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Hespeler, September 14, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, Psalm 14, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

There is no denying that some of the biggest problems that people are dealing with today are economic problems. We could talk about housing and how it has become completely unaffordable throughout much of this country, especially for people who are just starting out. We could talk about inflation and how prices have gotten out of control for so many everyday goods. We could certainly talk about unemployment which, especially for youth, seems to have reached a crisis level.

These are problems that are affecting all of us. Even if you personally may be in a strong position and somewhat insulated from these problems, they are affecting your community, and the fallout is spilling over and affecting your personal life.

Answers We Can Relate to

So, I think that we can all recognize that there are some big and important economic problems. But, when the economic experts start to talk to us about what is causing these problems and what to do about them, what happens? They start talking about things like supply and demand and yield curves and lagging indicators and, for most of us, our eyes glaze over. We tune out. None of it helps us to understand why so many people are struggling or what to do about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody who can relate to us – somebody who can bring the very wisdom of God to us – who could explain it all to us and tell us what to do? Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus did that for us?

Jesus and Money

But unfortunately, Jesus doesn’t seem to have had much to say about money during his life. In fact, he seems to have been so unfamiliar with the currency itself that, once, when somebody showed him a coin, he had to ask whose face and title was engraved on it.

But there is at least one parable – we read it this morning – that is all about money. And I know that it is very short, but I’ve got to tell you that there is more wisdom about the use of money in that short parable than you might realize.

So let me tell the story to you – tell it in a way that might make you better realize how people in Jesus’ own time might have heard it when he first told it.

10 Silver Coins

She had ten silver coins. It was not, to be clear, a fortune. Just one of those coins would have been considered fair wages for an entire day of work. So, having 10 days wages saved up was hardly something that would have offered much of a buffer for her in the case of some catastrophe.

There were people out there, the wealthy elite in places like Jerusalem and Tiberias, who had stored up thousands upon thousands of these coins. Such hoards made them feel safe in ways that she never would be able to attain.

But, inspired by the successes of such people, she had managed to scrimp and to save and to set aside ten silver coins. It was an extraordinary accomplishment.

Most of the people around her never managed to set anything aside. If they were lucky, if they were fortunate enough to get enough work that paid well enough, most of them could only manage to break even on a day-to-day basis and there was never any surplus to set aside for a rainy day.

Security

But she had ten silver coins. Maybe they didn’t actually provide security for her, but they made her feel as if security was attainable. That’s why she was kind of obsessed with them. She always knew exactly how many coins she had and where they were. She literally counted them every day so that, if one went missing, she would know immediately.

And one fateful day, the one thing that she dreaded happened. She was there at her little counting table. It was actually her only table and she used it for everything from cooking to eating, but in her mind, it was the counting table because that was the most important thing that happened on it.

Counting

She took out her purse and poured out the coins and relished, as she always did, the satisfying clatter that they made. And then she took them and counted them one by one as she dropped them on the table. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9…

Wait a minute, that couldn’t be right. She was certain she had counted ten just the day before. She started over again counting very deliberately. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9… No, no, there was definitely one missing.

Robbery?

A sense of panic quickly settled over her. Her first thought, of course, was that she had been robbed. But that made little sense. Why would anyone steal one if they had the opportunity to steal them all?

What’s more, she knew that nobody had had the opportunity. She was certain that no one had been in her house since she had last counted. Nor had she taken the coins out.

Basically, out of a fear of this very possibility, she isolated herself from all of the people around her. She never had anyone over to her house and she never went out unless it was strictly necessary.

Frantic Cleaning

The only other possibility, therefore, suddenly came over her as a wash of relief. The coin had to be somewhere here in this house. It must have fallen and rolled away the last time that she counted.

And, with that realization, she was finally able to channel her panic and nervous energy towards something productive. She carefully secured the nine coins and then she lit all of her lamps and got out her cleaning supplies. She began to sweep and dust and scrub every corner of her entire house. She carefully cleaned under every piece of furniture and deep into every nook and cranny. Oh, the house had never been cleaned like this!

But, while this managed to channel the energy in her body, her panicked thoughts continued to race. As silly as it seemed, she began to question her own priorities. Had she really chosen to focus on the right things if it all led to such frenzied outcomes?

A Shepherd’s Tale

She had heard a story in the neighbourhood just recently. There was a local shepherd who had a hundred sheep in his care. He cherished his sheep much like she cherished her coins.

