CALLED TO GO WHERE?

17

And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a
crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea
and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to
hear Him and be healed of their diseases, 18as well as those who were
tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed. 19And the whole
multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and
20
healed them all.
Then He lifted up His eyes toward His
disciples, and said:

24

"Blessed are you poor,

For yours is the kingdom of God.
21
Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.
22
Blessed are you when men hate you,
And when they exclude you,
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,
For the Son of Man's sake.
23
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!
For indeed your reward is great in heaven,
For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.
"But woe to you who are rich,
For you have received your consolation.
25
Woe to you who are full,
For you shall hunger.
Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.
26
Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
For so did their fathers to the false prophets.Luke 6:17-26

Every Sunday I come here, and before the service starts we have
the announcements, then in between there and our Call to Worship, I
ask you to go through a fellowship ritual each week by saying, Greet
someone, and tell them youre happy to see them here today. This is
a practice that is very common, particularly in our denomination,
known as passing the peace. We had the same practice while I was
at my last appointment in Seneca, and it was a continual headache,
and a Worship Committee nightmare. At Seneca, we had the ritual
located in the middle of the service. Most people seemed to enjoy it,
but some considered it a disruption, complaining that its too long, or
that it gets me out of a worship spirit.

At one of our meetings, a committee member, who had already

expressed her dissatisfaction with it, suggested, Lets put it at the end
of the service, and it can be the last thing we do. Someone asked,
But wouldnt that in essence eliminate it? After all, those who will
stick around for it will not be many in number, a lot of them want to go
get a place in line at the restaurant. Just on a hunch I asked the
woman who had suggested it, Thats what youre hoping to
accomplish, isnt it? And with that direct question, she frankly
admitted that was her intention, and explained her feelings once more.
The practice was eventually rescued by what I referred to (though not
openly to them) as the bladder bunch. It turns out that three or four
people in the church had found a functional use for that time slot.
These people had problems with overactive bladder, and while
everyone else was enjoying fellowship, they were elsewhere getting
much-needed relief. For them, with the strategic timing of the
fellowship ritual, it had come to serve a functional purpose. One of
those members was our lay leader, and a member of the committee,
who wound up being the one whose opinion held sway with many of
the members.
I guess pastors never know quite what to expect from one setting
to another. But I wonder what they would have done if they had heard
me do the same as one pastor I recently read about? When they had
the customary Passing the Peace, the pastor said, I want you to
stand and greet someone, and tell them, In the name of Jesus Christ,
you should go to hell. Now, as you may guess, that pastor had a point
to make in expressing it that way. I had serious thoughts about
announcing it that way after announcements this morning. But once I
stood at the pulpit, the flesh got weak and I backed out.
I would guess all of you are familiar with the phrase WWJD. Well,
when it comes to telling people about Jesus, what would He do to reach
them? Where would He go to find them? We have one clue in the
written form of the original Apostles Creed, which some churches still
retain, but I think most have moved away from. Just after it states that
He was crucified, dead, and buried, this version states He
descended into hell. Tradition has it, based on 1 Peter 3:19, that He
went and preached to the souls in hell, saving those who would believe
in Him. So what that pastor was actually saying was: if Jesus was
willing to go to hell for others, then so should we be willing to follow
Him there.
Along that line, I can truthfully say, I would not be standing here
today had it not been for eth eefforts of those who were willing to go
into my personal self-created hell and pull me out. One was a pastor
who was there for me at the return was a lifeline for me in a lot of
ways. I have a brother about a year older than me, who was around, it
seemed, at all the right times with all the right words to say.

Chances are that there is not a single person here today who
does not knokw at least one family member or friend who is trapped in
a personal hell on earth. And the sad companion truth to that one is,
that most of us are either too busy, or too complacent, to care enough
to do something about it.
There, now Ive gone and done itIve made the pastors #1
pulpit errormotivation by guilt. Guilt is one of the poorest motivators
you can possibly find. You see, if we answer this call to go to hell as a
response to our own guilt feelings, what will happen is that the gas in
that guilt train will run out very quickly. And when it does, and our
motivation leaves town, we will feel even more guilty than before. We
will refuel the train with a larger tank than before, and we start a guilt
cycle that becomes a personal hell of a completely different variety.
We have just had another celebration of an annual holiday we
call Valentines Day. We do this to rekindle and renew the joys of
human love. And I hope that somewhere in the midst of giving thanks
for that love for one another, that we have remembered and rejoiced in
that great love that God has toward us. But more than that, I hope our
hearts are stirred and motivated by that love of the Father, to go out
and make a difference wherever the opportunity presents itself to us.
That daily presentation to us of opportunities is a mixed bag, its
something that comes to each of us individually in very different ways.
The opportunities will be different for each one, and the will of God in
relation to the desired response from us will be different.
For my own part, Ive been reminded recently that charity indeed
starts at home, as the old saying tells us. And Ive started something
this year that I really have not done, and really should have done a LOT
soonertaking field trips with the kids. It all started with Kenneth.
Most of you know already that he is in a special placement class at
Black Street Elementary School. He came home telling us about a field
trip they taking to Charles Towne Landing, and he was so excited that
for once it finally caught my attention. I told Lynn about it and it must
have struck a chord in her to discover I was going, and she decided to
make sure to get off work that day and come along.
We had a great time, of course, but it was an unexpected event,
as usual, that will stay with me. We were just enjoying the day, having
a good time with these kids, all of whom are in the class for behavioral
problems of one kind or anotherand MOST of whom are having
behavioral problems because of negative situations in the home
environment. One of these kids was a chatterbox who had already
made friends with Kenneth, and he spent the morning chattering away
with us. At the middle of the day, they stopped for lunch, and as we
sat around in the grass with the group, Brandon caught me totally offguard: Yall are my favorite parents. I didnt know what to say, so I

just simply asked him, Why do you say that? He replied, Because
you go places and do things with us.
Now, that may have been no big deal for someone else, but it
was for me, and I had to hide my face from him for a bit so he didnt
see the tears. I have no idea what Brandons home environment is,
what issues this little guy has had to face, or what kind of personal hell
his young life may have been. But theres no better feeling in the
world than knowing that for that day, for that moment, no matter what
else happened, I had, without even realizing it, made a huge difference
in a little boys world. But what REALLY struck me about it was: that
field trip that day was all we had done. And that was all it took for
Brandon to decide that we were his favorite parents.
And Brandon doesnt know it either, but he has had a
tremendous effect with his words. I told Lynn later that we would have
to go on field trips with Stephanie and Robert as well, because, as I told
her, its only fair. But I was lying about being motivated by the
fairness issuethere was a little spark of something else that got
kindled that day by a little boys words.
You know, I wish I could say that doing that sort of thing was
representative of how my life has been. But to be truthful, I have to
say that its the exception, and there are more times I can point to in
similar situations, when I did not respond. And most of the time, when
that door opens and we hesitate, and watch it close againthat
chance is forever gone. Let me say, I realize I have gone against the
grain of what this passage is saying; the passage basically says You
are blessed even when your circumstances seem to say the opposite.
But I think it is just as valid to get from these words, that you are also
blessed when you respond to similar circumstances; Yes, its an
unusual way of putting it, to say that we are called to go to hellto
enter into those dark places in peoples lives and let them know they
are loved.
This day comes to us the same as any other day comes, with
doors of opportunity waiting for us to discover whats behind them
even though some of them look like they open into hell. For the
opportunities that come your way: will you walk in? or will you let it
close, and the opportunity for blessing close with it?