AUGUST 20th, 2023 PASTOR DON PIEPER
ONE AT A TIME John 13:12-7,34-5/ Acts 8:4-8,12, 26-38
“THE POWER OF PROXIMITY”
Long before the movies came out, I was a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, and in particular of the Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. Like him, I love the comfort of my Hobbit home, I too have furry feet – see?!(TMI?), and though I love to read about them, I have an aversion to going on adventures.
When the wandering wizard, Gandolf, shows up seeking someone with whom to share such an adventure, Bilbo responds: “Adventures? I don't want any adventures, thank you very much. Nasty, uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner. You might try over The Hill. Good morning!”
But Gandolf persists: “It will be very good for you, and very amusing for me!”
Classic! That's me all over – 'good morning!' - but here's the thing. I've learned in recent years that being a Christian, that is, a committed follower of Jesus, is all about embracing his world view and his approach to treating each day like a new adventure. Consider Jesus' marching orders we just read.
Jesus gets down on his hands and feet, washes his disciples' feet and then imparts on them what it is he wants them, wants us, to do from here on in: “A new command I give you: Love one another.”
(John 13:34)
It's not a suggestion or a request or a recommendation but a new command. But wait a minute. Why does he call it a new command? It's not new! He's been modeling God's love for us, and teaching his followers to love one another, throughout his ministry. But Jesus isn't finished. He then clarifies what's new about this command: “Love each other just as I have loved you. It will be your (radical, reckless, selfless) love for one another that will show the world that you're my disciples.”
(John 13:34-35)
He'd just shown them what this looks like. It's a love that puts other's needs ahead of our own. It's a love that doesn't insist on its own ways or keeps a record of wrongs. It's a love that's not afraid of being vulnerable and moving in close. It's a love that demonstrates the power of proximity.
Sounds good but truth is, if that's what we're to be doing, we seem awfully prone to losing our way. After all, one of the dominant objections non-believers have about Christians today is that we are an angry, judgmental lot. A woman in a world of hurt wound up sitting next to a pastor on her flight. She share what she'd been going through, of her broken relationships and her struggle with addiction. At one point he asked her if she'd ever considered going to church, to which she replied, “Why would I do that? They'd just judge me. I feel bad enough about myself as it is!”
It seems like most of us have a long ways to go in loving like Jesus. Thank goodness Jesus gave us some directions. I know I need them. I'm so directionally challenged, it's scarey.
I don't know how many times I've walked out of a building and headed in the wrong direction or wandered around looking for my car. I swear there are gremlins out there who move it when I'm not looking. I feel like looking heavenward, & saying, 'Are you not entertained?' My directional insincts are clearly askew, as are my instincts to love those God unexpectedly puts in my path.
My instinct isn't proximity, it's comfortability, especially when it comes to engaging four cate-gories of people: difficult people, draining people, different people and dungeons and dragons kind of people. (Just kidding on that last one – but not really!) Maybe I'm a descendant of Jonah.
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I'm learning though, that if I'm to follow Jesus and love people like he did, it'll mean constantly being pointed in a direction that doesn't come naturally to me, or feel particularly comfortable.
Ever hear the one about Jesus and the naked, bloody, crazy guy? He kind of fell under all four catergories I tend to avoid...! His story is recorded in Mark 5. That's a gospel story not a sports car, btw
Mark tells us that Jesus loaded his disciples on a boat and provided directions. They were head-ing to the region of Gerasenes, an area most Jews tended to avoid. What's more, we're told that right after Jesus' encounter with this difficult, draining, different, dungeon & dragon kind of guy that “Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where large crowds met him...”
(Mark 5:21)
That is to say, Jesus committed an entire day to seeking out this one difficult dude and entering his proximity, something noone else would've thought of doing. This guy's life was a total mess. He was so unapproachable that he lived in a cemetary, stark naked, with bloody, self inflicted wounds all over his body. He was viewed as a demonized monster, but Jesus saw a man in misery. By the time the crowds do seek him out, “he was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane.” (Mark 5:15)
Too often what stops us from loving as Jesus loved is fear. Other times it's the labels we use.
Kyle Idlemann, tells of a convict he met who also looked quite unapproachabe. He was well over six feet tall, covered in tatoos, with a nasal ring and scars on his body. He'd come to faith while in prison. He showed Kyle a photograph taken when he was young asked him what he noticed. Kyle studied it and noted a church building in the backgrouind. He told Kyle that he lived there for seven years but no one from the church had ever visited him. “Why didn't someone ever cross the street and talk to me, you know, tell me about Jesus? Why didn't any of them ever invite me...?”
Kyle sought to be honest. “Probably because you're so different and they were afraid.”
Tears ran down this tough man's face. “Well, that's not okay.” There's something in us that wants to be known as a Christian, a follower of Jesus, but dosn't want to go where he leads, especially when his directions lead us out of our comfort zone. There's something in me also that's not okay.
