Last Sunday, we talked about etiquette and agitation. Etiquette is what we've been taught and what society expects is the right thing to do -- Miss Manners is about etiquette. And churches are very good at etiquette. We know how to behave in church, how to quietly come and go, without saying much or ruffling any feathers. Etiquette is about not doing any thing we haven't done before. The seven last words of the church, someone said, are "We haven't done it that way before."

    Last Sunday, we looked at three Bible stories. The first is the one where Nathan, the prophet confronts King David who because of his lusting after a married woman name Bethsheba, sent her husband to war and instructed his generals to put him in the front lines so that he might get killed, and he did. Nathan came to the King and told him a parable about a rich man who had many sheep but when he needed to have party stole the neighbor's pet lamb, the one whom he raised like a daughter, for the guests to eat. And King David waltzed right into the moral trap and Nathan jumped up and said, "You are the man!" Nathan didn't learn etiquette from Miss Manners -- he learned agitation from the Holy Spirit.

    We also looked at the story of Jesus having dinner with Simon the Pharisee, where a woman of the city, and we all know what that means, came and gave Jesus a foot massage -- anointing them with expensive perfume and wiping with her hair. And Jesus told Simon a parable about two people who were in debt one about 500 bucks that other about five grand, and how in a fit of generosity the man wrote off the debts. And Jesus asked who would love more -- and Simon said, the one who was forgiven more. Jesus didn't learn from Miss Manners either. He agitated the man. "You did not give me water to wash my feet, when I came into your house, he said. But this woman hasn't stopped washing my feet."

    And then there was Paul. In the letter to the Galatians he tells about how he agitated Peter. The gentile mission was going so strong that the leaders of the Jerusalem church wanted to come and see what was going on -- they couldn't believe the reports that gentiles were being converted. And Peter, who had agreed that it was OK to eat with gentiles and that they should not be burdened with Jewish laws, when the leaders from Jerusalem came went back on that conviction. Not only he, but Barnabas too, wimped out. And Paul doesn't hesitate to agitate them. Galatians 2 is his report to the churches in Galatia about how he did that. He wanted the new Christians in Galatia to know that it was OK to agitate. That keeping to the old etiquette was not a Christian value.

    In case you are wondering, an agitation is a confrontation that is intended to move someone to change. "Provoke each other to good works" says scripture. That's what agitation is -- It is an act of risk and love intended to move someone to be the best that God has intended that person to be. And Spirit-filled Christians will do this to each other -- because they know that they are not there to play church. The worship of God, the reaching out to God's people in the community, the building of God's kingdom on earth -- is serious business. And this, I believe in the intent of the letter to Galatians, which we will look at very briefly today. First, a story.

    Clarence Jordan, powerful Baptist prophet -- who was from that part of the country where Cheryl Hammock and Jimmy Carter are from -- was invited once to preach a revival in a small church in the remote hills of South Carolina -- this was way back in the 1950s when revivals still brought a lot of people to church and racism was rife. There he got up on the pulpit to preach and saw to his utter amazement that the congregation was mixed, black and white -- about 50-50. At the end of the service he asked the old hillbilly preacher, "how did you get this way?" Old hillbilly preacher said, "What way?" He said, "Integrated, black and white people all mixed up together like this -- did this come about since the decision?" Preacher said, "Wha.., wha.., what decision?" "Supreme court decision, of '1954?" Preacher said, "Oh, what supreme court, we don't need the supreme court to tell us what to do." A preacher who knew where the real authority came from! Clarence said, "You've got an unusual church, how did that happen?" He said, "Well, we had about 20 members," And there were hundreds in the church now. "And the preacher died and we couldn't get a new preacher. The other deacons weren't very interested in preaching so I told my fellow deacons, I'll preach. So the next Sunday, I preached. I opened the Bible, I put my finger down." That's the way they do it down there, they just land in the Bible right where the verse is and they start preaching. And he said, "My finger landed on the verse that said, in Christ there is no Jew nor Greek, bond, nor free, male or female because we are all one in Christ Jesus -- and I preached about how Jesus Christ makes everybody one. And when I was finished the other deacons called me in the back room and they told me they don't want to hear that kind of preaching no more" And Clarence said, "what did you do then," The hillbilly preacher said, "I fired them deacons." Clarence said, "how come they didn't fire you?" He said, "they never hired me!" And then he said, "once I figured out what bothered them people, and I knew that this what God wanted me to preach, I gave it to them every Sunday." You know preachers like that, don't you? Clarence said, "did they put up with it?" Preacher said, "well, I preached that church down to 4." Clarence Jordan stayed that night with a member of that church, a professor at the University of South Carolina, who drove 70 miles to go to church. He asked this young sophisticated intellectual, "Sir, why do you go that church?" He looked at Clarence Jordan and said, "Sir, I go to that church because that man preaches the gospel." And that man was one of hundreds of people who would travel a long distance to go to church in this rural outpost in the hills of South Carolina.

