When Does Your Heart Break? by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

I often get asked why I planted a church. It’s a lot of work. It would have been easier just to be the pastor of existing churches. And there are so many churches already. Why start a new one?

I started a new church, with a group of people, because our hearts were breaking. Our hearts were breaking for people who are excluded. I hate it when people are excluded. Just this week there was another story in the United Methodist news. Another gifted minister, named TC Morrow was denied commissioning as a provisional deacon in the Baltimore Washington Conference. They turned her down because she is a lesbian. Now the Board of Ordained Ministry did the right thing. They did not take into account her sexual orientation. They took into account only her gifts and graces for ministry. And they recommended her to the full clergy session of the Conference. But the clergy are the ones with the authority to approve someone for commissioning and they said “no.” Their decision broke my heart.

I started The Village, with a group of people, because I was tired of hearing stories that broke my heart: the stories of people sitting in worship in a mega church and being told they are going to go to hell for being gay, but they sat there anyway because they did not know where else to go, and the rest of the time they liked the preaching and the music and the small groups. That broke my heart. It broke my heart when I met two women with a baby. They just wanted to have their baby baptized but they had been turned away from several churches – told the pastor would not baptize a baby with two mothers. That broke my heart. Exclusion breaks my heart.

When we started The Village someone came here who was divorced. She no longer felt included in her former church because she was divorced. Everyone else was married and it made her feel excluded. Exclusion breaks my heart.

Another young man came whose parents did not want him in their home because he was gay. He was couch surfing from one friend’s house to another. He was one of the many homeless teens we have in Toledo, homeless because his own parents won’t accept him. His story broke my heart.

When does your heart break? We all have something that breaks our heart. Illness, abuse of children or animals, or spousal abuse. Your heart might break over the refugee crisis, or the plight of those who are homeless. Maybe your heart breaks for those who are hungry. When does your heart break? Does it break for children whose parents don’t have time for them, and vice versa? Does your heart break when you think of all the people in prison and the terrible conditions there? Or does it break for people who live where there is war? Or for children who can’t get an education. Does your heart break for women and girls who are discriminated against? Does your heart break over racial discrimination? Does your heart break for the elderly who are lonely and forgotten?

Jesus’ heart broke on a regular basis. In today’s story he encountered a widow. Jesus entered the town of Nain. His disciples and a large crowd were with him. As they entered the town they met a funeral procession, another large group of people. There was a widow whose only son was being buried, so she had lost her husband and now had lost her son.  This meant her life was pretty much over. She had no one to take care of her, and no reason to live. The scripture says, “When Jesus saw her, his heart broke.”  Then Jesus went over and touched the coffin. The pallbearers stopped. He said, “Young man, I tell you: Get up.” The dead son sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother.

Can you imagine the joy of the woman? Can you imagine the surprise of the two crowds?  Scripture says:  “They all realized they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them. They were quietly worshipful—and then noisily grateful, calling out among themselves, “God is back, looking to the needs of his people!” The news of Jesus spread all through the country.”

Now I don’t know if you remember the message I gave you last week, but it preceded this one in scripture. Jesus healed the servant of the Centurion, the Roman guard. People were amazed that Jesus would heal the slave of someone who was part of the Roman occupation army because they were the enemies of the Jews. But Jesus sees no enemies. He only sees people in need of God’s healing love. You see, Jesus’ heart breaks when he sees suffering of any kind. His heart broke when he saw the Centurion mourning the death of his devoted servant. Jesus’ heart broke when he saw the widow who had lost her only son to death. Jesus was so moved to compassion that he brought them both back to life.

This is what Jesus does. He brings life where there is death. He brings healing to the places where there is injury. He brings joy where there is sorrow. He brings inclusion to the places where there is exclusion.

So let’s go back to that place where your heart breaks. What are you and Jesus doing about it? Or what are you going to do about it. My heart breaks when I see people being excluded. So I and some other people planted this church as a place of inclusion for people who were being excluded.

My question is: what’s next for us? What is God calling us to do next? We are doing “this” pretty well. We have a worshipping community that is inclusive of people who feel excluded in other worship communities. But our hearts break over other things. How are we going to join Jesus in acts of compassion next? There is a whole world of hurting people out there.

The Lead Team is meeting next week to talk about what we might do next as a congregation. A couple of ideas are emerging. One is to help with Promise House which is a project to support homeless teens, many of whom are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Another is to offer support to refugees from Syria who are settling in the Toledo area. Either project would be worthy of our time and energy. But there might be something else that breaks your heart and ignites your passion. If so, I encourage you to talk to one of the Lead Team members today or sometime this week.

The point is this. Jesus acted out of compassion. He did not sit on the sidelines. He did not call his disciples to form churches and then just sit inside them and get comfortable. Jesus was bold. He brought people back to life who were dead! As followers of Jesus we are called to be bold.

What is God calling you to do? When does your heart break? I’d like you to tell me about that. Give me a call. Let’s have coffee and talk about it.

Because you see, the place where your heart breaks is the place you are called to serve God. The place where your heart breaks, and the worlds needs meet, that is where God wants you to make a difference. Each one of us can make a difference in the world, when we use our gifts.

I did it with the help of some friends. We started this church and you are a part of it. Our hearts broke. We saw a need and we did something about it.

 

So when does your heart break? Pay attention to that. And do something. Make a difference. Follow Jesus, and change the world. Amen.