Gifts From The Upper Room

September 28, 1986

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And so we come to the end of the line.... not just the end of the month, which it also is, but the end of our series of messages on MINISTRY. You let me practice on you for the National Convocation of Adult Workers with Youth. I am back from that experience now, and I have one sermon left over. I didn’t get COMMITMENT in here before I had to deliver it THERE, so I bring it home already warmed up.

It was a wonderful time out there. I didn’t tell you, I think, where the Convocation was held. I didn’t tell you ahead of time deliberately. I was hoping you would think it was in Yeehaw Junction, or somewhere like that and feel sorry for me for having to pull such tough duty. Actually, it was held in... I hate to tell you... COLORADO, in the heart of the Rockies.... Well, it’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it....

It was wonderful! The theme of the week was Being There...for Youth...in Ministry, and the 4 sub-themes, you remember, Compassion, Competence, Confidence and Commitment.

I’m glad the Commitment theme is falling on a Sunday when we receive new members.

That makes it all the more appropriate because if we’re going to be in ministry, as members

of the Body of Christ, all of these ingredients have to fall into place, but Commitment is

the one that ties the rest of them together.

There is something more, even beyond the heart-Compassion, beyond the head-Competence, beyond the spirit-Confidence, that God is asking us to surrender to Him. Call it the will, if you like, the soul.... Call it the essential YOU, your innermost self...call it whatever you like. GOD WANTS YOUR COMMITMENT, AND HE WANTS IT WITHOUT RESERVATION.

Jesus in the Upper Room can be our model here. His problem that evening, His last evening on earth, was to motivate commitment, precisely what we’re talking about.

He was about to leave these men that He’d been so close to for 3 years. He wouldn’t be there with them, physically, much longer. He had trained them, He had instructed them, He had worked on their compassion, competence, and confidence and most of them had passed the course.... BUT NOW THEY WERE ABOUT TO BE ON THEIR OWN, WITHOUT HIM.

THEY DIDN’T KNOW, but He knew, they would be persecuted, beaten, ridiculed.... They would be threatened by failure at every turn.... They would undergo torture, mistreatment, scorn, and death because they were His followers. It’s never easy to be a Christian, but no generation ever had it as tough as that first one. How could He strengthen them for the ministry that awaited them? How could He shore up their COMMITMENT so that they would be able to endure in the critical hour?

I want to suggest that Jesus in the Upper Room gave those 11 men the same things He gives us as His modern disciples to move US toward a deeper commitment. He gave them a MEMORY; He gave them a MISSION; He gave them a MINISTRY....and they were never the same again.

Any one of the 3 deserves a sermon all by itself, but we can’t afford that. I’ll just jump in headfirst and squeeze in as much as I can until the time runs out.

1. Something to remember, first of all. Commitment comes out of that. In the Upper

Room Jesus gave the disciples a MEMORY.

 What a wonderful thing it is to have memories, and I suppose it’s even more important

as we grow older. Memories are infinitely precious to us. We all have them.

I’ll never forget the first date I ever had...I mean, with a real, live girl. There’s a memory for you. We went to the picture show. I don’t remember the name of the movie. I don’t even remember the name of the girl.... Yes, I do, but I’m not about to tell you because my wife is here and I told her I didn’t remember.

Anyway, we went to the movie and it was one of those...you know...Andy Baran Meets the Wolf Man, or something like that, and I... well... I’ll just go ahead and lay bare my soul...we held hands during the scary part. Is that too decadent for you? It wasn’t that we were in love, or anything... we were just petrified out of our wits.

But I’ll never forget that. Martine Glass may have forgotten it, but not I. That’s a part of me now. Memories are important. They’re a bridge to the past. All of us have memories that we wouldn’t trade for a million dollars.

There are some people I’ll never forget... a Scoutmaster, whose influence is still being felt in the town where I grew up... a music teacher, who taught us how to pronounce Beethoven. I thought it was the funniest name I ever heard. She’s gone now...but how many times I’ve thought what a priceless heritage she bequeathed us.

Then there was a preacher, Episcopalian, by trade, who always had time to play ball with a bunch of us boys. We could go by his house after school, or on Saturdays, and he’d always come out and play pepper with us, or shag a few flies.I suppose as I look back on it now that his parishioners probably said he didn’t do enough visiting, but he had time to play ball with a bunch of raggedy, shirt tailed young-uns, and I, for one, will never forget him.

And I remember some other things, too..... I remember my mother’s pound cake, cooling on the dining room table.... I remember the time my father stood up for me when I was mistakenly accused of something I hadn’t done. I remember a teacher who believed in me. I remember a girl who trusted me. I remember one night at Camp when God was so close I thought I could reach out and touch Him.

I remember kneeling at the altar rail of the First United Methodist Church of Lakeland while the Bishop placed his hand on my head and said, “Take thou authority to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments in the congregation....” Do you think I’ll ever forget that?

