Open Arms

When I was little, I would call my Grandma Nancy to see if I could spend the night.  She would say, “Well, let me see,” as she would pretend to be looking through a reservation book.  When she knew she had my attention she would say, “Yes…Yes, indeed, there is always room at Grandma’s Open Arms Hotel for you, Chad.” 

I would get off the phone and say, “She said, ‘Yes!’ Mom.”  My mom could not drive the three miles to their home fast enough for my satisfaction.  Once in their driveway, I would jump out of the car and run right into Grandma’s open arms.  There was something incredibly warm and loving about her embrace.  That woman had a way about her that made a little boy feel like he was the most special person in the universe.  I felt like I could do no wrong in her eyes.  And with her in my corner it seemed easier to believe that I was special to God and that he had a plan for my life. 

I would sit at the kitchen table in “my chair” (Grandpa and Grandma each had their own designated chair and mine was right in the middle.  Their kitchen was so small there was only room for three chairs).  As I sat in my chair, I would enjoy watching Grandma do one of her favorite hobbies—cooking!  Of course, eating what she cooked was one of my favorite hobbies.  As she cooked, I would listen to her do her second favorite hobby and that was tell stories.  She would tell stories about family, friends and faith.  Some made me laugh, a few made me cry and they all shaped me in one way or another.

My Grandparents home was small and unimpressive in a small and unimpressive neighborhood, but sometimes when I am back in my hometown, I will drive by their old home.  I stop for a minute by the curb in front of their Seibert Avenue house.  The home is not anything like it was.  Grandpa always kept the hedges perfectly manicured and the paint nice and bright.  But I see past what it is, to what it was—a place where I knew that no matter what and no matter when as long as Grandma and Grandpa were there I would always be received with open arms. 

My Grandma’s Open Arms Hotel comes to mind as I think about some words of Jesus from Matthew 25, “For I was a stranger and you invited me in.”  It is one thing to welcome, with open arms, someone we love, but to offer that same warmth and acceptance to a stranger…well, now that is truly what it means to be Christ-like.  After all, as Jesus mentioned, even pagans love their own.  How much more we who follow Him ought to love those who are strange to us.  For Jesus said by welcoming a stranger with open arms, we welcome Him.  Of course, the negative is true as well:  To not welcome a stranger with open arms is to not welcome Him.

I know there are many objections we might mention here:  What if the stranger takes advantage of us?  What about “stranger danger?”  What about being wise about who you trust?  Yes, those are all legitimate concerns, but Jesus suggests that he would rather us risk it all and err on the side of open arms.  Honestly, take it up with Jesus if you have a problem with welcoming strangers…I dare you, but I also promise you that you will find that the one who was willing to die for a stranger like me and you will not have his mind changed about this one.

Canton First Family, what might God do in hearts and minds, if this Sunday we come ready to receive Jesus by inviting strangers in with open arms during our NextGen celebration?  What if the introverts and extraverts among us went out of our way to make one NextGen family feel like they had just shown up at Grandma’s house this Sunday?  What might God be able to do in a life this Sunday for eternity, if we might step out of our comfort zones and say, “Would you like to sit with my family today?”  How might we shape a child’s life, if we cheered for each child as if he or she were our very own child or grandchild?  What if instead of rushing off to have lunch with “our own family,” we would ask our family to be inconvenienced for the sake of strangers in our midst?  What if we prayed the rest of this week that before a word is said or song is sung that every NextGen player and family would experience Jesus through our welcome?  There is no way to fake hospitality.  Either you got it or you don’t.  And this Sunday, the NextGen celebration will put us to the test.  I have no doubt that we are up for the challenge.

One thing is for sure…if we pass this test, then no matter what else does or does not happen Sunday, we will see Jesus in our midst because Matthew 25 says Jesus always shows up where strangers are welcomed with open arms.    

The Walk

I was so excited to walk in the warmth and sunshine on Monday!  It felt so good to no longer be bundled up and still be cold on my walks.  To be really honest, the last two weeks of sub-zero temperatures finally broke me. I had maintained my walking regiment all winter, but the last two weeks, I just gave up.  The constant cold, ice and snow became a legitimate excuse for me.  As much as I enjoy walking outside, I was just tired of walking in those artic-like winter conditions and I became a fair weather walker.

