When God Breaks In

(A sermon based on Luke 13:10-17 for Sunday, August 22, 2010)

While neatly defined categories don’t work, I can fairly say that everyone here today falls into one of three categories. First, some of us are broken down and busted up and messed up and we need God to put us back together. Second, some of us think we have it all together and have it all figured out—particularly when it comes to who God is and how God works and what God wants, not to mention what’s going in other people’s lives— and we need God to break us down so that we can be built back better. Third—and I imagine that the vast majority fit here—some of us are kind of busted up and kind of have it together all at the same time and so we need all kinds of help; we need in some ways to be put back together and we need in some ways to be broken apart!

Broken down

Jesus went to a synagogue on the Sabbath—the equivalent of going to church on Sunday morning in our setting—and there, just like he would (and just like we do) here, he encountered someone who was broken down. In that case it was a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years; she was perpetually bent over because, the text says, of a “spirit.”

That woman had been walking around looking at the dirt for eighteen years.

A lot of us spend a lot of time looking down at the dirt.

Lots of factors cause some of us to spend most of our time looking at the dirt.

It may be that we have a spiritual condition.
It may be that we have a psychological condition.
It may be that we have a spiritual condition.

Sometimes we choose to look at the dirt for so long that it becomes ingrained in us.
Sometimes we’re forced by circumstances to look at the dirt for so long that we don’t think we have another option.
Sometimes we have looked at the dirt for so long that it has come to affect everything about us.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus did not ask about or address what had placed the woman in the condition in which she found herself?

Jesus decided, even though the woman didn’t even ask him to do anything about her condition, that it was high time that she not have to look at the dirt anymore. So he touched her and healed her and she most understandably immediately began to praise God.

You may be one of those who is here broken, looking at the dirt—and you need to be picked up and put back together so you can see the sky again, so you can look people in the eye again, and especially so that you can look to God again.

God is that kind of God; Jesus is that kind of Savior. God will break into your life right where you are and right how you are and will do something about it.
A broken life can result in a broken heart and it is exactly that kind of heart into which Jesus can and will come!

If our God is that kind of God we want to be that kind of Christian body; we want to be that kind of church.

But sometimes we church people get too broken up about what God and the church are doing for and with the broken down!

In need of being broken down

And so it came to pass that the fellow in charge (beware of the person in charge!) of that local synagogue expressed his displeasure over Jesus’ healing of the crippled woman on the Sabbath day. He said to the crowd (and thus indirectly to Jesus and to the woman in question—although isn’t it interesting that he didn’t address them directly?), “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day” (Luke 13:14).

You have to wonder: if that was the pervasive attitude among the leadership of the synagogue, how much help and healing really got offered on the other days? If that statement accurately reflects the level of care and compassion that was in the hearts of the people in charge, how could the atmosphere have bred much help and healing?

We want leaders in the church whose hearts are filled with compassion and caring and grace rather than with rules and traditions—don’t we?

Understand now that the leader of the synagogue was the type of fellow that most people in any time and in any place admire; he was, after all, the one who was aware of and who enforced the rules. We like such people and we frankly need such people. And the rules he wanted to enforce had as their aim the promotion of a healthy respect for a healthy practice, namely, the practice of Sabbath. It was out of concern for keeping the Sabbath holy that all kinds of rules had developed over what constituted working on that day and thus should be avoided.

The Sabbath mattered to Jesus, too; we have plenty of evidence that he observed it faithfully. But Jesus practiced what he elsewhere taught as the greatest commandments: he loved God and he loved his neighbor. And he knew and lived in light of the truth that God prefers compassion and mercy toward others as expressions of our love for God to the slavish following of all the rules and the following of tradition as an expression of that love.

To Jesus a broken rule was a small price to pay to help a broken person.

We have in our church hurting, broken people. We have in our community hurting, broken people. We have in our congregation today hurting, broken people. The Lord wants to help them and to heal them and to build them up and the Lord furthermore wants to do that through us.

