“What it’s All About”

Luke 7:11-17

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

June 10, 2007

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            What a day.  We have such a wonderful church and such a wonderful community that we share here at UBC.  I want to keep my remarks here brief so we can get on to the annual meeting.  My sermon is entitled, “What it’s all about.”  I guess another way of stating this is to ask what’s most important.

            I think of the character of Curly in the movie City Slickers.  He held up a bony finger and said that our mission in life is to find out what that number one thing is.  I also think of Da Mayer who told Spike Lee’s character to “always do the right thing.”

What is the thing that you know the best?  What is the deepest belief in the core of your being?  That’s what’s most important. 

Sometimes the deepest belief is not always the best belief.  Sometimes it is, “I’m worthless.  I’m no good.  I’m a fraud.  I can’t do what I want to do.”  Or as Cindy Sheehan recently wrote, “my son died for nothing.”

            But I want you to know that what it is all about is that God loves you.  That’s not a simplistic platitude.  It’s what it’s all about.  God loves each of us.  It’s that simple.  Humanity is God’s love-gift to the earth.

            This was the basis of Pastor Douglas Haywood’s sermon last Sunday at the New Israel Baptist Church in the lower 9^th Ward of New Orleans.  The four of us from UBC worshipped at the church which was rebuilt after Katrina thanks to the assistance of a church in Texas.  The congregation is about our size, maybe a bit smaller.  Most of them are still living far away from New Orleans and many that are back are in temporary structures.  Half the population of New Orleans has not yet returned.  Death is up 600% and suicides are up 300% since the storm.  So it is significant that while people come back, they carry with them the scars and the post-traumatic stress of the storm. 

            At one point in the service, Pastor Haywood asked if I would like to give the altar call.  Not being an altar call kind of guy, I agreed to do the prayer afterwards.  As the congregation held hands, I found myself praying that they remember to hold each other tight.  I remember praying that they are connected with those in the room, those across the country, those in Minnesota, and those who have entered into another realm of existence.  I remember saying the God weeps when they weep.  I found myself praying the words of John Newton “Through many dangers toils and snares I have already come.  Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.”  I said that God ‘s grace will get us through the storms.  Don’t forget your sisters and brothers and don’t forget that God loves you.  It wasn’t the greatest prayer, but it was from the heart.

If God loves us, then God wants the best for us.  Here’s where it gets tricky.  Since God loves all of us, then God wants the best for everyone else, too.  We can’t get narcissistic about God’s love. 

Too much of our most violent interactions stem from the thought that God loves some people more than others.  Some Baptist preachers even go so far as to say that God hates certain people.

But if God loves us and God wants the best for us, then God must want the best for the rest of the world, too.  Sorting out how to take care of the rest of the world is the heady work of the church at its best.  It’s the work of showing that God loves us, all of us. 

When Shirley, Nicole, Claire and I were worshipping last Sunday Rev. Haywood encouraged us to share the peace of God with one another by saying, “God loves you and so do I and there’s nothing you can do about it.”  And then after church they gave us an object lesson.  As we were leaving a man was outside yelling and screaming in the street.  He was holding a broken parking brake in his hand and he was yelling that he had just been car-jacked.  He was bleeding from the face and furious at the carjackers.  The church members gave him first aid and tried to calm him down.  They brought him water and a towel to clean out his wounds.  They called the police on their cell phones.  The first responders were National Guard soldiers in a big Humvee.  They are a fixture in the lower 9^th ward.  It feels like an occupied territory at times.  Pastor Haywood said that it was not uncommon for drug deals to go bad in the neighborhood of his church, but what the church needs to do is to stand in the gap and provide a little oasis of sanity in the midst of the challenges of life in New Orleans.

He then said held up his hand and explained the situation.  His hand represented the ability to cope with life prior to Katrina.  On the far right side were the people who were mentally ill, the chronically homeless, the drug addicted and the extremely poor.  Closer to the center but not able to cope well were the people who are poor or mentally ill but are doing well on their meds, and are just barely making it.  On the other side of the hand are the poor folk who have families and friends and churches to support them, but are still just a paycheck or two away from crossing the line.  Then on the far left are the more wealthy and stable people.  What happened with Katrina is that the line of the ability to cope has shifted far to the left.  The people who were are the far right are gone.  They’re either dead or missing or they have left never to return.  The next group has replaced them as the poor and chronically homeless and the ones who are not able to deal with the world.  The formerly stable people are now on the other side of the line and the middle class folk who are making it are doing so just barely.  It was a hard truth, but a graphic truth nonetheless.

Our work at UBC is in part to remind ourselves that God loves us, even when we seem unloveable.  We need to remember that God loves everyone and wants the best for everyone, regardless of their place, position or disposition.  Sorting out how we respond to God’s gift of love is what it’s all about.

            Another example of God’s love poured out for the seeming nobodies of the world is recorded in today’s scripture passage from Luke’s Gospel.  Jesus heals the son of a widow in the town of Nain.  But Jesus healed not only her son, he also accentuated the economic plight of widows.  A woman, back in those days, was only able to have status and an income if she had a husband and sons. They were the property owners, the status holders, the hope for the people. Jesus chose to reestablish her income and her status at the same time that he raised her son from the dead.

An 8-year-old child from New Israel Baptist Church in New Orleans told me that she remembered people floating in the water head-down. The mourning is exhausting. The economic hardship is another part of the life and death struggle for survival. Jesus addresses both of these issues and by extension tells us that we ought to do the same.

            Being a healing community us expressing God’s love to others.  That’s what it’s all about.

            We have had a fine year with little drama in comparison to other years.  There has been a whole lot of positive energy around UBC.  You have committed to being a healing community. 

Reading books and growing in our faith is part of being a healing community.

Giving so much to missions is a part of the healing work of this great church community. 

The prayer shawls are an example of the healing community. 

The show Body & Sold is an example of the healing community. 

The music which thrills us is part of being a healing community. 

The teaching of our children is a part of being a healing community.

Sending a delegation down to New Orleans was part of being a healing community. 

Sending our bell choir on tour and bringing joy to a people in need is part of being a healing community. 

Our presence as a safe haven for people to work out their spiritual quest is a part of being a healing community.

What it’s all about is remembering or even discovering that God loves us and making that our deepest truth.

Once that’s there in the core of our being, then we can go about the work of healing this sin-sick world.  For the world has forgotten that God loves all of us and wants the best for all of us, not just the privileged few. 

The church at its best is the preserver and interpreter of God’s love to the world.  May we do so with exuberance, dignity, joy, and commitment.

For God would want no less of us. 

That’s what it’s all about.