C – Cultivate: From Complacent to
Transformative
Pastor Mathew Magera – 3/31/19 – Sermon 340
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
For the past three weeks, we’ve immersed ourselves
into the problem in which the Church is been shaken by the culture around us.
When we should be trembling in praise of our reigning Lord and King, we shudder
anxiously as the world around us appears to threaten the Church’s mission.
Jesus walked in a world that was being shaken by a culture and rather than be
shaken himself, he shocked the Church to life and it grew. It grew in numbers,
it grew in faith, it grew in strength. His earthly ministry was counter
cultural and it worked. Today, Jesus continues to shock His Church to life so
that we can, in turn, shock the culture around us with the love, mercy, and
grace of God. We do this by making a strategic shift from reaching people to
making disciples, by helping others in a way that moves from lecturing to
modeling Jesus, by becoming opportunity oriented in a way that moves from
attending to participating, and today by cultivating a growing Church of
disciples in a way that moves from complacency to transformative.
A complacent Church is not one that does sits around
and does nothing. A complacent Church is one that is very active. A complacent
Church is one that is always short of volunteers when they need them. A
complacent Church is one that consistently looks out for itself, not being
afraid to show care, concern, and hospitality for one another. But, a
complacent Church is one that is so caught up in everything that it is involved
in that when presented with an opportunity for transformation, it hesitates. A
complacent Church is one that is caught in the routine.
Our Gospel reading today finds Jesus approaching the
Pool of Bethesda. This pool has an interesting history. It’s a pool on the
north side of the Temple in Jerusalem said to have been about 360 feet long,
130 feet wide, and 75 feet deep surrounded by a colonnade. It might remind us
of a modern day monument or memorial. But, it was where the sick and the
diseased gathered in hopes of being made well again. There they would wait for
what was believed to be a divine action that would make them well.
If you were following along in the pew Bible as I was
reading the Gospel this morning you may have noticed that I skipped a verse.
Actually, you’ll notice I didn’t skip it at all. It just wasn’t there to begin
with. After verse three there is a verse four but no words. It immediately goes
to verse five. If verse four were there it would have said, “From time to time
an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into
the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they
had.” There is no proof this ever happened and this verse was thought to have
been added to John much later than it was first written so this usually implies
it does not have much credibility.
Whether healing happened or not, there was a sea of
people hoping to be the first one in the water when it was stirred up. Now
picture a perfectly healthy man walking through a crowd of diseased and
suffering men, women, and children. This is not something a healthy person
would do, risking their ritual cleanness walking around a bunch of invalids.
But, this is Jesus. As he walks, he comes upon a man who had been there for 38
years. Nearly a generation of routine, a cycle between hope and disappointment.
But, today, something can change.
This is not just a story of a man who had been sick
for 38 years. This is also a story about us, about the Church. When Jesus
approaches this man he asks him one very direct and very important question on
which his future rests on. Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?” Do you want
to be made whole? How would you answer this question? Do you want to get well?
Do you want to grow stronger? Do you want to make a difference? Do you want to
live? Seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? Jesus is calling this man, calling
us, out of the routine. He’s calling him into something new, cultivating him to
be transformed and live a transformative life, he’s calling him to change and
be changed.
Do we want to be made whole? There is something very
difficult about this question. The way Jesus asks it implies that there is
something wrong with us. Whether we know it and welcome his question or we deny
it and are offended by that question, we are still brought face to face with
the problem, and that problem is us.
Do you want to deepen your faith? Do you want to grow
in your knowledge of God’s love and grace? Do you want to be an influence, a
spokesperson, an advocate for the kingdom of God? On the one hand, we might
want to answer, why yes Lord, of course I do. On the other hand, while our
desires may be strong, the thought of making any kind of transformation proves
to be too much of a daunting task for us to overcome.
Jesus is calling this man out of the routine. He’s
calling him into something new but it requires a transformation, a change
inside him. Answering that question isn’t as easy as we think it is. Pulling
ourselves out of the routine, as sick as we may be, becomes one of the most
challenging things for us to do. It’s a loaded question and we are met with two
factors involved in this decision for the Church in the 21st
century, two keys that can move us toward being transformed ourselves and
cultivating a transformative ministry.
Competition or Connection?
