Pioneer United Methodist Church
Pastor Mike Raypholtz
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Church – Why Bother?
Because the Church Is Like a Magnifying Glass
February 5, 2012
John 6:5-13
There are times when we are clearly reminded that the world is not what it should be.
One thing I’ve always liked to do is talk to little kids when I’m in line at the store. Try to joke around with them. I think little kids like me. I hear them a lot of time say, “Mom, why is that man chewing on a straw? What’s wrong with him?” One time I was in line behind a little boy with red hair – he looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and I just couldn’t help it, I patted him on the head. He said, “Dad, that man pat me on the head!” I like to try to get them interested in the impulse items there by the register, help their parents out. “Look here, isn’t that nice?” But I don’t do that very much anymore. I find that mothers don’t like it when you talk tot heir kids anymore. They’re trying to teach their kids not to talk to strangers. And I think, this is the kind of world we live in -- when you can’t talk to little kids in the grocery store anymore because it’s not safe for them to talk to strangers because too many strangers want to hurt them or give them bad things.
I was reading in a book by Rob Bell about this new thing they have in airports called an air puffer. It’s about the size of a phone booth, and you step into it and it makes a low buzzing sound and then it starts shooting puffs of air all over your body. And then a green light comes on and the door opens and you can exit. It sort of sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I might get one for the house. But then you think, wait a minute – this is the kind of world we live in, where we have to go through air puffers at the airport because there are people these days that want to hijack airplanes and set off bombs and kill people they don’t even know. This world is not what it should be.
And that’s why people always want to know, why does God allow this? If God is good, then why does God allow so much injustice and suffering in the world? Well maybe sometimes God asks that of us! I’ve given you people gifts and strengths and power and abilities – why do you allow so much suffering and injustice in the world? Why do you allow war and disease and starvation when you have the power to stop it?
We are called to make a difference. One of the last things Jesus said before he left the earth, was, in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” In other words, you will change the world. You will make a difference. And I think we want to make a difference, don‘t we? In the past two weeks I’ve had the honor of doing two funerals for two very special people, a man and a woman. And I always talk to the family first and say, tell me about them. What were they like? And I take notes. And it always makes me think, what are people gonna say about me when I’m gone? When some preacher gets up and talks about me in the funeral home what is he gonna say? Wow – that guy sure could put away a lot of Pop Tarts! That guy always smelled more or less fresh! No, I would like someone to say, he made a difference. The saddest funeral I ever did was for a woman who had been dead for nine days before anyone noticed. I’m not setting the world on fire myself, but I hope when I die it doesn’t take nine days for someone to notice! “You know, I thought his last sermon seemed a little dry….”
We are called to make a difference in the world. But that can be overwhelming. Sometimes just the needs around us seem like so much. I used to have a man who came to my front door once in awhile asking if he could shovel my sidewalk. And he always looked kind of disheveled and sad, and I always wondered what his story was – if he’d lost his job or something. And I thought, it must be embarrassing to have to be a grown man trying to make a few bucks like that. And he looked embarrassed. And I wished I could help him but this was at a time when I was broke myself. I was digging quarters out of the couch cushions to buy groceries myself. And I always felt terrible turning him away. I just couldn’t do anything. And then to make it worse one time he asked me, “Where do you work?” I looked him right in the eye and told him I was the pastor of the Nazarene church. I didn’t really do that. But sometimes the need out there is just so huge. We know how poor Philip felt in the scripture, when he sees over 5,000 people and Jesus says to feed the. Philip says, “It would take more than half a year’s salary just to buy enough bread to give each one an hors d'oeuvre!”
That’s why it’s good to have the church – the church is like a magnifying glass. There are two ways that the church is like a magnifying glass. Now, this first one kind of came to me. I had this sermon all figured out and I knew what I was going to say about magnifying glasses but then it hit me – I had forgotten one very cool thing you can do with one of these. I used to do this when I was a kid. Remember how if you go outside if you hold this just right you can take the sunlight and focus it down to a tiny little dot that is super bright? And you could fry ants with it like a laser! But that’s not very nice. Or if you were at camp you could write your name on a piece of wood. So a magnifying glass:
Focuses
Something that I notice more and more lately is how easy it is to lose focus. I mean, sometimes I really see it. Yes – this is what our church should be doing, this is what I should be doing. This is what life is about! This is what I need to concentrate on – loving God and loving neighbor. And I can stay focused like that for about a day. And then pretty soon all I can think about is, “Why can’t I beat Shelley Davis at solitaire on Facebook?” Pretty soon all I’m thinking about is my own little problems, my own little family. Notice how the gospel story begins. When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” (Verse 5) Jesus focuses the disciples on the needs around them.
