Feel Your Way to a New Way of Acting OR Act Your Way to a New Way of Feeling

I have always had a struggle with story of Hosea and Gomer. Why would God ask Hosea to marry what the King James version calls a Wonton woman? Then I read Frederick Buechner’s wonderful rendition of the story found in his book Peculiar Treasures.

In very modern terms he tells of Hosea being a rigid prophet with a sandwich board proclaiming that God was ready to destroy them all and there was no hope.

For reasons no one could explain, he married Gomer who was a wild woman. Why she married him is also beyond belief. The marriage worked for a while and they had some children who Hosea named with Biblical warnings so even school roll call could proclaim his message.

Gomer could not stand it and relapsed into her old ways. Hosea had to buy her back and the process of loving her changed his sandwich board to “God is love” and it changed his preaching as well.

Reading that made me realize. I had been so busy trying to straighten Gomer out and worrying about her sin until I totally missed seeing the change that happened to Hosea.

He went out and acted like God acts and came back feeling like God feels.

He changed his sandwich board and compassion replace the anger and hate in his heart.

I am convinced that is how our faith actually works. For too long we have tried to grow our faith in some kind of incubators separated from the hurts and pains of the world around us.

Christianity has very little to offer to spectators, and not much more than that to Bible scholars. Ours is an active faith. It demands more than lip service mouthed in mink-lined repositories of weekend piety. The only way to actually grow a Christian life or even an emotionally healthy life is by going out and touching others.

Psychology has never been able to decide if it is easier to feel our way to a new way of acting or act our way to a new way of feeling. I cast my lot on the action side. It can no longer suffice to just go to the closet and pray, or to reserve quiet time for Bible study and think that we have served God by those acts or by attending church. Sitting in a pew and listening to some sermon may seem like sacrifice and service, but all it accomplishes is some sense of doing our duty. Touching someone’s wounds and listening to some broken heart is where the growth is.

I read a parable about a man that wanted to be a fireman all of his life. That became his course of study and he made such good grades he was asked to do graduate work at Oxford. He wrote articles and lectured all over the world about fighting fires. On his death bed he said, “All of my life I wanted to be a fireman, but I never got to fight a real fire even one time.” That is what happens to spectator Christians. We study it but never get to the action part of the faith.

THE PICKLE JAR SERMON

On the third anniversary of my service as pastor of a church in Texas I startled the congregation by announcing that it was my third anniversary and that I was going to take up a love offering from myself. I said that I had not been all that successful as their pastor so I was not worth a large gift but that I thought I was worth at least one dollar and asked everyone who had a dollar bill and would donate it to please take it out and wave it so the ushers could come by and collect the money. I did not want more than one dollar and if they did not have that amount it would be fine I just wanted a dollar.

The ushers gathered up 473 one dollar bills and I asked them to put them on the communion table while the rest of the service took place. That many dollar bills looks like a whole lot of money and the brazen nature of the offering left them looking at me in wonder instead of singing the hymns. I could just hear them proclaiming that this was the height of brass and totally inappropriate on my part. I just let them stew.

When it came time for me to speak I announced that since the offering was my gift I could do with is as I pleased and what I wanted to do was simply ask if anyone knew anyone who needed some of that money. If they did, I wanted them to come forward and get some of it and take it to the person they knew to be in need. Not a soul moved. I reiterated the offer over and over and not one person came forward.

My sermon that day was very brief. I said, “If you are sitting here and cannot think of a single person in need then you came to church today on the wrong side of the road. Two of the characters in the famous Good Samaritan story of Jesus were on their way to church and they crossed over to the other side to pass.

I announced that the money would be there until it was gone and the only way it could be gone was if someone took some of it to a person in need. I got a large and ugly pickle jar and placed the money inside. I placed the pickle jar on the table at the start of every service. The pickle jar preached the best sermon I have ever been a part of. It screamed at us without my saying another word. It took six weeks to give away $473.00; six weeks in a town where fifty percent of the population were poor migrant farm workers.

Finally, there was $63.00 left in the jar and I was tired of carrying it around. The point had been made so I said, “We have heard that pickle jar scream at us long enough. We have struggled to figure out what to do with the money long enough. It seems strange that while we were struggling the folks that may be hurting the most are within shouting distance from this pulpit. They are in the city jail which was so close I could almost hit a golf ball that far, and no one thought about how sad and lonely those people must be. Jesus said “I was in prison and you ministered to me.” A young woman raised her hand and said she would take the money to the jail.

