Though I don’t usually mind being rude and offensive, I would never be rude and offensive enough to use this forum as a platform for preaching. The following long post is an account of my unusual and ironic morning and comes with this warning label:
WARNING: God-talk Below:
I live in a multi-cultural neighborhood. I am the pastor of a predominantly white church in that neighborhood. So I am always talking about reaching out to our community and making our church look more like our community.
This Sunday I preached on a scripture from Isaiah where God said, “My house shall be called a house a prayer for all nations.” I hit hard on the “all nations” part, and talked about the challenges we face dealing with our own prejudice. I urged the congregation to rethink our attitudes toward people who are different than us.
I preached this message 5 times to 5 different groups of people and filed the sermom away.
And then God sent me an angel named Dale.
I looked out my office window this morning and saw this large, long haired, Native American coming up the church walk. I figured he wanted money. I was wrong. I also figured he was drunk. I was wrong. I also figured I would send him away in less than 5 minutes. I was wrong again. (As you can see, I was really doing a great job of practicing what I preach). Anyway, I took this great Christian attitude and went to meet him at the door.
I said, “Hi, can I help you?” He said, “My name is Dale. I saw your sign and I was wondering if I could talk to you about the Bible.” (And I thought, “and then ask you for money”). I knew that my wife had taken my last 10 bucks out of my wallet this morning, so I didn’t have anything to lose, so I said, “Sure, come on up.”
We went into my office and sat down and he spent the next 90 minutes humbling me and blessing me.
Remember I had just preached a sermon about being welcoming to people who are different? 5 times? Well Dale was definitely different. His story is this. He got out of prison Sunday. He was in there for murder two and drug trafficking. He was originally from a reservation in northern Minnesota. His wife was also in prison. His kids were in foster homes. His story is one of abuse and abandonment and getting into drugs and crime at an early age. I listened as he told his story.
He went on to tell me that 9 months ago, he started reading the Bible in prison. Then he started believing it. Then he found a couple of Christians in prison who could tell him more about it.
Then he got to the part about what he wanted from me. (I was still expecting a request for money). He asked for a Bible. He said he had the one from the prison library while he was in prison, but now that he was out, he didn’t have one. I glanced around my office. From where I was sitting, I could see eleven Bibles. Publishers often send them to me. So now I only have 10.
Then he said there was one other thing. I thought, “Here it comes. How much?” He said, “I don’t know anybody I can talk to about the Bible. I had those two guys in prison and they could help me. But now I am looking for a group of people I can talk to about the Bible and who can help me stay straight.” I thought to myself, “I have just the group he is looking for. I have a group of men who meet in my office every Tuesday morning at 6:30 for just this purpose and if I invite him to this group, it is going to go over like a pregnant woman at a pole vault.” So yeah, I invited him. He was thrilled.
Then I brought up the subject that he never did. I said, “Do you have any money?” He had less than a dollar in change. I knew there was some petty cash in the safe that I could pay back later, so I offered him money. He refused, saying “God will take care of me.” I said, “What are you going to eat?” He told me he was going to the food shelf. I explained to him how the food shelf worked–that he had to be able to prove residence in order to get food. He said, “God will take care of me.” I had a whole new outlook on things by this point, so I said, “Yes, He will, and He is going to do it through me.” So we went and got in my car and he got groceries. Before we parted, I got a big, long bear hug from a big, hairy, unwashed Indian.
And I know that in heaven God was saying, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
And He was laughing at me.
