Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors

james 2:1-10, 14-17
September 10, 2006

Don't you hate a smarty-pants? I mean that person who tells it like it is-- doesn't mince words, says what they think? They may even say the things you wish you had the nerve to say, but nobody wants to be known as a big mouth.
Well, James is one of those. He's like that pebble in your shoe. Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation, thought the book of James was useless, if it were up to him, he would have left James out of the Bible entirely. James calls us to accountability, and that's uncomfortable. Essentially he's saying, "practice what you preach, people!" And we would agree, but we don't like it when somebody points out that we may not be practicing what we preach.
Some of you know, that like any other organization, the United Methodist Church has come up with a slogan. Everybody knows that the mainline church is declining in numbers, and so there's a campaign to try to reverse that. Maybe you've seen the well-done commercials on CNN and other cable stations through the year, advertising the UMC and what we stand for. In the past few years, they've come up with the slogan, "Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors..." to define what we are about as United Methodist Christians.
I wonder what James would say to us about that slogan? We say it, but do we do it?
And I don't mean United Methodists only, I mean any church that professes Jesus Christ, that claims to follow his teachings. Do we live out what we believe? Do we practice what we preach?? Not just the church, but as individual Christians?
I went to a Christian College back in the mid-80s. I went to the first one that sent me a catalog, I didn't really look into it, didn't shop around, I figured all Christian colleges would be the same. I just wanted to be with like-minded people. I hoped it would be like summer camp for 4 years. I was a nerd in high school, a goody-two shoes, and I wanted to go to a college where I fit in better. I assumed I'd find that at a Christian college. I figured we'd all get along, support one another, encourage one another and build one another up.
The very first day I was on campus, I was told, #1 that the United Methodist Church was going to hell, and #2, that God doesn't call women into ministry and it's precisely because they ordain women, that the UMC is destined for hell. Hmm.
College ended up being a difficult experience, to say the least. I was not one to rock the boat or speak up back then, so at that time I gave up on my call to ministry and tried to fit in. However, during the spring semester of my junior year, I had to take a class called Methods of Social Research, in which we were split up into groups and asked to come up with a group research project. I don't remember exactly how my group came up with its idea -- the others insist it was my idea, but I'm highly doubtful. What my group decided to do for our project was to dress up as punk rockers and attend 5 different churches on Sunday mornings. Three of us were the punk rockers and the other three pretended not to know us, and observed the congregations' reactions to us. We wanted to see how people would respond to the way we looked. We didn't act any differently, we carried Bibles, we sang the hymns, said the creeds, said the Lord's Prayer. We tried to behave like regular church members.
But we looked very different.
I wore skin tight, black and pink tiger-striped leggings with black lace stockings and black and gold high-heeled shoes. I had on a ripped T shirt that was splattered with multi-colored paint. Over that I wore a black sequined jacket that I got at a Thrift store, and wore matching black lace gloves and lots of chains around my neck. Hanging from my ears I had huge silver crosses. My hair was shorter then, and I loaded it up with lots of gel to make it stand up straight, highlighting it with blue hair paint. I used lots of dark eyeshadow and eyeliner around my eyes so that I looked a lot like Cat Woman, and finished it off with black lipstick.
I looked horrible.
My friend Bob had spent a lot of time on South Street in Philadelphia, which was a punk rocker's hangout, so Bob was our costume and make-up consultant. None of this was a big stretch for Bob.
It took me two hours every Sunday morning to get my make-up and hair done.
As I said, we only had 5 weeks, so we went to 5 churches. We got a variety of responses, walking into those churches. In one church, we sat down close to the front. People stared. They didn’t even try to hide their reactions. Little kids pointed at us and whispered, mothers tried to shush them. One man walked past me, took one look at me and his face screwed up in horror as he said very loudly, “My God!” and walked on.
During the sermon, the pastor gave an altar call. Nobody came forward, but he kept inviting.
When we talked to him a couple of weeks later and told him who we were, he admitted that he’d given that altar call for us specifically. His wife said she was in the back praying that we would go forward. The pastor said quite honestly that when we walked in, he took one look at my cat-like eyes and said to himself,
“There’s going to be a battle with Satan today!”
At another church, people pointed at stared, but didn’t use the Lord’s name in vain--at least in our hearing, and they didn’t come anywhere near us.
Later, we waited in the pastor’s office to speak with him--because as part of our project, we were to talk to the pastor about ways we could get involved in the church. While we were waiting, the pastor’s little boy--a cute, curly-headed blond boy, came into the office, looked up at me and grinned a toothy grin. He took my hand, placed a stick of gum in my lace gloves and folded my fingers over it, skipping away.
The whole thing became very personal. Even though we knew who we were, we all felt the reactions to us when we went to these churches. We felt the rejection, the disgust, the unwelcome. On top of that, the three of us were all people who felt unwelcome at our Christian college, even as ourselves.
Finally, we went to a United Methodist Church in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I was a little nervous about that, being a United Methodist myself-- I wanted the UMs to look good. My hands were really sweating in those gloves that day.
