Bouncing Off the Walls

Bouncing Off the Walls

Thanksgiving Eve Worship Service, November 25, 2015

Scripture References for Sermon… (Only those with a star were read aloud)…

Genesis 12:10 – Abraham from Famine

Genesis 12:19‐20 – Abraham from Pharaoh

Genesis 14:11‐12 – Lot from Invasion

Genesis 21:14-16 – Hagar & Ishmael from Persecution

Genesis 26:1‐3 – Isaac & Rebecca from Persecution

Genesis 27:42‐44 – Jacob from Violence

Genesis 47:4 – Jacob from Famine

Genesis 36:7 – Esau from Scarcity & Conflict

Genesis 37:28 – Joseph from Human Trafficking

Exodus 12:41 – Moses & ALL of Israel from Religious Persecution & War

*Deuteronomy 10:17‐19 – How to Treat the Refugee

Ruth 1:1 – Naomi from Famine

2 Kings 17:23 – ALL of Israel from War & Conquest by Assyria

2 Kings 24:14‐15 – ALL of Israel from War & Conquest by Babylon

Esther 2:5‐7 – Esther & Mordechai from War & Conquest

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel – Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego from War & Conquest

*Matthew 2:13‐14 – Jesus, Mary, & Joseph from Political Persecution

Acts 8:1 – The Early Church from Religious Persecution

Acts 11:19 – The Early Church from Religious Persecution

Acts 8:4‐5 – Philip from Religious Persecution

Acts 12:17 – Peter from Religious Persecution

Acts 18:1‐2 – Aquila & Pricilla from Religious Persecution

*Scriptures that were read before message.

 Deuteronomy 10:17‐19
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the refugee, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the refugee, therefore, for you were refugees in the land of Egypt.

Matthew 2:13‐14
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt.

Bouncing off the walls.  That should be normal. But I'll come back to that.

There's a reason I had us sing that silly kid song.  When you’re happy and you know it, when you’re thankful and you know it… Most of us need a reminder of what it means to express ourselves.  Unless you are a musician or "professional" artist, you do not have many opportunities in our society to express yourself... your desires, your hopes, your frustrations.  And no, road rage and Facebook are not what I mean.

We take some healthy opportunities to do this.  We pack a box for Operation Christmas Child, say yes when Kathy Sang or Bob Harris call.  But we take so few opportunities to open ourselves completely to this world and then RESPOND in healthy ways, good ways, ways that show the truth of our faith, the good news we claim, but don't always PROCLAIM.

Bouncing off the walls.

This weekend, we waited to tell Vincent we were going to the RenFest till the last min, as all parents know.  When I walked in the door, he was already bouncing off the walls.  Not about the festival.  But because it was MY birthday.  Not his.  Mine.  When was the last time you bounced off the walls for someone else's birthday?  He had a piece of notebook paper on which he'd drawn me a card and couldn't wait for me to read it.  The walls came off the house when we then told him about the festival.

There's a link going around on Facebook that advertises Google will tell you your future.  If you click, it says, if you care this much about YOUR future, what about the future of others?  What about refugees?

It's a bold question for google.  It's basically a Jesus question.  How many times does Jesus ask his disciples or the religious leaders or the crowds, what about... those people?  What about God's prophets in the whole Old Testament, God's Apostles in the New Testament?

What reaction do you have to all the news?  Sadness?  Anger?  Did you care much at all till the issues was Syrians being resettled here?  Did that change your reaction?

Bouncing off the walls.  That was Vincent's reaction because he knows and loves me.  Do we know the Syrians?  DO we want to?

If you had to guess, what is going on over there?  Do you know?  DO you care?  Do you want to?  Do you have any idea where Syria is?  What’s happening?  How many people?

I want to introduce you to your brothers and sisters in Syria a little bit.  Of the recorded deaths (experts are certain the numbers are higher), 200,000 have been killed.  That's like someone coming to the US, killing every man, woman, and child in Rowan County and Davie, and probably heading down to Concord and doing the same.  Everyone.  Then, for good measure, displacing every single person in the middle and western 2/3rds of the state, and driving the other 1/3rd into other countries.  The entire state, over 10 million people.  Do you have some idea now?

