The title of the message today  ~  OPEN HEARTS,OPEN MINDS, OPEN DOORS  ~ is borrowed from the promotional slogan of the United Methodist Church in the US.
I just love it.  It’s the kind of thing I wish I had thought of and written.
I didn’t, of course, but I’ll use it anyway.

I want to wrap my thoughts around that slogan today as we open our doors
as a part of the Doors Open Barrie where visitors have an opportunity
to visit historical sites in the city, including Collier.

As I think about that slogan  ~
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors  ~
it pushes me to ask some questions:
Why are we here?
Who are we here for?
Why do we do what we do?
How do we do it?
What are we all about?

Behind all of the questions, of course, is a Person,
the one we call Saviour,
the one who said, “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.”

And behind that person is the One in whom “we live and move and have our being” …
the One who is “the More” that helps us make sense of who we are …
the One whose name is “Love” …
the One who calls us to be in relationship
and to be in a loving relationship with others …
the One who gives us life that has meaning …
the One who saves us  ~  not from something as much as for something …
the One, who in Jesus says:

There is no life so small … that I do not value it.
There is no life so lost … that I cannot find it.
There is no life so broken … that I cannot mend it.
There is no sin so large … that I cannot forgive it.
There is no life so wasted … that I cannot use it
There is no life so hopeless … that I cannot lift and lighten it..
There is no life so bent out of shape … that I cannot straighten it.

There are many things we can believe …
many things we can know …
but to know this God, whose name is Love, with an unshakeable certainty,
as we try to find our way and live out our lives,
may be the greatest thing we could ever know.

To be a church that has an open heart, an open mind and open doors,
is to be a church that says, above all,
to any and all who long to know this God:
you are welcome here.
All of you.

But there’s something we should understand and grow in our understanding about.

All of us are the children of God.
Everyone.
Everyone here.
Everyone everywhere.
We are all the ones for whom Jesus lived and died and was raised to life
and whose Spirit is near.
We are all the ones, as St.Augustine wrote,
whose “hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.”
We are all the ones.

But we are not all the same.
And when we come through these open doors,
along with everything else we’re looking for,
we and others, I believe, are looking for open hearts and open minds

Many come through these open doors
        bearing the scars of their wounded lives.
                We may not be able to see the scars, but they’re there.
                        Many come, having suffered from abuse.
                        Many come from a place of brokenness  ~
                        from divorce or grief or trouble or rebellion or addiction.
                        Many come from a place where hearts have been closed to them,
                        and where minds have been shut to them,
and their voice, their opinion, has little value.
                        Many come, having little understanding
                        of the message of the grace and love of God,
                        who have known only a God judgment and condemnation.
                        Many come, full of more questions than answers,
                        and are looking for a place where they can ask their questions
                        and discover their answers in an environment of respectful listening.
                        Many come from a place of hopeful expectation
                        where, in coming through that open door,
                        their hope is to discover “the More” in the midst of their less.
                        And many come from a strong place
                        a safe place
                        a place of certainty and confidence
                        a place of deep convictions and a certain hope.

When the scriptures say that
“Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and humanity”
the operative word for me is grew.
Growing in wisdom and stature, both physically and spiritually,
and growing in favour with God and the people God loves
is a journey, the journey of a lifetime.
And all of us are still on it.

So they come.  We come.  But we’re not all the same.
With open hearts, open minds and open doors
what we need to offer is a way for all of us to be together and to journey together,
a way for all of us to discover our relationship with God who loves us all.
What we need to offer is the way of Jesus.

I have a true story
and as I tell it, I want you to ask yourselves:

“How would I feel

if the church described in the story was Collier Street?”

“What would I do if the person spoken of in the story

was to find his way here on a Sunday morning?”

His name was Bill.
He had wild hair,
wore a T-shirt with holes in it,
blue jeans and no shoes.

Bill never wore a pair of shoes.
Rain, sleet or snow, Bill was barefoot.
This was his wardrobe for his whole four years of college.

Bill was brilliant and looked like he was always pondering the esoteric.
He became a Christian while attending college.
Across the street from the campus was a church
full of well-dressed, middle-class people.
They wanted to develop a ministry to the college students  ~
to people just like Bill  ~
but were not sure how to go about it.

One Sunday, Bill decided to worship there.
He walked into the church
with his wild hair and T-shirt and blue jeans and bare feet.
The church was packed and the service had already begun.
He started down the aisle to find a place to sit.
By now the people were looking a bit uncomfortable,
but no one said anything.

As Bill moved closer to the pulpit,
he realized there were no empty seats.
So he squatted and sat down on the carpet right up front.
By now, the people seemed uptight, and the tension in the air was thickening.