Soon after we settled into our pew and tried to breathe during the announcements, the pastor got up and asked all visitors to stand. Well, there was no way we could pretend we weren’t visitors! So we stood. He asked us to introduce ourselves. The others looked at me, and in the moment I was unanimously appointed the spokesperson for the group.
We hadn’t planned on having to talk…
I gave our first names and we quickly sat down. The pastor said that he was really glad to see us and said we were “welcome.” After the benediction, I bent over to pick up my Bible, anxious to get out before the Methodists incriminated themselves! But when I looked up, I realized we were surrounded. Each end of our pew was blocked by members of the church! They came to us, asking all kinds of questions: Where did we live? Did we have jobs?
Some of them gave us their phone numbers, offering us rides to church, or a home-cooked meal. Others told us about the Young Adult Sunday School classes, and that the Youth Group needed some adult sponsors-- I thought THAT was interesting!
Again, my classmates kept their mouths shut the entire time, and I was forced to make up answers to all the questions about who we were. The pastor himself came to us, and told us that he makes a mean lasagna and that he’d love to have us over to the parsonage sometime. His wife reiterated the quality of his lasagne and said it was worth the trip!
Once we finally broke free and got back to the car we realized we’d stayed after church for an hour talking to people! All of us were moved. We all wanted to be a part of this church. We all felt welcomed and loved. It had become much more than a class project. We felt the presence of Jesus in that congregation in a profound way that changed all of us.
A couple of weeks later, we went back to the church office to speak to the pastor. We went as ourselves this time, and he didn’t recognize us at all. Again, my classmates left it up to me to tell him who we were. When I told him, he didn’t say anything at first. Then he leaned back in his chair…. and laughed!
We told him about our other church experiences, how it got to be personal, how we felt bad going into those other churches and being treated the way we were, just because of how we looked. And we told him how we felt at his church, how all of us were kind of misfits at school, how we didn’t fit in very well at our Christian school, how each of us had a hard time finding a church home while we were away at school. We told him how we all wanted to come to his church.
The pastor, Pastor Frank, stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. He told us that in another month, he was moving. In fact, he said, he was leaving the ministry altogether. He told us the church had been through some rough times during his ministry there. He'd done some unorthodox things himself in the effort to get the message of the Gospel across. One thing he’d done was dress up as a homeless man and visit each of the houses of the members of his Administrative Council. They didn’t recognize him, and every one of them refused to give him something to eat .
They were not too happy to find out later that it was him.
He did other things like that, too, that didn’t go over well. As a result, he said, the church had split. Many families had left in anger, and the ones who remained had lost hope. Some even had said that it felt like Jesus was no longer among them. Then Pastor Frank brightened up. He had an idea. He asked us to come back on a Sunday morning to tell the whole congregation what we told him. That we had experienced the love of Jesus among them
in a way that changed us and encouraged us. He told us that he believed that God had sent us to them to encourage them, to tell them that Christ was still among them, that they still had the Spirit in them….
So a couple of weeks later, we went back on a Sunday morning, dressed as ourselves. Nobody in the congregation recognized us. Nobody knew that anything special was happening that day until Pastor Frank got up and read from Hebrews about entertaining angels unaware.
Then he introduced us as someone who had a story we needed to tell them. Again, shy old me was appointed to be the first to speak; to break the news of who we were and what we’d done.
When I finally told them who we were, I paused and looked around the congregation. Slowly people smiled, then broke out into laughter, like a ripple across the congregation. Some covered their mouths. I went on to tell them how profoundly we had felt Jesus’ love for us through them… Then the others in our group got up and told their stories as well.
After the benediction, we were surrounded once again, there at the front of the church. People came up to us crying. Little old ladies told us they’d been so worried about us, that they had prayed for us after we didn't return.
One woman said, “I can’t wait to go home and tell my husband— He was here that day, and he thought you were disgusting!” And she laughed a somewhat devilish laugh.
The people thanked us, and they, too, said that they believed that God called us together through this school project, to encourage each other in the faith, and to remind each other that God loves us all.
We went to the parsonage after worship and ate some mean lasagna fixed by Pastor Frank, took pictures of him and his family, and enjoyed an afternoon of laughter and visiting.
St. Francis of Assisi once said,
“Preach the Gospel at all times,
and if necessary, use words…”
I think we all know that the most powerful way to preach the Gospel is by living it. We hear lots of words, but they mean nothing if they’re not lived out. That’s what James calls us to--to preach the Gospel with our lives.
Are our hearts, minds and doors really open?
Do we welcome the stranger?
Do we welcome the one who isn’t dressed up?
Do we cater to those who we know can make a generous offering?
Do we want new members so that we can build each other up in the Gospel, do the work of Christ in the world? Or do we want only new members who can give the church lots of money?
We all need love. We all hunger to belong, to be accepted for who we are. And we all hope that here, of all places, in God’s house, in Christ’s body, we all hope that it is HERE where we can find God in each other, and the love of Christ in each other’s embrace.
Jesus said, "when you do it to the least of these, you do it to me."
We never know when Jesus will show up or what he’ll look like when he does. So let’s not turn anyone away from the loving, life-giving arms of Jesus. Let’s live up to the commercial, to the slogans. Let’s live what we believe.... because there are lives and hearts at stake….