And of course, he would count his sheep regularly. And one day as he was counting – 1,2,3,4… –  always a difficult task, of course because by the time he got to 96, 97, 98, he could barely keep his eyes open. But when he hit 99, he was suddenly wide awake because there was no sheep 100!

From what she had heard, he immediately started acting crazy. He abandoned all 99 sheep out in the wilderness and started searching high and low for the one lost sheep.

She would never act so irresponsibly, of course. Hadn’t she been careful to bar all the windows and doors before she began to search? She was not about to risk the loss of her other nine coins. But she could not help but wonder whether her shepherd neighbour had learned something from that experience that she had not yet understood.

Strange Reaction

She had heard that when he had finally discovered the errant ruminant, he had been so relieved that he completely lost his mind. At least that was the only way that she could make sense of what he did next. He took the sheep and laid it on his shoulders and brought it back. Fortunately, it seemed, nothing bad had happened to the other 99 that had been abandoned in the wilderness.

So, once he had recounted all of them again (falling asleep several times in the process) the shepherd decided that the next thing to do was send out invitations to absolutely everyone he knew. He had them all come over to his house and he threw a great big party.

The woman did not go. She was not inclined to participate in such foolishness, and she had to stay home so that nothing would happen to her precious coin. But from what she had heard, the lamb stew had been excellent.

Beginning to Understand

That had been the one thing that she had never understood. Here was this neighbour who valued his precious sheep, so much so that, when just one went missing, he had dropped absolutely everything else in order to find it. But having found it, his priorities changed so radically. Suddenly there was something that mattered more than a sheep, and that was the opportunity to celebrate with all his neighbours. And he was even willing to sacrifice his precious sheep in order to celebrate.

She had never understood that. But now, perhaps, she might be beginning to. She had put so much importance into the preservation of her collection of coins, that she had missed out on everything including the party with the neighbours. And now that she had lost one, she was struck by the thought – what had she been saving it up for? What would she miss out on if she didn’t find it? Was she supposed to be fulfilled by its mere existence in her collection? Was that enough?

Her Strange Reaction

Her frenzied cleaning continued for at least another half hour, but in the end, she finally found it. It had rolled underneath a cover on the... piano. It was a welcome sight, to be sure, all bright and shiny in the lamplight. But now that she had found it, to have it was not enough. It was like it had no value on its own anymore. It only had value for what she could do with it.

And she suddenly knew what to do with it. She had to celebrate. She had to throw a party, and she had to invite everyone – all her neighbours, even the shepherd – especially the shepherd.

Soon her house was filled with music and dancing and laughter. Her neighbours joined in a veritable feast with wine and food. Why the party favours alone must have cost several silver coins.

Odd Twists

I have always puzzled over those two parables of Jesus – the lost sheep and the lost coin. Both include these frenzied searches that are deeply focussed on finding this valuable thing that has been lost. But, once the search is over and the object is found, the story takes on a strange twist.

They don’t end like you might expect them to. The endings are not about relief or taking steps to make sure that such a loss doesn’t happen again. That would be the responsible response, right? But no, the endings of these stories are all about gathering people and celebrating together. And the implication of that is that the celebration is of greater value than the object found.

What are we to take away from this strange twist ending? One lesson, the one provided by the gospel writer, is that this parable is about how happy God is when someone turns away from sin and comes to God. That’s a perfectly good interpretation but note that it is supplied by the gospel writer. There is no indication in the original gospel text, that Jesus said that part. So, I do think that there are other applications that we can make to life in this world.

A Lesson About Money

And I have come to think that Jesus may have told this story to make us think again about the things of this world that we have learned to value. In particular, there is a strong lesson about money.

The world is constantly telling us that money is the beginning and the end of what matters. We, like the woman in Jesus’ parable, hoard up money, worry about not having it and exhaust ourselves trying to get it. But the experience of losing and then finding the money seems to give this woman a different perspective. Money, she learns, has no intrinsic value in itself.

That is absolutely true, by the way. Money really only has any value because we have all agreed that it has value. If that consensus were just to go away, and that could probably happen easier than you might think, all of our money will have no value.

No, what the woman learns is that the value of money is only in what you do with it. And, if you save it as a goal in itself, it really is worthless. Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God is something that breaks out when we choose to use whatever we have to gather God’s people to celebrate.

Hoarding Coins

Did you know that there are a lot of people storing up money these days. It is not the ordinary folk. Many of them are just living day-to-day. But the billionaires are storing up unheard-of amounts of money, mostly, of course, in offshore accounts where governments can’t touch them. And corporations, they have record cash surpluses sitting around these days. In many ways that is the biggest economic problem that we are facing. There is just too much cash sitting around and not circulating. There are too many piles of 10 coins that no one is using.