None of us would object to helping someone on a Sunday so we might think that we don’t need to learn the lesson that the leader of the synagogue needed to learn. The truth is, though, that just like that leader got all bothered over Jesus breaking a Sabbath rule to heal the crippled woman so we might get all bothered by challenges to our set ways of thinking, to our assumptions about the way church—particularly polite, respectable, don’t rock the boat, maintain the status quo church—ought to be done.

For Jesus the bottom line was that a woman needed help and he helped her when the opportunity presented itself. One result of what Jesus did was that the assumptions and presuppositions and practices of the religious folks in the room got shaken up and turned on their heads.

In other words, God broke in.

God broke in, in the person of and through the actions of Jesus, to the broken down life of that broken down woman and healed and helped her. In so doing, God broke down the assumptions and practices—the very lives—of the synagogue leader and those who thought like he did. Who knows to what extent, if any, they adjusted. We’re only told that Jesus’ “opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing” (v. 17).

Do we need to be put to shame? Maybe—and if so, then let us be. If we need to be put to shame over the way we think about other people, if we need to be put to shame over how we value comfortableness over ministry, if we need to be put to shame over how we see people in need as an inconvenience rather than as an opportunity to show the love and grace of God, if we need to put to shame over our desire to preserve what we have rather than to share what God has given us, if we need to be put to shame over our focus on meeting the needs of people most of whose basic needs are met just fine rather than on meeting the needs of people whose basic needs aren’t being met, if we need to be put to shame over seeking even better news for us more than on sharing the Good News with those who don’t know it—then let us be shamed.

May God break us down if we need to be broken down.

But then—let us repent. Let us change. Let us turn around and go forth serving and helping and healing and rejoicing. Let us accept the grace and mercy of God and then go out to share that same grace and mercy.

Are you broken down or do you need to be broken down? Either way, God is breaking in…

The Ruffin Men in Hawaii, Sixty-Something Years Apart

One day, when I was a boy and had never heard of Pearl Harbor, I heard my father telling a story to someone about something that had happened when he was in Hawaii during World War II. I asked him, “Was Hawaii in World War II?” When he stopped laughing, he said, “Yes.”

I was amazed; the scene that played on the movie screen in my brain involved people wearing grass skirts and leis, firing rifles and tossing hand grenades.

I thought about that and about a lot of other things when we visited Pearl Harbor a few days ago while in Honolulu for the Baptist World Congress.

I couldn’t help but wonder, as I walked over those grounds, if I might be walking in the footsteps of my father.

Champ Lee Ruffin enlisted in the United States Navy sixty-eight years ago today, on August 14, 1942.

Between then and the day of his honorable discharge on January 6, 1946 he served in several places but, if I am interpreting his Notice of Separation correctly, he last served in Air Transport Squadron Eleven out of Honolulu. He served as an Aviation Radioman and I remember him saying that he served on a Navy transport plane and that he was based in Hawaii.

I would very much like to be able to ask Daddy about his time in the Navy; I would very much like to ask him if when he was stationed in Hawaii he might have walked where I walked; I would very much like to talk with him about his service to our nation during World War II.

Unfortunately, though, he died in 1979 at the age of 57 and, also unfortunately, I in the twenty years that I had lived to that point had not yet reached a point where I really cared to have a real conversation with him about such things. And he, like so many WWII veterans, did not readily offer much information about his experiences.

Were Daddy still living he would be 89 now and in my imagination I can see us sitting around talking, I about my peacetime trip to Hawaii for the purposes of fellowship and tourism, he about his wartime sojourn there for the purpose of saving the world from totalitarianism and fascism. I can imagine how the conversation would go as I would tell him about my experiences in Hawaii and as my stories would trigger his.

I wonder what he would remember. I wonder what he would tell.

I wonder what he would refuse to remember. I wonder what he would decline to tell.

