Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost Sunday
May 27, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS
Acts 2
Luke 14:16-23
If there had been a theme song for the Day of Pentecost I think it might have been “Takin’ It To The Streets,” made famous in the 1970's by the Doobie Brothers.* “Takin’ it to the streets” is exactly what the early church did.
Have you ever realized how much of the book of Acts takes place outside the synagogue, outside the homes that would have served as gathering places for the church? That’s one reason I wanted us to gather outside today - to be reminded that while everyone needs time in a sanctuary, our calling is out here.
In the parable we heard a few moments ago Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like the giving of a great feast. He tells of a man who once gave a dinner party and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet the man sent his servants to tell those who had been invited to come, for the feast was ready.
Those invited said yes to the initial invitation, but when the time came for the feast they all began to make excuses as to why they could not come.
And so, the master is left with th grills all fired up, lots of food already prepared, the big brass band all tuned-up and ready to play, and no one shows. So he says, Go out into the streets and invite the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame - those who cannot repay you.
And they did. But even then the hall was not filled. The master didn’t want one scrap of food or one note of music wasted. So he said, Go out again, this time outside the city into the highways and byways, and compel the people to come in that my house may be filled.
That’s what God wants - the house filled!
It’s an amazing scene. All the VIPs said no. But the people who never thought they’d be invited to a feast said yes. The urban poor and the rural poor, the red light district and the nursing home residents, the homeless sleeping under bridges, and those who’ve spend the night in bars. It was these who said yes to God’s invitation.
It’s the craziest assortment of people you’ve ever seen. Some have never seen champagne, some have seen too much. Some have never seen green punch or those fancy sandwiches with the crust cut off. They’d scraped garbage cans for the crust. Others have never seen a whole roast of beef. They looked at the caviar and thought the cottage cheese had gone bad. They looked at each other and laughed at this crazy fortune that had come their way.
People who had been the hired servants in the kitchen are now the honored guests. The band is playing. On the dance floor, steps never seen before are being invented. Keep bringing them in, shouts the host, I want my house full!
I can’t help but see this as a parable of our mission today, a calling to invite to God’s table and God’s house anybody and everybody who needs the love of God. Especially those who cannot repay us.
Three women at a Presbyterian church in California began to pray for the kingdom of God to break into their lives in new ways. They were led to help an under-resourced school in East Palo Alto, a community that once led the nation in murders per capita.
They prayed and planned and came up with a challenge: to have one thousand people from their church and community to give up a day to plant trees and tile floors and paint murals at this school. They eventually had to cut off sign-ups at twelve hundred people because they couldn’t handle any more volunteers. The best part, they said, was watching God at work in ways none of them could have planned.
A young coed was visiting their church from college and heard about the plan, went back to school, told her sorority, and they ended up not only with over a thousand people from their congregation, but thirty sorority sisters. That meant that scores of single young males suddenly felt God prompting them to serve also.
An East Palo Alto city official heard about the plans and told the store manager of a nearby coffee shop they should donate coffee for all these people on Saturday morning. The guy said, “Okay.” “You ought to deliver it too,” the official said. The guy said, “Okay.”
The three women went to Home Depot and told the Home Depot guy what they were up to and then said: “We need $10,000 worth of equipment. We don’t have any money for this - you ought to just donate it.” And the Home Depot guy said, “Okay.” So they got $10,000 worth of material free.
They were talking to another woman who did not attend their church, but by the end of the conversation, the school ended up getting $20,000 worth of playground material free.
For a whole day there was music blaring and balloons flying and five-year-olds serving next to eighty-five-year-olds and people working together from churches of every stripe and ethnicity. People said it was the most joyous day they had ever seen a church have.
These three women have actually adopted a mission statement for their friendship that leaves most mission statements in the dust. It goes like this: “To identify our neighbors’ greatest needs, and surprise our church into hilarious giving by providing impact-full, totally happenin’ and celebratory opportunities to serve.” (John Ortberg, God Is Closer Than You Think, Zondervan, 2005, 177-179)
That’s what it looks like when the church takes the love of God to the streets.
