Fifth Sunday in Lent + 28 March 2004

Preaching by Pastor John Hollis and

Pastor Barb Kenley

"Made for a Mission"

Jesus prayed, "In the same way you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world." John 17:18 (Msg)

I so appreciate what Pastor John has to say! John and his wife Norma just look like they have some good news. Their outlook is positive; their spirits are gentle. They're down-to-earth and they have a sense of humor. If they said to you or me, "we have some good news to tell you," who wouldn't want to hear it!!! The qualities I just mentioned in John and Norma, I see in so many of this congregation: sense of humor, positive outlook, kindness, gentleness, full of grace and truth. When someone who has not yet bowed the knee to Jesus looks on your faces, it's got to be like a hungry person looking in the windows at MCL, just before it opens. It's all there, fresh, hot and tasty. If only someone would unlock the doors!

The second blank in your outline should read, "2. I must dare to reach beyond my world." Again, this is not something Pastor David makes up. This is God's plan since the beginning. We are to reach out in "Jerusalem, Samaria and Judea, and to the ends of the earth," as Jesus commanded. "Jerusalem" is the assignment to reach those in our world. "Samaria and Judea" is the assignment to reach beyond my world. Now, this doesn't mean you have to go far; it does mean we have to reach those who aren't just like us. We are to reach out to people who don't have the resources we have, who haven't yet lived all their working lives to set themselves up for a comfortable retirement. Or who haven't set up their own business, or finished their education, or had a strong marriage to a supportive Christian spouse. People whose mental or physical health was gone even in their youth and can't provide for themselves and their families; people who live on the ragged edge of this community and who could fall off and fall out at any time. Reaching out to these folks is a little more of a challenge.

One of the members of my 40 days group is now retired from the State Hospital. She has worked hard to see group homes set up around Richmond, so patients can live a less institutional, more "normal" life. Yet when these patients walk down a city street, our group member has seen their neighbors cross the street so as not to walk by them. We're afraid to catch mental illness. We're even more afraid to catch poverty, knowing full well all the dangers poverty exposes people to.

I am so proud of those in this congregation who willingly roll up their sleeves and get close to the poor, the sick and the addicted. Sometimes it starts by delivering a basket of food at Christmas that the Deacons have organized. We take that basket and it becomes a bridge between our "Jerusalem" and their "Samaria." We see firsthand what poverty of body, mind and spirit looks like and it moves us.

Jesus told his followers, "I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was in prison and you visited me. I was naked and your clothed me." And his followers asked, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked, that we fed and clothed you?" and Jesus replied, "When you did it for the least of these, you did it unto me."

A group of people from this church have organized themselves to work in the kitchen at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, preparing and serving hot lunches twice a month to the needy. They are reaching out to "Samaria." Several others are new volunteers at the local Food Pantry. Still another goes with Pastor David each week and helps lead a 40 Days group at the Hope House. They are leaving "Jerusalem" for a few hours and getting in close contact with "Samaria."

These members got me thinking…. I took out the new, pocket church directory and looked through it. I counted all the names listed, and I added up the people I know who are in regular Christian mission to people not like themselves in this community. Can you guess what percentage of our membership that is? Seven! One hundred percent of us here were made for a mission, and only seven percent of our members are actually, physically doing one! Does that surprise you? It surprised me! Yet the Apostle Paul gave us an example that we have printed on your insert from 1 Corinthians. Would you take your insert, and read 1 Corinthians 9:22 with me, please? "Whatever a person is like, I try to find some common ground with him so that he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him." Like it or not, we must be about finding common ground with others, if we are to fulfill our God-given mission. Now, I know you can do this, because you found common ground four years ago with woman from California, and you called her to be your Associate Pastor. You know how to spot differences and how to bridge them. What you need to look for are opportunities. Upstairs today in Fellowship Hall, there's a Ministry and Mission Fair. At the Fair are over thirty opportunities for you to be in ministry to the body of Christ or in mission to the world. If you are in the ninety-three percent majority in this congregation, I urge you to investigate the golden opportunity that's waiting for you today. You've done a great job during this 40 Days of worshiping on Sundays, fellowshipping in your groups, growing as disciples. Now take the next step - with the help of others - and find out how to get into ministry and mission.

The last blank on your insert should read, "I must care about the whole world." When you've finished writing that in, please take your insert and read the first verse printed under number 3 - Mark chapter 16, verse 15, please. "Jesus said to his followers, 'Go everywhere in the world, and tell the Good News to everyone.'" (NCV) When I read that verse, I personally get a little daunted. Maybe you do, too. Because it's so clear, and there's no loop hole, no wiggle room. "Go everywhere… and tell the Good News to everyone." I really realize how finite I am as a person, how small my ability to love is, when I read a challenge like that.

When Pastor David and I pray together each week, a regular prayer request we make to God is, "Lord, enlarge my heart." Now, I'm discovering that's a dangerous prayer. When I began praying those words, I was kind of hoping to love my family more, and to love my nice, sweet, clean, well educated, articulate congregation. What ends up happening is God keeps sending me people I never even thought about loving!

He makes me care about the indigent men and women who show up at our church office sometimes daily, with huge needs! They look bad and they smell worse. And I just can't turn them away without a blessing. "Enlarge my heart, Lord." He makes me care about the people I read about in the newspaper or hear about on the radio, people who are hit by crime and disease and disasters - people I don't even know! And I want to run to them with a word of hope about the Jesus who saved a wretch like me. "Enlarge my heart, Lord."