I remember the day I got married. Boy, that was a day. I was already a preacher. I’d

performed that ritual maybe 30 times for other people. I knew the words by heart. But when the time came for me, personally, to say, “I, Thomas, take thee, Nancy...”, I wasn’t sure the words were going to come out.

I remember, a couple of years later, standing at the window of a hospital nursery,

looking down for the first time at a brand new baby boy. Gosh, he was ugly. He looked like a combination of Winston Churchill and Pogo... but he was there, and he was healthy, and he was ours...and don’t think that isn’t something to be thankful for.

I remember some time after that going back to the same hospital, to the intensive care

unit, to wait with my family while my Mother died. I stepped up to her bed that day, and

saw her open her eyes. It wasn’t easy for her to speak...there were tubes and all. But

she said something to me and I understood it. She said, “Son, be a good minister”, and

those were the last words she spoke to me before her death.

Do you think I’ll ever forget that?

Do you think I’ll ever forget any of these things? Of course I won’t. They’re as much a part of me as the very air I breathe into my body. I go back to them time and time again when I need to be sustained through some crisis experience.

And you have memories that sustain you.... Maybe it’s a memory of some person who made an indelible impression on your life.

Maybe it’s a memory of some experience you went through which was like being on top of a mountain. Maybe it’s a memory of something so personal that it’s virtually unshareable, but you go back to it over and over again for comfort and for strength. Maybe it’s a memory of the day you joined the Church. Remember that? Where was it, perhaps in some big city cathedral, or in some little country church out in the woods, or maybe right here at this very altar, and you stood there with some others, or maybe just by yourself, and gave your heart to God. Boy, what a day that was.

I wish we had time to share some of those memories. All of us have them, memories that are infinitely precious to us, that have molded us, formed us, and that keep us going when we fall back on them.

Someone has said that the wisest persons are those who judge life by its highest moments, because it’s in the memory of those high moments of yesterday that we find strength to face the trials of today and tomorrow.

I’ve read that in the days of the Roman Empire wealthy families used to train their children in rooms which contained statues of their illustrious ancestors. It helped them to recall the high moments of their heritage as Roman citizens.

Edward R. Murrow told of the same kind of thing in England during those terrible bombing raids of 1940. The English people withstood that incessant pounding, night after night, he said, because of a courage that came less from logic than from faith. They dug deeply into their collective memory and felt somehow that Wellington, and Drake, and Raleigh, and Nelson and all the other greats of their past were watching them and they were simply obliged to look worthy in the eyes of their ancestors. They were sustained by remembering.

Nobody knew this better than Jesus. He was keenly aware of the dark valleys out there

these men would have to pass through. They would have to have something to sustain them. If they ever forgot, they wouldn’t have the power to keep going. They needed a MEMORY, a memory of One whose love would never let them go.

So Jesus the great Teacher, the master Story Teller, the Man who could make a truth leap to life by means of a parable, gave them an object lesson they would never be able to erase from their minds.

It was so simple. He took some bread, ordinary, unleavened bread, I guess, and broke

it in front of them, and then said, “This is my body, which is about to be broken for you.”

Then He passed a cup among them with some wine, and said, “This represents my very life’s blood, about to be poured out for you and for many. Every time you have something to eat, remember me.”

The disciples never forgot that. How could they forget it? How could anybody forget it? It was so indelibly impressed on them, then, and especially afterward in the light of what did happen, that it became a part of the worship experience of the Church.

The motivation for Commitment? Remember...Remember. Remember the highest moments in your own life. Remember what He has done for you. What can you do but respond?

2. But there’s more. We don’t live just in the past. In the Upper Room Jesus gave the disciples not only something to remember. He also gave them something to DO. He gave them a MISSION. He knew that Commitment is sparked by involvement, by participation, saturation in something significant. And just as He made vivid the MEMORY, He wanted them to hold, so He spelled out dramatically the MISSION He wanted them to perform. Our authority for this is the Gospel of John, the only one of the Gospels that tells this incident.

During the supper, Jesus stood up from the table, took a towel and a basin of water, then stooped down to wash the feet of the disciples. How incredible, how fantastic, how absolutely appalling. The disciples were flabbergasted. Ol’ Peter almost had apoplexy, right there on the floor.

Lord, what is this? What’s going on here? Why do YOU wash MY feet? It was incredible. Do you get the full impact of it? Here was Jesus, the Son of God, in whom dwelt all of the fullness of the Godhead bodily, stooping down to perform the work of a menial servant.... Here was the only begotten of the Father, the Prince of Heaven, scrubbing away like a slave.... Here was Divinity, with a towel on its arm.... It IS enough to take your breath away.

But He was giving them a mission, and He was telling them that it was to be a mission

of SERVICE. “The greatest of all is the servant of all”, He said. “I have given you an example that you should do to others as I have done to you.”

Why are we slow to catch on? When is the Church going to learn again, going to recover the insight that this is the name of the game? You want to be in ministry? You want to live? GET A TOWEL.

