= Sara Miles calls herself a "Jesus Freak." In fact, that is the title of her book. It's the best book Cheri has read in years, and that’s saying something. Cheri loves Sara Miles. She is her new hero. Cheri says “I want to be Sara Miles when I grow up”. And this is why. She follows Jesus, and she's changing the world. And yeah, it's messy, but it's not so complicated. She doesn't make following Jesus so complex. Oh sure, when you have to deal with people, like we said, it's messy. She writes this in her book: "The thing that really sucks about being a Christian is that God actually lives in other people" (Jesus Freak, p. xvii). So, of course, that means that we have to treat other people with the same care and love that we would treat God. Cheri keeps hearing the song “what if God was one of us” in her head when she thinks about this.
Sara Miles is a real live person, doing ministry today in the city of San Francisco, reminding us, that God lives in the people who are hungry, and coming to our food pantries. Those are the people that we need to treat with the same compassion we would treat Jesus if he came to our house. It's really that simple.
But here's the thing. Sara Miles is no saint. She would tell you that. She was an atheist for a whole lot of her adult life. She was a former war correspondent, seeing whole lot of horrible stuff. At age 46, she wandered into a communion service at a church in San Francisco and took communion, and it changed her life.
This is what she writes about that experience: "Eating Jesus cracked my world open and made me hunger to keep sharing food with other people. That desire took me to an altar, at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where I helped break the bread for Holy Communion, then to a food pantry that I set up around the same altar, where we gave away free groceries to anyone who showed up. From all over the city, poor people started to come every Friday to the church-100, 200, 450, 800 people-and like me, some of them stayed. Soon they began to feed and take care of each other, then run things, then start other pantries. It was my first experience of discovering that regular people could do Jesus' work." (p. xi)
You see, Sara Miles' life was transformed by Jesus. She got it. She got the message. She said, she read the calls from Jesus in scripture, and she thought he really meant it, imagine that. He seemed pretty clear to her. So she, and some others, started this amazing food pantry. They give away food right in the sanctuary of this Episcopal church, think fancy, high church, crosses, marble altar, etc, every Friday.
They have about 50 volunteers, many of whom started out as folks in the line a few weeks before, who needed food. They start with a home-cooked meal for those volunteers. And then they give away food, right there from the altar of the church, to anyone who comes, no red tape, no qualifications. You just show up and you get food. And people give them donations because they want to help hungry people. And other folks come there to learn how to set up food pantries in their neighborhoods. Because what they are doing there is living out the call of Jesus to feed the hungry. It’s messy, but sometimes, it's just that simple. They’re celebrating 10 years this fall of doing this.
We read some of those calls in the scripture we read in our celebrations for today. The
Scripture, for those playing along at home, Matthew 10:5-14 (The Message):
5-8Jesus sent his disciples out with this charge:
"Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.
9-10"Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.
11"When you enter a town or village, don't insist on staying in a luxury inn. Get a modest place with some modest people, and be content there until you leave.
12-15"When you knock on a door, be courteous in your greeting. If they welcome you, be gentle in your conversation. If they don't welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.
Sara Miles writes this: "What does it mean to be a Jesus freak? Or, more to the point, what would it mean to live as if you-and everyone around you-were Jesus, and filled with his power? To just take his teachings literally, go out the front door of your home, and act on them?
"It's actually pretty straightforward, Jesus says. Heal the sick. Cast out demons. Cleanse the lepers. You give the people something to eat. You have the authority to forgive sins. Raise the dead." (p. ix)
"I know this sounds nuts," I said to an old friend, who'd been shocked at my conversion to a faith I'd mocked, and baffled by my sudden urge to give away pallets of lettuce and cereal, "But, uh, when we're all together at the Eucharist and at the food pantry, it's the same thing. Because Jesus is real." (p. xiii)
Sara is a Jesus freak. But she never thought she would be. And she's not the kind of person we think of when I think of a Jesus freak. She's not preaching on a street corner to folks and telling them they need to be saved. She's giving food to drug addicts; and homeless parents with hungry children. She's going to the barrio to visit dying mothers and their children, because they call and ask her to come.
