Lewis Grizzard is one of my favorite columnists. He isn't as vulgar in his writing as he is in his speaking. Even in his speaking, if you can abide his vulgarity, you can come out with a pearl worth the risk of dirtying your own mind.
A few years ago he wrote of missing the family Thanksgiving dinner. It was at an uncle's house out in the country. Country folks like to eat dinner early in the middle of the day. Grizzard slept late and missed it.
At 1 P.M., Thanksgiving, he got a call from B.A. (Now I don't know who B.A. is and Grizzard doesn't tell us in his column.) Let me read the column from that point:
"Catch a plane," B.A. said. "The Hyatt bar is open even if nothing else is."
I was at the Savannah airport three hours later.
We never made it to the Hyatt bar. We stopped instead at a little beer joint just outside the airport.
There were a couple of pool tables inside and young men wearing hats with the names of various heavy equipment companies sewn on them were playing. Cigarettes dangled from their mouths. They were silent and expressionless. One got the idea heavy stakes were involved.
A few old men sat around the bar drinking beer. A man and a woman worked behind the bar. There was a juke box playing country music.
"Keep your mouth shut," B. A. said, "and we'll probably be OK."
"Probably..."
We had a few beers and played a few tunes of our own. Nobody had spoken to us until a graybeard sitting a few stools down looked up from his can of beer and asked, "Y'all ain't from around here, are you?"
We said we weren't.
"Y’all going to stay for supper?" the man went on.
"Stay for what? I asked.
"Supper," he said. "We have it here every year on Thanksgiving. It's mostly for the regulars who don't have nowhere else to go, but I'm sure nobody would mind if y'all stayed."
We didn't say yes. But we didn't say no, either.
A half hour later, the door to the joint opened and in walked five or six ladies bearing plates of food. Lots of food. They set up a table near the juke box. Turkey and dressing. A ham. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Green beans. Butter beans. Creamed corn. Homemade rolls. There were also cakes and pies.
The customers put down their beers and pool sticks. They lined up plates in hand for the feast in front of them.
"Y'all more than welcome to eat," said the woman behind the bar. We got in line.
The food was wonderful. We went back twice.
"You do this every year, huh?, I asked one of the ladies that brought the food.
"They's lots of people don't have nowheres to go on Thanksgiving," she said. "Some of 'em come in here to drink cause it ain't as lonely as staying home. We all live in the neighborhood and we just try to share what we got with others."
We stayed until 9 or 10. We tried to pay extra for the food, but nobody would take our money. Thanksgivings come and Thanksgivings go, and, occasionally, one comes along that is very special." (The Commercial Appeal, November 27, 1986).
Wouldn't you like to know who those five or six women were who brought in the food?
If I were a betting man, I would lay odds that they were from some church. If not, they had gotten the message of the One whose Spirit makes the Church the risen Christ!
Now they may not have gotten the whole message, and they may not have been "practicing Christians", but implicit in what they were doing and what was happening in that little joint outside the Savannah airport was more than a hint of the Church.
This is Pentecost Sunday the birthday of the Church. The two Scripture passages of our lesson today tell the story.
"First, John's record of the appearance of Jesus to the disciples in the Upper Room.
"They're all there, all there except Thomas. He slept in, I guess. Thomas is not there. Jesus appears in the room, actually he materializes right before them. He shows them his wounds, verifying that he is not a ghost, that indeed it is the Lord. Then he breathes on the, which is the way God put life into the first humans, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God blew breath into them. So that's a clue. You're supposed to take notice of this. This is important. This tells you what is happening here. What is happening here is that something new is being created. Jesus breathes on them the breath of life, and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Then he gives them the power to forgive sins.
"So what we have here is John's version of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church." (Rev. Mark Trotter, "Then What Happened?", April 10, 1988)
Now we're more familiar with the story in the Book of Acts. That's where we go to tell the birth story of the Church. But both stories say the same thing: the Church was formed by the Spirit. And the Spirit is the spirit of Jesus. It's Jesus who breathed his breath in them.
So when Paul calls us to walk in the Spirit, as he does over and over again in his epistles, he is calling us to a specific Christ walk.
So let's take a bold leap in our thinking: the church whose birthday we celebrate is the gathering of those in whom Jesus has breathed his spirit.
"So if there's a building with a sign on it that says 'Church', and you don't see the spirit of Jesus inside that building, it isn't the Church. That's what this text says. The spirit of Jesus is what makes the Church. So, if the spirit of Jesus is not there, it's some other kind of organization.
That's the reason we call the church the Body of Christ. I hope you stir with excitement when you think of that image the Body of Christ, the gathering of those in whom Christ has breathed his spirit.
"What does it mean for us to be the Body of Christ? I can never forget how the late Bishop Kenneth W. Copeland answered this question. To be Christ to the world means that we must see through the eyes of Christ. And what does it mean to see through the eyes of Christ? Through Christ's eyes, there is no east or west, no black or white, no slave or free, no male or female. All are one in Christ.
"Through Christ's eyes every person is of worth and the church must respond in loving concern for all persons. We must not be selective in our outreach, seeking only those who are like us. In Christ's eyes, every person is a person for whom Christ died.
"Not only must we see through Christ's eyes, we must speak with the voice of Christ. People need to hear the voice of Christ the voice of love and forgiveness, and acceptance. "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest..." (Matt. 11:28.
"Not only must the church see through the eyes of Christ and speak through the voice of Christ, the church must heal with the hands of Christ. The ministry of the church is the ministry of redemption and healing.
When we gather for worship on Sunday, not only is the congregation filled with people who have sinned and need forgiveness, there are as many people who are wounded and hurting from that which may or may not be connected with sin. These wounded ones need healing.
A few Sundays ago I introduced my sermon by sharing about a little boy who was told he had an incurable disease with only a little time to live. The trauma of that caused him to shut himself up in a world of silence. He communicated only by drawings. One drawing showed a beautiful cottage set off to the side of the paper. Above the cottage was a bright, brilliant shining sun. Surrounding the cottage was a beautiful lawn with flowers and trees. In front of the cottage was a family of four: a mother, a father and two children playing. In the center of the paper, however, there stood a tiny figure (a little boy)...standing there all alone and facing a large army tank which was bearing down upon him...about to run him down. Obviously, the tiny figure represented the dying child who saw himself so small, so vulnerable and so helpless before a gigantic force which was about to destroy him.
After the service the day of that sermon, a beautiful young woman kept hanging back, waiting to speak to me. When most folks had gone, she introduced herself with these words, "I feel like the boy in that drawing. I'm a patient at St. Jude's. I have Leukemia. The doctors say I have a 50-50 chance!"
Tears flowed down her beautiful face. She is 19 years old and I think a student at Rhodes. I embraced her and prayed for her. I hope she's here today. I didn't write her name down and I want to be with her again.
Perhaps not that dramatically, but wounded people are all around us people not only needing forgiveness but healing. Our Worship Committee is thinking and talking about how we can minister healing more effectively. The Church must heal with the hands of Christ.
"Does it make your heart happy? Do you feel the jubilant joy of it? Do you feel the pulsating power of it? We are the church. We belong to the Body of Christ. And as his Body we are to see through the eyes of Christ, speak with the voice of Christ, heal with the hands of Christ.