The Church sabotages its integrity, indeed, it FORFEITS ITS VERY IDENTITY WHEN IT THINKS OF ITSELF AS SOMETHING PUT DOWN HERE FOR THE PURPOSE OF BUILDING ITSELF UP....the exact opposite is true.

The Church is not here to GET, it’s here to GIVE. The Church is not here for self-gratification, it’s here for self-emptying. It’s not here for aesthetics, it’s here for UTILITY, or it has no meaning at all. It’s not called into existence for its own sake, for its own glory, or even primarily to get members into it, It’s called into existence to spend itself in humble service... for the world, PRECISELY TO WIPE THE FEET OF PEOPLE IN NEED.

I feel a sense of shame sometimes that so often people in the business community

know the value of service better than people in the Church community. There’s an irony

here, but it’s true. “Service is our middle name”, one nearby business advertises....

And everywhere you go, up and down the highway, there are service stations, clamoring for your business. I saw one recently that had this sign posted: “We’ll climb under your car oftener and get ourselves dirtier than any of our competitors.”

Maybe a sign reflecting that spirit ought to be printed on every Church bulletin around the country and stamped into the heart of every church member who claims to be a follower of the Towel-Draped Man.

Somewhere I read about a man who dreamed he visited a celestial museum. What a surprise! It was a huge building, but when he entered, he found it almost entirely barren. No crowns, no scepters were there... no miters, or thrones, no pope’s rings, not even Martin Luther’s inkpot. A HANDFUL OF THORNS WAS THERE, a seamless robe, a cup of cold water.... “Have you a towel and basin” the man asked? “No”, said the caretaker... ”you see, they are in perpetual use.”The man knew then that he was in the Holy City.

YOU WANT TO BE IN MINISTRY? You want to do something significant with your life? Join Jesus in the foot washing business. GOD GRANT THAT THE MODERN CHURCH MIGHT LAY DOWN ITS CRYING TOWEL AND TAKE UP ITS DRYING TOWEL IN SIMPLE TRUST TO WIPE THE FEET OF THOSE FOR WHOM CHRIST DIED.

Commitment grows as we lose ourselves in caring for those who need us.

3. And one more thing. Point 3. In the Upper Room, to lure them into a deeper commitment, Jesus gave the disciples a Memory, and a Mission, something to remember, something to do. He also gave them a MINISTRY, a ministry of LOVE...something to BE.

Listen to these words; “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another;

even as I have loved you, so you, also, should love one another.” And then, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

A new commandment, a ministry of LOVE. The disciples never forgot that. That gift revolutionized the Roman Empire. It was irresistible. The early Church displayed the most astounding example of genuine fellowship ever seen in the history of the world.

They took care of each other...they fed and clothed those who needed it. They took food to the hungry, they gave assistance when there was trouble.... They prayed together, they laughed together, they cried together...THEY PRACTICED MINISTRY. AND IT MADE AN IMPACT. The Roman world saw how they acted, saw the kind of people they were, and said, “Look at those Christians... see how they love one another.”

Before three centuries had elapsed, they’d turned the world upside down. THERE IS NO MORE POWERFUL FORCE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH TO EFFECT CHANGE THAN THE POWER OF LOVE FOCUSED IN CONCERNED MINISTRY.

REMEMBER WHAT Stanley said after he’d spent all those months going down into the heart of Equatorial Africa in search of Dr. Livingston, the famous Scottish missionary? His greeting, “Dr. Livingston, I presume?” is about all we recall of that encounter. But there’s more to the story. Stanley stayed on there for a while in the Congo and observed.....

In his diary, he wrote: “I watched that old man (Livingston) for a long time, watched what he was doing, how he conducted himself. At first I asked myself, What is he doing here, anyway. Why does he stay? Is he cracked, or what? But little by little, something began to happen to me. Seeing his caring, his commitment, his concern for the people, I began to feel something myself. I began to be drawn to the God He professed. And finally, He converted me, though He didn’t overtly try to do it at all.” You see, irresistible, that power, when it’s focused winsomely.

That’s love, that’s ministry, that’s evangelism, that’s commitment, and it elicits commitment.

You want to be in ministry? You want to do something significant with your life? GIVE IT TO GOD, and then step back and watch Him go to work. In the Upper Room, Jesus gave His disciples a Memory, a Mission, and a Ministry.... He made the memory vivid by breaking the bread and passing the cup. He made the mission of service explicit by kneeling down and wiping the feet of the twelve.

Divinity with a towel on its arm. He made the ministry of love vivid and explicit, too, although it was not until the following day that He demonstrated it. On Thursday night He told His disciples, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. On Friday He acted it out by doing just that.

I wonder...you who are new members in the church, and you who are grizzled veterans in the army of the Lord...I wonder.... Just suppose each one of us had in our lives an active, vital memory of Jesus, and an earnest enthusiasm for the mission of service, and a passionate commitment to the ministry of love....

I wonder if we, too, couldn’t turn the world upside down?