She bought magazines, snack food, playing cards, candy, and cigarettes. No Gospel tracts or Bibles. For several years after that all I had to do was mention the pickle jar and everyone knew what the message was.

WHEN IT BECOMES ACTION

When Christianity becomes action instead of theory and we begin to actually reach out and touch it becomes more complicated and requires us to face issues we never knew we would face and touch folks who are not all that pretty or nice. It takes courage to actually follow Christ.

While still a very young pastor the state of Oklahoma decided to legalize the sale of alcohol. Needless to say, the Baptist and other conservative churches reacted with a great deal of hysteria over the prospect. Many churches passed resolutions stating that any member who took out a liquor license would be automatically excluded from membership. As luck would have it, a member of the church where I was the pastor, applied for a liquor license.

I was faced with a real struggle. If I led the church to automatically exclude him I was saying he was no longer a person, he had become a liquor dealer.

I knew that the scriptural approach was for me to go talk to him in person not just hide behind some rules and kick him out.

I got a haircut shortly after we learned of the liquor license. The barber was a good friend of mine and a man I had talked to about the faith on some occasions but who had never publicly declared himself to be a follower.

He had a one-person barber shop so we were alone and he said, “Doug, what are you going to do about Howard?” My heart sank. Howard was the member who had applied for a liquor license and here was a non-believer asking me about the behavior of a believer.

I decided to just be honest so I said, “The first thing I am going to do is admit that our church has failed Howard more than he could ever fail us. He asked for membership and made a profession during a time when he and his wife were separated and I think most of us, including me, really questioned his sincerity. He did not have the best of reputations, and we thought he was just trying to get his wife back.

I watched as we froze him out. No one spoke to him except me and of course I was paid to do so. No one invited him to even attend a Sunday School class much less home for lunch. So, he quit coming and now I am under pressure to kick him out and frankly I don’t intend to do so.”

The barber had a tear in his eye and simply said, “When a man is down is not a good time to kick him is it?”

A few weeks later I was back in the same shop getting a haircut. For some reason, most barber shops have at least one more chair than they have barbers so this one had one barber two chairs. Just as my hair cut started Howard walked in and sat in the empty chair. As we visited the last person I wanted to see at that moment walked in to the shop. He was the epitome of the old-style crude businessman. He sold insurance by being a pest and real estate by means foul or fare. He looked up to see the Baptist preacher and the Baptist liquor dealer siting side by side. It was too good for him to miss. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

He said, “Preacher, I hear the Baptist have the liquor business sewed up in this town, Har Har Har.”

I looked at Howard out of the corner of my eye and knew if there was a crack in the floor he would go through it to get out of that place.

I said, “Well we decided if we were going to have it anyhow we might as well have good men selling it. Unfortunately, they did not take that precaution when they invented insurance.”

It got rather tight in the room. The crude dude suddenly needed to go somewhere and very soon Howard followed him.

A few weeks later I bumped into Howard on main street in front of the drug store where everyone gathered for coffee and gossip. It was not a large town and it was coffee time so our meeting would not be missed.

Howard asked me if I thought it would be all right if he started attending church again. What could I say? The folks did not want him before he put in a liquor store so what chance would they welcome him now? All I could say was “Howard, I care about you and I want you.” Before I could finish what I was going to say. Howard hugged me. A big bear hug right there on main street in front of the drug store at coffee time. Can you imagine what the folks must have thought when the liquor dealer hugged the Baptist preacher on main street?

I worried about that for a long time. Had I gone soft on sin? Had I failed to take a stand. This business of reaching out and touching people is not easy. The rules are not defined. When do we put people over principle? When do we sacrifice our reputation to touch someone who is not loved or accepted? I really don’t have any clear-cut answer to that today but I do have some results to share.

After a short time Howard sold his liquor store and became a successful broker. His family reunited and he raised some wonderful and brilliant children.

That matters but not any more than what happened to that Baptist preacher who got hugged by the liquor dealer on main street in front of the drug store at coffee time. I never got over it and I hope I never do.

When we go out and act like God acts, we come back feeling what God feels.