[This was shared during Midweek Lenten Worship in the sanctuary of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this evening. It was presented as part of the congregation's '40-Days to Servanthood' emphasis.]
Acts 9:36-43
Occasionally, I receive emails from Wesley Paul, an evangelist who lives in Lexington, Kentucky but does most of his ministry in India. Several years ago, he shared the true story of a man named Ponali John, an impoverished man who lived in India. Wesley Paul described Ponali John as "a tailor by trade and a disciple of Jesus by profession." One Sunday, Ponali John's pastor challenged the congregation to share the Good News of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection with others.
This simple tailor took the challenge seriously, but wondered, after he’d gone home, how he could do anything about it. Then, a thought crossed his mind: "Use what you have in your hands." The only thing that Ponali John could call his own was a portable sewing machine, the use of which allowed him to eke out a small income. So, one day, he grabbed his machine and walked to a neighboring village. He took a spot in the marketplace and, as Wesley Paul put it, "waited to see what God would do."
Soon, a man whose shirt was torn happened by. Ponali John called out to him. "Would you like for me to mend that tear?" "How much will it cost?" the man asked. "The service is free," the tailor replied. Then, as he fixed the tear in the man's shirt, Ponali John explained why this service was free, that he was responding to the free gift of God's love in Christ by serving others without charge. Ponali John continued to do this whenever his own work allowed him to get away, focusing on one village at a time. Once twenty or thirty people confessed faith in Christ in a village, he left those folks to the care of the pastor of a local church. Then, he moved on to the next village to start the whole process all over again.
God employed the simple service of this one man, using the only asset God placed in his hands, to bring Jesus Christ to people.
Ponali John reminds me of one of my favorite people in the New Testament, a woman named Dorcas or Tabitha. She was a Christian and a seamstress. In the eyes of the world, she wasn’t important. But Dorcas was a woman grateful for the grace of God, given through the resurrected Jesus Christ and because of that, she used what she had in hand to share Christ with others. Her way of thanking God was to sew inner tunics and outer garments for others in her community, especially the widows. The clothing she made and the love that went with them, were all appreciated. When she died, the people of her congregation and community in Joppa wept openly.
But they didn’t stop at weeping. The folks in that church sent an urgent message to the apostle Peter: “Please come to us without delay.” When Peter arrived at the bedside of Dorcas’ body, he shooed all the mourners away and prayed that God would make a miracle. It happened, we’re told, when Dorcas came back to life.
Now, far more interesting to me than the question of how Peter performed this miracle through Jesus, is the level of faith and the quality of Christian servanthood this entire incident displays: Grateful to Christ, Dorcas was a servant of God. Touched by Dorcas’ practical expression of the love of Christ, a church community mourned and sent two representatives to Peter to see what could be done. And Peter, who could have ignored the death of just another person went to Joppa when Dorcas died. In the topsy turvy Kingdom of God, even people who the world sees as nobodies are given royal treatment! Often, the people who the world deems nobodies are the servants, people who take the gifts God has given to them and use them to share Christ with others.
We tried to enact this in my former parish through our weekly Kindness Outreaches. As some of you have heard me say, we woild go out on Saturday mornings and, depending on the season, give away cold water or cans of Coke, cans of soup or coupons giving discounts for purchases at a filling station. One woman, you may remember, had gone to the grocery store where she’d promised to pick up chicken noodle soup for her truck driving husband after time on the road. But after leaving the store, she discovered that she’d forgotten her husband’s soup. Just as she’d decided he would have to find something else to eat, she pulled up to an intersection where I handed her a can of chicken noodle soup. She later wrote to me and said, “God must be looking out for you, ‘cause here’s your chicken noodle soup.”
One of the funniest outreaches we did involved giving away free baked goods from one of the Cincinnati-area’s premier local bakery chains, Busken. I arranged to get day-old, but still wonderful doughnuts, breads, and cookies from a local Busken Bakery. Then, I set up on major thoroughfare where lots of commuters passed by in the morning with a big screaming yellow sign with bold, black letters, “Free Busken.” I’d forgotten that the corner I’d chosen was also the site of various political protests. One of Ann’s co-workers drove by me and some other folks from our congregation, saw the “Free Busken” sign and wondered who Busken was and how he got into trouble with the law.
One of the most interesting outreaches we did—actually, it was done by our youth group, who really loved the funky weirdness of it—was to go to local filling stations, fast food restaurants, and medical offices and ask, “May we wash your rest rooms?” When they saw that we had the kits to do the job and simply wanted to share God’s love in a practical way, no strings attached, they let us clean away.
We did all these projects not to call attention to ourselves or necessarily to get the beneficiaries of our service to come to our Cincinnati congregation, but to help them experience God and God’s grace.
Whether we do it through kindness outreaches are by other means—like helping out at CHAP and Smith Chapel, providing assistance to our local juvenile drug court or getting a new Hocking County Boys and Girls Club, my prayer is that Saint Matthew will become more than the church Noah’s Ark in the yard.
I don’t know about you, folks, but in my heart of hearts, beneath my sinful thoughts, habits, and ways, down in my soul, I want more than anything to be a servant of Christ.
I want to be used by God to mend the tears, the hurts, the injustices, and the ignorance of the world.
I want to give a cool cup of water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, comfort to the afflicted, and the hope of Jesus’ resurrection to the dying. (The latter category including every single one of us, by the way.)
My guess is that everyone of you shares those same aspirations. But like me, you may be intimidated by the challenge of it all. But I beg you to heed the experiences of Dorcas and Ponali John: Don’t wait for the perfect alignment of resources and vision. Ask God to show you what it is you already have—in skills, gifts, opportunities—and then, to paraphrase John Wesley, the founder of World Methodist, share Christ’s love wherever you can, whenever you can, however you can. (We can swipe that wonderful motto from Wesley because his own conversion to a close and personal kind of relationship began for him as Lutheran Moravian service where, he said, his heart was “strangely warmed.”)
We often speak of how Christ has set believers in Him free from sin and death. It’s wonderful to be free from those things.
But Christ has also set us free to live differently. Freed from sin and freed from performance based religion, Jesus sets us free to live lives of purpose unencumbered by concerns over our status or perks, our incomes or our place in society. We’re set free from the stranglehold of things this world worships so that in our acts of daily service and devotion, we render pure, loving worship of God!
Ask God to help you live in that freedom, filled with purpose, empowered to be servants of Christ who use what God has given to them to make a difference in the world. And if you have the time before next Wednesday’s potluck, plan on attending the first Servanthood Team meeting here in the fellowship hall.
God has given us everything we need to fulfill the purposes he has in mind for us. Dorcas learned that. So did Ponali John. So can we. Amen
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