Jesus told this story to change our discussion about money. It is meant to be used, and it is meant to be used for people and not to serve the needs of those who already have it or give them illussions of security. It is meant for celebration and joy. And when we learn that lesson, that’s when we will discover the kingdom of God among us.

Watch Sermon Video Here:

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Hespeler, September 7, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, Philemon 1:1-21, Luke 14:25-33

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the AI design studio, and there I will let you hear my words.” And so, Jeremiah went down to the place where the designers sat at their computers and each one was required to come up with hundreds of designs a day.

He watched as one of the workers typed in, “Okay, Midjourney, give me a design for a new style of ceramic pot.” And, while Jeremiah watched, the Artificial Intelligence went to work, surveying a million pictures and designs of various styles of pots from many different cultures and time periods in fractions of a second. It processed them all and projected certain trends and fads to come up with a design that was a homogenized mix of every other pot that had ever been made.

And then the designer looked at the result and declared, “No, I think the colour is a bit off, try again.” And, using vast amounts of electricity and other resources, the Artificial Intelligence program restarted the entire process.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, “Am I not like the Artificial Intelligence designer with my people? But Jeremiah said, “No, no, that is not quite right.”

Ceramics Factory

Then the word came again to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the ceramics factory, and there I will let you hear my words.” And so, Jeremiah went down onto the factory floor and he observed the fabrication lines. He watched as the great machines mixed the clay until it reached a perfect consistency. And then the clay was slip-cast, injection-moulded, or perhaps dry-pressed into perfectly consistent shapes. Then the pieces were dried, glazed and fired in turn.

All along the line, the workers surveyed the process. If there were any pieces that contained any flaws or imperfections or if they diverged from the design in any way, they were removed and thrown in the trash. At the end of the line Jeremiah saw all the pots, bowls and vessels lined up, each one indistinguishable from the next of the same design.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, “Am I not like the ceramics factory with my people? But Jeremiah said, “No, no, that is not quite right either.”

Amazon Retail

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, “Okay, why don’t you just go online and order a nice pot from Amazon. And so, Jeremiah went on the website and picked out a pot that looked like it might do. He put it in his online cart and, with one click, requested overnight delivery.

An entire distribution system kicked into high gear with boxes flying through warehouses and pickers, sorters and distributors working long hours with limited breaks and no ability to sit down. The product was loaded onto a truck that went careening through the town and less than 24 hours after it was ordered, it showed up on Jeremiah’s doorstep. He opened the package, decided that it was not quite right and went back to his computer to click return.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, “Am I not like Amazon in my ability to distribute blessings with abundance and speed? But Jeremiah replied, “No, no, that is not right.”

If God Made Pottery Today

No, none of those are right, are they? Those are the ways that most pottery is designed, manufactured and purchased these days. It is mass produced in ways that promote consistency, uniformity and efficiency. It is all done in such a way as to maximize profit, by giving people what they are used to at the best possible prices.

And I can’t help but think that if somebody said that God was like a maker of pottery today, we would be inclined to think of God in such terms. In many ways, I think that we do.

We look at many of the expectations that modern life puts upon us and just assume that God is looking for the same from us. When we look at ourselves, we often measure ourselves against the standards of the larger culture. If I am not beautiful in the way that an AI generator would define beauty – an amalgam of the most beautiful pictures ever taken – well,  then I can’t be beautiful. If my life does not look as fulfilling and uplifting as everyone’s pictures on my Instagram feed, well, then my life must suck. And if I just don’t make the cut in that and so many other ways, then how could God value me?

Productivity and Consumerism

The world tells us all the time that our productivity is all that matters – that we are all only as good as the last bit of work that we did. And so, when I look at my accomplishments, I just don’t feel like I am any good. It makes us prioritize doing over being and, once again, we transfer that thinking onto God and assume that we need to earn God’s love with our works.

And, above all, our world is constantly telling us that the way we exercise our freedom and the way that live out our success is by being consumers. The more stuff you own, the more expensive experiences you have enjoyed, the more fulfilled you are supposed to be. That is the constant drumbeat of our world!

And of course, there are so many ways that we turn our God into the patron of that ideal of fulfillment. The Prosperity Gospel, the teaching that God wants to make you rich and fill you up with many material blessings is quite possibly the fastest-growing Christian teaching in our world today. So, yes, we have definitely turned God into some sort of cosmic Amazon network where we purchase whatever we need with one prayer instead of one click.