As we learn to care about the whole world, we have to do it in baby steps and I'd like to offer you three. I know you don't have a lot of room left on your insert, but write small. I think if you try these steps, you'll be encouraged. First, remember that your prayers can touch the world. You don't have to leave your house, you don't even have to leave your pajamas, and you can pray for the whole world. If you don't know where to start, open the newspaper, turn on a newscast. Ask God to raise your awareness. Pray for countries that God lays on your heart. All of us here had ancestors who came from some other country. Why not pray for the Good News to be proclaimed in the nation where your family originated? I believe that as you take that first step to pray, God will increase your desire to be in mission.

The second step is to remember that - not only can your prayers touch the world - but your gifts can touch the world. Last November, first Presbyterian Church sent over 50 wrapped, stuffed shoe boxes to the Samaritan's Purse organization, for something called Operation Christmas Child. We participated in Operation Christmas Child long before I got to First Pres, and those gifts end up in the hands of children who might receive nothing else for Christmas but the shoebox we prepare. And in those boxes goes a simple explanation in the child's own language, of God's plan for salvation for them through Jesus Christ. Our gifts are often less tangible, but no less needed. Out of the 70 churches that make up the Whitewater Valley Presbytery, the missions giving from First Presbyterian, Richmond, consistently ranks in the top five churches each year. Now, there are about 25 churches larger than us in membership, but only a handful larger than us in missions giving. We list our primary mission interests in our bulletin each week. They are located in Thailand, Peru, Croatia, Mexico and the Philippines and you can discover more about them at the Fair upstairs today. Our gifts are indeed touching the world.

When you remember that your prayers can touch the world and your gifts can touch the world, it becomes much easier to take the third step: I can touch the world. When Jesus told his followers to go to "the ends of the earth" it was a lot harder task! His disciples had their feet. If they were flush, they had a donkey. If they were crazy dare-devils like Paul, they got on a ship. Today we have comfortable cars, buses, luxury trains, and passenger planes. We have mobile phones and the internet. Did you know that over 90 percent of the communication that takes place via the internet occurs in English! There are fewer barriers than ever to you and me touching the world. It has never been easier to fulfill our mission.

Lots of people in our congregation travel, and almost every single person travels with at least one other person, sometimes more. It's just more fun to make discoveries with others, isn't it? Differences don't seem so threatening. Challenges don't seem so impossible, when you have others with you who are on the same journey. Our young people know this instinctively. When you ask a teenager to go into a situation that's new to them, one of the first things they ask is, "Who else is going?"

Our presbytery has been organizing trips to the Cancun area for several years now. For the last two summers, Pastor David and Phyllis Marlatt have made the trip to Cancun to see our sister church in Puerto Morelos. They've brought young people with them. This year, the very young-at-heart Jon Richwine is going. He's taking God's command to go to the ends of the earth seriously and taking the next step, from missions supporter, to missions doer.

Last year, Aileen Marcos returned to her home country of the Philippines. Now some of us think she went back just to get married, but on one of the most important journeys of her life, she took the time to contact a child this church has sponsored for years - Aileen Dagadog. Aileen took gifts with her from our church, but the most amazing gift was person-to-person contact between Aileen Dagadog and Aileen Marcos.

Lots of people in this congregation are blessed with the time and ability to travel. Why not do it on purpose next time? Even if you just tell God before you make your next travel plans that you're available to be used by him, you've made a start towards touching the world.

Pastor Rick Warren, who authored our Purpose-Drive Life book, said his life verse is Acts 13:36. We don't hear about that enough in Presbyterian churches and I hope to get the chance to preach on life verses sometime soon, but a life verse is a piece of scripture that God lays on your heart at some point in your Christian life and lets you know that that verse is going to define your life in some significant way. Acts 13:36 reads, "David served God's purposes in his own time." Rick Warren said he can't think of a better thing to go on any Christian's tombstone than "She served God in her own time," or "he served God in his own time." That's Rick's prayer for himself and for his congregation, and I believe it would be our prayers as pastors for ourselves and for First Presbyterian Church: "We served God in our own time." We took God's message to the world. We served God's purpose in our own generation. We found ourselves on planet Earth in 2004, in the United States of America, in the Midwest, in Richmond, Indiana, and people say about us, "They served God in their own time."

I would dare each of us here to pray the most dangerous prayer you can pray. It's three short words. "God, use me." Use me, no matter how few resources I have. Use me, no matter how many or few years I have left on this earth. Use me no matter how little I know. Use me, no matter how flawed I am. If you're still alive, your mission is not completed. Do you have enough courage to say, "God, use my life"? Watch what happens when you do! Little becomes much when you put it in the Master's Hands. Let us pray….

Lord god, as I look out on the faces in this service, I know you are calling all of us to accept a mission from you, and I pray you'll give each of us courage to do the right thing and take even a baby step towards you, rather than walk away in disobedience. Thank you for inviting us to take part in the greatest purpose: the building of your forever family.

Father, I pray each one here to say with me now, "I want to fulfill the purposes for which you made me. I accept this fifth of the five purposes, my mission to tell others about you. I want you to use me, anywhere, any time, any place. I want to bring others to you. I want to serve your purpose in my generation. I want to take part in what You are doing in the world. From this day forward, I want to build my life around your eternal purpose, and I want to help my church do the same. Help me to reach out in our Savior's name. Amen.