God Draws Outside the Lines (Part 2)
God Draws Outside the Lines (Part 2)
A New Commentary on Mark 9:10-11
“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’”
-Mt. 9:10-11
The music was loud. Alcoholic beverages were flowing. Hundreds of people, drinks in hand, were perusing the scores of items up for silent auction. As I walked over to the taco bar for a plate of food, Carl, dressed up in a crazy wig and an outrageous multi-colored dinner jacket outshone only by his plastic neon glasses with headlights on both sides of his head, took to the stage at the front of the fellowship hall. His wife joined him. As Carl held the microphone, she spun the wheel in another fundraising effort for the nearby elementary school. While greeting teachers, the Principal, and fellow parents, I tried to make sense of what I was experiencing.
It was a stretch for our Presbyterian congregation to allow liquor on the church campus. The Biblical precedent was Jesus’ participation in the wedding party, turning huge quantities of water into wine after the guests had already had plenty to drink. This sign connected Jesus’ ministry to the vision of the prophet Amos in the Old Testament:
‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when the reaper will be overtaken by the ploughman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. ‘They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,’ says the Lord your God.
-Amos 9:13-15
It also laid the groundwork for Jesus’ work in his generation:
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. -Mt. 22:1-2
But could this fundraiser, held on the church campus and filled with non-churchgoers, be a part of this theme in my generation? We were a small, declining congregation struggling to reach our local community. We weren’t filling the pews by traditional means. Could this event be a part of God’s drawing outside our lines? Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet takes such a turn:
‘Then (the King) said to his servants…“go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.’ -Mt. 22:8a,9-10
A handful of people came up and thanked me for allowing Ivanhoe Elementary to use Silverlake Community Church’s fellowship hall to raise money for additional programs at the school. The Spring Fiesta, as it was called, ended at 11 pm. The total raised surpassed what had been raised the previous year. The week in the mansion in Hawaii brought in the most money of the night with a bid of $8,500. But the most important event of the evening didn’t occur until 1:30 am.
While we were cleaning up after the party, the event chair approached me. After ensuring that I had enjoyed the evening, she wanted to be sure that nothing had taken place that would preclude the possibility of their using the fellowship hall next year. That was when it happened.
“You know, I grew up Catholic and had religion shoved down my throat,” she said. “But if I was ever to get religious again, you would be my pastor.” But that wasn’t all.
As we were mopping up alcohol that had spilled on the ground, Carl’s wife came up to me and said, “You know, I am more into faith than Carl is. But it is inside of him. I want you to work on him, okay? We both want our son to experience faith. We will have you and your family over to dinner, and I want you to work on him.”
On Monday I drove over to the church so the DJ could get his equipment and the lady who had forgotten her coat could recover it. I was excited. Another biblical theme came to mind:
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” -Mt. 13:3b-9
The seed had been sown. What would be the result?