Enlarges
All I really have to try to make a difference is just a tiny little bit. I can just make a dinky little scratch. I just have some small loaves and some smelly fish. But of course, the gospel says that even if we give our crumbs to Jesus he can do something with it.
I have a basketball story for you. My new favorite basketball player is a guy named Stacey King, even though I know practically nothing about him. He was a reserve player for the Chicago Bulls in the 90’s. Those were the days when the king of basketball was Michael Jordan. He was basketball glory, and when he left Chicago the glory left with him. The sport was made up entirely of him and everybody else. Stacey King also played for the Bulls but the difference is he rarely made it off the bench. One night during a playoff game he did get off the bench. He got to play. He said it would always be the greatest memory of his life – for it was the night he and Michael Jordan scored a combined 70 points in an NBA playoff game. Michael Jordan made 69 of them. But still, it’s nice to play a part! If we just give the bit we have to Jesus, Jesus can do the rest.
But not only that, we become a part of this whole worldwide thing called the Church. You can’t find very many places in the world where the Church is present and making a difference and because you are the Church you are a part of that.
I don’t know if you are all aware of this, but when you give money to this church not all of it stays in this congregation. A certain amount of it goes beyond this church to our denomination. And that sort of irritates people sometimes. But because of that, you are doing things around the world that you don’t even know you’re doing! I’ll give you a few random examples. Every 45 seconds, a child in Africa dies of malaria. Since I started preaching this sermon about 20 children have died. Our church is doing lot of things about this, one of which is donating mosquito nets.
It’s those little guys that are doing all this killing. Last April we helped distribute 25,000 insecticide-treated bed nets were distributed in Lubumbashi, of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 5,000 bed nets to families in Nyadire, Zimbabwe. And in November we provided 640,000 bed nets in Sierra Leone. Every one of these nets is a child that won’t die. You are helping to run a clinic for homeless teenagers in Phoenix Arizona. You are helping a Chinese woman teach music in Uganda. You grew ten acres of corn in Fairfax Missouri for the Food Bank. You did all this stuff – see, this is why you’re tired all the time! And we are spreading the gospel by starting churches all over the world. The Methodist Church is growing in every country it is in except the United States. And you are a part of that growth. By being here and giving your prayers and support and gifts you are helping that growth happen. When we’re by ourselves we can only make a tiny difference if any at all. But when we are a part of something that is bigger than ourselves we can make a difference that is bigger than ourselves.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I bet every person here knows the name Billy Graham. He has preached to over 210 million people in over 185 countries. He has given counsel to presidents and leaders around the world. His influence has been simply staggering. But I’m going to bet that probably none of you know the same Henrietta Mears, right?
Let me tell you about her. Henrietta Mears was born in North Dakota in 1890. There was nothing particularly impressive about her appearance or personality or abilities. But in 1928, she decided to teach a Sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood. And in the early 1940s she met a young guy named Billy Graham and in that meeting he discovered his call to ministry. Billy Graham would later write, "I doubt if any other woman outside my wife and mother has had such a marked influence [on my life]. She is certainly one of the greatest Christians I have ever known!” So Henrietta Mears didn’t preach in 185 different countries and she never gave advice to a president – but in way she did. When we are a part of something that is bigger than ourselves we can make a difference that is bigger than ourselves.
That’s why the church is like a magnifying glass. But if I hadn’t decided to call my sermon that, I think I would have gone with the church being a school of fish.
Let me tell you, there is nothing that perks up my day quite like finding useless information on the internet. It makes me so happy to learn something that is absolutely pointless! I want to finish by sharing on of these things with you.
As you know, most of our planet is covered with oceans. And these oceans are really, really deep – so deep no one has even seen the bottom in the really deep parts. And as you know, the tides are driven primarily by the wind and the moon. Or that’s what we used to think. Scientists have all these equations that factor in the wind and the moon and then predict what the tides are going to do. But they kept getting it wrong. There was always a difference between what the tides were supposed to do and what the tides actually did. And they couldn’t figure out for the life of them what the difference was. It turns out that the difference is all the little fishes. There’s something called “fluid drift” that has to do with the way water clings to critters when they swim. Every living thing under the sea – every whale, guppy, jellyfish, giant squid, brine shrimp, nerd shark, Spongebob, you name it – when their movements are combined, make the currents do what they do. Even all these itty bitty little fish, when they all swim together, affect the ocean just as much as the moon.
You can call me weird if you want but I find that encouraging. In the church we use the fish as a symbol for ourselves, don’t we? And sometimes in the church it doesn’t seem like we’re doing very much. It doesn’t seem like we’re making much of a splash. But I believe that when all us little Christian fishes swim together we can change the world.
So just like Dory in the movie, “Finding Nemo”: “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, just keep swimming…”