Once, when I was around twelve or thirteen, my mother and father planned a trip to Memphis to visit their friends Ed and Melba Baldwin and their family. Because of my mother’s ill health at the time, Daddy decided that we would fly. That Delta flight from Atlanta to Memphis was the first flight of our lives for my mother and me; more significantly, I think, it was the first flight for my father since he had left the Navy some twenty-four years before.

I can still see Daddy, his face glued to the airplane window, as he looked down at the clouds during that flight to Memphis, and I wonder if he was in his mind’s eye seeing the clouds that hung over the blue waters of the Pacific as he flew over that massive body during his military service.

I wonder if somewhere in his mind he stopped for those brief moments being Department Manager of the Finishing Division of Thomaston Mills Champ Ruffin and became once again Aviation Radioman Second Class of the United States Navy Champ Ruffin.

I wonder what he saw as he peered out that airliner window.

But I wonder even more what he saw as he walked around Honolulu and as he flew over the Pacific Ocean.

Perhaps there are some men left out there who served with him and who could share some memories with me. I have undertaken a very belated effort to find them if they exist.

We’ll see.

Regardless of how that search turns out, I am grateful that our trip to Honolulu prompted me to think about these things.

I am grateful that they prompted me to think about the service of Aviation Radioman Second Class Champ Lee Ruffin of Yatesville, Georgia, who on this date in 1942 committed himself to doing his part to serve our country and to preserve our freedoms.

I wish I could tell him how proud I am of him.

I hope he knows.

A Dinner with Jesus

(A Communion Meditation based on Matthew 9:10-13)

Whom would you invite to have dinner in your house?

Most of us would not invite someone with a bad reputation or someone who committed obvious sin. Most of us would not invite someone who was an outcast from society, whose presence in our home would make our friends and neighbors look upon us with suspicion.

Moreover, we usually want to be comfortable with our dinner guests, so we do not invite someone who has great need and who will wonder if we will do something to meet that need.

We probably would not eat in the homes of such people, either.

In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were outcasts. They collaborated with the hated Roman occupiers and were seen as traitors to Israel. They were often cheats and criminals. They were not admired by the Romans, either, so they had no friends except for those who were like they were.

So it is amazing that one day Jesus called one of those tax collectors to be his disciple. His name was Matthew. Matthew immediately invited Jesus to his house for a meal.

And Jesus went.

Matthew invited many of his friends and cohorts to join in the meal. They were other tax collectors and “sinners.” It was natural that Matthew would invite those folks because he wanted them to know this person who had accepted him, called him, and changed his life.

It was also natural that the puritanical Pharisees would criticize what was going on. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they asked his disciples. You see, Jesus was breaking ceremonial laws by eating with “unclean” persons. Besides, it could only hurt his reputation to dine with such riff-raff.

Listen to Jesus’ reply: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

If Jesus was here in the flesh today, with whom would he eat?

Would he eat with those self-righteous ones who believe that they are better than anyone else? Would he eat with those who put “purity” above the needs of people? Would he eat with those whose circle is so small as to include only those of like biased mindset? Perhaps he would; he did sometimes eat with such folks when he was walking the earth. But he can’t help such folks because they don’t believe that they need any help.

Jesus would definitely eat with those who are sinners and who know it.

He would dine with those whom he could help because they have no illusions about their condition. He would go to the homes of the alcoholics and drug addicts who wallow in their despair. He would go to the homes of the AIDS patients who feel helpless and hopeless. He would go to the homes of the poor who are outcast because of their economic state or to the homes of those who are outcast because of their minority status.

But would he come here? Would he come here, to this church, at this time, to eat with us?

Now, this no longer a hypothetical question, for we have come here to eat the Lord’s Supper. We are assuming that he is here. We are assuming that he is present with us as we eat the bread and drink the cup.

But is he?

He is if we recognize ourselves for what we are: sinners. If we still see ourselves as in need of his presence, he is here. If we still see ourselves as in need of repentance, he is here. If we still see ourselves as people who are falling short and who fail him all too often, he is here.