    A couple of very important things happened in these past two weeks for us. One is that we decided to change our name. The second is that we had a visit from a potential Children's Minister, Amy Dodson-Watts last weekend and with your approval will hire her. We are now making plans to launch an outreach marketing campaign in August and September and we have a suggestion before us that we use the second Sunday in September (9^th), which will also be our 51^st birthday, as a special open house event to which we will invite the entire neighborhood and have a great celebration. And some of us thought we were dead and gone! No, there is resurrection blood flowing in our veins! That's why I like the Call to Worship we read today.

    I came across a great little parable this week that reminded me of us. There was a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well and began braying. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened. He enlisted them to help haul to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery. Initially, the old mule was hysterical. But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, it realized that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back he could shake it off and step up! This he did, blow after blow. "Shake it off and step up¦ shake it off and step up ¦ shake it off and step up!" he repeated to encourage himself. Although it only sounded like braying to the casual listener! No matter how painful the blows or distressing the situation seemed, the old mule fought panic and just kept shaking it off and stepping up. It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of the well! What seemed like it would bury him actually blessed him.

    We are indeed, shaking off and stepping up. When I go to Sri Lanka today, and because I am in different environment, it is easier to do this -- I will spend some time in prayer and reflection about how we need to shake off and step up. But I can tell you now, it is not by doing the kinds of things most church growth experts are saying. They are saying that in order for a church to grow, that it must be homogenous. They would suggest that we draw up a composite of our typical target person, like how the fast growing Saddleback Valley church does with their Saddleback Sam, or Willow Creek with its casual, contemporary, suburbanite look does. Now I have read their materials forwards and backwards, and in fact our deacons and pastoral team are reading Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church, again. But our homogeneity is more complex than that. As we came to say in the meetings we had about naming the church, diversity is our homogeneity. We are alike only in that we like diversity. No, my reflection will be how we can be faithful to the calling that God has given us, so that real church growth, that is, kingdom growth can happen among us. And I think that happens only when you are faithful to the gospel no matter what the cost -- even if I have to preach the church down to 4.

    Let me tell you this too. Shaking off and stepping up is really about a new way of being church. This is a call to a serious conversation about being church -- an agitational conversation. And if there is one thing I learn from Rick Warren is that he is unabashedly about growth. And he points out in the book how Jesus was always with people, how he was always delighted in crowds. Some years ago, I told you about how I was agitated at one of the clergy Gamaliel foundation's clergy retreats. There some of my colleagues preached about how our theology and the organizing methodology can actually come together. How organizing infact can be a way of engaging in evangelism and expressing our stewardship. One of the trainers at one point started to pick on me. He asked me how big our church was -- I said we have 45 members and about 55-60 at worship. "How many people live in Hyde Park," he asked me. "I wasn't sure," I said, "I think there are about 30,000." "How many of those go to the churches in Hyde Park," he asked. "A generous estimate will be 4000," I said, knowing that St. Thomas draws about 1000 on a Sunday. "So," he said, "there are probably 26,000 unchurched people in Hyde Park. Do you not have something to offer them that is necessary for their wholesome life on earth and absolutely critical for their eternal salvation?" "Of course" I said. "Why are they not coming to your church?" he asked. "Well," I said tentatively, "perhaps they don't know how relevant the gospel is for them." "No," he said, "perhaps you don't want them there!"

