it's like everybody's here good morning those
of you who weren't here the first
hour I'm Dennis the minister and Dennis
Crawford my name and I preach in Austin
Texas and we're talking now as we are
discussing overall ministering the
people in times of crisis particularly
ministering to people with AIDS and with
their families let's see how do I want to say
this nine years ago I moved to
Austin I've been preaching in a small little
town in Arkansas Bentonville
Northwest the home of Walmart claim to fame and
I moved to Austin Texas which
is kind of out of the Bible Bell we are rather
people move there because there
are liberals there and not only religious
liberals but economic and
political also and really kind of was asking
God to put me someplace where he
could use me and not necessarily a in a nice
little neat town in Arkansas and
boy don't really you shouldn't pray for things
that you don't want I got really
more than a bargain for I moved into a what I
call a semi inner-city congregation
wasn't a declining neighborhood one of the
oldest congregations in town there
we have a regular a sort of eclectic group of
people in the neighborhood I
call them Bohemians I think that that term
probably works Austin is kind of
weird anyway as a Texas town we happen to have
one of the highest per capita
populations homosexuals anywhere in the nation
maybe the 60,000 65,000 who
attend UT there somehow add to that number but
we do have several gay bars
in town and I moved to Austin seeking a
challenge wanting to do something
different Don nothing against little towns in
Arkansas okay Don just Don
Shores is here and he's from a town just
outside of Bentonville 10 miles
cave spring yeah so nothing against Arkansas
small towns but I said use me
Lord and just do something exciting and I got
really the more than I bit off
really more than I wanted but God has blessed
me through it I moved to Austin
kind of a naive preacher not that I hadn't been
on the other side I was a
nightclub musician for several years before I
became a Christian that's
before the cross so I'd seen the other side but
I was rather still rather naive
I think I had a friend a great friend who
encouraged me that's the Preston
Road guys here Yay okay a great friend in a
small town in Arkansas 25 years ago
in about 25 years Wishard Larry Wishard here
from Aurora Colorado one of my
classmates to encourage me to go back to school
to finish my education and preach
and I love this guy he was one of my best
friends ever in the ministry I got a
call from him not long after he had moved from
a small town in Arkansas to a
town close to Austin he said I'm having a lot
of trouble with my marriage things
are just not working out don't think I said
well pray for you want to talk to
you I wrote him letters we talked back and
forth we had the kind of personal
contact where we would swap Sermon notes and
things like that you know through
throughout the week I loved the guy then I got
a call later on six months later
after the marriage problem began and Joe said I
don't know how to tell you this
but I have a problem with men and I knew I had
a problem with men too and women
but I said Joe are you telling me that you're
gay you're homosexual that's
right I talked to my elders that afternoon I
said I've got to go and be
with him I just want to be with the family so I
did I dropped everything I
was doing the eldest said yeah go and take as
much time as you need and I
drove to Central Texas to talk to Joe I stayed
there five days we talked Joe had
seemed to have snapped there was just something
that was totally there I
didn't really know him I didn't really know him
and later on we kept in contact
later on I moved to Austin and guess who lived
there already Joe just as we were
unpacking our things I told my wife and I said
you know Joe is here in town and
she said yeah I know it's gonna be really
uncomfortable isn't it because I
didn't know exactly how to relate to him and I
said yeah it's really gonna be
uncomfortable but I started meeting with Joe he
knew where I was I knew where he
was we swapped stories and books and I said Joe
consider this Bible passage he
said yeah Dennis consider this one look at this
book Joe and he'd say yeah
Dennis look at this book and so we we swapped
stories we had coffee often then
one day Joe kind of curdled my coffee when he
said Dennis I just tested HIV
positive now this was seven years ago it's
seven years ago and I had heard
rumors of a disease that seemed to relentlessly
discriminate against the
homosexual population homosexual men only
rumors my life was kind of like I
guess the church's experience with AIDS I was
there in a small town in Arkansas
and really seemed to be oblivious to really
what was going on in the world
kind of like the church seven or eight nine ten
years ago most of us we're just
going on doing our Christian things having our
worships and and acting like
maybe everything if we just close our ears and
eyes everything will be okay
and I came home and told my wife Anna that
night what Joe had told me and she
said you know Dennis I think maybe that's the
reason we came to Austin to
be with Joe maybe it was I started coming out
then myself I started coming
out as a Christian who loved people with