Is he here for us? As we prepare to come to the table of the Lord, let us ask ourselves: are we among those poor, needy, outcast sinners with whom Jesus gladly sits at table?

Baptists United

A very wise man in a church I once served as pastor liked to remind us, “That which unites us is stronger than that which divides us.”

That’s a good principle by which to live whether it’s in a church fellowship or in a fellowship between churches or in a larger fellowship between smaller fellowships of churches.

While that principle is not spelled out in the official statements of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), it nonetheless lies at the foundation of that fellowship. What unites the member bodies of the BWA is much stronger and more significant than what divides them.

Debra and I just returned from the 20th World Congress of the BWA that was held in Honolulu, Hawaii and we were struck, as I was when I attended the 19th Congress in Birmingham, England in 2005, by the unity in the midst of great diversity that characterizes the Alliance.

When I was a child I would sit in the Children’s Department Sunday School Assembly at Midway Baptist Church four miles outside of Barnesville, Georgia while we sang with great gusto “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Beyond having both girls and boys in the group, we who were singing were not a terribly diverse lot, although I’m sure that we meant what we were singing as much as we could.

At the BWA World Congress, though, representatives of all of those children so loved by Jesus—red and yellow, black and white—gathered together to worship, to fellowship, and to learn. Some 4000 Baptists from 105 countries attended the Congress and they came from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. About 1000 more who had registered were unable to attend because the U.S. government denied them visas; among the countries affected were Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, and India. Still, the display of diversity was impressive.



“That which unites us is stronger than that which divides us,” my friend said. In a fellowship made up of such diverse groups from so many places—the BWA is made up of some 219 Baptist conventions and unions comprising a membership of more than 37 million baptized believers and a community of 105 million—there is ample opportunity to find things that divide us, be it differences in culture, language, theological interpretation, or approach to social or political issues.

And there is no doubt that, if I wanted to do so, I could examine the various conventions and unions (and the various other conventions and associations and churches and individuals that comprise them) until I found something with which I disagree or that I don’t like about every one of them, including the member organizations with which I am most closely related, namely, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the First Baptist Church of Fitzgerald, Georgia (whose pastor really gives me problems!).

Indeed, I could probably find reasons not to associate with every group that associates with the BWA; for that matter, I could likely find reasons not to associate with every Baptist church and every Baptist group and every Baptist person in existence until there was no one left with whom I could associate except me and then I would really be faced with a dilemma since I would be confronted with the wisdom of Groucho Marx who said, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

In life we all have to make choices. Some Baptist (and I’m sure this is true of other Christians but I know Baptists best) people, as they make decisions about their association with other Christian people, choose to place great value on purity (as defined by them) of doctrine and/or practice; it was out of such a motivation, along with other motivations, that the Southern Baptist Convention several years ago withdrew from the BWA.

As for me, I choose to seek grounds for cooperation based on shared Christian values and shared Christian mission and am willing to accept, embrace, and even celebrate the diversity that exists within the unity of Baptist and other Christian fellowship organizations and to seek unity within that diversity. I am comfortable being guided by the well-known dictum "in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity."

I therefore choose to be a supporter of and a participant in the world-wide fellowship of Baptists known as the Baptist World Alliance.

What are the Christian values and mission championed by the BWA? The BWA vision statement says,

The Baptist World Alliance is a global movement of Baptists sharing a common confession of faith in Jesus Christ bonded together by God’s love to support, encourage and strengthen one another while proclaiming and living the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit before a lost and hurting world.

That’s a vision worth supporting and working to implement!

The theme of the 2010 Baptist World Congress was “Hear the Spirit” and the BWA theme for the next five years is “In Step with the Spirit.” At the conclusion of the Congress, a message was issued that summarizes the Congress experience. It reads in part:

Now, in step with the Spirit who gives and redeems life in Jesus Christ, we confess anew that all persons are created in the image of God and are therefore worthy of receiving his redemptive grace.

