Sermons

Kingdom Living: Do As I Do

BY THERESA MCCONNELL | JUNE 12, 2005
Matthew 9:36-10:8

BC! Before Cellular Phones! Near suppertime across the pastures I’d hear: “Resa, Come home!” Others might hear across their neighborhoods: “Darrah! Come see!”; “Suppertime!”

Even in that day, our ears were turned in to the frequency of our parents’ voice.

What frequency has caught your hearing? Many remember the EF Hutton commercials several years back. People would be milling around, talking with one another, and then someone would say, “Well, my broker is EF Hutton and E F Hutton says…” and the whole room suddenly falls silent… people lean in and strain to hear…

Many voices clamor for our attention today. Every one under the sun offers satisfaction and fulfillment, if we just buy their “brand”, “beer”, their “truck”! We even identify ourselves by our purchases: “I’m a Ford truck man….”.

You see we are more like the folks of Jesus’ day than we might like to think… more like sheep than we realize. People in need direction. People willing to follow the trends that look promising! Whether we know it or not we are indeed like those sheep!

According to the Cormo Sheep Conservation Registry, Inc., “Sheep are gregarious, which means they like to be around other sheep and move as a group rather than as an individual” (www.cormosheep.org/Cormo/How_to_Raise_x.html). John Lane, a pastor in VA, reminds us that as useful as sheep can be (“ they produce lots of wool, and they allow their owners to shear them so it can be used by others… can be productive, can be a source of warmth and love and help to others”) sheep also have other characteristics which make them vulnerable.*

They are also like the little boy about 4-5 years of age, who was holding his father’s hand as they walked down a busy street. His father, a man of few words, so it was not unusual for there to be silence as they strolled. At some point the little boy looked up and discovered he was holding the hand of a woman he had never seen before!

“Sheep are like that. They keep their head down while grazing. They wander off. When sheep have found a spot in which to graze, they are awfully hard to move. When they are on the move, they can be awfully hard to stop.”*

This is certainly some of what Jesus knew about sheep and part of why he “had compassion on them”. “Heart-felt, from deep within the center of one’s being” – compassion ( Young’s Concordance).

It is out of this deep compassion that Jesus calls his disciples to respond… We think they are going to go to work, but there call is to “Ask the Lord…”. “The disciples are to serve but the action is God’s” (www.lectionary.org).

God goes ahead of us and prepares the way that we might be laborers in the harvest. Ordinary people doing God’s work. Why look at the disciples who were called:

Simon/Peter (impetuous/betrays) Thomas(Doubter) and Matthew (Tax collector)
Andrew (Brings his brother /collaborator)
James (thunderous/ “the less”) James and Thaddeus
John (intense and zealous) Simon the Cananean & Judas Iscariot
Philip (lover of horses) and Bartholomew (without guile)

Ordinary guys given authority --- given the ability and power to have compassion themselves and told to go out and proclaim and heal.

That’s the call to you and I – to follow Jesus’ example. He provides the power; we must provide the persons .

The next time you feel like GOD can't use you, just remember...

Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar. Leah was Ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses had a stuttering problem, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair and was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David had an affair and was a murderer, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Job went bankrupt, John the Baptist ate bugs, Peter denied Christ, The Disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha worried about everything, The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once, Zaccheus wasn't so small, Paul was too religious, Timothy had an ulcer...AND Lazarus was dead! (email, 6-7-05).

You and I are ordinary people called to do ordinary things that God makes into extraordinary events!

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.

"I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

That’s what you and I are called to do: be in a position to be used by God to saves lives… are you about Kingdom living? Following the Master’s lead? Who are you saving? Healing?

* John D. Lane, Trinity Church, Staunton, VA. http://www.trinitystaunton.org/sheep.htm .

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