problems I mean you can't get it
couldn't be too bad can't get too bad to be
loved by God and I think the church
at that time kind of started coming out too in
many places where we would say
hey it's it's okay to be a sinner here oh we
don't want you to say that way we
we certainly don't want you to say it Jesus
died that we might be different
but it's okay to have problems here I don't
know what you call it but I I
usually say I preached someone's funeral I
preached Joe's funeral about five
years ago he really never repented never said I
my lifestyle is not pleasing to
God I was there almost to the moment he died
holding his hand sheets spotted
with blood asking God to change his heart and
his life and forgive him and
take him where I knew Joe wanted to go preach
this funeral his wife with four
kids imagine was is somewhat bitter as we
minister and as I minister I have made
it my thing to accept and love people wherever
they are and maybe where God
put me in the first place helps in that way
maybe having Joe as a best friend
help that way and maybe what God has done with
me from that time has helped
last year at the lectureship I taught three
hours on this kind of thing
touching the untouchable ministering to the
leper Teresa and Kurt were in my
class Kurt was one of the men who admitted
during the class that he was
HIV positive and I believe had symptoms of AIDS
he really blessed me Kurt and
Teresa both blessed my wife and I just getting
to know them and to meet them
and to have them in class last year the bad
news of that is that that Kurt passed
away January 10 and Teresa is here today we're
glad you're here
Kurt had changed his life he was HIV positive
and infected
with AIDS for obvious reasons but he had made
it a point to be God's person the
last few years of his life and he has
encouraged a lot of people and we
appreciate that thank you Teresa for loving and
encouraging him how do we
respond when the church has AIDS how many here
within your congregation at
least know that there's someone who is HIV
positive or has AIDS yeah that's
that's kind of kind of where we are sooner or
later you're going to come in
contact with AIDS it may be a friend it may be
a brother or sister in the church
maybe somebody you work with but sooner or
later you're going to be paid for
this well what do I do I related to Joe when he
confessed his
homosexuality with me much in the same way I
would relate to anyone
yet confess a sin it's a Joe I love you anyway
you know it matters to me how you
behave yes but I love you in spite of that I
didn't know what to do I think I
went through the throes of maybe what some
congregations do well how do we
treat this person and what do we do this
fellowship was out of the question if I
would ever make an impact on Joe I I had to be
with him I had to be around him
and I wanted to be and we had him in our home
long before we knew much about
protection against the AIDS virus when there
were a lot of scares going around
and I and I talked about what to do with coffee
cups and forks and things that
Joe had usually just stole them away or burn
them or what now we know better
about things like that we were there kind of on
the vanguard of reaching out
to those who we really didn't know exactly how
to help them and to bless
their lives the church is infected yes with a
look on page seven or rather six
I guess you're soon going to have a that the
church is no cure right now some
things I'm on the internet and from time to
time I serve and I've done some
surfing lately and a couple of things have been
a couple of breakthroughs in
oh excuse me we got some pass out here hand out
a couple of breakthroughs but
nothing really like we're going to find a cure
for this immediately so far there
is no cure there's none really on the horizon
so what we're dealing with
whenever we deal with someone with AIDS or who
are HIV positive is a person who
is terminally ill sooner or later many may live
ten twelve years after they
become HIV positive but this is a terminal
illness it's good that we do
not overemphasize AIDS as a gay or promiscuity
issue or a drug issue but
it's also with an invasion or evasion of
reality at this time to contend that
people so involved are not perhaps more
vulnerable as I said AIDS is a disease
that seems to relentlessly discriminate as we
see a breakdown of those who are
suffering from AIDS or who are HIV positive we
find that the vast majority
are male homosexuals maybe 2% hemophiliacs
maybe 9% heterosexual 25%
are IV drug users so we see that it does
actually discriminate however as we look
at AIDS and look at this discrimination
something I got the other day I don't
know what I don't even know how this came to me
but I was sitting there
thinking about ministering to those who really
need it I was sitting there
thinking about all the other peripheral issues
of this is should we accept
persons gayness should we should will how
should we treat gay people well what
do you do in a case like this we have a
preacher in in Austin who is with
another tradition but he often tickets outside
adult bookstores with a large
sign that reads do you have a yet you know
that's really not my my idea of
ministry I don't know what he's saying that was
