Is there anyone in here, anyone at all, who has
any idea what the title of this sermon means?
See if this gives you any clue. (Jim Hicks plays
the opening 2 lines of “Mission Impossible” theme
song.) Is it becoming any clearer? It was one of
my all time favorite television shows growing up
and I do not care if he has gone over the edge a
bit with his Scientology, anti-depressant campaign,
and jumping up and down on sofas on national
television, Tom Cruise is still one of my favorite
actors. When he signed on to bring the
legendary character of Ethan Hunt to the big
screen for the Mission Impossible movie series, I
was elated. Now, in less then a month—May 5th
to be exact—Mission Impossible, or MI-3, will be
exploding, quite literally, into a theater near you.
I am such a sap, but I love the way they start the
show with the match and the fuse lighting. On
the television show it would always be a tape recorder
playing with that masculine and mysterious
voice stating, “Your mission, should you
choose to accept it…” after which that voice
would detail some impossible task that usually
involved saving or restoring world peace. The
tape recorded instructions always ended with that
great line, “This tape will self destruct in 5 seconds.”
I love it!
Okay, so you may be wondering what Tom
Cruise and self-destructing tapes have to do with
Palm Sunday? I think it is a fair question. The
answer is really quite simple. It seems to me that
that first Palm Sunday, Jesus was on a near impossible
mission. By that I mean, how do you
ask someone to willingly walk into their death like
that?
Sure, the week started out great. Today is all
about joy and celebration - the kind of day when
children parade into the sanctuary carrying palms
and banners and beating on drums. It is an
amazing story. Jesus travels from rural Galilee in
the north to Jerusalem to join thousands of pilgrims
who are flocking into the big city to observe
the Passover, the celebration of the nation’s liberation
from slavery in Egypt centuries earlier.
The crowds are festive and patriotic. The Roman
occupation forces are guarded and nervous.
Even the Roman governor has come from his palace
in Caesarea to take charge in case there is a
civil disturbance. In those days, on Passover,
there frequently was a disturbance of some sort.
Then you have Jesus with this sense of determination;
like a man on a…well…on a mission. Jesus
and his group arrive at the outskirts of the city
and he begins to act peculiarly, deliberately: “Go
into the village, get the colt, and bring it to me.”
What is that about? Jesus has been walking for
days – and now he needs a donkey for the last
few miles? But they all know what is going on.
They know exactly what he is doing. Everyone in
Jerusalem would have recognized it immediately;
it was their deepest hope; a promise that was always
on their lips especially over Passover…the
words of the prophet Zechariah:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud,
O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to
you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and
riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
—Zech. 9:9
The crowd, already giddy with patriotic fervor,
knew exactly what was happening. At last – at
long last – the king is coming. This is it. The
Messiah is here. They strip branches from the
trees and the shirts off their backs to make a
royal carpet for the king. It was a clear Messianic
gesture. Whatever Jesus had communicated
about his mission before this day, he was making
it crystal clear now. He was the Messiah
they had all been waiting for.
Jesus also knew what that meant for him personally.
He knew exactly what was going to
happen to him there, just as we all do. Today is
such an ambivalent day, isn’t it? A few years
ago I went to see a thriller film at the theaters
and every time the good guy was about to walk
into a trap or some dangerous situation, there
was this very vocal woman sitting in the back
row who kept yelling out, “Don’t do it! Don’t go in
there!” Well, that is exactly the way I feel on this
day. I want to say, “Jesus, don’t do it! Don’t go
in there! You don’t know what is going to happen
in there.” But, of course, He does. That is
the impossible part. Jesus sees it all; the shouts
of joy, the cheers, the adulation, but also the
shouts for his death, the betrayal, the abandonment,
the suffering, the heartache and the cross.
How did he do it? What gave him the strength to
stick to His impossible mission?