In step with the Spirit, we renew our commitment to: communicate, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the truth of God in Jesus Christ as the hope of the world. Because the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, we have been anointed to:
--develop greater familiarity with the teachings of Christ.
--cultivate a rich prayer life.
--bear witness to the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.
--provide examples of godly living reflecting the values taught by the Lord of the church.


(And, in step with the Spirit, we renew our commitment to:) support the values reflected in the UN Millennium Development Goals. Because the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, we have been anointed us to:
--remove the scourge of poverty and hunger
--support efforts to provide universal education
--work for environmental sustainability
--promote gender equality
--improve child health and maternal health
--combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
--develop global partnerships

Enabled by the Spirit, let us commit ourselves to create an environment in which God’s mercy and truth become evident. Let us shine the light of God’s love in every place of human need.

Indeed, let us.

And let us do so together—because that which unites us is so much greater than that which divides us!

The Limp is Mightier than the Strut

(A sermon based on Genesis 32:22-32)


Sometimes I wonder how interested the church and the people who make up the church, including me, really are in doing things God’s way. We could hardly be blamed for shying away from it, for, as our text reveals, really getting in touch with God and having God get in touch with you and being on journey with God and having God be on journey with you can be risky and painful business.

When I look around at the 21st century church, I get concerned. We seem to buy in too easily to the idea that successful ministry means being big and powerful and rich and comfortable and respectable. If we do buy into such an idea, then corporate weakness has to be denied. Personal woundedness has to be covered up.

We’re not very Christian in our approach to life and ministry if those are our attitudes.

The text tells about Jacob, one of our spiritual ancestors. I’m glad that the Bible is so honest with us about the lives of those ancestors. It is brutally honest about Jacob. When I look at his life, I am impressed by two things. One thing is the complicated character of Jacob. Jacob was an accomplished cheat and a master manipulator. From the beginning and throughout most of his life, one constant was that he had a long way to go. He always had a lot of unrealized potential but he usually used underhanded methods to try to realize it. Another constant was the persistent presence of God in his life.

That brings us to the other thing that I am impressed by when I look at the life of Jacob: the mysterious purposes of God. God chose to make Jacob a central character in God’s story of salvation, perhaps both in spite of and because of Jacob’s complicated character.

Those two things, the complicated character of Jacob and the mysterious purposes of God, came together in a moment to which all of Jacob’s life had been leading. There is no time like the present; in a sense, there is no time but the present. Whether you are talking about a church or an individual, this particular moment is the most critical moment. That is because this moment is the culmination of all the moments that have gone before; everything that has happened thus far comes together to make up this moment. Everything that is going to happen from now on begins with this moment.

For Jacob, it was as if all the streams of everything that had ever happened to him flowed together into the Jabbok River. For Jacob, what happened to him at the Jabbok River was going to have a tremendous influence on him for the rest of his life.

There beside the Jabbok, Jacob wrestled with God. There are other ways to interpret the text, but the fact remains that when it was all over, Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face” (v. 30).

No doubt to wrestle with God meant that Jacob was wrestling with his past. He had been gone from home for twenty years. He had left home with his brother Esau breathing death threats against him. He had left home with the birthright and the blessing but he had, with his mother’s help, lied and cheated to get them. He had been blessed during his sojourn in Haran with Laban and his family, but he had gone through a lot while he was being blessed. No doubt Jacob was wrestling with his past.

No doubt Jacob was also wrestling with his future. Tomorrow he was going to meet Esau. He knew that Esau was coming with 400 men to meet him. Jacob knew the hearts of men because he knew his own heart so well. He expected the worst. He planned to divide everything he had into two companies so that perhaps one could escape if Esau attacked. Tomorrow could bring disaster. Tomorrow could bring reconciliation. Tomorrow Jacob would have to face his past and tomorrow he would step into his future—if he had one.

It was with all of that going on, and with the promises of God to bless him and to protect him ringing in his ears, that Jacob entered into his wrestling match with God. All night long they struggled. It was a mighty struggle, and at times Jacob even seemed to get the upper hand. “The man,” the text says, “struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him” (v. 25).

