me, believer. 
     The Lord will restore the years that were lost...