Hello,
This past
Saturday there was a stretch of motor cycles parked in front of our church,
lined up side by side leading people to joke with me on Sunday, “Did our church
become a biker bar yesterday?”
The reason for
the array of motor cycles: a wedding.
The couple that I married at our church was part of a motor cycle club,
so they planned to ride their cycle to the reception with the rest of the club
in tow. As it turned out the weather
cooperated, and when the wedding service was over the groom in his tux and the
bride in her gown hopped on their bike and rode off, a “Just Married” sign
dangling from the seat.
Before the
service began I was outside talking to one of the groomsmen, a biker, too, and
he said to me, “I don’t suppose you have this many bikes parked in front of
your church on Sundays.”
“No,” I said, “but
I am glad that they are here today, because maybe people will see that motor
cyclists are welcome at our church.”
“Yeah,” he said, “after
all Jesus came for the sick.
He was
right. Jesus, himself said, “Those who are well have no need of a
physician, but those who are sick; I
have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke
5:31)
And yet, he was also wrong, wrong as many
have wrongly thought…wrong in thinking that the sickness of which Jesus, the
physician, had come to deal with effected only pockets of people….tax
collectors, prostitutes, adulterers, and hard living motorcyclists. Fact is the sickness that Jesus came to
address was an epidemic that left no person untouched. Sure, some people have hidden the pain of
this sickness better than others, but sin….and that is the sickness’ name….favors
no one. No one is exempt from the pain
that it brings. No one escapes the
loneliness and isolation that it causes.
No one is excluded from the weariness that it brings to our days. Point is, according to Jesus, no one can look
at another and pridefully say , “Boy, is that person sick!”, because we are all
deathly sick.
Somehow, though, that seems to be the
message that sneaks out of churches into the world. From the church they in the
world hear a diagnoses cast upon them that doesn’t seem to be cast upon those
inside, “Boy, is the world sick.” For
many the message that they hear from the church is that the church is a health
spa for the holy…..and not a hospital for the hurting. But this is nothing new. Jesus faced it. He didn’t struggle with those who the world
had diagnosed as sick. Jesus struggled
with the religious folks who thought themselves not to be sick.
“Well,” I said to my motorcyclist friend, “We
are all sick…motorcyclists no more than anyone else….and since we’re all sick….we’re
all welcome at this church….motorcyclists, included.”
“Oh, yeah,” he remarked back at me with a
smile on his face.
So no matter how you get around in life…in
a pick-up…a luxury sedan….a SUV…a Mini Cooper (that’s me)…a minivan…on foot…on
a bicycle….or a motorcycle….hope you will get around to coming to church this
Sunday, because Christ has come for the sick….and that, as I told my motorcycle
friend, is everybody.
Have a great week.
God’s
grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor
Jerry Nuernberger
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