Consider our second reading this morning. It's a story of one of Jesus' disciples who is learning to follow Jesus' directions. He caught Jesus' lesson on the priority of proximity. His name was Phillip and God was on the move through his ministry in Samaria bringing about a revival. Luke reports:
“The people there believed Phillip's message of Good News concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. As a result, many men and women were baptized.” (Acts 8:12)
These were Samaritans, the kind of people Jews avoided. But Jesus didn't, so Phillip didn't, and many people had come to faith in Jesus as a result of Phillip going there and getting in their proximity.
But later we read of a surprising development. In the midst of this revival the Lord speaks into Phillip's heart: “'Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.' So he went.”
(Acts 8:26-27)
Why would God send Phillip away from where scores of lives were being saved to head down this distant, desert road? Phillip doesn't know why he's being asked to go or who he's going to meet, but it quickly becomes clear that this is a one at a time type mission.
The guy God had in mind was an Ethopian eunuch. You know what a eunuch is? If not, go ask your mother or father. Suffice it to say it involved more than a tatoo. Rabbis saw it as a sign of God's disfavor. To be sure, this guy was very different from Phillip, and his skin color was different as well.
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As Phillip approaches, he finds this guy reading from Isaiah. How this foreigner got his hands on an Old Testament scroll is unclear but one thing's for sure, this wealthy enunich was seeking truth. That's when we're told that “The Spirit told Phillip, 'Go over and walk beside him.'” (Acts 8:29)
There's no way this guy could be influenced or helped by Phillip unless Phillip got in close proximity to him. That's how God works. He wants to put us in close proximity to those who are far from him whom he wants to bring close. So he sends you and I to draw close. To do so, we must go.
It's like that old negro spiritual: “Children, go where I send thee? How shall I send thee? I'm gonna send you two by two, two for Paul and Silas, one for the little, bitty baby who was born....!”
God is sending us on an adventure, or what some Christians call, a divine appointment. Think about it. I mean, here's this guy from a distant country, traveling by chariot thousands of miles from home, on some deserted, desert road, who happens to be reading scripture who Phillip runs into as he follows the Lord's directive. This is not some random accident, or coincidence, it's a spiritual adventure
What might such a divine appointment or spiritual adventure look like for you? Could be your waitress serving your table, or the barber cutting your hair, or the teller at the bank, or the couple sitting near you at the ball game, or the person beside you on the bus or the plane, or the customer who gets in line behind you, or the neighbor from down the street. What if you were to run up to their chariot?
What if you were stay near them, seeking to be used by God there? I love how Phillip went about it. First, Phillip obeyed the Holy Spirit's nudge. Second, he asked the guy what he was doing. Third, he listened to what the guy had to say. And fourth, as the op arose, he shared Jesus with him.
And notice what he didn't do. He didn't moralize with the guy or share his values or critize this Ethiopian's eunich-ness, or that of his differing political views, which they surely had. He simply got close enough to truly care, heard the man out, and then shared “the good news about Jesus.”
(Acts 8:35)
The result, was that the man gave his life to Christ and “they went down into the water and Phillip baptized him.” (Luke 8:38) Wow – what a story! What an adventure Phillip had - and the result was another amazing ripple effect! This event is identified as the birth of the church in Africa!
God is inviting you and I to step out and on to such adventures ourselves. To do so, you must be willing to leave your comfort zone and embrace His divine appointments and the adventure at hand. There'll be times when your gut tells you to run away, but Jesus is prompting you to run toward them!
To do what God wants requires proximity, and proximity is risky. It was risky for Jesus to go to that graveyard in Gerasenes. It was risky for Phillip to leave his beloved church and walk down that lonely, desert road. It'll feel risky to engage your coworker about his struggle, or start a spiritual con-versation with your waitress, or invite your neighbor to Alpha. But keep in mind that whether they respond or not is not on you. “All that matters is how you make use of your time.”
(Another great Tolkien quote!) (from JRR Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring)
Alfred Lomas had been in an LA gang for 29 years. He was a pretty formidable looking guy. One day an elderly woman approached him on the streets of LA. As she walked up she asked if he was hungry. When he nodded, 'yes', she explained that she was lost and told him that if he could help her figure out where she was, she knew of a place where he could get a free hot meal.
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The two of them wound up at a Christian mission called the Dream Center where he not only got his promised meal but wound up spending a year in a program for guys like him. There he experi-enced something he'd never had before: a new kind of love – unconditional love.
Today Alfred oversees efforts to bring 80 tons of food per year to needy people in the inner city of LA. He brings food to rival gangs that were once his sworn enemies. His accomplishments of bringing rival gang lords together gained media attention, One article explained that the city had spent millions of dollars trying to do something about the gang violence and drug wars but failed to achieve what Alfred has accomplished with a little food and a lot of love.
But do you know who the real star of that story is? A little old lady who had no sense of direc-tion but who knew that to truly follow Jesus and walk by His Spirit she had to overcome her fear and walk across the street to get close to someone who was far from God. Like Jesus and Phillip before her, she saw her faith as an adventure in which God uses us to engage hurting people one at a time!
This is how we obey Jesus' command: “Love each other just as I have loved you. It'll be your (radical, reckless, selfless) love for one another that will show the world that you're my disciples.”
(John 13:34-35)