Wireless mikes can lead to interesting situations … there is the legendary story passed down about break time at Annual Conference. I’ve heard it attached to various the names of several of our bishops through the years, so who knows if it really happened but here it goes: During Annual Conference the bishop called a ten minute break. The bishop made his way to the men’s room … too late realizing his wireless mike was still on. Or my own experience of forgetting to at least put my wireless mike on mute when I was in Freehold … my daughter decided to do something she wasn’t supposed to be doing and I yelled at her, only to have one of the members of the church come out to Fellowship Hall and tell me very graciously I might want to turn off my microphone. Here I always worry that either that both the sound person and I will forget to mute the wireless during a hymn …
Tuck the idea of a wireless mike in your back thoughts for a bit while we ponder something different. This morning we begin a three part sermon series that was inspired by our Annual Conference speaker, Adam Hamilton. He posed three questions that intrigued me. The questions are: "Why do people need Jesus Christ?" … "Why do people need the church?" … and finally … "Why do people need the United Methodist Church of Red Bank, New Jersey?"
Why do people need Jesus Christ? Why do people need Jesus? It’s a great question to pose as we pick up where we left off last Sunday in celebrating the birth of the church. Think about what we humans do when we get something new going. We tend to work at structure and order … writing by-laws, imposing membership standards, making sure our spreadsheets are accomplished in timely ways. The church is the same, from the very beginning we’ve tried to figure out order and doctrine and right belief … so much so that sometimes we forget why we have come together. On this Trinity Sunday we run the risk of getting bogged down in doctrine. Our heads would spin if we got caught up in all the various doctrinal controversies that surround the explanation of a Trinitarian God … homoousios vs. homoisios … nestorianism … neoplatoism … arianism … docetism … sabellianism and on and on. When we let all that become our focus we forget original question and the bottom line – that God calls us into relationship with God, and in Jesus Christ we find a way to be in that relationship. The concept of the Trinity then, becomes a way to talk about this God relationship – God dancing all around us, circling us, being with us. Why do people, why do we, need Jesus Christ? Quite simply it comes down to this: because the world will always be bigger than we can handle without him. For all of the moments in our lives and in the lives of others it comes down to our needing to know that God is with us … and that promise is found in Jesus, who was named at his birth … Emmanuel, God with us. In all of our struggles, when all else fails, when people betray us we find Jesus always with us … present in the demands and grind of life. Jesus looks at us and sees not how we or the world defines us … Jesus looks at us and doesn’t see us as the burnt out worker, or the addict, or as undesirable … Jesus looks at us and loves us. This is what we long for … life in communion with God, and we find that possibility in the life and example of Jesus Christ. It is this longing that compelled Nicodemus to seek out Jesus under the cover of night … it is the reality Paul knew as he penned the words we read in his letter to the Roman church. Amy Grant has a song that reminds us of why we need Jesus Christ:
We believe in God. And we all need Jesus ´Cause life is hard
And it might not get easier But don´t be afraid To know who you are
Don´t be afraid to show it If you believe in God
If you say you need Jesus He´ll be where you are
And he never will leave you Sing to me now words that are true
So all in this place can know it …
Remember the wireless mike? With Jesus, always present … the wireless mike is always on. Saying yes to the saving power is to acknowledge what is already true … that God is with us all the time. To say yes is to acknowledge that power, to know that God is always listening, always present, and sees and hears all. Think about that image for a moment … with God, the wireless mike is always on. It is present day way of paraphrasing the psalmist:
"Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you."
Why do people need Jesus Christ? I believe the second part of that answer has to do with how we live our lives. To say yes to Jesus is to say yes to being his presence in the world … it is to follow in his example. When we look at what that means we look at where he was found in the stories that are told of his living in our gospels. Jesus got in trouble for being with the poor. He noticed the invisible … a woman sneaking into a synagogue bent over from a disease, a woman who touched the hem of his garment. Jesus touched the undesirables … a little girl sick with a fever, the lepers. Our communion liturgy reminds us of this: Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry and ate with sinners … and to follow that example is how we are called to be in relationship with him and with the world. Jesus sends us out in his name to continue his work … to spend more of our time with the so-called "sinners" of the world than with the saintly, churchy people. Today, perhaps, Jesus would send us out to the people standing in the parking lots over on the west side of town hoping for a day’s work. I wonder what would happen if we did something so simple as to distribute cold water to those who stand in the parking lots. In a myriad of ways Jesus calls us to go out in his example … so that as we know our need for his love, others might also find that same love.
I invite you to say yes, and to say yes again to God who calls us into relationship with him in the life and example of Jesus Christ and to go out to be the loving example of Jesus in all that you do. As we need Jesus Christ, so we go to all the world.
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