Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn
WA
8:30 & 11:00 traditional services – 5-17-02
by Gregory S. Kaurin, associate pastor
text:
2 Corinthians 9:7
Sermon:
Let’s Make Like a Tree, And…
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You need to be like a tree. This morning, in regards to the 7th Mark of Discipleship, the Mark of Christian Support, I would like to suggest that you and I are called to be like trees.
You know the little joke, don’t you: “Let’s all make like a tree and…?” [Leave.] No, that’s not what I want you to do! There are other things that trees do, that trees supply and give. Let’s take a moment and think about them, about trees. What do they provide; what do they give? [Shelter, wood, shade…etc.]
That’s how it relates, that’s support, like Christian support. Trees, where they stand, provide a windbreak and shelter and shade for animals and the land. They provide food for little crawly bugs, or fruit for all kinds of creatures like us. There are the falling leaves, branches and old trees that re-fertilize the ground.
Christian support is like that. Being there for each other, being a place of shelter and shade, a windbreak from life, being people to whom others can turn when they’re hurting, alone, grieving, or when they’re celebrating. We need to be a people that take part and provide prayer chains and support groups.
And this support doesn’t actually come from some big institution called “the church.” It has to come from individuals. Support starts with you and me. We are each responsible in our one small way to provide what becomes miraculous and huge when you put it all together: the huge Tree of Christian Support.
Trees also supply lumber, and homes and furnishings, trellises for plants and doghouses for dogs. They make boats, and lumber is hauled across nations and oceans. Trees make toys and boxes and desks and on and on. Being like a tree is also about support that goes outside the congregation to the Auburn community, having our food bank, helping people in a bind, connecting people to counseling.
I’ll share with you something that really brought it home for me this past week. Maybe you know this—but Pastors Joe, Steve and I have an understanding that we, as a congregation, need to be available to the community. That’s one reason why this building is so busy during the week.
We charge many groups just enough to cover heat and cleaning. Other groups we invite to meet for next to nothing. And if the funeral home calls, and a grieving family needs a pastor for their service, if one of us is available, we do it. Not just because we’re trying to win friends and members—but because that’s what we understand as part of the Church’s business—support and unqualified care.
This past week we were asked by a Twelve-step program—which is like Alcoholics Anonymous—if they could meet in one of our rooms here. These are people who’re trying to put their lives back together. They wanted to meet here because their previous church home started charging them $120 a month for their weekly meetings! Then, on Thursday, Pastor Joe got wind of a church up in Seattle who charged their own members $600 for hosting a funeral service. That seems a hefty fee for people coming together for comfort in God’s house.
Excuse me, but that’s our job! That’s our responsibility! A church isn’t a civic center, of course, but we should be finding excuses to bring people into the church—not pushing them away. When churches try to avoid being like a community center by being worse than one—cold and theologically divided from the community—then they have once again become the Pharisees Jesus preached against.
Let’s move on, because, besides bringing people into our building, our support also needs to be flung out like our leaves and lumber. We need to be in the business of making quilts that go around the world. We need to support people with our gifts, and resources, and prayers, and love, even for people we’ve never met in Afghanistan, or South Africa, or Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
And this is unqualified care. God loves and nourishes us without strings, without qualification. We are called to go and do the same. We need to be doing this as though we are a family without walls.
When you are a child of God and saved by Christ, then your home is not limited to the four walls around you, or to your country’s borders. Our homes and our families are as wide as our hearts. With a bit of practice and thought, you can provide care and love to people you’ve never met—just as our 6th graders and this congregation is doing, along with Mary Beth Leeper, a member of our church and a missionary, working among the children and their families in Santa Cruz.
I had one more thought about a tree that I want to end with. There’s an old hymn that sings, “Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim!” On the cover of your bulletin, you see these words inserted: “Lift high the broken.”
Remember that the cross was made of tree. About 1,969 years ago, on that tree, on that cross, was nailed a very broken man, Jesus. He was broken for you and me, and for all those other broken people around the world.
Jesus had talked about this many times in his ministry; he talked about when he would be lifted up. He said, “When the Son is lifted up, he will draw all people to himself.” Christ was lifted up. His arms were spread wide and nailed into a permanent welcome embrace. He draws us all into it. And then he rose from that tree, with us in his arms.
So when we talk about lifting up the broken, we are talking about seeing them already embraced in the arms of Christ. We sometimes think mission work is like taking Christ to some other place. The truth is, Jesus always runs ahead of us. Whenever we reach out to offer our Christian support, we will always find (and this I promise) Christ is already there, staring and reaching back to us, nourishing and loving us right back. In Christian support, we are not giving Christ. We are receiving him. Amen.
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