When the sun came up and the match was over, Jacob left the scene limping. I suspect that Jacob limped for the rest of his life. The Israelites certainly chose to remember the limp in perpetuity. He left with a blessing, but he also left with a limp. He left with some resolution, but he also left with a limp. He left with a new name and a new identity, but he also left with a limp.

Jacob would have liked, as I am sure we would like, both as a church and as individual disciples, to strut through life proudly and triumphantly, to represent God as his perfect specimen. But Jacob instead walked through life with a limp. And that’s ok, because in God’s way of doing things, the limp is mightier than the strut.

When you truly struggle with God, you live with a limp. When you truly do things God’s way, you live with a limp. When you truly live a Christ-like life and carry out a Christ-like ministry, you live with a limp. And it is in the limp that you see God. That is because the limp causes you to remember those times when you have struggled with God and how in those struggles you have become more of what you are supposed to be. It is in the limp that you see God because the limp causes you to remember that God has always worked through people who are wounded. It is in the limp that you see God because the limp causes you to remember that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the very Son of God, bore the deepest wounds of all because he perfectly accomplished the will of God in the way of God.

Jacob limps no more. That’s because he’s in heaven. The day will come when you and I will limp no more. But we’ll be in heaven. The day will come when the church will limp no more. That will be the day when God makes all things as he intends for them to be. Notice how the hymn puts it.

‘Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation of peace forevermore;
Till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest. (Samuel J. Stone, The Church’s One Foundation)

We are not the church victorious until we are the church at rest. We are not the church at rest until we are the church victorious. We are not Christians victorious until we are Christians at rest. We are not Christians at rest until we are Christians victorious.

Till then, we limp. Till then, as Paul put it, God’s strength is made evident in our weakness.

We shouldn’t deny those places where God in his grace has wounded us, because it in those places that we can experience and see the grace of God. The music video based on Reba McIntryre’s song “Is There Life Out There?” (the song was written by Susan Longacre and Rick Giles) tells a story about a woman who had married young, had a few children, and then started wondering if she should be doing more. So, she went to college. As the story unfolds, the woman struggles with balancing everything that she is trying to do. She is having conflicts with her husband and her children. An important paper is on her kitchen table and one of her children spills something on it. It’s too late to do anything but turn the paper in. When the professor returns the paper to her, he has given her a good grade, but he tells her, “Next time, try to leave off the stains.” She replies, “I learned more from the stains than I did from the paper.” God teaches us a lot through the stains. He shows his strength through our weakness.

But the day will come when resurrection will be a reality and then we won’t have to be weak anymore. But for now we live with the weakness and it is in fact our weakness that makes us realize how necessary the resurrection is. The Baptist preacher Carlyle Marney visited a college campus. A student asked, “Dr. Marney, would you say a word or two about the resurrection of the dead?” Marney answered, “I will not discuss that with people like you.” When the student wanted to know why, Marney said, “Look at you, in the prime of the life, potent—never have you known honest-to-God failure, heart-burn, impotency, solid defeat, brick walls, mortality. So what can you know of a dark world which only makes sense if Christ is raised?” (Paul D. Duke, in “Transfigured Relations,” Christian Century, October 25, 1995, attributes the story to William Willimon)

The events that cause us to limp may be the events in which we most fully experience God. The events that cause us to limp may be the events that teach us the most about life and about God’s place in our lives. The events that cause us to limp may the events in which we come to understand most fully the hope and power of the resurrection.

Those churches and those Christians who strut around as if they have already arrived have it wrong, I think. Those who limp know and live the grace of God. Oh, we will strut one day, by the grace of God, when the resurrection comes.

But for now, by the grace of God, the limp is mightier than the strut.

Firewords

I make a lot of typographical errors myself and so I am not hard on others, particularly bloggers and Facebook note writers who don’t have the advantage (or disadvantage) of an editor, when they do—but occasionally one will catch my eye.

