Luke 13:10-17
We have some outstanding helpers today … come on down – introduce them – help them get into their boxes.
Scripture reading … help each young person get out of the box, stand up straight and tall … how about a hand for our helpers today.
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The power of the positive:
Three stories:
My aunt Lala … real name, Sylvia, but my child’s mouth couldn’t say it, so Sylvia became Lala, and it stuck … she was Aunt Lala for me forever, and what an aunt she was.
She was poor as a church mouse … her husband a dreamer with nary a dream come true … she sold greeting cards to the wealthy … huge sample books of cards for every season, cards for every reason … she lived humbly, frugally … but with a gourmet’s touch for good things …
I remember a special lemonade she made for me … with cream … I have no idea how she made it, but it was delicious.
I remember a summer afternoon picnic by the Sheboygan River, beside a weeping willow … avocado salad … a rarity then I’m sure … but that was Lala.
She always asked me simple questions that I could easily answer, and then would say, “Oh, what a bright boy you are!”
She made me feel ten feet tall.
Everyone needs an Aunt Lala!
A man named Burt … my third grade Sunday School Teacher … I can still see in my mind’s eye – sitting in chairs, no more than ten of us … in the church kitchen or something like that, and I raised my hand and asked a question … no idea what it was, but the kids laughed at it, but Burt said something to me … I have no recall of what it was, but I remember what happened to me – Burt made me feel important … whatever he said to me was just right … a moment of recognition, encouragement, affirmation … he made me feel ten feet tall.
The last story: The Rev. Morris Faber, Bible teacher, Grand Rapids Christian High School – 1962, my senior year, three weeks before graduation, Bible Class.
Rev. Faber invited the seniors to step to the front, to come on down, and tell their plans.
So there I stood, in front of my peers, and I said, “I’m going to Calvin College and enroll in the pre-seminary track.”
The class erupted into gales of laughter … from what my classmates knew of me … I was not “ministerial material.”
And I laughed right along with all of them, but there it was, my calling … brewing inside of me since 9th grade … and really from the beginning of my life – earliest memories … filled with God.
When the laughter subsided, Rev. Faber looked at me, and said, “Tom, I believe you can do it.”
Words emblazoned on my mind and heart forever … I felt ten feet tall. Everyone needs a Rev. Faber.
Years later when I was visiting Grand Rapids, I caught lunch on 28th street, and lo and behold, there was Rev. Faber and his wife … I walked over to them and introduced myself … she looked up at me and smiled tiredly; Rev. Faber looked straight ahead.
“Morris has Alzheimer’s,” she said.
I told her the story, and she thanked me.
Rev. Faber looked at me with for a moment, his face still pleasant … did he hear me? Did he know?
I’ll see Rev. Faber in heaven … and he’ll be one of the first I say thanks to … a whole lot of people who made me feel ten feet tall, but he’ll be one of the first on my list.
“Rev Faber, thank you!”
The power of the positive! Heaven knows we need it:
Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a line-up. When detectives asked each man in the line-up to repeat the words: "Give me all your money or I'll shoot," the man shouted, "That's not what I said!"
A man spoke frantically into the phone, "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
"Is this her first child?" the doctor asked. "No!" the man shouted, "This is her husband!"
In Modesto, California, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a bank. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun, but unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket.
We all need a little help to stand tall.
Last year in Michigan, Donna and I, at a restaurant … young lady working hard to handle a lot of tables and lot of tourists … I asked and found out, she was a student, planning to be a teacher, I said, “You’ve got a great style; you will do well.”
She visible straightened … stood taller … the power of the positive!
Jesus goes church … teaches … He sees a woman standing in the shadows in the back of the church … Jesus calls her forward, “Come on down.”
When I first looked at the text, why didn’t Jesus go to her? Why call her forward, in front of the crowd … all bent over … how hard it must have been for her, and who knows what rumors the “righteous ones” spread about her condition – “Wonder what she did? She must’ve done something bad,” clucking their tongues, shaking their heads, wagging their fingers.
She’s a brave woman … still there … after 18 years … the taunts of children, the icy stares of the “righteous ones.”
She’s here … and Jesus calls her forward.
“Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”
He touches her - “puts His hands on her” – on her bent over back? On her head?
Powerful hands … kind hands … the hands of a carpenter … take rough wood and make a door … take a bent over human being and make them stand straight and tall.