The first key in answering this question is deciding
between competition or connection. Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be made
well. What you’ll notice is that the man never answered the question. He never
said, “yes, Jesus, I do. I do want to be made well.” What did he do? He started
making excuses. He started complaining, talking about his competition. Do you
want to be made whole? It’s almost like he took Jesus’ question are sarcasm.
Sir, you must be joking. Look at me. I can barely move. Look at all these people
here? Many of them are more able bodied than I am, so don’t you come up here
and start asking if I want to be made well. I’ve been here at this spot for 38
long and tiring years. This is my home. My family? It’s these other sick and
diseased people. All here for the same reason and don’t you think for one
minute that I’m just sitting here taking up space. I’m trying everything I can.
I know what happens when that water is stirred up but none of us knows when
that’s going to happen. When it does, there’s so many people here, there’s no
way that I can get down there quick enough. Nobody wants to help me because
they’re all here for the same reason. It’s a fact of life, sir, I’m going to be
here forever. I’m going to die here because every time I try to get down in the
water, someone gets there first. So don’t you start asking me about wanting to
be made well. You know nothing about me and what I’ve had to put up with. It’s
as if Jesus asked, “Do you want to keep competing?” It seems like the answer
should clearly be no, but again, as clear as the answer, that transformation is
challenging.
Do you know when I feel like this man at the pool?
When I’m at a conference or when I get some flashy flyer in the mail and I’m
asked “do you want your Church to grow?” Oh it frustrates me so much. Of course
I want the Church to grow but we are sitting here in the 21st
century, competing with so many things like school, sports, work schedules,
split families and we just can’t win. But, we’ve chosen to compete. Day after
day, month after month, year after year, we’re still fighting to get through.
The truth, however, is that the Church was never
intended to compete. The Church was put in a position of connection, not
competition. Jesus is offering this man connection instead of competition. The
truth is people make time for what is important to them. What is important to
them is determined by what serves their needs. We live in a world that is
hungry for relationships. Friendships, marriage, comradery, whatever it is
people want relationships. People want to be heard, they want to be cared
about. We join internet groups, sports teams. We fill up our schedules with
activities with other people because it gives us a community to be a part of.
What I see when I look at people’s schedules, when I look at the various things
it appears we are competing against, I don’t see a competition, I see other
groups doing what the Church was called to do. They are creating community.
They are connecting people. When I see people who only come to worship once in
a while. When I see six people at Bible study on Sunday morning out of a
congregation of over 100 people, I don’t see competition with other functions.
I see priorities. I see the Church as struggling to create a community that
meets needs.
When the Church rises up to be a community that people
need, there is no need for competition. People will come because their needs
are met because relationships are formed and nurtured. How do we do it? What
did Jesus do? Jesus saw a space full of sick and diseased people and he sat
down and talked with one of them. He broke a religious taboo and sat down and
talked with an unclean person. He connected with them. He opened them up enough
to share their story. Jesus risked getting a little dirty for this man,
believing that it was more important. Like Jesus, we also can connect with
people. We can take time to listen and hear them out, to sense and embrace the
questions they have and what their needs are. If we can’t understand what a
person’s hurts, habits, or hangups are, we’ll never connect with them. If we
are so offended by what people say and do that we have no way to enter into
conversation, we’ll never connect with them. If we are so busy about correcting
people, whether it is their beliefs, their choice of clothing, tattoos,
piercings, we’ll never connect with them. We’ll never advance and grow God’s
kingdom. When Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be made well, in that
decision he had to choose between continuing to compete with others or
connecting with a stranger that was nothing like him. Are we living our lives
in Jesus or is Jesus just being invited into our lives when it is convenient
for us? Jesus calls us to be disciples that believe in him, trust in him, and
connect with one another.
Think about how we raise children. What’s the mindset
of a two year old? It’s about being self oriented. It’s all about me. It’s
mine. I’ll do it. No, give it to me. One of the challenges of parenthood is
teaching the child how to be a mature adult by teaching them things like
sharing or caring for other people or letting someone else have a turn. It’s a
major transformation and you can only imagine what the world would be like if
parents never taught children the value of others over self. As the Church,
until we can take the position of not being self-focused, we will have some
maturing to do.
Hospice or Hospital?
The second key in answering this question is deciding
between hospital or hospice. One of my colleagues told a story about their call
into ministry. At one point she had the opportunity to be a hospice chaplain. In
this position, she shared love and peace with those who were going through
despair or coming to grips with the final days of their lives. Having this
experience, she later started a small house church and in praying about it she
felt God asking her a question about what kind of Church she wanted to pastor.