sitting there thinking about
how do you have the church respond to those who
are really doing
things that are sinful and I thought you know
there was old Abraham you remember
Abraham with Sodom and Gomorrah oh how did
Abraham act towards Sodom and
Gomorrah what prayed for him that hit me like a
button you probably thought of
that already you're way ahead of me but that
was one of those things I had to go
get a drink of water after I thought about that
Abraham begged God to do what
not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah well you say
well Abraham knew better than God no
not really but what does that say about our
attitude toward our society should
we pray for brimstone to fall on the abortion
clinics or the Gay bath houses
in San Francisco or should we pray God saved
them spared them loved him maybe
you can only find 10% of cities yes saved the
city loved him many of you
have friends and loved ones who are homosexual
yes we all do I said most of
us will sooner or later know that sort of thing
what we think about as we
discuss helping those people with AIDS the
needs of persons of AIDS page 7 I'll
get more into our attitude toward them I guess
just a few minutes verse verse
you tell I'm pretty sure page 7 when receiving
for the first time the
diagnosis of AIDS most persons react with
typical responses of severe severe
situational crisis shock and denial followed by
a variety of complex
symptoms or interacting emotions of fear point
of panic confusion anger blame me
well if you've ever had a doctor tell you
you're really sick you know how they
feel or the doctor says you need surgery you
know how you feel so as far as
ministering to those with AIDS or who are HIV
positive we need to just relate
to them as we would anyone who has has received
some terrible information many
people with AIDS have already felt themselves
isolated from family from
former friends from church certainly those who
maybe don't find themselves in
that situation but many do I remember my first
reaction with Joe my first
reaction with Joe upon finding out that he had
HIV then AIDS is I prayed I prayed
that he might go home to die and not stay in
Austin because you know at first
I didn't want to be there and many of us maybe in
smaller towns that's the way we come in contact
with people with AIDS is is they
move home to die maybe mule shoe Jenny slipper
wherever but they move home to
die and so they've already felt perhaps
isolated and now even more isolation may
begin people who are irrationally afraid of the
disease no longer want to have
any contact with them if parents who parents
don't know that their child is
gay or who has been using intravenous drugs
usually throws the family into a
turmoil I the thing about this it makes it so
complex is that usually when
you're working with a family of a person with
AIDS is that may be the first time
they they have understood that their son is gay
so what do you do you come in and
say guess what mom I'm going to die oh and by
the way I'm gay talk about a
double whammy that's one of them so here's a
person isolated
not only from the community because of their
behavior but now also maybe family
problems so we need to minister to the whole
person and we also need to minister
to the family I was called just about eight
weeks ago to Seton Hospital in
Austin the chaplain had been calling all over
town trying to get a preacher to go
and visit with his family the son was dying 32
years old John was dying with
AIDS and been trying for some time to find
somebody finally they call my
number and I thought yeah I'll be there I
walked in he died five minutes after I
walked in I was able to pray with the family
and be with them and actually I
stayed with him for a couple of hours there's
one of these rooms that's on the
corner and they had the places to sit and and
we sat there and we talked much
of my ministry to people with AIDS is actually
to their families as I said
we're going to talk about Alzheimer's disease
later on today 330 the doctors
say diagnose the disease and treat the family
and I think maybe that's HIV
positive and AIDS also you diagnose the disease
and become aware of it but you
treat the family often there is need to make
some kind of reconciliation with
the family get the family back together John's
parents had already come to grips
with his disease and with his problems but
that's not always the case we passed
like ships in the night John's parents and me
and yet I've received letters
from them I mean I'm somebody special for them
now because of what I said
because of me what I what I did now just
because I was there and prayed with them
open some doors maybe that maybe someday will
be passed through not all or not at
all unique to persons with AIDS but occurring
with great frequency in these
persons is progressive loss of mental
functioning forgetfulness confusion
delusions AIDS is one of those things well it's
opportunistic infections
actually that takes a life nobody dies of AIDS
you die of some two-bit fungus
from New Mexico or something you picked up
nobody else has ever heard of you'd
never heard I would have been your system for
years and it gets you
pneumocystis carinii which is just unknown
among people with okay immune