I guess most of us are tempted to do the same thing in life—who doesn’t want to walk where the sun is shining and it feels good?  I would rather walk toward friends than enemies.  I prefer walking toward success and try to avoid failure.  I prefer walking away from discomfort and pain.  I will walk 5 miles to get ice cream, but broccoli does not motivate me to get off the couch.  You see what I am saying…where I am walking-subzero or sunshine-impacts if I walk.

I think that is what makes Jesus’ choice to walk to Jerusalem so impressive.  All of the Gospels record Jesus saying, “We’re going up to Jerusalem.”  Out of context it does not sound all that extraordinary.  But throw it back into context and it goes from just another sentence to either amazing or down-right scary.  At least that is how those who were following Jesus to Jerusalem felt.  Look at Matthew 10:32-34:

 “They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid.  Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him.  ‘We are going up to Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentles, who will mock him and spit upon him, flog him and kill him.  Three days later he will rise.”

The disciples were astonished.  Who knows that betrayal, mocking, spitting and death are waiting for you and walks to it?  I mean it is one thing to risk your life for a person or cause, but Jesus knew for sure he was not going to avoid death in Jerusalem.  The Twelve were astonished by his obedience and love. 

The others who followed Jesus were just afraid.  It is scary to walk with someone to their death.  Isn’t it our natural instinct to help those we love stay safe?  Wouldn’t everything in you want to be doing whatever you could to get Jesus to walk to any place but Jerusalem? 

But nothing will distract or dissuade Jesus from his Father’s purpose.  “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he says.  It is not up for discussion.  There is not a vote to be held.  If you are going to follow Jesus, then you are going to Jerusalem.  And you know what?    They did.  In their astonishment and fear, they followed Jesus all the way to Jerusalem knowing full well that if what Jesus said was true then they were putting a target on their backs as well.  Often we give the disciples a hard time for falling asleep while Jesus was praying and for running when Jesus was betrayed by Judas, but we have to give credit where credit is due.  When Jesus said I am going to Jerusalem where I will be killed, they followed.  They were astonished and they were afraid, but they followed.  They may have ran and hid later, but they followed him all the way to Jerusalem. 

As we go through this season of Lent, our time of simple fasting provokes a series question that every disciple of Jesus must hear at some point or another:  Will you follow Jesus to Jerusalem?  It feels good to follow Jesus to Jerusalem for worship, but how about for a cross?  I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to pull the covers over my head and just stay in bed.   And yet, Jesus insists that if we are going to follow him then sometimes it will lead us to walk to places for the sake of the gospel that we’d prefer not to even crawl toward. 

Can we take a moment to consider some of the “Jerusalems” Jesus might as to walk to for him?

Jesus asks us all to walk to the place called repentance.  Repentance--a turning away from self and a turning toward God—is not just the beginning point of faith, but the ongoing call of Jesus on his followers’ lives.  John Wesley called it a “Believers repentance” in which we remain so constantly open to the Father that we are always willing to turn in whatever direction to which he calls us.  The walk to repentance is no cake walk. 

Jesus asks us to walk to the place called authenticity.  Jesus is not impressed with the way we try to impress others with our spiritual maturity.  Jesus said that the Pharisees of his day would stand on street corners praying out loud about how great they were and how much everyone else needed God.  But Jesus said the prayers that impress him are the ones that come from the one who openly admit before God and others that they have nothing to bring to the table in and of themselves confessing their dependence on God. The walk to authenticity takes a courage that is frightening.

Jesus asks us to walk to the place of interruption.  Jesus said that following him will divide families, arouse enemies, produce persecution and invite trials.  And Jesus said when this happens to us, as it did him, we are to consider ourselves blessed.  How fun does that walk sound?

Jesus asks us to walk to the place of reconciliation.  At first that place sounds inviting.  But then you read Matthew 18:15-20 and realize that the steps Jesus commands us to take to reconciliation with one another, as brothers and sisters in Christ, is anything but natural or easy.