Jeremiah Wanders into a Pottery Shop

But the Prophet Jeremiah lived in a very different world. And when he was kind of discouraged one day because the people of Judea were being foolish and they wouldn’t listen to him, he didn’t wander into an AI design studio or a factory or a warehouse. He wandered into the local pottery shop.

And after he had watched the potter work away at his wheel for some time, he said, “Aha!” He said, “I didn’t just happen upon this place at random. No, my wandering footsteps had a purpose behind them. God brought me here because God had something to show me. God is like a potter and we are like the clay.”

What did he mean by that? Obviously he didn’t mean it literally. He didn’t mean that we are just mud or that we are spinning around on a foot-powered wheel. He wasn’t saying that God is literally squeezing and pinching us with clay-covered fingers.

No, he was rather saying that God relates to us like a potter relates to the clay. And let’s explore some of the things that that means and that we sometimes miss in our frenzied modern life.

Uniqueness

First of all, let’s look at what it says about your uniqueness. One of the key differences between ancient and modern manufacturing processes is how unique each item that is produced is. The potter may work according to some basic idea while the wheel spins, of course, but since the clay is actually formed by human hands that naturally vary in position and tension, every vessel produced is absolutely unique.

Even more than that, ancient potters were artists and often gave to their vessels unique touches in terms of design. And I think I know a few things about artists. I am no potter, and I can’t draw worth beans, but I do consider myself something of an artist in the art of storytelling. And I have had people ask me which of the stories that I have told is my favourite.

I find it an impossible question to answer – like asking a parent which of their children is their favourite. And the best answer I’ve ever come up with is that my favourite story is almost always the one I am presently working on. That is what makes an artist, I think. It is when you love the work you are doing.

You are God’s favourite Vessel

And I believe that God works the same way with you. You are God’s favourite vessel because God is molding you. God loves every unique bump and twirl and flourish on you – both on your surface and in your inner being. God loves you because God is working on you and because you are unique.

And what a different message that is from the message we are constantly receiving from the world around us that we are only acceptable if we can measure up to some standard and if we don’t deviate from the norm. Never let anyone take away from you the joy in knowing that God delights in the uniqueness of who you are.

Dealing With Flaws

Now, none of that takes away from the truth that we do have flaws. We do often fail to measure up to the potential of who we could be. This is actually a central concern in what Jeremiah observes in the potter’s shop. He observes this as he watches, “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.”

And I think that says a lot about how God deals with our flaws. Notice how different this is from the ways in which we deal with flaws in modern manufacturing processes. What happens to the bad pot or the cracked vessel on the assembly line? It is removed and unceremoniously dumped in the garbage.

And that is how we tend to deal with flaws and deviations in our world. You show your shortcomings, you get cancelled, rejected, thrown on the trash heap. Our modern and fast-paced world just finds it much more efficient to dispose of you than to give you the chance to improve yourself.

But the potter God that Jeremiah discovers is not like that. God is always going to give you a chance to start over, even to reimagine yourself. God doesn’t lose patience with you and is always ready to put the lump of clay that you are back on the wheel and start molding all over again. That is the promise of the God who is like a potter.

Not Just Personal

But there is one other thing that I do not want you to miss as you think of Jeremiah’s powerful image of God as a potter. The thing that provoked him to see that deep truth was not that he was discouraged about what was going on in his personal life. We are often tempted to make passages like this all about our spiritual journeys as individuals, but Jeremiah wasn’t thinking about that.

He was concerned about what was going wrong with the whole nation of Judah. The thing that he was imagining God balling up and putting back on the wheel was not him or any other individual, it was the Kingdom of Judah as a whole.

So, we should not leave this passage behind today without asking what it is saying to us about who we are together as a church. You may have come here today with an idea of who we are as a congregation. And, if you are like most Christians, you probably have an idea of who we are that is based on what you have experienced of the church in the past.

The Church as Clay in God’s Hands

But Jeremiah would remind you, me and all of us that, when it comes to the church, God is the potter and we are the clay. We imagine the church like clay that has already been hardened and fired. It is rigid, it can only take the form that it has always taken and be used in the ways that it has always been used.

But, in God’s hands, the church always remains the soft block of clay – always ready to be formed anew to face the challenges of a new time, always ready to be put back on the wheel and take a new form that God can use in a new situation.

We want to be the ones who chose our form, who tell the potter who we want to be. But that has never been how God has related to the church, so if we insist on that, we might just end up broken pottery shards lying on the ground.