It was at about the time that Bill took his “seat”
that an Elder of the congregation
slowly began making his way down the aisle
from the back of the sanctuary.
He was a man in his eighties, had silver-gray hair,
a three-piece business suit adorned with a pocket watch.

He was a godly man  ~  very elegant, dignified, and courtly.
He walked with a cane and, as he neared the young man,
church members thought,
You can’t blame him for what he’s about to do.
How can you expect a man of his age and background
to understand some college kid sitting on the floor at the front of his church.

It took a long time for that man to reach the college student.
The church was silent expect for the clicking of his cane.
You could hear a pin drop.
All eyes were focused on the Elder.

When he reached him, the Elder dropped his cane
and with great difficulty, sat down on the floor next to him.
Everyone in the congregation was choked up with emotion.
And when the minister gained control, she said to the people,
“What I’m about to preach, you will never remember.
What you’ve just seen, you will never forget.”

Edgar Guest wrote these lines which many of you may know.  In part he wrote …
“I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day:
I'd rather one would walk with me than merely tell the way.
The best of all the preachers are men who live their creed,
For to see good put into action, is what everyone needs.
And all travelers can witness that the best of guides today,
Is not the one that tells them, but the one that shows the way.”
As much as we may have a message to share …
as much as we have a way to offer …
as much as we have a God to proclaim …
in truth, we are the message,
challenged to model what Jesus would do.

And the question needs to be asked:
What kind of message are we?
What kind of message are we sending?
For there is truth in the notion that
“Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.”

I love this Tony Campolo story told about a man named Joe.
        Joe was a drunk who was miraculously converted at a Bowery mission.
                Prior to his conversion he had gained the reputation of being a dirty wino
                for whom there was no hope,
        only a miserable existence in the ghetto.
But following his conversion to a new life with God, everything changed.

Joe became the most caring person
that anyone associated with the mission had ever known.
   Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission,
           doing whatever needed to be done.
                   There was never anything he was asked to do
                           that he considered beneath him.

Whether it was cleaning up vomit
        left by some violently sick alcoholic …
                or scrubbing toilets after careless men had left the room filthy …
                        Joe did what he was asked
                                with a smile on his face
                                and a seeming gratitude for the chance to help.
                        He could be counted on to feed feeble men
                who wandered off the street and into the mission
        and to undress and tuck into bed
men who were too out of it to take care of themselves.

One evening, when the director of the mission
        was delivering his evangelistic message
                to the usual crowd of still and sullen men with dropped heads,
                        there was one man who looked up,
                                came down the aisle to the altar
                                        and knelt to pray,
                                                crying out for God to help him to change.

The repentant drunk kept shouting,
“Oh God!  Make me like Joe! 
Make me like Joe! 
Make me like Joe!”

The director of the mission leaned over
        and said to the man,
                “Son, I think it would be better if you prayed,
                        ‘Make me like Jesus.’”

The man looked up at the director
with a quizzical expression on his face and asked,
“Is he like Joe?” 

What a great story.
The glory of the faith is not just the change that it can make in us
but the change it can make in others, through us.

When I think of the director of the mission
        who leaned over to the repentant man and said,
                “Son, I think it would be better if you prayed,
                        ‘Make me like Jesus’” …
and when I think of the man’s response,
                                        “Is he like Joe?” …
both men, of course, were right:
                                                        we become like Jesus when we act like Joe.

Here is a great truth I know.
All the faith proclaimed means nothing
   if we don’t become like Jesus.
           All the faith proclaimed,
                   pales in the face of faith, lived out.

All of the love professed means nothing
        if we don’t act like Joe.
                All the love professed,
                        pales in the face of love given life in your life.

So let us, as we open our doors to any and all who would come,
open our hearts, too, with a welcome that says, “We’re glad you’re here …
and open our minds, too, to listen and learn, to share and grow together …
that indeed, we may have answered in our lives Paul’s prayer for the church,
that “Christ will live in us as we open the door and invite him in,
and “that with both feet firmly planted on love,
we’ll be able to take in with all the followers of Jesus
the extravagant dimension’s of Christ’s love.
Reach out and experience the breadth!
Test its length!
Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights!
Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”

For when that day comes, as Tielhard de Chardin wrote,
when we “harness for God the energies of love …
for the second time in the history of the world,
we shall have discovered fire.”

 

SOLI  DEO  GLORIA

 

 

SCRIPTURE

 

Ephesians 3:14-19 (The Message)

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father,
this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth.
I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—
not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—
that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.
And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love,
you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus
the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love.
Reach out and experience the breadth!
Test its length!
Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights!
Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.