"Ticket to Ride"

7-26-15

Lexington UMC                                  “Ticket to Ride”

Luke 13: 31-35

“I think I’m gonna be sad.  I think it’s todaaaay, yeah!  The girl that’s drivin’ me mad is goin’ awaaaay.”

I know this is a pop song and all, but I have to tell you…I hear so much sadness and disappointment in these lyrics.  Don’t you?  It’s the cry of a broken heart.  Do you recognize the sound?

We heard that sound earlier when we read these words of Jesus:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

To put it another way…  Jerusalem’s got a ticket to ride.  And she don’t care.  And Jesus’ heart is broken.

How strange sounding that must be for those who worship other gods.  “Isn’t your God all-powerful,” they might ask.  “Yes,” we would say.  “Our God is all-powerful and mighty to save!”  “Then how could your all-powerful God possibly be sad and disappointed?” they ask.  Well?  Good question, right?

The answer to that question goes back to the way that God made us human beings.  God made us with the ability to choose…to choose life or death…to choose to love God or reject God.  Without that free choice we would be no better than robots – we could never have a real, authentic relationship…and a real, authentic relationship with us is what God had in mind from the beginning.  God wouldn’t settle for anything less.

The fact that God in Christ is weeping over Jerusalem shows just how far God will go in protecting humanity’s freedom to choose.  God will take it all the way to the cross, won’t he?  And beyond!  Our choice…that  is what is at the heart of this message today…our choice…

1.     Every single one of us has a ticket to ride today.  Do you care?

Inside your bulletin you will notice a ticket.  On one side it reads, “Ticket to Ride.”  On the other side, it reads, “Do you care?”  I’m going to ask you to do something with that ticket later on in the service.  Will you use it?  Will you walk away?  For now, hold on to it.

So picture in your mind Jesus standing looking over the city of Jerusalem, his arms open wide…  He is sad at their rejection.  Now, let’s back up a few verses and see some of the things that happened before Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Before Jesus got sad, he got mad.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem.  He has been teaching, and some Pharisees came up to him and said, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

What is behind this warning that the Pharisees gave Jesus?  We don’t really know.  Are their intentions good?  Are they trying to help Jesus out, or trick him?  All that we know for sure is that they are trying to tell Jesus where he can and cannot go. 

Now let’s stop here for a second.  This is almost too much to believe!  Religious people trying to tell Jesus where to go…  What were they thinking?  But here we are 2000 years later… still trying to tell Jesus where he can and cannot go.  Aren’t we?  “Jesus couldn’t possibly want to have anything to do with those folks,” we say.  “They’re not like us!  They are not even in our denomination!”

Or maybe we say, “Jesus, you stay here in church and mind your own business.  I don’t want you coming to my home.  You might not like what I watch on TV.  I don’t want you going to work with me.  You might not approve of how I act at work.  I don’t want you hanging out with me and my friends.  You might not like some of the language we use.  I don’t want you getting involved in my politics.  You see what I mean?  You stay in your place, Jesus.”

Here’s where Jesus got mad.  At least I think he got mad.  When the Pharisees told him not to go to Jerusalem because Herod wanted to kill him, Jesus said, “Go and tell that fox for me…  Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and to morrow and the third day I finish my work.”

What do you think Jesus was feeling when he said those words?  To help you answer that question, I will put up the emotions from Disney Pixar’s movie, Inside Out…  There’s Anger, Fear, Joy, Disgust, and Sadness.

So when Jesus told the Pharisees, “You go and tell that fox Herod something for me…”  What do you think Jesus was feeling?  Maybe anger?  Certainly not fear!

I think Jesus was mad about the Pharisees trying to tell him where to go.  I think he was mad at Herod for thinking he could possibly stop God’s plan.  And then I think he was sad over the way people would reject him.  Did you notice that Jesus compares Herod to a fox, and himself to a hen?

The fox was a crafty, sneaky varmint…wanting to feed its own selfish hungers.  The hen wanted to gather the chicks underneath her wing to protect them.  One represented Herod…the government…the earthly powers that be…the way of the world…kill or be killed…  The other represented Jesus…  represented God’s desire for us.  Listen to these words from Psalm 36: 7…

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!  All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

The earthly powers that be…the way of the world = the fox.  God = the hen.  Here’s the big question:  “Where are we in all this?  As Christians?  As a church?  Are we more like Foxy Loxy or Henny Penny?  Are we focused on our own selfish interests, or are we trying to take others under our wing?

Remember the heart of this message…  Who are we?  We are the ones who have a ticket to ride.  Take your ticket and look at it again.  You’ve got a ticket to ride.  Each of us is one of the chicks that God the mother hen longs to hide under the shadow of her wings.  Do you care?  But here’s something else to consider…

2.     Not only are we ticket recipients – we are ticket ambassadors.  We are supposed to spread the good news to others that they have a ticket to ride as well.

Can we make someone use his or her ticket?  No.  Can’t do it!  However much we love them, they are free to not care.  It might make us sad.  We might weep over them like Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

Is it our (the church’s) job – to be ticketmasters…to dispense the tickets?  No.  Here’s where the Pharisees got it wrong.  They thought they were the ticketmasters.  If you want to get to God, you had to come to them – do all the stuff they did – become like them – and then you could have your ticket.