God is the potter, we are the clay. It is an image that is meant to inspire and encourage us. It is meant to lead us into a deeper understanding of how we are related to the great Creator of the universe.

Join us this Sunday

Time to get creative!

Watch Sermon Video Here:

https://youtu.be/HeKF1IDBB_U

Hespeler, August 31, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 2:4-13, Psalm 81:1, 10-16, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, Luke 14:12-24

Earlier this summer, I was asked to perform a funeral for a man named Johnny. The family that requested this are not really connected to this congregation. But, whenever I am given the opportunity to minister to a family in such an important moment of their lives, I always agree, at least if it is at all possible for me to do so.

Making it Personal

But it is also really important to me that a funeral service be very personal. And so, if I never did know the person, I make a point of getting to know them by talking with the people who loved them.

So, I gathered with the family and learned about Johnny. He was a man who lived all of his life with severe disabilities. He was never able to speak. He could only walk with a great deal of help, and eventually he could not walk at all.

A Passage for Johnny

I believe that every person’s life has important things to teach us about the kingdom of God. It is with that idea that I approach every funeral. And so, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about what Johnny had to teach us about Jesus’ idea of the kingdom of God. My reflections eventually brought me to our reading this morning from the Gospel of Luke.

I can honestly say that Johnny, this man that I never actually met in person, has taught me more about what Jesus was saying in this passage than all of the commentaries and sermons that I have read about it. It’s kind of amazing how often that happens. And I’d like to share with you today what I learned about this passage.

A Hot Dinner Guest

Jesus made a big splash wherever he went, and people often vied with one another to invite him to dinner in their houses. You know how it works. You invite the hottest local celebrity to come and eat at your house, then you invite all the most important people in town too, so that the celebrity’s fame and reputation rubs off on you. I’m pretty sure that the host of the meal that night thought that he had pulled off the social event of the season.

But at some point during supper, Jesus looked around the room and saw all of the rich and important people who were sprawling on the dining couches and he turned to his host. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner,” he said, “do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.”

A Crazy Thing to Say

That was, to be clear, a crazy thing for Jesus to say. The entire point of this dinner party had been to enhance the host’s social standing. The whole point of it would be lost if he didn’t have all the “right” people there! So, I imagine that the host was upset when Jesus said this. But he was about to become enraged.

“But when you give a banquet,” Jesus went on, “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.” Now that was just ridiculous. It was one thing for Jesus to suggest that he should not invite people who would enhance his standing. But here Jesus was suggesting that he should actively invite those who would destroy his reputation in the town!

Marginalizing People with Disabilities

In Jesus’ day, it was generally taken for granted that if you were poor or disabled, it was basically your own fault. We still sometimes think of poverty that way these days, though we really shouldn’t. We often assume that if somebody is poor it must be because they are lazy or lack ambition.

But we generally accept that we can hardly blame people with disabilities for their limitations. They did. They just took it for granted that, if you had a disability, you must have sinned in some way.

Because of those false assumptions, they pushed people who struggled with poverty or with disabilities over to the margins of society. They certainly didn’t invite them to dinner parties and, if such a person were to show up, it would have had the effect of lowering the host’s social standing.

People Were Confused

So, I am sure that everyone present was kind of scratching their heads and wondering what Jesus could mean by saying such a crazy thing. And one of the people who was there thought he had figured it out. Such a thing made no sense in the real world, so maybe Jesus was saying something about another world – a world after death.

Maybe Jesus was saying that, if you performed insane acts of charity, like feeding the dregs of society, it would earn you a ticket to another life after you died. And so he shouted out, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

But that wasn’t what Jesus was saying at all. He wasn’t talking about another life. He wanted them all to understand that he was talking about encountering the kingdom of God in this life.

Jesus’ Picture of the Kingdom

But their minds were too small to imagine the picture of the kingdom of God that Jesus had in his mind – the picture of a feasting hall filled with the poor, people with disabilities and other marginalized folk. And so, Jesus did what he always did to expand people’s minds. He told a story.

Jesus was a master storyteller, so he knew exactly what to do to make them feel comfortable. He opened with a scenario that would have made perfect sense to them. He described a host who does what they all would have done. He plans a dinner, and he invites all the “right” people, all the people whose presence will enhance his reputation.

The Twist

Then, just when he had sucked them in, Jesus threw in the twist. As soon as the dinner is ready, it turns out that nobody – none of the “right” guests – can make it. Now this is a crisis because there is only one thing that is worse for a host’s reputation than having the “wrong” people at your dinner, and that is if no one shows up at all!