systems can get you in a second with a so what
we're looking at here is a
disease that doesn't really have any symptoms
other than the fact of whatever
symptoms that are picked up Kurt developed
neuropathy died in great pain
I visited Dennis the other day in the hospital
and Dennis had dementia his
mother standing there changing his diaper he's
32 his wife was unfaithful to him
and brought AIDS home to him and he died a
couple of days after I saw him but with
dementia so you really never know some get very
sick at men with AIDS I've
never seen people in the sticker others like my
friend Joe developed
pneumocystis carinii and died pretty quickly
and easily but we're looking at
a number of symptoms and and one of those may
be dementia needs of the family
kind of talked about that already page 8
anytime somebody tells us that one
member of our families family is going to die
with AIDS or with any disease
the shock also again we we see parents may not
understand or know that their
child is homosexual or has been a drug user or
sexually promiscuous until this
happens many families attempt to hide the
illness and other people yeah that
was one thing I appreciated about curtain
Teresa they just came in here
and they said we have a I mean we have AIDS
like the church has a week we have
a but a lot of times people try to hide it and
this adds to the feeling of a
family being cut off reach out to them love
them I guess you know this we're
going to talk an hour about this in an hour
about Alzheimer's and how to treat
the family and really you did it basically you
get right down to it what
is it it's being with people and loving them
now to some clods I know like me
that's not easy we might need a little help
with it you know but basically what
is it it's it's reaching people with the love
of Christ it's loving people in
spite of themselves it's loving the Samaritan
woman it's
loving the the good Samaritan it's loving
people who really don't deserve it
who by the way after all is every one of us
right glad none of us get what we
deserve but basically basically it's loving
people so reach out to the family
again I say a lot of you will come in contact
with AIDS the first time living
in mule shoe or dime box or wherever and and it
will be a brother and sister
Smith kid coming home to die with AIDS and
that's when you really are tested
that's when you really do find out what the
church is made of can we put up with
this can we love this family anyway and I have
seen some beautiful responses
some congregations and I've seen some not so
beautiful responses to but reach
out to the family reach out to the sick and
consider that the whole family at
this time is in grief what are problems and
barriers with a what do you see as
barriers and maybe maybe you've tried to reach
out to those of AIDS and or their
families and and you've had problems anybody
want to share a problem or a
barrier that you see that they don't they don't
have ministers yeah that's
yeah Christians oh you're too good to hear
about my problem yeah the church is
not an honest play
we tend to be judgmental yes it's bleeding in
front of
sharks come down to tell the church hey I'm a
sinner one of the things about a
12-step program we talked about this in the
earlier hour is that you've got
people in there who understand what it's like
to be an alcoholic or to be a drug
abuser of any kind you have people in there who
understand and you can stand
up and say hey I'm Dennis and I'm an alcoholic
and they'll say hi Dennis we
stand up in church and I say I'm Dennis and I'm
an alcoholic and they'll say
step back a step you know and if they don't say
hi Dennis you know that may
not really they may well remember them the
woman at the well John for in it
his disciples come back and they have some food
and they're flabbergasted
here's here's Jesus talking to this woman not
only is she a woman but she's
a Samaritan woman and Samaritan well you know
that dirty not only that she'd
been married five or six times right it was
just kind of shack in with the guy
present time and here was Jesus talking about
leaving water to her we tend to
want to well what kind of sin we talk about
sins we talk about problems but
not we talk about problems from here to here
right I told you earlier about my
gallbladder surgery want to see my scar I got
one of those sometimes they go in
they make just three little holes now to get
the guy I got the deluxe I said just
go ahead and open me up and give me the big
thing so I got one it's okay to talk
about this from here to here right but what
about when it gets almost might say
just nasal from here up we don't talk about
problems right usually we don't
or from here down we don't talk about problems
yeah yes yeah
I raise my hand sometimes when I talk 12 steps
or have you raise.
I'll just put my hand up and I'll say, my
name's Bill and I'm a sinner.
Are there any other sinners here?
You'd be amazed if someone put their hand up
right away,
but others want to see who is in there. Yeah.
Right, yeah.
That's what I say sometimes when people respond
to our invitation
after the Sermon and they come and say, I've sinned,
and I want to say, welcome to the club.
Not to say we're easy about this, or it doesn't
hurt God's sin,
it just demolishes God.