And why does she do it? Because, in her words, "Eating Jesus cracked my world open and made me hunger to keep sharing food with other people." She found meaning. She answered God's call in a big way. She wanted to do something to make a difference with her life. And so now she runs a food pantry, and helps others to start food pantries all over San Francisco.
For the next six weeks at The Village, Cheri is going to be preaching from Sara Miles book called Jesus Freak and we are running four "Connection Groups" each week to discuss the Sunday messages. If you want, you can order a copy of the book on-line and read it. Or you can just go to the group (schedules and locations are on line at our website), without any preparation and still get plenty out of it. We are even posting the discussion questions on line. We want to make this as easy as possible, because we know that being in a "Connection Group" is new for most of you and you will be taking a risk to do it.
Here's what we hope we will get out of this experience. Several things:
1) Connecting to one another and connecting to God
2) Recognizing that we are not perfect and that God loves us anyway. Because Sara's stories are all about real people who are far from perfect, hear that, we;’re not perfect people, but they love one another and they are blessed by God's love in all sorts of messy human circumstances
3) We hope that Jesus will catch a hold of us the way Jesus has caught a hold of Sara Miles. That would be the most awesome thing of all.
She has found her passion for serving Jesus in life. Her passion does not need to be my passion or yours. Our friend Claire read this book and said to me: "So when are we going to open a Food Pantry here at The Village?" I said, "I'm not entirely sure Toledo needs any more food pantries. There are lots of them. We might need to provide some volunteers at some of the Feed Your Neighbor sites, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, and that would be great."
Here's what we hope we will do. We hope we will all find our passion. We can't all start some huge amazing new ministry like Sara Miles. And we don't have to. Now there were probably two or three in this room who will do that - start some new thing from the ground up. Some of you are employed in jobs that you see as a ministry, and this worship series may help clarify some of that for you. But we believe there is still quite a lot of untapped potential in this place. We have some big dreams here. We see problems out there - problems so big - only God can respond. But God can use us.
Now one person alone, usually can't do so much. But one person with a passion who gets a vision from God and shares that vision with other passionate people. . . well, then things start getting really exciting. There may be someone who sat in the Village Commons today or reading this blog along with you, that God has put in this place, to be a partner with you - to change the world. The Village is simply the connecting point, the incubator, probably also the prayer center, for that world-changing-movement. And here's the thing. We don't have to change the whole world. God has lots of Villages all over the planet. God is busy.
So, what is God saying to your heart today? Imagine Jesus standing here right now, and saying: "What are you waiting for? Just go. I'm giving you the power, heal the sick, feed the hungry, care for the hurting people." Who would Jesus be sending you to, and what would you do? Whose face do you see?
Cheri says “I believe God is speaking to us today. We are not going to get the whole picture today, but we will get a glimpse”. So take a movement to move into a prayer time & a ritual now, as we ask God to show us that glimpse. To so, find a quiet spot and an object for this, we passed out marbles. Hold that glass marble or other thing right now, and ask the following:
Ask Jesus, who would you send me to?
What are you calling me to do?
What is my purpose?
Now, when you’ve got that figured out, come on down to the Village, or if you’re too far away, find a place to put it, a rock garden, a stream, and put it with the dozens of others we prayed over ourselves today. Each one is a fellow dreamer, a fellow Jesus Freak who wants to change the world. Come be a part of this with us. We’re starting at the corner of Monroe & Central, each Sunday at 10:30 AM & 12:30 PM and as our statement we read each week says “We know that we are imperfect people who make mistakes. We give thanks that God loves us anyway. In this community we practice patience, compassion, and forgiveness. When we leave this gathering, we go out to share God's healing love with a broken world. We are Jesus' instruments of hope in our world. We are followers of Jesus and we can change the world!”.
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