What kind of Church do you want to have? Do you want a hospice Church or a
hospital Church?
What a great question. As we know when we think of
hospice we think of providing palliative treatment for people who are dying so
they can be comforting throughout the dying process. When we think of
hospitals, we think of places people go when they need something because
something is going on. Even when they simply suspect something is wrong, they
go there to have it tested for the purpose of being cured, healed, and/or made
whole.
It’s as if Jesus asked, “Do you want me to just fluff
your pillow and be on my way?” It seems like the answer should clearly be no,
but again, as clear as the answer, that transformation from routine is
challenging.
After the man complains to Jesus about why he can’t
get down to the pool, Jesus appears to change the focus of his conversation and
he tells the man, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” This was his opportunity
to choose to become whole again. This was hospice vs. hospital for him. Be made
well, or be made comfortable.
A hospital is full of many different units. There’s
the emergency room, maternity ward, oncology, cardiology, neurology,
occupational therapy, physical therapy. There are all sorts of services
provided by hospitals but the end of the line goal is to treat the patient so
they can leave restored.
Which one of these do you think is the purpose of the
Church? There are a number of hospice churches out there already. There are
enough churches where people are just being kept spiritually comfortable while
they are spiritually dying. But, that is not the purpose of Christ’s Church.
In addition, have you ever gone to the emergency room
before? Have you ever gone to the emergency when nothing was even wrong? Were
you sitting at home one day thinking, you know, I’ve got nothing to do today so
I’m just going to go down to the emergency room. I feel like paying that $250
fee just to go down to the emergency room and just sit there for a while. I
just want to hang out there. Nobody does this. You don’t go to the emergency
room when everything is fine. You go to the emergency room when something is wrong.
Likewise, we go to worship, we come
to gather with the body of Christ, the Church, when something is wrong. So, why
might we act as if we’re just fine? Why do we feel like we have to put on our
best clothes, our best persona, a happy face and go to worship and act like
everything is going wonderfully? The Church is a hospital for those with
sin-sick souls. We have issues, we have hurts, we have hang-ups,
disappointments, wrong ways of thinking, misaligned attitudes or outlooks on
life and we must allow this to be a place for those to come out. We are the man
at the Pool of Bethesda. We are sick and this place, our gathering together is
our emergency room where we can be made whole. But, if we would just rather
hide these hurts and not change anything, we might as well call hospice because
if the story of this man at the pool turned out different we know he would be
there for the rest of his life and never get into that pool. Are we a part of
the Church to be made well or are we a part of the Church to just be
comfortable?
Can we take him at his word? Can we take him at his
word to transform us or would we rather not get uncomfortable and stay within
our routine hoping that one day it will get better, that one day things will be
different, that one day things will change?
* * *
Competition or connection? Hospital or hospice? Here
we sit. Jesus embodies it all and asks us, “Do you want to be made whole?” Being
cultivated for transformative ministry upsets the complacency of routine. As
clear as the answer is, we prefer to continue in the comfort of routine. Do we
really want to? Knowing what being made whole means for God and what it means
for us, do we really want it? There is a lot riding on that question. There is
a lot of risk. There is a lot of reward.
It’s like this. One day two good friends decided that
they’ve been cooped up too long over the winter and when spring came they
wanted to do some good in the great outdoors. So one says to the other, “how
about we volunteer with Habitat for Humanity?” “That’s a great idea!” the other
said. They got in contact with the right people and in a few months they were
out at a job site ready to go. Their first task was to nail some siding to the
exterior of the home. Everything looked like it was going to be a great day
until one of the guys noticed something a little peculiar. He looked over at
his buddy who would take a nail out of his pouch, hold it up to the siding and
either nail it in or throw it on the ground. Looking on the ground there were a
few dozen nails already under his work space so he goes over and asks him
what’s going on. “It’s alright, it’s just some of these nails are defective.”
Certainly not that many nails could be defective so he asked his friend, “What
do you mean they’re defective?” “Well, you see I pull a nail out of the pouch
and hold it up to the siding but just before I nail it in I notice that the
point is facing me and the flat side of the nail is up against the siding. Can
you believe they manufactured the nails backwards? It’s no good. So, I throw it
on the ground and get a new one.” You’ve already figured out what’s wrong with
this picture. He must not have that much experience. So, his buddy leaned over
to break this truth to him. He said, “You know, those nails aren’t defective
like you think they are.” “Are you sure?” he asked. “I’m positive. Those nails
are for the other side of the house.”