It took Jesus and put him on a cross, so it's
really bad.
We shouldn't discount it, but also we should
admit to it. Larry.
The two things that, it seems to me that in church,
two things are related here.
I think we're uncomfortable with our own sexuality.
And secondly, I think we're uncomfortable with
the reality
that sometimes I need a hug.
I mean, the affection is painful.
What does it do to keep that pure?
Those are the issues, though.
Sometimes it's fine to keep it perfect.
That's right.
Those are the issues.
We are sexual people, and sometimes we need to express.
I see Larry.
I hug him.
I give him a full-body hug.
There's a one-point hug and a two-point hug,
and he's grabbing it just to let him have it.
So we need to do that, and probably one of the things
that exacerbates, makes worse the problem with age
is that we're sometimes afraid to touch. Yes.
Yes, Sir.
The people of one chance. Right.
Yeah, I don't want to be hard on us because if
we're that way,
it may be because preachers have made us that way,
and I am one, so I'm careful.
But yeah, we will sometimes give a person one chance.
But two, we start keeping score, don't we?
Yeah, it's a sinner's disease.
That's why sometimes we don't...
A person can have whatever, gallstones.
It's not a sinner's disease, right?
But age is generally spread, this is page nine,
among adults through either sexual intercourse, period.
I dropped something here, or IV drug use.
Mostly, as I said, it relentlessly
discriminates against those
who are homosexual men and also IV drug users.
We're apathetic about that.
We sometimes have difficulty separating sin
from the sinner,
or vice versa.
I want to love the person and I want to hate
the sin.
And obviously, Jesus could do this, right?
Because he dealt with some pretty crusty
characters in his ministry.
He could do it.
Sometimes I have trouble separating the
alcoholic from the personality.
And again, it's easier to accept some sins than
others, right?
We're just a little bit sexually inhibited.
The church has not been talking about this.
We don't talk about it.
And here it comes and slaps us in the face.
And so we are inhibited in the first place.
And this makes the problem worse.
Age as a sinner's disease will have an impact
on our society
that nobody right now can predict.
Everybody's going to be adversely affected by
the age crisis
through health care costs or whatever.
Sooner or later, you're going to pay.
We all are going to pay for this problem.
We refuse as Christians to view persons in
high-risk groups
as the proper focus of the church's mission.
There's a church in Austin that has a mission
to, guess what? Homosexual.
And we have trouble.
I said, well, is that really our place?
I mean, to reach out to those people?
Well, you said it.
Are they people?
God loves them, right?
God so loved the world that he gave. Everybody.
1 Corinthians 6.
I like this.
Paul talks about the church in Corinth.
You want to go and see some really raw stuff?
I mean, get into 1 Corinthians.
You think about Corinth being that town with
two seaports,
and then you think about the kind of people
that live there,
and you read what Paul says about the church in Corinth.
1 Corinthians 6. Nine.
Do you not know that the wicked will not
inherit the kingdom of God,
do not be deceived, neither sexually immoral, idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor
homosexual offenders,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers,
nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God?
And we say, that's right, Paul.
Yeah, just go ahead and preach it.
And he says, and that is what some of you were.
So we say God loves the world.
We're saying God loves everybody.
We're not always saying it's easy.
It wasn't always easy to love Joe.
There's something that had to be done.
Usually as a church we prefer to meet good,
respectable people,
if you know what I mean.
That's why suburban churches are wonderful.
And why you look at inner city churches like mine,
they're a little gritty because you've got
people there
that are not good, respectable people.
We've got nightclub musicians who come in and
their hair is this long,
we've got sick street people that come in every
once in a while
and they don't smell real good.
They sleep out.
And they really do challenge the church to say,
are we really going to be the church or are we
going to just be this club
that's people that feel pretty good about themselves?
Are we really going to be the church?
That's the question.
And so here we are in this church where all
kinds of people are coming in.
Reminds me of the banquet, the great banquet
that the Lord prepared.
And he said, go invite.
And people had excuses why they wouldn't come
to the banquet.
The people who had been invited earlier didn't
come to the banquet.
And what does the Lord say who prepared the banquet?
Go out into the highways and byways and get the
people that you see in ties
and the people that you see have nice clothes
and the people that you see that don't.
The wedding, the heavenly feast is composed of
the crippled, the blind, the lame.
