Welcoming the Frenzied

Matthew 9:35-38
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, June 12, 2005)

A few years back, I had an interesting conversation with a man with whom I had become friends. This is a guy who radiates kindness and goodwill to people.

He’s one of the first people I’d call if I needed help. I know that one way or another, he’d either provide the help himself or lead me to someone who could.

He has a great sense of humor and every time I run into him, he seems to have learned a new joke since the last time I saw him.

I had known him for a time already when, in this particular conversation, he began to tell me about his childhood. It turns out that he had been subjected to much emotional and psychological abuse as he grew up. Occasionally, it became physical. He catalogued his experiences with feeling--he obviously had been hurt.

There was also a tone of forgiveness in his words, though. “I see now that my parents did the best they could,” he told me. “When I look at all that they went through in their lives, they probably did well.”

“But,” he went on, “as I progressed through my childhood, I was dogged by feelings of inferiority. Regularly derided for being stupid or inept in one way or another, I wrestled with the feeling that I could never make it in life.”

It was hard for me to hide my shock--and near-disbelief. The man who sat before me seemed confident, easy-going, and devoid of any “baggage,” as it’s called.

My friend read my face. “You want to know how,” he said. I did: I wanted to know how my friend overcame a painful childhood which, he told me in his early adulthood, had led him to try all sorts of things to prove himself to the world and to himself. I wanted to know how he became the man I knew him to be now.

“The answer is simple,” he told me. “It was Jesus. When I realized that Jesus gave me His approval, I didn’t need anyone else’s approval any more.” As he let Jesus take charge of his life, the frenzy, the feelings of inferiority, and the need to prove himself evaporated. He was free to become his true self.

In our Bible lesson for today, Jesus looks at crowds of people who were like what my friend must have been like before he let Jesus into his life. Matthew, the writer of the lesson this morning, describes the crowds as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” They were, as some of us would say, “chickens with their heads cut off”: people uncertain of their reason for living, dogged by the need to prove themselves, and afraid of all sorts of things--afraid of being poor, of being alone, of being incompetent to do their job, of how things are going to turn out for their kids, and on and on.

Jesus looked on this crowd of people and “felt compassion for them.” These were the people--people like us--for whom Jesus came into the world to die and rise. They--and we--are the reasons that He “went all about their cities and villages, teaching..., and proclaiming the good news [that all who turn from sin and turn to Him will have life forever with God], and curing every dis--ease [all the things that put people ill at ease] and every sickness.”

The world is filled with crowds of “harassed and helpless” people who need Jesus Christ. I know. I used to be one of them.

But I also know from observing the people who surround me.

She called me on the telephone. “You don’t know me,” the woman said. “A friend of mine knows you and I read your column in the paper. I needed to talk to someone. Would you mind if I remained anonymous?”

I was a little uncomfortable with that. But I could hear the desperation in her voice. “That’s fine,” I said.

“I am married to the most wonderful man in the world,” she began. “I love him very much. But a few years ago, a man at work began paying attention to me. He was so nice and I found myself powerfully attracted to him. Anyway, we had an affair. It lasted all of five days. My husband never suspected a thing and I don’t think anybody else ever knew about it.”

She began to choke up. “I’ve asked God to forgive me a million times and I know that He has forgiven me. I’ve asked for God to help me in my commitment to my marriage. I don’t want it to end. But I feel so ashamed. I can’t sleep at night and sometimes, I think, I’d like to run to the man with whom I had the affair. That only makes me feel more ashamed. What can I do?”

Just so you know, we talked for quite some time and I gave the woman the names and numbers of several good counselors. We prayed--one of the few times I’ve prayed for someone anonymously--and I never heard from her again.

But my point is that the world is filled with people like my friend and that woman. Whether their pain has been caused by others or it’s been self-inflicted, they feel harassed and helpless. And for each of them, the place for them to go for compassion, for help, for the cure for their dis-eases, and for the healthy sense of self-worth that comes from having the approval of God Himself is the same. They need to go to the God we know through Jesus Christ.

After seeing the desperate crowds of people around Him, Jesus turned to His disciples and said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

Translation: We’re surrounded by people whose lives and experiences make them ripe for knowing Jesus. They need Jesus. Pray, Jesus says, for people who care enough about others that they’re willing to bring them to me. Who care enough to pray for them. Care enough to invite them to worship or a small group. To invite them out for coffee and conversation, or give them a book like a study Bible. Pray for people who will continue my work, who, everywhere they go, will teach people about Me, tell others the Good News of new life for all who follow Me, Who will bring healing and help to everyone.

What’s interesting is that right after this, in chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel, having told the disciples to pray for workers to go into the harvest of harassed and helpless people, Jesus then calls His twelve disciples to be the answer to their prayers.

You’ve heard me tell the story before of the guy sitting in worship one Sunday when, moved by the call to follow Jesus with his whole life, he blurted out, “Lord, use me. Use me!” Then, thinking better of it, he added, “In an advisory capacity.”

Brian Stoffregen, a Lutheran pastor, observes that there probably isn’t a church in the world that doesn’t want to grow or whose members don't pray that God will help them reach out to others. But, for most churches, the desire isn’t very great and the prayer is just something that they say because, unlike the disciples Jesus called, they aren't willing to be the living answers to their prayers.

I have to tell you, folks, that one of my greatest fears as pastor of this congregation and something I pray about a lot, is that we all aren't so in love with each other that we forget why God called us together. Remember: It’s not about us. It’s about God and it’s about others. God calls us to love each other, of course. But He hasn't called us to be a mutual admiration society to the exclusion of that world of people beyond our doors for whom Jesus Christ gave His life!

The mission of Friendship is something we talk about a lot:

“Friendship Church is a welcoming and caring people who seek to share the kindness of God so that all metropolitan Cincinnati may grow in the faith, hope, and love of the living Jesus Christ!”

There is no room for in-crowds or cliques here. We need to be resolutely focused on reaching out to others.

How do we do that? Let me make a few practical suggestions:

(1) Do what Jesus says: Pray that God will send the right people to the harassed and helpless of our world, people who can tell them about and show them the love of Jesus.

(2) Be open to being God’s answer to that prayer.

(3) Make it your goal to invite one unchurched person to worship with us at Friendship or to a small group in which you participate every month for the rest of your life.

Jesus has compassion for the crowds of people who surround us. Our call is to be His representatives in this broken world, to compassionately share Jesus with them.

The worst that can happen when we do that is that people will say No to Jesus.

The best that can happen is that they will turn out like my friend: They will be people who say Yes to God’s Yes to them and so, be healed of past hurts, empowered for real living, filled with the goodness of God, and primed for eternity.

That sounds pretty good to me. How about you?