Well, yeah, Brian, but which are Christian and which are Muslim?  That is SO not the question that Jesus ever asks, nor the prophets.  In fact, the opposite.  That list of scriptures in your bulletin are the complete list of our ancestors of the faith who fled and became refugees.  Jesus and his parents are ON that list.  Take a look.

And that's to say nothing of the TWENTY TWO references in scripture to LOVE the REFUGEE in your land.  These are not commands to love the other Jewish people in the neighboring country (or Christians).  It was a GUARANTEE in that day and age that the foreigner, the refugee was of another faith, probably an idol worshipper or polytheist or something far stranger or more barbaric.  These commands are to love and welcome and defend the foreigner, the refugee.  To rescue and provide sanctuary.  And I will tell you right now that God made that command to a people who had no capacity for background checks, to people who were not protected by being surrounded by other countries and oceans and thousands of miles, but to a people right on the front lines, neighbors.

So certainly the loudest voices after these atrocities in a world so full of Christians would be words of welcome and hospitality, right???  Or at the very least, the loud voices of opposition would be from atheists or people of other faiths telling us Christians to not be so naive and foolish and risky!  Certainly any national leader or politician to be quoted in the paper or on TV as denying asylum to the MILLIONS in need would never claim the radical faith we claim and PROCLAIM through our actions of love and hospitality.  Right?

Certainly the worriers and the wise among us who have concerns would be spending all their creativity and resources on SOLUTIONS and ways to provide the love and welcome and sanctuary we are called to as Christians?

Certainly, we would consider the refusal to welcome middle-eastern families with children knocking at our door with the answer, "there's no room here," would be considered the real war on Christmas...  Right?

But Brian, I really do love my neighbor.  I do love the Lord and want to do as he calls me to do, but I'm scared.  Good.  That's honest.  And if you're not scared, you've gotten far too comfortable in your faith.  The Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, his brother, the disciples, the prophets, do we assume they were not scared?  No.  They just knew that to cling to this life more fiercely than the truth we have had revealed is to have no faith at all.  We are not a people of fear, but of faith.  And do we have a faith that we claim, or a faith we PROclaim?  Is it a faith that we intellectually assert and post about and use for guidance, or is it a faith we proclaim in word and deed?  Is it a faith that reminds us to buy a birthday card out of obligation or a faith that has us bouncing off the walls?

At a time when most of Christians are either terrified of who may arrive in our country and what they may do, or we remain blissfully unaware of our brothers and sisters knocking at the door this advent... one little boy in Texas showed a little light to remind us what it's like to be grateful for all the blessings we have and to SHOW it, to be a bouncing off the walls believer...

In the same week that the governor of Texas wrote a letter to the President refusing to accept Syrian refugees in his small state, a mosque was vandalized.  SEVEN year old, Jack heard this news and with the help of his mother, approached Naeem, a board member of the mosque, at the mosque in Pflugerville (a suburb of Austin, where I was born) with his piggy bank, the contents of which totaled about $20.  His mother said that they wanted to show them that what's not happening in Paris is NOT what is happening in Pflugerville. Said Naeem, "Jack’s $20 are worth $20 million to us because it’s the thought that counts,” Naeem said in an interview with ABC News. “Jack is a just a little older than my son, Ibrahim. If we have more kind-hearted kids like them in the world, I have hope for our future."

Jack has a bouncing off the walls faith. Jack is known all over Texas and the world now for his act of love. Will we be known for our security or our love? Our hate or our hospitality? Our fear or our faith? I don't know the name of the innkeeper in Bethlehem who let a young Middle Eastern family into his barn. Maybe history will not remember my name either. But I'd rather be nameless and famous for my compassion… than famous for my refusal to accept the refugee in my land when the prophets tell me my people were once wanderers too. So if you are thankful and you know it, SHOW it.  Don’t claim your faith only, but PROCLAIM it.  As for me and my household, we will be believers who bounce off the walls for our faith. Amen.