In the smallest way, I was given a little clue
when I interned for a year in South Africa. I have
always been such a coward most of my life. I
was a total scaredy-cat. I think I told you all this
once before when I talked about being the only
bouncer I knew who had never been in a fight. I
have always avoided any kind of danger. However,
throughout my entire year in South Africa, I
had a courage that I never knew existed in me. I
felt that the things we were doing were so important—
that they made such a difference—that
literally the danger did not bother me. It was as
if the danger did not even matter anymore. My
Mom absolutely hated it. She would hear these
crazy stories about me—stories of me getting
caught in a gun fight in one of the townships,
getting detained by the security police or having
to lie on the floor under the window of my bedroom
in the middle of the night because there
was a gunfight in the street just outside my
apartment—and she would be beside herself.
One time I had a gang of teenage thugs grab me
at an ANC rally. They dragged me behind a set
of bleachers, put a knife to my throat, and threatened
to kill me. An old black man came by,
screamed at them, chased them off, and was
kind enough to stick around to make sure I was
okay. Normally that kind of thing would have me
climbing on a plane back home the next day, but
I was back at the next rally, the next week, without
hesitation because I felt that I was doing the
most important work of my life. I felt like I was a
part of history. I felt like I was on a mission, and
somehow the mission took away the fear.
Today is our final sermon based on the book we
have been reading together through Lent, The
Purpose Driven Life. According to the author,
Rick Warren, we were all made for a mission. In
fact, he says the mission is a common one and it
is the fifth and final purpose for which we were
created. Our mission is to tell the world what we
have discovered about God in Jesus Christ, to
reach out and share with the world, one person
at a time, the difference that God has made in
our lives, and to invite others to come and see
for themselves what God can do.
Plain and simple, this is why the church exists.
Sometimes it is easy to forget the fact that we do
not exist for ourselves. Let me say that again
because it may be the most important thing you
will ever hear in church. We do not exist for ourselves.
We exist for them; for those who are not
here yet. You see, once we have discovered the
freedom of that forgiveness, once we have felt
that deep sense of peace, hope and joy, and experienced
the cleansing and new life that occurs
by knowing God, then it just makes sense that
everything else we do here is ultimately to prepare
us to go out and share that good news with
the rest of the world. It is the Great Commandment
and the Great Commission all rolled into
one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
mind, soul and strength, love your neighbor as
yourself and go out into the whole world and let
everyone you meet know that the living God of
the universe is madly in love with them. Telling
others about God is one of the greatest purposes
for which we were created.
Trust me, it is not as if I don’t know how scary
that is. I mean, come on, we’re Presbyterian!
Most of us would probably rather walk into a
gunfight in a South African township than talk to
people about our relationship with God. However,
it becomes a lot less scary when we allow
ourselves to focus on three simple truths, truths
that took away my fear in South Africa and, I
suspect, made it a heck of a lot easier for Jesus
on that first Palm Sunday.
The first is to simply remember the difference
that God has made in your life. It is so easy, especially
if you have believed in God for a long
time, to forget what life was like before you became
a Christian. When we take the time to
really remember what it was like before and the
things that have come into our life since, it is
natural for us to begin to want others to have
what has been given to us as a free gift.
The second is that we need to understand and
really believe in the difference that God can
make in others’ lives. If God’s presence in your
life has done anything for you, then it is a simple
fact that it can do at least as much for anyone
you meet. Too often we deceive ourselves by
thinking that, even though we are spiritually hungry,
most of the people we meet could not possibly
have the same questions about life, the same
spiritual curiosity, struggles, needs or hopes that
we do. The truth is, we are all spiritual beings,
and even those who do not seem to care have
all the same questions we do.
Do any of you watch the show, “Grey’s Anatomy?”
It is a great show about this group of
young surgery interns. The other week, in one
of the story lines, a rescue worker and a woman
were brought in to the emergency room with a
big fat metal pipe impaled through both of them.
As long as they remained still and left the pipe in
place, they were both alive and conscious because
the pipe kept them from bleeding too
much and kept their internal organs in place.
