“Share It!”
Did I ever tell you I met Jerry Seinfeld?
True story. I even got his autograph. It was at a bookstore in Beverly Hills almost 30 years ago. My friends and I saw him walking in and we followed. I think mostly out of curiosity, we wanted to know if it was REALLY him and not just someone who looked like him from a distance. When I got close enough to see that it was really Jerry Seinfeld, I grabbed a copy of his book SeinLanguage off the shelves, brought it over to him, and asked him if he would sign it for me and he DID! Weird celebrity sightings, right? Anyway, I was thinking about him this week because of something he wrote in that book. It said, “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number TWO is death. DEATH is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off IN the casket than doing the eulogy.”[1] It sounds ridiculous, but at the time it was true. People are deathly afraid of public speaking. Whether it’s to a group of ten or ten thousand, something about standing in front of a crowd makes our heart race and gives us the shivers. It’s an unnerving feeling opening yourself up for public scrutiny, giving people the opportunity to be critical of you or worse becoming embarrassed or humiliated in front of others. Nobody likes that. Nobody likes being attacked, nobody likes feeling awful. And I think that’s one of the big reasons we are also hesitant to share our faith – we are afraid.
But there’s a passage in the Bible that might help us overcome this fear.
It’s a passage that makes me realize how important it is to share the Gospel, despite our fears. We already know from the Great Commission that our duty as Christians is to make disciples for Christ. Jesus himself tells us so. We even incorporated that into the mission statement for The United Methodist Church. “Make disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Our passage today reflects the consequences of not doing that. If you have your Bibles with you, would you please open them up to Luke 13 beginning with verse 23. Luke 13:23. Now the crowds Jesus is talking to keep growing bigger. By this time, he is talking to literally THOUSANDS of people. Since they didn’t have speaker systems or digital amplification, it must have been hard to hear and that’s probably why in Luke 12, the Bible says they are trampling over each other. Jesus gives this amazing sermon full of wisdom and people felt blessed just to be there. And as he is making his way through various town and villages, one person asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? (Luke 13:22-23)” And that’s where we pick up in our Scripture reading today.
He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
“There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” – Luke 13:23-30
We are a number-driven society.
Have you noticed that? We have a drivers’ license number, a social security number, if you go to school, you have a school ID number. Some of you have badges at work that are encoded with a special identification just for you. We have numbers for everything. Quarterly earnings, budgets, weight loss. Even in entertainment we use numbers. Just turn on ESPN any evening and you’ll see what I mean. It’s like a parade of numbers across the screen. Game scores, batter statistics, three-point shot percentages. Numbers rule our lives. But maybe the numbers we SHOULD be thinking about are different from the ones we focus on. I shared this story with you before, but among Kevin Costner’s many roles, he once played a Coast Guard rescue swimmer name Ben Randall who was instructing an upstart know-it-all named Jake Fischer. Throughout the movie Jake keeps asking Ben about “his number.” Most rescue personnel keep track of the number of people they’ve saved, and Ben is a legend in the Coast Guard so Jake keeps wanting to know “What’s your number?” figuring it must be pretty high. But Ben won’t tell him. Near the end of the movie, Ben and Jake have this conversation (the volume is really low on this clip for some reason):
“22 is the number of people I lost. The only number I kept track of.”
Ben didn’t care about recognition or setting records. He ACHIEVED his recognition because he was so singularly focused on the goal – saving lives. The numbers that mattered to him weren’t the numbers that mattered to everybody else. What he cared about were the people he COULDN’T save, not the people he could. As Christians, that should be our motivating factor, too. Ben kept the number 22 in his mind to act as a constant reminder of what the stakes were, of those who he couldn’t save, of those who were lost. So here are a few numbers that might help us remember OUR mission. 65 – the percentage of people within 2.5 miles of THIS CHURCH who have no faith involvement at all. 67,464 – the actual number of people that percentage represents.[2] 5.02 – the number in billions of people in the world who have not accepted Christ in their hearts.[3] Those are the numbers we should remember. Because Jesus is very clear, his words are very clear that not everyone will make it to Heaven. And if you believe his words to be true then those numbers have real meaning. Five BILLION people around the world don’t know Christ. 67,000 near our church don’t either. And that’s just those living right now. If Jesus’ words are even the slightest bit true, isn’t it our responsibility to do something about it? As people who are blessed to know Christ shouldn’t we share that love with others? The door is narrow and many will not make it. What are YOU doing to help people through the door?
When I die, I don’t want to be one of those people that Jesus says, “I don’t know you.”
But I also don’t want to see people I know and love having to hear those words either. And even if it causes us some embarrassment, even if it makes us uncomfortable, isn’t it worth it? How awful would it feel to know that you could’ve helped someone who needed to feel the love of Christ in their lives? Not only are there nearly 5 billion non-Christians out there, but there are many Christians out there too who will be on the other side of that door because they never bothered to practice their faith. Their lips professed faith in Christ, but their LIVES professed faith in something else.
Now so far, each week we’ve had a key “P” word.
Two weeks ago, it was the word persistence. Persistence. We said persistence was often the difference between those who knew Christ and those who didn’t. And last week we talked about practice. We shared that putting Christ’s words into practice, to live out the words of Christ, deepened our relationship with him and helped us to build a foundation that will sustain us no matter what happens in our lives. This week’s “P” word is present. We need to BE present and OFFER the present (the gift) of the Word of God to those around us. I’m not saying go walking around town with one of those sandwich boards proclaiming the end of the world. I am saying to keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities you have to share your faith in the ways God gifted you. Whether it’s as simple as saying grace in a restaurant or offering to pray for a friend when they are having troubles. Whatever choices you make, make them with these thoughts in your head – YOU could be the one who makes the difference. And what you choose in that moment – to make that little gesture or not – could make ALL the difference in the world. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] An excerpt from the book SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld, p.120 – emphasis mine.
[2] Based on the link2lead.com census data for the Dinuba 1st and Palm UMC area within a 5-mile radius multiplied by the percentage of unchurched people (36%)
[3] Based on number of people in the world (7.3 billion) multiplied by the percentage of estimated non-Christians (68.8%) according to GotQuestions.org
Craig's Corner 