So there we go.
Are we really going to be the church?
I guess that's the thing.
Now, I'm preaching to the choir as they say,
right, because you're in here today.
Meaning you care.
I ask the first hour, what in the world are you
doing in a class like this on a day like this?
Especially when at 11:00 one of the brothers is
talking about being good grandparents.
And I wanted to go to that class because I've
got two grandkids coming.
And I'm working it in every hour.
I've got pictures of the sonograms too.
No, we do. She has one.
You actually can do that.
But anyway, what are you doing in a class like this?
Because you want to care and you love people.
And what we do is we go home and we preach this
to our congregation.
And maybe not preach it so much as just to let
them catch you doing it.
One of the great things is just catching
somebody doing something that's right,
like reaching out to real sinners.
AIDS is seen as a thing that we hate and we fear.
And we still do.
I've got a book that's full of fear written by
an osteopathic surgeon in California.
And she may raise some pretty real issues about
exactly how AIDS is spread.
It is a book that is titled The Real Truth
About AIDS.
However, as we know today, as we see today,
pretty clearly this is the way AIDS is spread
or how it is actually not spread.
You can't get AIDS by just casual personal contact.
That's something, again, we have to reassure
the congregation that these things are true.
You don't get AIDS with a handshake, a hug,
Larry, talking, sneezing,
handling a person's food, serving food,
utensils, toilet seats, doorknobs,
contact with people at church, casual contact.
So we need to talk about that to the
congregation and help them to see that that is true
and that we're not putting ourselves at risk in
reaching out to these people.
But hey, what if we were putting ourselves at risk?
Like I said, we had Joe in our house before we
really knew exactly how AIDS is spread
when all the fear was going around.
Now I wondered, should we use paper plates and
we didn't
because we really wanted to make Joe feel like
we love you as we did.
And it's so hard to be afraid of a person and
to reach out to them at the same time.
You just can't do that because they know.
They're afraid of me.
So reach out to people even if it is costly.
My wife is known as the help.
She probably has led me into this kind of
helping people and loving people.
She's been a real inspiration to me in that way.
Forced me into doing some things that maybe I
wouldn't have done.
I came home one day and she said, oh, Dennis,
we have a family living with us now.
It was a lady and three kids.
My two daughters, back when they were
teenagers, they had the three kids in my
bathtub at the same time
and they had a brush scrubbing them and the
water was just brown.
And they were scrubbing them all over.
A lady and her three children.
It seems like the principal of the school with
these three kids going to, Jay Becklaw,
had called and said there's a woman here whose
husband was killed a couple of nights ago
with a gunshot wound in her home.
And she had just gone to pieces and she needs a
place to stay because the police have roped off
with the little yellow police don't cross line
thing, her home, and she has no place to go.
So I said, bring them over here.
And there I showed up that day and she said,
Jay called and we've got this lady and her
three kids staying here.
And I said, okay, that's good.
A couple of days later, the county coroner
called me and he said,
the first question he asked was, do you know
who you have staying in your home?
And I knew right away that he probably wasn't
going to give me some good news about it.
He said she had been implicated in the murder
of her husband, killed in his sleep in the bed.
And you know, I had three children at home
myself and you wonder, well, what should I do?
Well, we kept her until she got ready to move.
But as I say, you do think sometimes you do put
yourself at risk.
Anna is the person who picks up hitchhikers and
they're always telling her in Austin that she's
going to be killed one of these days.
And then she might. And we may.
And we may all die of AIDS.
And that may be our cross.
You know, sin didn't do Jesus any good.
Reaching out to sinners certainly didn't do him
any good, did it?
He died at 33, about the age of Dennis when he
died of AIDS.
Reach out. Even, even if it's not easy, even if
it's a little bit dangerous.
Who are we? We're following Jesus, the
compassionate one, right?
Jesus, the compassionate one, who expressed his
compassion by coming to this earth to live for
us and to die for us.
In Luke 4:18 and 19, there he is in the
synagogue at Nazareth.
And he reads this great passage from Isaiah
which says, God is going to reach down and
touch the people.
The afflicted sight to the blind. And Jesus
closed the book and he said,
today you've seen it. This scripture has been fulfilled.
And his purpose included, as I said, the first
hour. Mark 1-10.
There's only one chapter that's not full of the
healing of Jesus.