They knew, however, that in order to save the
man’s life, whose organs were the less damaged
of the two, they would have to pull the pipe out,
and the minute they pulled the pipe out, the
woman would instantly die. In a powerful moment
of prime time television, the two sit together,
facing each other, holding each other’s
arms, while the doctors prepare to pull the pipe
out. The woman knows she is going to die and
she asks the man, “Do you believe in God?” He
says, “Yes, I do….do you?” She looks into his
eyes, her own eyes filled with tears and says, “I
want to.” The camera shot remains still, centered
on her face. I could not believe it. I could
not believe they put that on television. It was so
real and so poignant. We are spiritual beings.
We all have a deep spiritual hunger. The truth is
that the people you know at work, in your family,
in your community and in your life will never
grow too sophisticated, modern or worldly to
stop wanting God to exist.
Finally, we need to remember always that we
are God’s witnesses, not God’s attorneys. As
Rick Warren puts it, “In a courtroom, a witness
isn’t expected to argue the case, prove the truth,
or press for a verdict; that is the job of the attorneys.
Witnesses simply report what happened
to them or what they saw.” That is so important.
We are not being asked to convince anyone of
anything. That is God’s job. All we are asked to
do is tell people about the difference that God
has made in our lives and then invite them to
come and see for themselves. It is our experience
that is going to draw people to find out
more, not our arguments. Warren says, “Your
personal story is much more effective than a sermon.
[I am sure he meant except for this sermon.]
Because those who are checking us out
see pastors as professional sales people, but
see you as a ‘satisfied customer,’ so they give
you more credibility.”
Let me close with a touching story Tony Campolo
tells about a young handicapped kid named
Billy with whom he became acquainted when he
was counseling a Jr. High Summer Camp as a
young pastor. Campolo says that all the other
kids made fun of Billy because of his deformed
and somewhat spastic limbs that he dragged
behind him and because of a serious speech
impediment that caused him to slur his words.
Never did a day go by that the other kids did not
tease Billy or mimic his gestures. The kids
thought it was hilarious. One day, Tony saw
Billy ask some of the kids for directions,
“Which……way …is….the craft shop?” The boy
he asked mocked him, drawing up his arms and
saying, “It’s over….there…..Billy boy.” The cruelest
prank occurred the day Billy’s cabin was
assigned to lead morning devotions in front of
the entire camp. All of the kids in Billy’s cabin
thought it would be pretty funny to vote Billy in as
their speaker. They could not wait for him to get
up there in front of everybody so they could be
entertained by his struggling attempts to say
anything at all. Campolo said that when he
found out about their plans, he was furious and
tried to stop it, but Billy actually insisted on being
the speaker. When the time came, Billy dragged
himself up to the podium as waves of snickers
flowed over the audience. When he got up
there, it was a complete struggle. It took Billy
almost a whole minute to say these three simple
phrases. “Je…sus….loves…..me.
And….I….love….Je…sus. And Je…sus…
loves…..you too.” When he finished there was
stunned silence. Tony said he looked out and
saw Junior High kids with tears streaming down
their faces. He said that of the entire professional,
interesting, and funny speakers that had
come in that week, including a Philadelphia
Phillies player, no one had the impact that Billy
did. Even years later Campolo was still running
into adults all over Philadelphia who would tell
him that they had been at that camp and become
a Christian because of Billy.
You and I have been given a mission. It is a
mission to go out and let the whole world know
of the hope that we have found in Jesus Christ.
We do not have to be articulate. We do not have
to be convincing. We do not even have to be
clear. We just need to be honest. We must let
people know the difference that God has made
in our life, to believe he can make a difference in
theirs and then to be willing to simply tell our
story and then get out of the way. Let God do
the rest. Our mission impossible will become so
much more possible and so much less scary
than we ever would have dreamed possible!
AMEN |
“MI-3”
The Purpose Driven Life #6