He puts His hands on her, maybe the first time in years that someone touched her lovingly, but that’s all it took, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.
Out of the box … standing tall … free at last …
But the preacher got all bent out of shape that day … the preacher didn’t like it one bit … got edgy and cranky.
Scolded the people … preachers do that, now and then, I’m afraid … when preachers don’t know what else to say, when preachers forget the positive … when preachers forget the purpose of church … set people free, help them find their place, regain their identity, stand ten fee tall.
By scolding them? No, by holding them; touching them … with the grace of God.
Jesus helps the woman out of the box, and the preacher climbs in … feet first, all the way.
Maybe the preacher was liberal and fearful of faith; maybe the preacher was conservative and fearful of love …
“We don’t do that here on the Sabbath,” says the preacher.
“Why not?” asks Jesus.
Doesn’t everyone untie their ox or donkey on the Sabbath and lead them to water?
Then why not untie this woman and set her free?
Daughter of Abraham … that’s who she is … I bet she was as surprised as anyone … “Is that who I am? Do I really have a place in the Kingdom of God? Does God care about me?”
Of all the people there that day, Jesus singles her out … “Come on down” … front and center … “Come on down!”
The power of the positive … you can do it … you will find a way … it’ll work out … you are a servant of the Most High God and a follower of Jesus! That’s who you are!
The power of the positive … help someone stand straight and tall … at least ten feet tall.
Jesus makes it clear … her condition is not of God, but of Satan … but why 18 years?
No answer here … Jesus goes to work: “This woman needs to be set free, because that’s what God is all about.”
That’s what church is all about … that’s what Sabbath is all about … set people free, restore hope, reclaim identity.
I am who God says I am, I have what says I have, I can do what God says I can do.
God sets us free … gets us outta the boxes … helps us stand up, straight and tall.
All kinds of boxes …
Anger, bitterness, resentment …
Gossip, greed and envy …
A contentious spirit, a loose tongue, smoldering memories …
Stubbornness & pride …
Fear & fixations …
All of kinds of boxes:
“I will not forgive.”
“I will fight and claw my way through.”
“My way or the highway.”
Boxes of self-doubt:
I’m a failure, I’m a flub, I’m a flop.
I can’t do it.
I’ll never amount to much.
I can’t handle this.
Compulsive boxes:
Too much shopping … too much debt … judging Amy by how she dresses … needing to be smarter than everyone else … gotta be king of the hill.
Blame boxes …
I’m Irish, that’s why I have a temper.
I’m German, that’s why I’m stubborn.
I had a bad childhood, that’s why I have problems.
My boss is a bum, my spouse doesn’t understand … my children are a pain in the neck.
Theological boxes … just like the preacher: stuck in the past, fearful of change … “gimme that old time religion” …
Spiritual boxes …
I always have to smile … can’t let my flaws show … gotta read more Bible … pray more; pray harder … have more faith … be stronger, be better, be more like Jesus … gotta believe this and believe that … and woe to the one who sees it differently.
Boxes, big ones, little ones - into them we crawl … just like the preacher, all bent out of shape.
I wonder … did he ever got outta the box?
I’ll not judge that man … I’ve been there and done that, maybe you have, too.
I crawl into my little crummy box … and there I sit and sulk, wondering why no one understands me, feeling sorry for myself, snapping at folks, carrying a grudge, all bent out of shape.
But who wants to live in a box?
I don’t wanna live in a box … and you don’t either.
Boxes never feel good, never feel right, because we were made to stand up, straight and tall, at least ten feet tall.
I want to be that kind of person … straight and tall, the power of the positive … the good word, the word of hope and encouragement … to walk on the sunny side of the street, because the glass is half full, and I belong to Christ, and we’re all servants of the Most High God.
Let’s get rid of the boxes …
Step down … cut the tape … fold the boxes … put ‘em away … at the foot of the cross/front of Table.
No more boxes. Amen!
For benediction:
Let’s get rid of the boxes …
Ask folks during postlude to tear a piece of the bulletin … let it be a box that you’d like to get out of this morning … during the postlude, come to the chancel and put that piece of paper on the boxes here … at the foot of the cross, where boxes come undone, and bent-over folks stand up, straight and tall, at the touch of the Master!
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