It can be that big. Or it can be small acts of kindness, compassion and acceptance.
Think of the people who live out here on the streets around us - Birchwood and Bayly, Hite and Hillcrest - think about what their lives are like.
Couples just married looking for help in their new life together.
People single and married with babies and small children needing support, guidance, and a rest every once in a while.
Others whose spouses have died, alone now, trying to adapt to a new way of life.
Or the man or woman caring for their feeble, aging spouse.
There are gay couples having heard so much hatred or at best conditioned acceptance from the church wondering if God loves them after all - they need a faith community where they can find God’s welcoming embrace.
There are single people looking for a group of friends.
Others wanting more than their job offers, wanting their lives to be significant and meaningful, searching for a purpose to serve greater than themselves.
And you have to know these streets are full of people in great pain - divorced, addicted, lonely, abused - most of it hidden - in need of healing and hope.
There’s a big sign on the fence across the street at St. Joseph’s: “Foster Parents Needed.” Children longing for a place to call home.
People all over this neighborhood just waiting, desperately hoping for the kingdom of God to break into their lives, though they may not call it that. People waiting for an invitation to a party where they can find the love and acceptance of God and a community of faith.
In Frederick Buechner’s novel, Love Feast, the main character Leo Bebb is a fly by night evangelist with a heart of gold and a shady past. He’s moved his Church of Holy Love Inc. from Florida to Princeton, New Jersey, where he seeks to evangelize the Pepsi generation. He decides to throw a Thanksgiving Meal for all those on the Princeton University campus who have no place to go during the holidays. He put flyers all over town.
But when the meal was hot and ready to serve on Thanksgiving Day just a handful of students showed up. Bebb stood in the empty hall with his handful of volunteers and read this parable about the Great Feast and said, “Let’s see if we can round-up a houseful and be back inside in an hour.”
They did, and an hour later the place was swarming with the most unlikely collection of people you’d ever see: old blue-haired ladies, members of the student atheist society, street people and college kids hung over from the party the night before, runaway teenagers, nuns, and Daughters of the American Revolution.
And when Leo Bebb stood to speak, this is what came out of his mouth:
He said, The Kingdom of Heaven is like a great feast. That’s the way of it. The Kingdom of Heaven is a love feast where nobody’s a stranger. Like right here.
There’s strangers everywheres else you can think of.
There’s strangers was born twin brothers out of the same womb.
There’s strangers was raised together in the same town and worked side by side all their life through.
There’s strangers got married and been climbing in and out of the same fourposter thirty-five, forty years, and they’re strangers still.
And Jesus, it’s like most of the time he is a stranger too. But here in this place there’s no strangers, and Jesus, he isn’t a stranger either. The Kingdom of Heaven’s like this.
He said, “We all got secrets. I got them same as everybody else - things we feel bad about and wish hadn’t happened. Hurtful things. Long ago things. We’re all scared and lonesome, but most of the time we keep it hid.
It’s like everyone of us has lost his way so bad we don’t even know which way is home any more only we’re ashamed to ask. You know what would happen if we would own up we’re lost and ask?
Why, what would happen is we’d find out home is each other. We’d find out home is that Jesus loves us lost or found or any which way.”
Jesus wants you here, in his house, at his table, poor and maimed, lame and blind, lonesome and stranger, gay or straight, conservative or liberal, young or old, married or single, divorced or widowed, lost or found or any which way. He wants you home.
And if you come home, really come home to yourself and to Jesus, you’ll find a great feast of welcoming grace waiting for you, and you’ll be surprised to look around and see who’s come for dinner.
We’re all invited to the feast. The food’s ready. The music’s playing. There’s a place for you here. God wants his house filled.
So let’s take the love of God to the streets and see the kingdom of God break out all over the place.
* The Doobie Brothers, "Takin' It to the Streets", 1976, Warner Bros. Records Inc.
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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