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May 25, 2008AM
Mark 3:1-6
COMMUNION – AN ATTITUDE CHECK
Gathering around the communion table challenges us to evaluate our attitudes.
Those attitudes we have toward others.
Some attitudes are so subtle we don’t even register them as attitudes.
Others are so blatant that no one can miss them.
We are familiar with attitudes of segregation, bigotry, racism, discrimination.
Those attitudes are accompanied with horrific stories.
Stories of tension that led to violence and often ended in murders.
Tension escalated with the Montgomery Transit bus boycott in 1955.
Rosa Parks was sitting in a seat where a white person was waiting to sit.
Birmingham, Alabama was nicknamed Boomingham because of frequent bombings.
Headlines of Sept. 15, 1963 read: A bomb, planted by white supremacists, rips through Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sunday morning as five 11-14 year old girls prepare to participate in a children's service. Four of the girls are killed, the fifth girl is seriously injured.
Between 1948 and 1965, over two hundred Black churches and homes in the
Deep South were bombed.
It affected where they could seat or eat.
It affected where they could drink or think.
It affected where they could stop or shop.
It affected where they could earn or learn.
It was attitude - "the white way of life".
We shudder over how people treated other people.
People who later gathered at the Lord’s Table.
How could they claim to remember the life of Jesus?
We are confident we would never treat people like that.
We would never have that kind of attitude toward other people.
Or do we?
Answer honestly because you are going to be invited to the Lord’s table.
Is our attitude so different today?
I just need to mention a single word and it all floods back.
It is a word I have never used in a sermon before.
I have to ask myself why?
I think I know the answer.
It is my anticipation of people’s attitudes.
It is a word that creates controversy.
I do not say this word for shock value.
I say it because it will expose attitudes, your attitudes and mine.
Homosexuality.
How the homosexual is treated is much like the blacks 60 years ago.
There is segregation, hatred, name calling.
There is abuse and physical beatings.
I struggle over my reactions and thoughts.
Can I love a homosexual with God’s love?
Does a homosexual deserve my love?
Jesus’ table confronts me on my attitudes.
Homosexuality is a reality in my day-to-day ministry.
I have friends who are dealing with homosexuality in their families.
I have co-workers who deal with homosexuality.
Whose life hasn’t been touched by this lifestyle?
I have acquaintances who are homosexual as do most of us.
It confronts us in the newspaper, on the television, and in our local schools.
It can tear apart friendships, churches, and homes.
Can you honestly label your attitude?
Do you become angry?
Are you repulsed?
Do you respond with outright rejection?
At one time homosexuality was dismissed with a simple “it’s wrong.”
Some respond with name calling, jokes, or clichés.
Some are beaten, fired, expelled.
These attitudes and responses are neither helpful nor Christ-like.
As a pastor I am called to a Christ-like response.
Every disciple is called to a Christ-like response.
When Jesus responded to society’s outcasts what did He do?
What attitudes does He look for?
We find several in our Scripture this morning.
I Jesus looks for the attitude of GRACE.
Grace is an essential attitude because when sin abounds grace must also abound.
Grace is moving outside the box of expectation.
There were some boxes around Jesus that day in the synagogue.
One of the boxes was the box of legalism.
It was the Sabbath.
The Sabbath carried with it certain expectations.
Some things were permissible, some were not.
It was entirely unacceptable to do any work on the Sabbath.
That was a violation of one of the big 10.
The man with the withered hand should have remained that way.
It was the Pharisees’ responsibility to make sure the law was obeyed.
And they tried to box up Jesus in the law.
But grace is greater than the law.
Grace could do what the law was powerless to do.
With grace Jesus reached out to the handicapped man.
He did not deserve it, nor did He expect it.
Jesus would have responded to the homosexual the same way.
They need the attitude of grace.
Let me tell you where the Church of the Nazarene stands on human sexuality.
We view human sexuality as one expression of the holiness and beauty that God the
Creator intended for His creation.
In marriage human sexuality can and ought to be sanctified by God.
Sexuality misses its purpose when treated as an end in itself.
It is cheapened by using another person for pornographic and perverted sexual
interests.
Any form of sexual intimacy outside the covenant of heterosexual marriage is a
sinful distortion of the holiness and beauty God intended for it.
Homosexual practices are sinful distortions of God created sexuality.
It is a lifestyle contrary to the holy life instructed in Scripture.
It is sin, so grace is required.
Grace is moving outside the box of expectation.
Loving with an unconditional love.
The grace of God is sufficient to overcome the practice of homosexuality.
Jesus desires the attitude of grace around His Table.
Are you extending grace today?
Is there anyone from who you have been withholding grace?
II Jesus secondly looks for the attitude of DOING GOOD.
He asked, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm?
Jesus is looking for people of virtue.
People who do good no matter the cost.
It might leave you unpopular but if it is the right thing to do it is good.
Virtue requires courage.
Virtue requires strength.
To do good is not for cowards or the weak.
It is tough rugged work to do good.
Jesus knew that well.
To do good to the man with the withered hand was His death sentence.
The Pharisees went out and looked for a way to destroy Jesus.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who did good.
He was a man of virtue and stood up for the right.
He was a Baptist pastor who rejected racism and discrimination.
He had a dream of a different society.
He became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
He was one of the greatest public speakers America has seen.
He defended the poor and segregated.
Because he was good his house was bombed.
He was arrested during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956.
He was assassinated April 4, 1968.
Jesus is looking for the attitude of doing good.
Grace results in doing good.
The Church of the Nazarene believes that every man or woman should be treated with dignity, grace, and holy love.
Their sexual orientation does not determine that response.
God’s heart breaks over all sinners.
The New Testament lists homosexual behaviour among other sinful behaviours such
as drunkenness, greed, lying, and gossiping.
Extending grace to the homosexual begins with allowing God to love them through
you.
Our hearts break with what is breaking God’s heart.
And that brings us to another attitude Jesus watches for.
III As Jesus looked around He was grieved at their HARDNESS OF HEART.
Jesus is angered by a hard, graceless, harmful heart.
I wonder how He feels when that kind of heart comes to receive His broken body
and shed blood?
How does He feel when the emblems of grace and good are handled
hardheartedly?
How does He handle a heart that does not break when His is breaking?
When someone says there is no room here for you how does Jesus respond?
He looks on the hard hearted with anger, but with no less love.
Have you checked your attitude today?
Is there someone to whom you are being hard-hearted?
It may have nothing to do with sexual orientation.
Some day I will come back to this topic.
There is much more that needs to be said.
But it does expose our attitudes.
Does GRACE dominate your attitude by taking you outside the box of
expectation?
Does GOOD dominate your attitude no matter the cost?
Does a harm generating HARDNESS OF HEART dominate your attitude?
May your time spent in communion with Jesus supply you with an added measure of grace and goodness that melts the hardness of heart!