Thursday night was midterm exam night for our Bethel Bible Study class – you may have heard some weeping and gnashing of teeth from them in recent weeks because of it. I haven’t graded the exams yet, but they’re always more worried about it than they need to be. So, in an attempt to remind a very anxious class about what we’re really doing here – and about what really matters in all of this – I asked them a question for “Extra, Extra Credit” on their mid-term exam. And their answers ended up being excellent sermon fodder for this morning.
The question was simple: “Unrelated to the Bethel Bible Study, share something meaningful you have experienced or enjoyed or been inspired by as part of our life together at Cross of Grace.” As I’d hoped, the answers moved me and inspired me and turned out to be a great connection to this week’s gospel.
Someone said it feels like home here…where kids are loved, family is supported, God’s grace and mercy are witnessed and love is felt. And they said how moving and meaningful it has been for their kids to see their dad serving here.
Someone said that, because of what we do here, they have grown to be more open and accepting and comfortable having hard conversations with people and that they can show love and compassion to people who struggle in ways they haven’t always been able to do.
A couple people said something about the overall feeling of warmth and welcome at Cross of Grace that matters to them.
Another person explained how they hadn’t ever been particularly involved at Cross of Grace until one Sunday morning when someone asked them to fill in for someone who didn’t show up. All it took, they explained, was for someone to ask. And ever since, this person has been as involved as anyone in what we’re up to around here.
Someone else remembered how deliberately and kindly they were welcomed the very first time they showed up – and how they continually feel welcomed, acknowledged and seen here.
Lots of people like how involved and connected kids are allowed to be, some mentioned the bells, the band, the friendships; others mentioned our outward focus on mission and ministry; some talked about relevant teaching and preaching; one person mentioned a card they got in the mail and a very specific invitation to serve as a Stephen Minister; someone else said that we “choose life” around here in all the ways – spiritually, mentally, mindfully; worshiping, serving, giving, empowering.
That’s all great stuff… holy stuff… moving things that remind me of how and why it’s good to be the church around here. But for me, what was mentioned in those answers to my “extra, extra credit question” was just as telling as what wasn’t mentioned.
No one said anything about doctrine or dogma or denominations. No one said a word about the abstract rules and self-righteousness that so many Christians fight about out there in the world. No one said a thing that had to be thought about or reasoned or rationalized in too many ways. It was all stuff that had to be experienced, witnessed, seen, heard, felt in some way.
It’s why it all connected so mightily with what the disciples of John the Baptist were hungry for when they first saw Jesus and started to follow him, for a change, in this morning’s Gospel. John points them in the right direction, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And they just follow.
They meet up with Jesus, and they call him Rabbi, which means “teacher,” like maybe they were expecting a lecture or a reading or a sermon or a midterm exam, perhaps. But Jesus doesn’t do any of that. He says, “what are you looking for?” and then “come and see.”
“Come and see.” And that’s what they do.
And, who knows what happened that afternoon at 4 o’clock when they went to stay with Jesus. But ultimately, as they followed him around Galilee, they saw him heal and forgive and tell great stories. They watched him live and move and breathe among the people. They watched him touch lepers and be touched with the oil and tears and hair of a sinful woman. They saw him love others, purely and plainly. They watched him suffer and struggle and sacrifice and die – and they suffered the sting of that loss as a result. And they felt the joy of his redemption, on the other side the empty tomb, even more.
And all of this moved them, transformed them, and changed the world around them, too, by the grace they learned to receive and share because of all they experienced. And that’s still God’s hope for us as followers of Jesus on the other side of Christmas: that we would come and see – which so many of us have, based on the simple, holy, profound experiences we can share about our time here. And God’s hope is that, once we’ve come and seen, that we will go and show, too, so that others might be changed by the same grace we have known.
Rob Bell, has a great way of explaining this. He says, “Jesus shows us that ultimate truth and mystery are located in bodies and matter and lips and arms and music and grass and water and eyes and relationships.” In other words, God is in what can be tasted, touched, heard, seen, felt and shared. Not so much in what can be read about or described with all the right words. Or passed on by way of a midterm exam.
And one of my favorite things Rob Bell says is this: “It’s one thing to stand there in a lab coat with a clipboard, recording data about lips. It’s another thing to be kissed.”
“It’s one thing to stand there in a lab coat with a clipboard, recording data about lips. It’s another thing [altogether] to be kissed.”
It’s one thing to stand here in our white robes or our fancy clothes, with our hymnals and our bulletins in one hand and our best intentions in the other. It’s another thing altogether, to be loving and forgiving, to be sacrificing and sharing, to be tasting and offering up the fullness of God’s kind of grace and mercy with the world.
Whether it’s the bread and wine of communion; or the excitement of a kid, overjoyed to get “The Box” (you should have seen and heard Jackson Hall last weekend at second service); or whether it’s the water that runs down the cheeks of a baptized child; or the tears that fall from the eyes of a proud parent; or the sound of a song that hits, just so; or the fullness of grace that “just is” – or should be – in places like this … the stuff of life and faith that matters most, just has to be experienced and shared to make a difference. You just have to come and see it – as much as anything – in order to believe it, or buy it, or be changed by it in some way.
This life of faith is meant to be felt – which God proved by showing up in the skin and bones of Jesus. This life of faith is meant to be practiced – not just preached about. This life of faith is meant to be shared through worship, learning and service. This faith matters most – for us and for others – when we come and see it in flesh and blood, through sweat and tears, in laughter and love and when we go and show and become it, too, in all of those ways, for the sake of the world.
Amen
