First Baptist Church of Asheville Podcast
Sermon: At Home Among Strangers
Well isn't that Mary's child some whisper in the congregation of a sharp dig about Joseph Others under their breath ask isn't that that precocious boy of Mary's you know the one that went to trade school Still other smirk oh well look who's back with all his book learning went to seminary diddy other still Isn't that Mary's kid The one they forgot back in Jerusalem all those years ago had to go back and get him. Oh look he's all grown up now, isn't he? There's a strange mixture of both wonder and condescending laughter all around the congregation as Jesus holds court and his home synagogue Teaching the allogizing speaking from the scriptures and ways they've never heard Jesus home church is on the one hand astounded by the power of his words and On the other hand they're offended by his teaching And as it dawns on Jesus as he's being disowned By the very people who raised him he offers another proverb Prophets are not without honor Except when they come home among their own kin and even in their own house And we don't know when Jesus says this if he's being very stoic or If he's choking back tears Either way we can imagine how Jesus is feeling that something deep down is Dying inside of him from now on he knows that if his mission is going to take root It's not going to take root among his roots It's hard not to hear this account and Be in such proximity to his birthplace and not think of Thomas wolf and his novel you can't go home again There we find the beloved and moving passage Something has spoken to me in the night and told me that I shall die. I know not where saying death is To lose the earth you know for greater knowing To lose the life you have for greater life To leave the friends you loved for greater loving Defined a land more kind than home More large than earth But what a an utterly lonely feeling this must be for Jesus He will later say in Matthew Foxes have holes birds have nests the son of man Has nowhere to lay his head Somewhere between the last sentence of his profound scripture lesson in the synagogue and the congregation's gossip and his stepping back out of the door and into the Mediterranean Sun Jesus becomes not only estranged but homeless He has nowhere to go No, no people to lean on no old bedroom preserved with him with the the cheap Little League statues on his bookshelf No membership role bearing his name no contacts in his phone not anymore Just a rolled up sleeping bag and a frayed toothbrush and a group of hapless Disciples gathered around him waiting for him to tell him what's next And what does Jesus do He leaves For greater loving for a land more kind than home he takes his message elsewhere to the surrounding villages preaching teaching healing Only now he deputizes all of his disciples to go and do the same Now they've become estranged together. Now. They're all homeless Aliens and outcasts and all for the sake of sharing God's dream with anyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see Now it's hard to overestimate just how Spartan this first church mission really is No bread no bag no money Can't take two tunics you just have one tunic So to picture each disciple standing there are their Amtrak tickets They have one article of clothing a walking stick and a pair of sandals What else do they have a Cocktail of courage and ignorance We might venture to say they also have faith and hope and love But it might be more accurate to say that all they have all that any of them have are words One of the reasons that I often quote stand up comedians is Because I marvel at just how vulnerable they make themselves in order to make us laugh Think about it. What does a stand up comedian have? two things the clothes on their back and words And the only thing standing between them and bombing with the crowd like Jesus does in his hometown are words Speaking of comedy I once spent a couple of days canvassing a neighborhood in St. Louis as I worked in the church that summer inviting total strangers to a church picnic I'll pause So you can begin to imagine what that must have been like Me coming up to a total strangers house knocking on the door Hey y'all Would y'all like to come do a church picnic Now, of course, that's not what I sound like but that's probably what I sounded like to people in St. Louis And wouldn't you know it? Some of those people actually came to the church picnic They actually came I Mean what more basic thing to do than to just go up to strangers houses and invite them to something and They came far as I know some of them still going I Quite out of character for me personally to go canvassing. I've since wondered where that energy came from. I believe it came from Lee and Dan Middle-aged couple that welcomed me to live with them that entire summer the only rules they gave me were to let them know if I was going to be in late and Special instructions from Lee to never touch her teflon coated pots and pans so But there's something about being welcomed as a total stranger that can inspire you to Welcome other strangers invite them befriend them Make ourselves vulnerable to them Isn't this how the church mission begins? nothing but words Invitations welcome What's your name? Where are you from? The beginning of the church's mission has so much to do with establishing a new family where there wasn't one before earlier in mark Jesus mother and brothers come to try to talk some sense into him He's gone radical on them. He's left the house. He's doing all his crazy teaching He's healing people demons are shouting at him, but they think he's the one that's gone Berserk they've they've they've come to try to pull him back home and they're saying to each other on the way To find him The boy's gone out of his mind. You just hear Mary. I did so much to raise this little boy and now look at He's doing to me making me go crazy, too and just they're all a titter trying to pull Jesus back into some kind of normalcy they come outside the house where he's teaching and When they they reach the house there's a crowd sitting around Jesus inside and and somebody says hey your your family's outside your mom and your Your brothers they're they're waiting for you and Jesus says Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters? You are my mother and my brother and my who whoever does the will of God that that's my family now As far as I can tell Jesus hadn't spent any more time with this crowd than the length of his sermon But then he looks at this room full of strangers, and he says family Some of us have been lucky in life to love and adore our nuclear families wink wink mom and dad Others of us have not been as lucky In her memoir about prison chaplaincy Nancy Sahesd our sister and Asheville neighbor Tails the story of Frederick Only once in his life His Frederick's family ever acknowledged his birthday It took being in prison for 16 years to finally find that recognition Today was the best birthday of my 35 years Frederick said guys gave me honey buns and cups of soup and candy bars Made me feel like some folks were glad I was born I Felt happy all day long in fact. I feel blessed I wonder if it happens to any of the disciples while they're on the road completely vulnerable due to their Strangement from home completely dependent on the kindness and hospitality of strangers Do you think Peter was ever just sitting across the table from a total stranger? And as he dipped his bread into the bowl with olive oil it slowly dawned on him that that after I don't know a dozen or so tall tales about fishing and then some deeper conversations about who Jesus is and might be It began to become real to him. I can connect heart to heart deep unto deep With somebody I didn't even know a Few days ago The week before Peter didn't know this village existed now after a few days of being a guest in a random person's house It's family It's like we've always known each other. I can't imagine my life now without knowing you and having had this experience And I certainly never would have sat down and broken bread with this total stranger If not for Jesus sending me out here without so much as a $20 bill Helms and Greg Gerald are Missionaries if you will They just up and moved to West Charlotte Right after they got married bought an old house and Said well, this is our neighborhood now Greg and Helms are white and most of their neighbors are not And they just did something outlandish just foolish crazy Madness they began inviting youth to their house For dinner twice a month Now decades later they have a community Called QC family tree. They do justice work together with their neighbors. They fight in croaching gentrification Everyone in their neighborhood is concerned about housing. Am I going to be displaced like my parents or my grandparents? Am I going to be able to to stay here in my neighborhood in my home? Well, all these total strangers began to get together And make a new kind of family And now they're saving lives one of them is a young man named Markelle Peteford And reflecting on his experience with this new prophetic family Markelle said look who knows who I would have been if I never met Greg and Helms Because you have to remember in the air where I am there's a lot of crazy stuff going on all the time And you can really get sucked into it But now I'm starting to recognize these things and I'm starting to see God every day in my life And since the family tree came along I'm Learning how to be compassionate. I'm learning how to tell the truth and My life's changed And now I want to do the same for others We're right there with you Markel I'm looking around a room right now at people I would have never met if it weren't for the Holy Spirit Giving me and my family a new family Interesting how this mission concludes in mark the gospel writer reports After all this they cast out many demons and they anointed the sick with old And cured them