    That summer, as I sat there in my study, I wondered about the truth of that statement. Did I really not want them here? No, I didn't think that was true. But why then did I have such a discomfort with growth? And God showed me that I believed it because it was convenient for the church not to grow. You are a very nice church to pastor. You and I are very much alike in how we think and live. Oh, we can disagree from time to time, but over the years you've been good to me and my family. If we were to have growth, the dynamics will change. There'll be a lot more work and a lot more challenges. Do I really want that? Aha! I thought. May be it is true that I don't want us to grow. That was hard to come to that realization. But God brought me to that place. I had to own it and confess my sin and receive God's forgiveness and grace.

    Now I was ready for a new thing God was going say. There was no dramatic voice, there was no vision or powerful spiritual experience. But a quiet, persistent prodding. Like it was for Elijah in front of the cave, when he was looking for signs of God in an earthquake, wind and fire, but God was not in those, but after the fire, there was a still, small voice, God was telling me just two words "Embrace Growth."

    "Embrace Growth?" Now, there's an agitation, if I ever heard one! Lord, I thought that's what I was doing -- if that's not about growth, what is? No, you have not yet fully embraced it, God was saying to me, and until you fully embrace it, the church will not fully embrace it -- Embrace Growth. The voice was persistent. The voice is persistent. It cannot be ignored anymore. "Check out your favorite book in Scripture -- check out Isaiah 54," the Lord told me. I knew exactly what that was. "But Lord, I am afraid to deal with that. I've often wanted preach on it but never really dared to. I've referred to it once or twice but never really embraced it." "Embrace it" the Lord said. "Preach on it. Let the congregation embrace it." "Yes, Lord!" I said. So here I am.

    Isaiah who preached comfort to exiled people in Babylon, begins his prophecy in chapter 40, with the proclamation that God reigns. That's the liberating message. His point is simply this. When God's reign is announced and when that announcement takes on a new reality in people's hearts, as they receive it and appropriate it to their lives, new things are going to come into being, things they did not dream were possible were going to happen. The people who had given up hope that redemption was possible were going to go home. "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old," he writes in 43:18, "I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert... to give drink to my chosen people, the people who I formed for myself, so that they might declare my praise." This is the word God gave us back in October of last year.

    The theme continues in Isaiah 54. He compares the misery of the exiled people to the desolation of a barren woman. You remember how in Biblical times barren women were despised. You remember, the grief of Sarah, Hannah and Elizabeth among many other biblical women. "Sing O barren one who did not bear, burst into song and shout you who have not been in labor!" Why would a barren woman sing? Obviously because she is not going to be barren any more; she is going to have kids. "For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the Lord."

    So, I preached on it a couple of years ago. And we lost some people -- we didn't quite go down to four, but some days it felt like it. But we are shaking off and stepping up. And so, God gave us a new name. Isaiah speaks to the desolate people in that as well. So, grab this promise, Ellis Avenue Church. "You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married" And, "They shall be called, "The Holy People, The Redeemed of the LORD"; and you shall be called, "Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken."

    Embrace Growth. Jesus loves people. And God is going to do amazing things in our midst. I am going to prepare for it in Sri Lanka. As I reflect and pray but also as I visit churches and meet people and see the amazing things God is doing there. I mean, next Sunday, I will be at Agalawatta Baptist Church, which has over 20 cell groups in a 5 - 10 mile radius and they want to build 2 new church buildings! God is doing amazing things. And I am going to come back ready to get powerfully engaged. Would you also take time to prepare for what God is going to do. Would you take time to reflect and pray and seek God's agitation -- that you might be the best that God has made you to be and you engage in the mighty work that God has for us.