February 28, 2011
Christ United Methodist Church
“Christ in the Heart of San Diego”
3295 Meade Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116
(619) 284-9205
Pastorgraphs: "I was sick and in prison, and you came to me.”
(I took a “vacation” from the E-Vangel last week, enjoying the Presidents’ Day holiday with Anita.)
Yesterday, I finished the sermon series entitled, “Christ in the Concrete City”. These last two sermons focused on “visiting” the sick and the imprisoned. These commands to visit are the ones that evoke the most guilt to the average Christian, for most do less in these areas than in any other (feeding the hungry and thirsty, befriending the stranger, clothing the naked). Or am I speaking for myself?
I recall when ministers spent half their work week at the hospital. In many communities, the pastor made his or her “daily rounds” just like the doctors. When I was a pastor in Atlanta, I would spend an entire day just driving from one hospital to another over that vast city to visit sick church members.
In Jesus’ day there were no hospitals such as we have now. A closer look at the word “visit” here reveals “caring for” more so than knocking on the sick room door. It means plowing a sick man’s fields when he is unable, cooking meals, cleaning house and caring for small children for the bed-ridden mother. That is not to minimize the importance of visiting, but refocuses the purpose of the visit.
Likewise, prisons are different today. Back then, many innocent people were thrown into jail for such things as debts and making the powerful angry. Still, we have an obligation to visit those who are in prison, even the most hardened prisoners. That is not easy. I recall in Green Bay visiting the maximum security prison on Sunday afternoons with my laymen. These were the worst of the worst criminals. I can still hear the chilling sound of the prison doors clanging shut as we entered. But I also recall the joy in the faces of those prisoners that we cared enough to come and share God’s love with them.
I said in yesterday’s sermon, many are in prisons of their own making. The young women to walk up and down El Cajon Boulevard, just a block from our church, selling their bodies, are in their own prison. The drug addicts are in a self-made prison, as are the greed-filled and pride-filled among us.
Isaiah 61, the passage Jesus quoted when he began his ministry, says:
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
The way we should visit the sick and imprisoned is as Jesus did. We visit to bring His healing for the afflicted, and His liberty for the captives.
The lectionary reading yesterday in Matthew 6 was perfectly timed for the conclusion of this series:
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
4 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Nowhere does Jesus tell us if we do these things we will have no problems. In fact, we may at times be on the receiving end of the food, water, and visits.
The message of Christ in the Concrete City is that as long as the people of God do the work of God, the needy will be cared for.
We cannot solve all the hunger, clothe all the nations, etc., but we must minster to the needs of those who come to us. Remember, we may be feeding Christ in disguise.
Devotedly,
Pastor Bill
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