July 29, 2007 Des Moines

TEXT: 2 Kings 4:8-17

MOBILE MINISTRIES THAT MATTER

Ours is the most mobile generation ever to move about the face of the earth. Sociologists have been talking for years about the shrinking globe - shrinking because of our ever-improving modes of getting around it and getting around on it. Just this week, people from all over the globe gathered in a convention hall in Fort Worth, Texas – most of whom are already back in their hometown just a day or so after the closing prayer. Amazing!

And it's not just a matter of transportation. It's just as much a matter of life-style. I would be willing to bet that in their active lifetime my grandparents Diebel never traveled once outside the state of Texas, even on vacation. They were born and raised and raised their family all in the same South Texas community - as did most of their brothers and sisters and cousins. But for at least the last two generations, roots have tended to be portable at best. Business and pleasure now take not only families but home addresses around the globe. Many of us - maybe even most of us - will never have the experience of living in the same town with relatives.

And a quick look in our garages reveals that we hardly stay at home even when we're at home. Everybody needs a car - we wouldn't want to get stranded at the house. We've got things to do, places to go, people to see. Moreso than any other generation, we are, after all, a people on the move. But the question needs to be asked: "What is the purpose of all our movement?" The illustrious Japanese Christian, Toyohiko Kagawa, once pondered that question for himself when he said, "I read in a book where a man named Jesus went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about."

There are those who contend that the church is not much different. What in the world does it mean to be a Christian, and what does it mean to be the church? Are we going around doing anything in particular, or are we content with just going around?

We aren’t bereft of good examples. At the General Assembly this week we heard the story of a congregation in Fort Collins, Colorado providing respite care each month for foster parents. We heard the story of a congregation in Memphis, Tennessee that opened its doors in 2003 with fewer than a dozen people and now welcomes hundreds of children and youth every Saturday afternoon for worship specifically designed to counter the appeal of gangs and overcome the boredom that frequently leads to destructive behavior – just to name two good examples.

And while those who populate its pages were a good bit more pedestrian and covered far smaller pieces of geography, the Bible is full of people who did their own share of moving around to significant ends. A couple of the more obvious would include Jesus who always seemed to have his feet in motion – "having no place to lay his head" – and Paul, the itinerant missionary of the New Testament, who walked and sailed all over the Holy Land and Asia Minor, starting churches and ministering to others in the name of God.

Elisha is but one Old Testament example. The story that we read together indicates that he passed through one town so often that a wealthy woman there had her husband build a "motel room" of sorts on the roof of their house for him. But, like his New Testament counterparts, his were not aimless wanderings. Elisha had a way of helping people. In wonderfully miraculous ways, he had a knack for making a difference in concrete, down to earth ways.

A creditor, for example, was once about to take the two sons of a widow woman into slavery as payment for her debts, when Elisha stretched the little bit of lamp oil she had in her flask so far that she had enough to sell to redeem her sons with the proceeds. Another time, in the midst of a famine - when people would eat almost anything, some friends accidentally put some poisonous berries into a stew that was cooking on the fire. When the stuff was discovered, Elisha magically purified the meal so that it did no one any harm. Still another time, in a miniature version of Jesus' feeding of the 5000, Elisha fed 100 people with but a few loaves and ears of corn.

In the story before us, Elisha wants to somehow repay the woman for the hospitality she has extended. She has given from her means generously and selflessly. Ulterior motives don't find their way into the story. She has simply been a friend, and such generosity Elisha feels should not go unrewarded. But she doesn't need money, she doesn't need protection. She is, after all, as the story tells us, a wealthy woman. But what she doesn't have is a child, and has no way of getting one, given the fact that for both she and her husband, that biological window has long since closed. But undaunted by the facts, Elisha assures her that by this same time next year, she will be a mother.

It's a wonderful story - warm, happy, and good; and one made even better when, not too long after, and the son tragically dies, Elisha miraculously brings the boy back to life. It's a wonderful story about a wonderful character who goes about doing wonderful things.

And yet while Elisha is the actor playing front and center on the stage, the story is really larger than him. It is not the power of Elisha that stirs life within the old woman's womb, but nothing less than the power of God. It is the word of the Lord that is active here; Elisha is simply the mouth that gives it voice; the presence that gives it occasion. Finally, this is a story about God and God’s power at work in the world, and about a man who was willing to be its representative.

And getting back to where we began, perhaps that is the mission of the church, and the challenge extended to people like us: we can simply go about; can even go about doing good things. But that’s not ultimately enough. The world hardly needs one more place that serves coffee. You can download prayers off the internet. The Red Cross takes up offerings for hurricane victims. The Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center offers therapy, and the Boy’s and Girl’s Club has youth programs. It's finally not enough for us happy, well-intentioned folk to just do good things. We are called to go about being the church: people corporately and personally representing the presence and the power of God. Not like everybody else, the church is a people called out – set apart, not for special privilege but for a special kind of work. In all that we say and do, in all that we attempt and oppose, in all that we protect and encourage we are called to reveal the hopes and dreams of the God who is alive and moving and recreating every moment. And in our day and age, with a mobility as expansive as ours, the possibilities and opportunities are almost staggering to conceive.

The challenge is to harness the potential that our lives and life-style represent – to steer the rocket we seem to ride. Our lives can be more than simply mobile; they can become mobile ministries that matter – walking, talking, reconciling instruments of God’s own peace.

We often talk about seeing the face of Christ in the faces of those we meet. Perhaps the reverse is just as important: what can we do – what can you do – that will ensure that others see the face of Christ in us?