Such was the case today. A friend was writing about watching a July 4 fireworks show but his middle left finger acted when his middle right should have and he thus typed a “d” rather than a “k” with the result that he produced the (non)word “firewords.”

I decided that he had inadvertently coined a word that we should add to our vocabulary.

As a human being I am aware of the power of words; as a preacher I am keenly aware of the power of words. My friend’s new word set me to thinking about some of the “firewords” that we use, by which I mean words that are incendiary, that kindle fires in the people who hear them.

I have in mind not specific words but rather categories of words, some of which are harmful.

First, there are destructive words, by which I mean words that have the effect of tearing people down. The use of such words unfortunately characterizes many relationships, either on the part of one party or on the part of both parties. Now, sometimes a corrective statement must be made but when such a thing needs to be said it should be said in love and humility and with a view toward helping and not hurting.

Too often, though, people use words against other people—even people with whom they have the closest relationships—in order to tear them down. In my work as a pastor I have heard far too many accounts, for example, of spouses belittling spouses.

I imagine that such a use of words says more about the person who sends them out than it does about the person who has to receive them. He or she may be motivated, for example, by a desire to keep other persons down so they can be controlled or by a sense of inferiority that creates a need to try to put others in a position beneath him or her.

Regardless, such words are firewords because of the power they have to singe or even to scorch the lives of those against whom they are targeted.

Second, there are demagogic words, by which I mean words that are used in a manipulative way by people in positions of influence to play on a particular group’s fears or prejudices in order to incite greater fear or to arouse anger. Some politicians are guilty of using such words and some radio and television talking heads are notorious in their use of them. Perhaps most unfortunately, some preachers are prone to such verbal shenanigans as well.

We live in a society in which freedom of speech is not only a cherished value but a constitutionally guaranteed one. Moreover, I do not doubt that many people who use what I would regard as inflammatory language in fact hold strong convictions and their passion comes out in their language.

Nonetheless, too often a politician panders to her or his base through the use of such statements and too often the talking heads rile people up for the sake of ego and ratings rather than for the sake of making a meaningful contribution to the discussion and too often preachers confuse their cultural assumptions and their own fears with the biblical message and crave the affirmation that comes from having the congregation respond enthusiastically to having their biases confirmed from the pulpit.

Such demagogic words are firewords because of the power they have to singe or even to scorch the lives of those against whom they are targeted, both in the sense of those who are being attacked and those who are being affirmed.

Not all firewords are harmful though because not all fires are harmful; a fire properly used offers heat and light rather than destruction. What are some categories of helpful firewords?

First, there are constructive words, by which I mean words that are used to build another person up. Positive words spoken consistently make a positive difference. In a recent sermon on the family, I said, “None of you probably has the world’s greatest spouse (because I do!) but, based on the things that you say to your spouses, they should think that they are.” It is hard to overstate how important it is that parents build up their children in the ways they talk to them just as it hard to overstate how vital it is that we encourage each other in the church or in the neighborhood or in the workplace.

Constructive words spoken sincerely and consistently can kindle life-affirming and even life-giving fire in others.

Second, there are prophetic words, by which I mean words that challenge the status quo in ways that properly align with the Word of God as it is revealed in the Bible and as it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate. Prophetic words as they are presented in the Bible might be negative or they might be positive but they are always intended accurately to bring the Word of God to bear in a particular historical circumstance for the sake of affecting that circumstance.

Not all challenging words, though, not even those spoken from Christian pulpits, are prophetic, because they can be based in the preacher’s biases or fears or assumptions rather than in the Word of God.

Prophetic preaching is hard work—work that requires careful reading of the Bible, careful reading of the situation, and careful listening to the Spirit in prayer. Sometimes, after such hard work, the preacher’s conclusion is that the hard and challenging word must be spoken. Such a word, when it is presented with the motivation of helping God’s people and out of a heart brimming with the love and grace of Jesus Christ, is a positive thing.