When Jesus challenged them, they got upset.  Didn’t they?  The Pharisees didn’t get upset with Jesus for leaving too many people out.  They got upset with Jesus for opening his wings too wide – for offering a ticket to the people that they didn’t think were ticket-worthy.  “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they grumbled.

We’re not the ticketmasters.  That’s not our job.  Jesus bought the tickets with his own blood.  He gives them out.  Neither can we make someone use their ticket.  Our job is to first use our own tickets, then to spread the news to others… to spread the news of Jesus’ fabulous offer: “You’ve got a ticket to ride!  This ticket is a gift to you.  It was paid for by Jesus himself.”

I can picture the church – as she follows Jesus – becoming like the hen…with her wings open, inviting all to come underneath for shelter.  If we are following Jesus, church, I think this has to be our posture.  Arms open wide.  We make the invitation - and sometimes…many times, we will be rejected.  But we keep pressing on toward the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

And we make sure we keep the main thing the main thing.  Have you ever heard the old saying, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing?”  On Wednesday night we talked about how that the Israelites had made God’s big deal into their little deal.  God wanted the Israelites to rebuild the Temple when they returned from exile, but they faced opposition.  So they quit working on the Temple and focused on building their own houses instead.  They made their own interests the main thing.

What is God’s big deal, according to Jesus?  What’s the main thing?  When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, what did he say?  We can find it in Matthew 22: 37-40…

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

This is God’s big deal.  The big deal… The main thing… The question is - Is this our big deal – our main thing…or have we made something else our big deal? We could think of it this way: If we all have a ticket to ride – then we could say that God’s big deal is the train.  We could call it the Love Train.  Couldn’t we?  Love God with everything we’ve got…love our neighbor as ourselves…  We’ve got a ticket to ride on the Love Train.  That’s the big deal!

I think we are guilty of sometimes making other things into the big deal.  We take a big deal and turn it into the big deal.  I’ve seen it happen over the last few weeks.  I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I have to tell you - I’m about sick and tired of seeing Rainbow Flags and Confederate Flags on my Facebook feed, y’all! 

I promised at the beginning of this series that I would address some of the issues that we have witnessed in our country over the last several weeks have gotten a lot of attention – like the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, and removal of the Confederate Flag from the State Capitol Building. 

This is not a sermon on the issue of homosexuality.  I preached that one not too long ago, and if you’d like to see it, it’s up on my blog.  I don’t plan on preaching a sermon on the Confederate Flag, and I’m not here to tell you to take yours down or to put one up.  What I do want to ask you to do today is to not let a big deal become the big deal.

We are living through some monumental shifts in our society.  It’s like living through the 60’s and 70’s all over again – except different.  You do recognize that, don’t you?  It’s a big deal.  We ought to really think about these issues – and not just react to them.  We need to learn to ask the question: “How do we, as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, respond to the changes we see happening?”

One way we could respond would be to get hung up on “yesterday.”  Remember that Beatles song from 3 weeks ago?  We could pine for the good ol’ days before all these changes.

That might be tempting – but there is a big problem with that.  The main problem is that we simply can’t go back to yesterday.  Not really.  We can be nostalgic.  We can be in denial.  But life has to be lived forwards…can’t be lived backwards.  Regardless of how we feel about it, things have changed.

As we close out this series, I want us to remember something about these changes in our society.  These things are directly connected to the Scripture that we shared today.  I want us to remember a couple of things – 3 things, really: 

• ·       No group of Pharisees (or any other of us “religious experts”) get to tell Jesus where he can and cannot go.  No group gets to do that.  Not even us.

We need to remember that when we are tempted to say something like, “Jesus couldn’t possibly be behind some of these changes.”  Really?  We know that?  Are we going to be so arrogant as to tell Jesus where he can and cannot go? 

• ·      No political powers that be…  No “Herod” who is in office now or who will be in office in the future can thwart the plan and purpose of God!

The Kingdom of God is not in jeopardy.  Whatever you or I or anybody else says… God is still Sovereign.

You might be among the those folks who were disappointed by the Supreme Court ruling or by the Confederate Flag being taken down from the Capitol.  You might be among those who were happy about the decisions.  I’m of the opinion that both sides need a hug about now.  There have been a lot of stones thrown from both sides.  My point is - whether these changes make you happy or sad – they have not de-railed the plan and purpose of God.  God still wins, people.  Your political candidate might or might not win…your preferred political policy might or might not win…  But in the end, God still wins! 

• ·      No decision made by the Supreme Court…no declaration by any group of politicians or any governor…can ever change the church’s mission.  God’s big deal is still supposed to be the big deal for the church.  The name of God’s train is still the Love Train.  It hasn’t changed.

And nothing that has happened over the last few weeks has affected your and my ability to do what God has called us to do…  to be disciples of Jesus Christ - to use our ticket to ride, if you will…  and to make disciples of Jesus Christ – that is to tell others that God’s arms are still open wide.  They’ve got a ticket to ride, too!

You’ve got a ticket to ride.  Do you want to stand on the platform arguing?  Or do you want to get on the train?