You figured out what was wrong pretty quickly and you
knew what had to be done in order to change the outcome. All that had to be
done was to turn the nails around. Unfortunately, they were instead tossed
aside. Given the opportunity to transform the situation to produce a better
outcome, the choice was made to try the same thing again and hope for a better
result. The more and more that happens, the more normal it becomes and before
you know it, you’re surrounded by dozens of perfectly good nails that will
ultimately be thrown in the trash.
A complacent Church is not one that does sits around
and does nothing. A complacent Church is one that is very active. A complacent
Church is one that is always short of volunteers when they need them. A
complacent Church is one that consistently looks out for itself, not being
afraid to show care, concern, and hospitality for one another. But, a
complacent Church is one that is so caught up in everything that it is involved
in that when presented with an opportunity for transformation, to turn the nail
around, it hesitates. A complacent Church is one that is caught in the routine.
One thing we must notice about this healing story is
that it would not have happened the way it did without Jesus. Had Jesus not
come to this man who had been there for 38 years, he would still be stuck in
his routine, he would still be stuck with his disease, he would still be stuck
with his pain. Jesus provided the opportunity for transformation.
The man who had been at the Pool of Bethesda for 38
years knows all about routine. It was just an ordinary day for him. That is,
until Jesus came to him.
Here we are as the Church being approached and asked
by Jesus “Do you want to be made whole?” He knows we can’t do it on our own. He
knows our future without him is a bleak one and so he comes to us. He takes the
risk to come to us in our human condition and offer to change our future and
call us out of a life of struggle.
What is amazing here is that though the man
complained, Jesus cured him anyway. He told him to get up, take his mat and
walk and he did. He could’ve denied Jesus right there. He could’ve not trusted
him, he could very well have not taken Jesus at his word, but he did. And when
he did, he got up and he walked. In his willingness to be transformed, he was
renewed, given new strength, and he walked.
Jesus shocked the culture around him by connecting
with this man who would otherwise have been left in his routine. The Church
came to life through transformations like this and Jesus continues to shock the
Church to life through transformations like this today. Jesus was not okay with
being stuck in the routine, he was not okay with complacency. He called that
man into a transformation and he calls the Church today to be transformative,
to be transformed ourselves and for transform the world.
We can’t compete with the world. Jesus calls us to
connect with the world. We can’t be a hospice Church, Jesus calls us to be a
hospital Church. We have to be willing to take Jesus at his word when he tells
us to get up and walk. If we want to be made whole, those things that we have
been holding onto and those things that have been holding onto us, those things
that we are leaning on, those things that we are depending on and wallowing in,
we have to pick those things up and walk with them so that we can go forward
and give testimony just like this man did when he was healed.
Remember that we are the Church together. Are we
willing to enter into conversations that go beyond the walls of this building?
We can be successful in coming up with ideas but we will not be significant
until we are impacting lives in a way that facilitates transformation. Are we
focused on being impressive or impactful? Religious or relational?
Communicating to people or connecting with them? Inviting or listening? Let’s
not throw the nail away. Let’s not tell ourselves to be complacent with the
routine. Instead let us be called into transformation, to turn the nail around
and get to work.
We don’t serve a God that sets us up for failure.
Jesus provided healing for the man at the Pool of Bethesda but Jesus wasn’t
done there. Jesus not only provided a physical healing but he also provided
spiritual wholeness when he died on the cross giving that man a healing he
could never dream of getting himself. Jesus comes to us in our struggles but
he’s not done when he brings us out of them. He’s not done until he has taken
those struggles to the cross where he provides us with the wholeness that only
he can give. He will never leave us nor forsake us. We are never alone. In his
name, we can do this. We have what we need and we have it right now. Each of us
has a God-given gift and ability that, when cultivated, provides beauty,
richness, and wholeness to the community. Each of us has the ability to provide
a different service in the Church through which we can connect with people, to
build relationships, build trust, and meet needs. Jesus has the ability to move
us from complacency to becoming transformative. So just like Jesus did with
this man at the Pool of Bethesda let us approach this question with an open
heart and allow Jesus to cultivate within us that saving power that will lead
to transformative ministry. Do you want to be made whole? God give us the faith
to answer yes. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.