The Church Out There
A constant theme and struggle I find myself coming back to again and again is to help you understand that our relationship with Jesus is both personal and corporate. Some of us tend to get the personal far better than we get the corporate and some of us get the corporate better than we get the personal. This is not an either/or equation but a both/and equation. Oft times we tend to put things into the either right or wrong category in our Christian walk and discover that as we grow in Christ there are many aspects of our relationship with Christ that are neither right nor wrong, but simply a matter of personal preference. A prime example of that lay in styles of worship. Some will go to their graves insisting that liturgical and meditative worship is the proper and only true worship. Others believe firmly that God’s Spirit works only in celebrative worship where people are shouting “hallelujah,” raising their hands in praise, dancing in the aisles, and swaying to the music in a spiritual trance-like state.
Our Scripture speaks to both our personal walk with Christ as well as who we are as a church, as a body of Christ. In Matthew 9 we find Jesus in his home turf, Galilee. We also find Jesus in hot water again. Last week we saw the issue of Jesus and the Samaritans and how James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven and destroy the hated Samaritans because of their rejection and treatment of Jesus.
We now see Jesus in his conflict with traditional Judaism. In the verses preceding our Scripture lesson, Jesus reveals His power over nature, over demons, over sin, and over sickness. In the process He made some powerful enemies among the religious leaders, the Scribes and the Pharisees.
As Jesus was leaving Capernaum he meets a tax collector by the name of Matthew, which by the way, means “God’s gift.” Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow me” and Matthew got up and followed Jesus. Would it be so easy and simple today to gain followers of Jesus! Who was this Matthew of whom so many boys are named today? We know him as a disciple of Jesus. We know he authored the first gospel about Jesus’ life. We know he was a Jew. We know he was a tax collector.
Often in Christian circles we know people in their post-Christian lives, but really don’t know too many people in their pre-Christian days. Most of what most of us know about Matthew is just what I have stated. The key to Matthew’s story is the tax-collector moniker. As a tax collector Matthew was a hated man. If you think we are overtaxed research the taxes of the Roman Empire. They had income taxes, sales taxes, road taxes, bridge taxes, grain taxes, fruit taxes, poll taxes, duty taxes, taxes for simply entering a town or harbor, pack animal taxes, wheel taxes, axle taxes, et al.
Taxes were gathered by the Roman government auctioning off a district to the highest bidder who would then have the legal authority to collect taxes from the inhabitants. The tax collector would pay Rome a certain amount of money and anything he collected over and above that amount he could keep for himself. This set up a system of great abuse and corruption. The tax collector could set any amount of tax he wanted the people to pay him. They had no rights of redress, no power of appeal, and no way of even knowing what their fair tax would even be. The tax collector became a very wealthy man.
In ancient Israel tax collectors were hated by all, not only because of their corruption and abuse, but also because they were traitors—Jews working for the hated Romans.
It was this hated, tax-collecting quisling turncoat that Jesus called by name and said, “Follow me.” And he did! Not only did Jesus invite this scum-of-the-earth lying and cheating tax collector to follow Him, but Jesus also goes to his house and has a meal with him and his sinner friends. This whole episode pitted the worldview of the Jews and the worldview of Jesus. In the view of the Pharisees the sinner had to go to the temple, go through the process of becoming ceremonially clean, and then offer the appropriate sacrifices in order to participate in God’s family. God was in the Temple and to meet Him you had to go to the Temple and do all the ritual stuff.
In this story Jesus turns that worldview completely upside-down. Instead of expecting the sinners to come to Him, Jesus goes to the sinners, meeting them on their terms, reclining at their table and eating their food. This really is no big surprise to us because this is the God we know. But in 1st century Judaism this was very big deal. Jesus doesn’t seem to care that He is breaking several Jewish taboos. Why is that? Because people are more important than traditions. Healing the sick is more important than protocol. Exposing failed religion is more important than methods and procedures. The people are sick and they need a doctor. In dining with Matthew and his sinner friends Jesus is bringing the Kingdom of God right into Matthew’s house and right to the dinner table.
While Matthew and his friends are impressed that Jesus is there with them, this act only deepens the suspicions and animosity of the religious leaders of the day. In response to their complaints, Jesus drops a kind of bombshell that would rock their world as we read in verse 12, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.”
Several years ago the movie, “Field of Dreams” popularized the saying, “If you build it, they will come.” [show clip of this movie] That might work in the movies, but it doesn’t work for churches. Sometimes people and even pastors think that if we build a beautiful new sanctuary or Family Life Center or remodel the nursery or beautify the women’s bathroom, then hundreds maybe thousands of people will join our church. Now any new building brings a certain level of curiosity and excitement. Watching the building of the promenade of Howard Andrew’s land on Cross Keys road is neat to see as we drive by. Being able to shop at Target and Lowes right in our own neighborhood has a certain wonderful quality about it. Each time we added a new addition to our church there was added curiosity, interest and excitement.
But what if a new restaurant was built. You watched it take shape and finally the day of grand opening came. With great anticipation, you parked in the lot, and walked through the front doors. Lots of people were there midst the balloons and decorations of their gala grand opening. It is a beautifully restaurant with the latest of technological wonders. You wait for about 45 minutes to be seated and notice that there seem to be view workers. Finally someone brings water and you notice the glasses are dirty and some strange looking things are floating in the water. Eventually you get the menu and are stunned to discover only 5 entrees. Coffee is the only beverage offered. You make your selection. A little over an hour later your meal arrives. You quickly discover it is cold and tastes like heated up left over cardboard. After paying your bill with no tip, you leave vowing to never go back to that restaurant.
A beautiful building does not a restaurant make. Nor a beautiful building does not a church make. It’s not about the building. It’s about what happens in the building. That is the heart and soul of the building. People may initially come but do they return, do they stay? Many people have this same mindset when it comes to the church. Form without substance never wins the day. That is why even today huge and absolutely gorgeous cathedrals and churches are nearly empty because the “have the form of religion, but not its power.” There is no substance and nothing of value that is offered the people.
The church is about people not about buildings. Buildings and even programs are a means to an end, not an end themselves. And yet we often sanctify buildings, worship services, worship times, worship places and like the Pharisees care more about our own needs than the people to whom and for whom Jesus came.
The Pharisees show their true colors and their ignorance in asking in verse 11, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answer is simple yet quite profound (verse 13), “Go learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Jesus goes to where the sinners are and reclines at their tables and eats their food. He is directly challenging the whole Temple worship tradition and spends much of his ministry “out there” among the people where the real human need is. Our great physician, Jesus, makes house calls.
The temptation and natural drift of every church is to focus primarily on itself and to “take care of ourselves first.” It’s that carnal nature again impacting and influencing the body of Christ. What usually happens is that we only take care of ourselves and never get around to taking care of those outside our church who are the sinners, lost to God’s love and bound for a Jesus-less eternity in hell. Do we even care? We are not a private club. We are the body of Christ—His hands, His feet, His mouth, His ears, His mind, and His heart. We go where He would go. We do what He would do.
Where did Jesus go? To sinners. To the unchurched. To the outcasts. To the bikers as well as the jet-set. To Camden and to Palm Beach. To the hurting, lost and lonely people wherever they are who desperately need Jesus. In fact Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came we would do even greater things than He did.
Jesus caused the disciples and the religious leaders to think outside the box and to move out of their comfort zones. Where is God at work? What is He doing? Our job is to discover where God is at work, and to join Him in what He is already doing. We call this prevenient grace. God is already at work in our world ‘out there,’ beyond the walls of our church.
Our job is to get beyond the walls of our church building and join God’s Spirit in what He is already doing—out there!