And so, the host panics. In desperation he implores his servants to drag in whoever they can find. And so it is that the end of the story sees the dining couches filled by people who are poor, people with disabilities and all manner of people who live on the margins of society.

What was the point of that story? I believe that the reason why Jesus told this story was all for the sake of the bizarre picture of the dinner party at the end of it.

Jesus was trying to impress on them that the kingdom of God is something that breaks out in the here and now and it breaks out when we give places of honour to those who are poor or disabled or otherwise on the margins of society.

Such a thing was so unimaginable that Jesus had to tell this strange and convoluted tale of a dinner party that went so disastrously wrong that the host was forced to invite all the wrong sorts of people. He told them this story just so they could get their heads around such a bizarre scenario.

Johnny

Yes, Jesus really taught that the kingdom of God worked like that. And many struggle to understand such a teaching; I always have. But, like I said, I was given a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what Jesus might have meant earlier this summer.

I never met Johnny, but I got to know him by meeting with his family and hearing from his friends and family at the celebration of his life. And yes, Johnny had disabilities. He could not speak. He could not walk.

Johnny did not live a marginalized life to the extent that such people would have in Jesus’ time. We have come a long way in terms of integrating those with such limitations into society. We probably still have a long way to go, but we are light-years ahead of how things worked in ancient times.

But some marginalization was unavoidable. Johnny did spend some time in institutions where he was mistreated in ways that I will not go into. His inability to speak also caused some serious medical problems as he could not tell the doctors what was wrong and so they often didn’t know how to help him and got his treatment wrong.

So. Johnny really does seem like a good example of the kind of marginalized person that Jesus would have imagined taking an honoured position in the kingdom of God. And, as such, his life taught me a lot about what Jesus was really trying to get people to realize when he spoke about that kingdom. I believe that Johnny has many things to teach us about what Jesus was really announcing

Defying Expectations

He has taught us, for one thing, that it is the nature of the kingdom of God to defy our expectations of what is possible. When Johnny was young, the doctors who directed his care confidently predicted that he would not live past the age of twenty. Well, when we gathered to celebrate his life, Johnny was just a little bit shy of his seventieth birthday. And we gathered to celebrate a life that had been full and meaningful.

But it was not just in terms of lifespan that he exceeded expectations. Johnny’s friends and family spoke at his celebration, as did some of the people who had supported him and given him care. They also counted him as their friend.

A picture quickly emerged of a man who, despite having suffered and despite many limitations, was able to radiate love and friendship. He was a man who could do little more than love you, but when he loved you, you knew it. It came to mean the world to you.

Advocate

I will admit that there was one thing that particularly took me by surprise as I listened to people share their love for Johnny. People spoke about how he would advocate, how he would argue for what was just and right and acceptable and act for those who were struggling.

I would ask you to think about that for a moment. Here was a man who could not speak, but he “spoke up” demanding action when needed. Here was a man who was confined to a wheelchair, but he “stood up” for what was right and just. Here was a man who could not walk, but he would regularly “step up” for others who needed help.

“Speak up – stand up – step up.” Have you noticed how so much of our language for activism and advocacy is hopelessly ablest? Hidden in the way we talk about it is the assumption that you have to be able-bodied in order to make a difference in this world.

How many of us excuse ourselves from taking a stand or speaking up for the injustice that we see in this world? “I’m no public speaker! I can’t take the risk of doing something! I wouldn’t know where to begin!” Johnny had all the excuses, and yet he made sure that the demand for rightness and justice was heard!

Laughter

One other theme also came up over and over as we celebrated Johnny’s life and that was laughter. He had a big belly laugh that everyone found to be infectious.

And I am pretty sure that laughter was a very big part of what Jesus was talking about whenever he described the kingdom of God. That picture of a big dinner party where the dining couches were filled with “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” was always and forever a picture of a room filled with laughter.

I know that, when we think of the kingdom of God or, as it’s often put in the Gospel of Matthew, the kingdom of Heaven, we often imagine another life that comes after this one. I am sure that that was a part of what Jesus was talking about, though probably not the main part.

So, while it is good to imagine Johnny today in a new kingdom where the voiceless speak and where those who wait upon the Lord can run and not be weary, they can walk and not faint, to take comfort in that vision of the otherworldly kingdom alone would be to miss out on the dream that Jesus was trying to put before us.

He was talking about a kingdom that can break out here and now and it will happen, Jesus assures us, when we are bold to give place and honour to those whom our society has left on the margins.