Beware of Strangers

Written by Pastor Ed

To listen to the German service with speaker Eugen Rast, click on the link below:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/1-8-12%20Ger.MP3

To listen to Pastor Ed's Sermon, click on the following link:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/1-8-12%20Ser.mp3

Or you can simply read Pastor Ed's sermon below:

Beware of Strangers

January 8, 2012

Isaiah 60: 1-6

Matthew 2: 1-12

I wonder if God knew who would spot that star in the East and come looking for the Christ child?  Or I wonder if God cared who did?

Stewart McLean, Canada’s Garrison Keillor, tells the story of Dave’s neighbour Ted, who Mclean calls a “bicycle evangelist.”  Ted would talk to anyone about the joys of bicycling, its health benefits, and so on.  And he owned numerous bikes, including a fancy racing bike that was Italian made and light as a feather.  Dave had listened to Ted so often that he became a convert, and one day at a garage sale bought a whole biking outfit, shorts, helmet and special shoes that clip into the bike’s pedals.  Of course, he didn’t have a bike, but he looked good.

One day, according to the story, Dave spotted Ted’s car at the local coffee shop.  He knew it was Ted’s car because Ted’s racing bike was sitting on top, and Dave thought how nice it would be just to sit on the bike – get a feel for what it would be like to actually ride.  He knew Ted would be in the coffee shop for some time, so he hurried home and got into his biking outfit and then went back and crawled up on Ted’s car, and climbed on the bike.  And it felt good, and right.

But just then, Ted came out of the coffee shop and with his head down, climbed into his car, not noticing the man sitting on the bike, on top of his car.  And when Dave, in his haste, pressed his foot on the pedal to get off, the special shoes clicked into place, just like they were supposed to – and when he shifted his weight, the other one clicked in too!  And Ted began driving to the country to take a bike ride.  Well, you can perhaps imagine the rest of the story.  Dave eventually ended up on the hood of the car, the bicycle ended up under the wheels of the car, and Ted thought he had killed a bike rider.

But McLean ends the story with this moral:  Be careful who you preach to, because you never know who you might convert.  It’s a good lesson but, I would suggest, for perhaps a different reason that McLean offers.

The story of the three Wise Men or Magi has fascinated people for centuries.  Who they were is a mystery, although many scholars have settled on Zoroastrian astrologers from the area of Persia.  But we don’t know for sure.  Did they all come together, or were they drawn to Bethlehem from different places, like the people drawn to Devil’s Tower in the classic movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind?”  And of course there is much speculation about the star.

But three strangers show up, first in Jerusalem and eventually in Bethlehem.  And they must have caused quite a stir in that small town.  If you’ve ever lived in a small town you know that strangers are soon spotted.  Garrison Keillor says that in a small town you don’t need to use your turn signals, because everyone already knows where you’re going.   But strangers are different.  And the magi were certainly different.  They were Gentiles, to begin with and undoubtedly dressed and looked different from the locals.  If, as they are often portrayed, they arrived in a camel caravan, it would have created quite a stir!  I can imagine people peeping out from behind their curtains to see who was going by.  Someone ran into the local café to tell everyone about the strangers in town and see if anyone knew who they were.  Perhaps someone even called the local constable to report them, suggesting they should maybe be checked out to see if they were on legitimate business and how long they planned to stay.  Children may have been warned not to talk to them. “Beware of strangers!”

But God didn’t seem to care who showed up!  After all, a star in the sky is a pretty public display.  You can’t target a star to one particular group or locality.  In fact, if you don’t take into account time differences, a star can be seen by anyone in the same hemisphere and this one, presumably near the equator, would have been widely visible.  So God seemed to be advertising to the whole world!  And sure enough, some strangers showed up!

Yet we shouldn’t be surprised at God’s open invitation.  After all, God had made it fairly plain from the beginning, with the call of Abram, that Israel was called as a people, not just to be special people, a great nation unto themselves, but as a blessing to the nations.  And Isaiah reinforced that message again and again.  In chapter 60 which we read this morning, the returned exiles are reminded that the light they have received is not just for them.

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” (Is. 60:1) That must have trilled the returned exiles.  Now God would shine on them and restore them.  But wait – the message goes on.  “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” Is. 60:3)  But what if we don’t want the nations to come?  What if we want to keep the light to ourselves?  But, they are told, if you aren’t a light to the nations – the Old Testament word for anyone who wasn’t a Jew – then you weren’t being true to your calling as the people of God.

The same can be said for the church.  In Ephesians, a passage of scripture assigned for today’s lessons which we didn’t read, Paul notes that it is through the church that the mystery of God is to be revealed to everyone.  Jesus called his followers to be lights set on a hill, not put under a basket.  “Let your light so shine that others may see your good works and give glory to God.”  (Matt 5:16)  At Jesus’ birth, God put a light in the sky for anyone to see, and didn’t really care who showed up!

One of the reasons, I suspect, that many churches don’t evangelize much is precisely because, as Stewart McLean suggests, they aren’t sure who might show up.  And we’d like to have some control over that.  This whole idea that the “Spirit blows where it wills” is a bit scary.  And if we let our light shine too brightly, well, you never know who might see it.

It might be immigrants who don’t speak English very well.  It might be people of another race, or nationality.  It might be poor people or persons with disabilities.  Heavens – it might be sinners!  Oh, wait – all of us would fit into at least one of those categories.

One congregation I pastored seemed for a time to move from one crisis to another among its members.  A member was charged with sexual assault of minors.  Gary had been a thalidomide baby, born with numerous physical handicaps and at an early age placed in a state mental institution by his parents.  He had been rescued from there by volunteers who had recognized that he wasn’t mentally handicapped, and indeed with some help became quite skilled in woodworking.  But yes, he had abused some young boys.  There were several single parents with a variety of emotional and other needs, as well as some long-standing issues that threatened at times to break out in conflict.

People in the congregation sometimes wondered whether they could handle any more.  Yet, as I often told them, having to deal with all that meant the church was fulfilling its mission.  Where else should those people be but in church, with a supportive community around them?  If we keep the light to ourselves, we aren’t being the church.  In this season of Epiphany, we are reminded that Jesus came as a light to the world – the whole world! 

We, the church, are to be like the star.  God has placed the church in the world to point people to Jesus, just as that first star pointed the magi.  And God doesn’t care who shows up because God invites everyone.  God doesn’t tend to notice the distinctions we draw or pay attention to our prejudices and assumptions.

One of the ideas I heard at the church planting event I attended in Winnipeg in November was about the Lord’s Table, what we often call communion.  The suggestion, actually made by several speakers, was that communion, the Lord’s Table, should be seen as a place where we encounter Jesus and as such, we should invite anyone who is interested in encountering Jesus to come and participate, whether they have made any commitments yet or not.  It’s an intriguing idea, which I’m not quite ready to embrace fully because I think there are some other elements to our celebration that don’t fit that model, but it’s been ruminating ever since I heard it.

How and where do we invite people to encounter Jesus?  Do we restrict our preaching, our light, to only those we want to associate with, or are we willing to let our lights shine and accept whoever shows up?  As we begin a new year, and as we share together in this Lord’s table, may we remember that Christ died for all.  That God “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.”  And that God set a star in the heavens to announce the birth. 

So, with all due respect to McLean, bicycle evangelists might need to be careful who they preach to, but as Christians, our light should shine brightly, ready to welcome whoever shows up – whether strangers from the east or the poor person from down the street, or the rich man from the suburbs.  All are welcome as God acts in unexpected ways.