And while he didn't come just to lay glad hands
on people and make them well,
we also must be ministers of healing.
Jesus healed where it really counted, and that
is in the heart, the soul.
And he forgave sins. Jesus' compassion was all-encompassing.
He appeals to God's universal mercy to tell us
that we need to go and do the same thing.
He sends his Son on the righteous and the
unrighteous. And Jesus then in the Sermon on
the Mount
ends by saying, be perfect as your Father in
Heaven is perfect.
That's the way to be. Jesus, the compassionate one.
The parable of the good Samaritan. Let's close
with that today.
I heard your stomach growling. Better than the
bell, really.
Luke 10, good Samaritan. Guy came to Jesus and said,
I've got to do something good. Surely you've
got to do something good to get to Heaven.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who is my
neighbor, Jesus?
He gives a defined theological discussion here.
Who is my neighbor?
And instead of answering his question like
Jesus so often did,
so different from me when I preach and others
who preach, we usually want to give
one, two, three, four points. This is the
reason to get something logical.
This guy asked him, how do you get to Heaven?
And Jesus leaned back
and he said, your question reminds me of a story.
And he told the story, what we call the good
Samaritan, that everybody knows.
Just told him the story. It was kind of a roll
your own application.
Well, who's your neighbor then? Think about it.
He made people think.
And so the Samaritan came by. The Samaritan who
the Jews hated.
He would be like the motorcycle gang. He would
be like the AIDS victim
who's very sick and has purple spots all over him.
Who comes and he sees this guy in the ditch.
Injured on the way down the Jericho Road, the
place where robbers went.
And so the Samaritan goes over and asks, what
are you doing here?
Why were you out on this road? Don't you know
this is a dangerous place to be?
You could be hurt. Look at you.
You have medical insurance? Co-payment?
Good Samaritan goes over there, loads him up on
his donkey, takes him to an inn.
Just take care of him. I'll pay you whatever
you need when they come back.
That's being neighborly. And sometimes you know
the church isn't even neighborly
to people with real problems. We want to, like
you say, one chant.
Is this your second time on the road to Jericho?
We sometimes ask people that come in for help.
I've got this deacon who's from Boston.
And he's an old conservative, real conservative.
That's who you need to put, I guess,
in charge of the pantry because you never give
any food away hardly.
You know, you don't have to worry about that.
No, he's getting better.
His first problem is have you ever been here
before to receive help?
And if they say yes, I mean, they've got two
strikes against them already.
We only help people one time. Bless his heart.
He's getting better, though.
But yeah, have you been here before? Have you
been on the road?
Okay, yeah, he was in a place where he
shouldn't be. Yeah, it was dangerous behavior.
Yeah, maybe he knew better. But what happens?
The Good Samaritan picks him up and takes him
and ministers to him anyway.
And so shall it be with us who have been here
today, we who care, you who care.
We're going to get better at it and better and
better and better until people who are sick
and afflicted and halt and lame and blind and
stink and are dirty and who are infected
and afflicted and drunk will be able to come to
us and be able to say when they leave,
I've been with God's people and not be ashamed
of their bodies or their souls
because they have felt love. Oh, it's not just,
we don't just make people feel good.
No, we really want to get the gospel into their
hearts, right?
We really want to get the gospel. But it sure
is hard to preach to somebody
when you're holding them out here like this.
Let's load them on our donkeys. Let's bring
them to church.
Let's love them and let's open their hearts or
let God open their hearts
so the Spirit can pour the gospel into it.
And they'll be made even as they limp their way
to death with spots,
with coughs, with pain, with dementia, whatever.
We'll know that sometimes God doesn't always heal.
Maybe His answer to our problems, Teresa, is resurrection.
Let's pray. Father, we are grateful to you for
the fact that you brought us together today.
Just pray that something that we've talked
about while we've been together
has been good to all of us who've been here and
will help us to be your people,
better Christians, more loving, more concerned
with those who need you.
Bless us, Father, that we may do this. Forgive
us when we haven't done it.
We know so many times we don't do it. We look
down instead of reaching down to people.
So bless us, Father. Forgive us of our sins.
Thank you for not giving us the things that we deserve.
Thank you for blessing us as we need.
Help us, Father, to be disciples of Jesus. It's
in His name we pray. Amen.