Prophetic words spoken carefully and humbly can kindle church and community-changing fires.

Third, there are gospel words, by which I mean words that proclaim the good news of the life, teachings, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such words may be prophetic or they may be pastoral but the main things about them are that they accurately reflect who Jesus is and what he did and that they come out of a life that is doing its best, by the grace and Spirit of God, to walk humbly with Jesus.

Such words, whether they are challenging or comforting, will be covered up with grace, love, and mercy, just as Jesus Christ was. Such words will be motivated by and will inspire a servant and sacrificial spirit, just as Jesus Christ was.

Our imaginations can hardly contain the possibilities of what kinds of fires might be kindled if we preachers—if all Christians—could and would live and speak the firewords of the good news of Jesus Christ.

A Mission Trip

There are people who express some misgivings about church mission trips. They say, for example, that such mission trips can actually be church group vacations dressed up to look like mission trips.

We took our church group vacation this year to exotic Perry County, Alabama.

Don’t get me wrong—Perry County is a lovely place. The county seat of Marion is a nice small town that houses two fine colleges: Judson College and Marion Military Institute. Marion also holds a special place in the histories of both Baptist life and the American Civil Rights Movement. The other town in the county, Uniontown, is also a pleasant community.

But, like many small, rural communities, Perry County has many challenges, economic and educational ones being among the most serious.

Several years ago an organization called Sowing Seeds of Hope (SSH) was established in Perry County as an effort to address in an ongoing way some of the needs in the area with the love of Jesus Christ; among the ministry partners with SSH is the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Alabama. Each year several churches will bring groups to Perry County to work in conjunction with SSH on various projects.

As the Mission Ventures Team of the First Baptist Church (FBC) of Fitzgerald, Georgia cast about in 2009 for a mission project for the summer of 2010, we felt led to Perry County. Thanks to the budget gifts and special gifts and to the encouragement and prayers of the FBC family and thanks to the sense of call that a dozen of our church members felt to give a week of their lives to helping people they didn’t know in a place that they had seldom if ever seen, we went to Perry County.

Here at the end of our week there, I am glad to say that I can speak for all the members of our team in saying we are glad that we came.

We took on two main projects this week, both in Uniontown.

First, some of us spent the mornings conducting a literacy camp at the Uniontown Public Library. The library is housed in a former bank building in downtown Uniontown. There we led local children in activities involving reading, writing, crafts, games, songs, videos, and, of course, refreshments. And, thanks to our having a dentist in our group, we were also able to provide some dental hygiene instruction!

We will never forget the children who came to the camp; there shined in many of their eyes a bright hope that I believe will lead to good things in their lives.

Second, we spent the week painting the interior of the Robert C. Hatch High School cafeteria, including the bathrooms. Some of our team spent all day every day painting; those working in the literacy camp went to the cafeteria to paint in the afternoons. The school’s principal selected the colors and she chose the school colors of purple, gold, and white, which coincidentally happen to the be the colors of our hometown Fitzgerald High School. When the students return to school at the end of the summer they will have a bright newly painted cafeteria in which to eat breakfast and lunch; our hope is that they will find that encouraging and even inspiring.

Two of our team members also spent some time in the afternoons tutoring high school students in Marion.

Here at the end of the week we are tired and ready to go home but we leave with great hope and trust that the love of Christ that we have shared through the work we have done will be of help to somebody somehow.

This much we know: it has been a privilege to serve.

When we get home we will have, I hope, a different perspective through which we will view our own community and the role that our church family can play in addressing the needs that are right in our backyard. I hope that this group will also be the vanguard of many such efforts in the future.

A church grows in spiritual health, I believe, as we tend to our own spirits through spiritual formation, particularly Bible study and prayer, as we tend to the real needs in the real lives of our church family members, and as we reach out to share the love of Christ in the world beyond our walls in places both nearby and far away.

A mission trip can be an important component in the process.

This one was.