others

from my message on 4/29/12 from I John 3:16-24

Others.  I admit it:  I like helping others.  I enjoy serving others.  I look forward to Friday mornings when I get to go out to the Habitat for Humanity job site and pound nails.  Sure, I have lots of work I could be doing on my own house, but it feels great to work on a house for others.  I like it.  I bet you do too.  Otherwise, you wouldn't be so enthusiastic about ReThink Church last Sunday.  More than 200 of you got involved in some 10 work projects around the area last Sunday.  It feels good.

I thought I would be resistant to having helping others be a commandment, but I am not.  Upon reflection, I realized that as an eldest son, super-responsible, overfunctioning person, I like to please the "big people," the authority figures in my life.  So if parents, teachers, preachers, ...God, say "you are supposed to love others," I don't have any problem doing that.  I find that I can get attention and affection by doing what these "big people" want me to do.  And look at my chosen profession.  I am a pastor.  I do this all the time, helping others.  In fact, I can say to you today, "Hello, my name is Lynn, and I am a help-aholic."  You are supposed to say, "Hello, Lynn," because you are in the same 12 step recovery group.  I never met a need I didn't like.  So I don't have any trouble with helping others being commanded.

The passage says if you have the world's riches and you see someone in need, you are supposed to help them.  I feel good about doing that.  The passage says that helping others is commanded, that we are commanded to believe in the name of the Son Jesus Christ and to love one another.  I am ok with that.  But there is one part of the passage that poses a problem for me.  It says as Jesus laid down his life for us, we are to lay down our lives for others.   The problem I have is this:  that means I have to put my schedule, my agenda, my control aside.  It means I have to surrender the throne.  I stop driving the car.  I get out of the power position. I don't like "laying down my life" for others.  It sounds a lot like what Jesus did when he said, "Not my will, but thine be done."

I was trying to find some good news in adopting this position of laying down my life for others.  Thankfully, it came.  I realized that others could be a gift to us.  By serving others, we come closest to being the persons Christ intends for us to be.  By laying down our lives for others, we come closest to Christ, not just his example, but his person.  When we lay down our lives for others, Christ can so fill us that we won't need to be needed anymore, we won't need to be noticed, we won't need to prove we are loveable.  We can become the persons Christ intends for us to be and grow close to Christ.

Maybe that's why we like ReThink Church so much.  As we watch a few slides from last Sunday's projects, let me tell you about them.  The handbell choir went out to Marbridge Villas where some mentally challenged residents live.  One of the men who lived there plowed right through the handbell tables in order to get to his spot during the concert.  Our handbell players literally had to "get out of the way" and lay down their lives for this man.  Some of us sang at the Summit retirement home and others at the Austin State School.  John laid down his life as he let a resident at the School play his beautiful Taylor guitar.  That took a lot of trust, of surrender.  We had some 58 people go out to Hearts and Hooves and work in the hot sun pulling weeds, building a rock table, scooping poop, and tending the miniature ponies.  Fifty-two people helped at Church under the Bridge, enough to give individual attention to those who live on the streets who were looking for clothes.  Sixteen people went to the SPCA to tend animals there.  Fourteen helped serve breakfast at Parker Lane UMC.  Some of our less mobile folks wrote cards to servicemen and the homebound or sorted cookies into bags for lunches for Mobile Loaves and Fishes.  It feels good when we can lay down our lives for others.

Some of you have asked me, "Pastor Lynn, can we do Rethink Church every week?"  Well....we need to gather in worship, to encounter the living God in scripture, pray, and song.  Plus, our new Point worship setting does such projects once a month.  Look for their next one in May.  Finally, the answer is yes, you can do ReThink Church every week, in fact, every day!  Don't wait for me to call you; Christ has already called you. 

I challenge you to see serving others as a gift, as a way of becoming the persons Christ intends you to be and to grow close to Christ.  It might be like Stacey who left work after a hard day of teaching school.  Imagine that, a teacher leaving  school tired and frustrated.  On the way home, she stopped at a light.  There on the corner was the man holding the sign asking for help.  She looked in the care.  There was no "bag of grace" such as make for these situations, not even a bottle of water.  She looked in her purse.  She had a $1 bill.  She rolled down the window, apologizing, "I'm sorry, this is all I have."  The man said, "You saw me.  So many pass by without ever seeing me."

It might be like Reggie McNeal, a great teacher, preacher, author.  I heard him say that he has started treating wait staff differently.  Instead of treating them like servants, he has started treating them like family.  He routinely asks those he meets in restaurants, "How can I bless you?  What prayer can you share with me?"  He says it is amazing how the relationship dynamic changes.  People will actually tell you things. 

What will it be for you?  How will lay down your life for others?  How about letting others cut in while driving?  Maybe it is treating your spouse or your children or your boss or your co-workers differently.  I challenge you to try it for this week, that one thing where you surrender control on behalf of others.

One more story to reiterate the point.  I don't often go out clubbing on Saturday night.  I know that y'all find that hard to believe.  In fact, I have never done this, until about 2 weeks ago.  Tonya Creamer on our staff was having her CD release party at Skinny's Ballroom.  Now it wasn't on Sixth Street.  It was at 115 San Jacinto, a lot quieter than Sixth Street.  I was a total neophyte.  I didn't know what to expect.  It was clean.  There is no smoking.  Yes, there was a bar, but people were sedate.  What really made me feel at home was that at Skinny's they had church pews facing the stage!  Now we good Methodists who came out to support Tonya, we sat in those pews....filling them up...from the back first to the front!  Pretty soon all of the pews were taken and all of the chairs in the bar were taken.  Steve and Marci were there, who usually serve as ushers at our 11:15 a.m. service.  They saw the situation, and being good ushers, went to look for extra chairs.  They found some and set them up in the back of the room!  It was like Easter overflow seating.  It was the most natural thing for them to do.  When we start to practice laying down our lives for others, we soon find that we don't even have to think about doing it.  It becomes part of who we are. 

Let me share with you a 4 letter word that will change your life....THEM.  It is in serving others, them, that we come closest to being the people Christ intends for us to be.  We come the closest we can to Christ.   That is the good news I have to share today.