Jesus says, “We are going up to Jerusalem.”  Notice he did not say, “I”, but “we.”  To follow Jesus means we go where he goes and that includes the cross.  But do not miss the last sentence of Matthew 10:34, “Three days later he will rise.”  The end of the walk is never the cross!  When Jesus asks us to walk someplace where the sun is not shining and it is as cold as ice, you can be assured of this: Jerusalem’s cross must give way to its empty tomb! 

Who is ready to follow Jesus to Jerusalem?  Astonishment and fear are welcome as long as you lace up your walking shoes. 

Repairer of Broken Walls

When I was going to school there were with no other option but to handwrite our lecture notes.  In those days, I especially appreciated the margins.  The margins were my momentary escape from lecture monotony.  As the professor would share an illustrative antidote or go off onto a tangent that I was pretty certain would never make it to the final exam, I would begin to doodle.  Sometimes my doodling would be cartoon like figures and others times I would simply draw a series of shapes.  Of course, my lecture notes got the prime real estate on the page, but I always left room in the margins for doodling. 

This is what seemed to keep getting ancient Israel in trouble.  They kept forgetting and, sometimes, outright oppressing people who were in the margins of society.  Now, mind you they kept their elaborate worship and sacrifice system right where in needed to be in the center of the page, so to speak.  When it came to worship they were extremely faithful. They never missed a service.  They knew all of the songs.  They gave only the best offerings.  They paid proper respect to God through offerings, praise and fasting.  They worked hard to keep their worship center page. 

There was only one problem, while they were keeping their mode of worship central, it was deemed by God as dead.  How could they do everything God asked in worship and then be told their worship was empty?  One reason…and just about every Prophet of Israel speaks to this fault…the reason their worship was central and they could be told it was dead was because they allowed their worship of God to excuse them to marginalize the immigrant, the well-fare recipient, the widow, the orphan and their likes.  In a very real sense, Ancient Israel came to see these struggling neighbors as a people deserving no more time and space than “doodles.”  And each time the people of Israel would try to use worship to cover up how they  were shoving people to the margins, God would raise up a prophet to call them back to the point of worship, which was not just to honor God ceremonially, but also practically.

Isaiah spoke this word to Israel:

58 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet.  Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.  For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.  They ask me for just decision and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it?  ‘Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.  You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?  Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?  Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.  Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.  If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.  The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.  Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

God desires his people then and now to let our worship have meaning by moving people who others have marginalized to the center of the page.  It is not enough to simply “doodle” in the occasional service project, but to actually move the oppressed, forgotten and outcasts of our society to being as central to our lives as worship itself.  When we do that for and with God, then God’s presence, provision and light is not something we will experience in the margins, but in the center of all we do and are and have. 

This Lenten season as I fast to better put myself in position to worship God, I am reminded by Isaiah that I am not only asked to give something up for God but for the sake of others.  For me, this is what Faith Promise Plus is all about--giving over and beyond our regular giving to the point that we actually feel the pain of giving so that we in turn might more intentionally make the “least of these brothers and sisters of mine” as Jesus put it (Matthew 25), feel like the most in his love and care as demonstrated through our action. 

It is exciting to see people in our church family live in this way.  As men and women give of their time in a warm and welcoming way, relationships are being built every week through NextGen basketball that say to children and their families in our community, “You matter to God and his church!”  As we go into Belle Stone Elementary school, we get to say, “We will not say we love God without saying we love you!”  As we begin tutoring at Sahara Apartments we will are saying, “We don’t expect you to come where we are; we will meet you where you are.”  As our Work and Witness team serves in Guatemala they are saying, “You are worth going across the ocean to express God’s love!”  As we will work with Hope House 4 Women in a renovation project this summer, we will join this compassionate ministry center in saying, “Women are valued by God and his Church for more than their sexuality.” 

And as we make this love of the oppressed and forgotten as central as our worship, then we will be called by a beautiful name, “Repairer of Broken Walls!”  I don’t know about you, but that is a nick-name with which I hope God will trust us.