Wow! Sunday was one great day!
Sunday’s Friends/Name Tag Sunday was a wonderful event. The building was full and the service was a blessing and the meal after was a blast. The house was full of new first time guest and many returning guest and we had a blessed time in the presences of the Lord.
I spoke on the wonder and power of being part of the Family of God, joining hands with each of those in the church, the Bride of Christ, and doing the work of God. Again I was touched by the story in the book Same Kind of Different as Me. Allow me to pass on part of the story I used Sunday.
“Same kind of Different as Me” is a true story of the lives of a Multimillionaire and a homeless man. The millionaire is a white man raised in the red dirt land of Texas who was self-made. The homeless man was a colored man raised in the plantation land of Louisiana south of Shreveport. The book is their lives from a child to adulthood and how God brought them together in downtown Fort Worth and how they become close friends and change each other and their world.
In the beginning of their getting to know one another the wealthy Ron Hall is working in a shelter and meets the homeless Denver Moore. As time has it Ron takes Denver out for breakfast one day and during their conversation Denver asks Ron what he wanted with him. To which Ron replied he wanted to be his friend. Denver said he would have to think about it and two weeks later has an answer for the rich man Ron. Again they are having coffee when Denver says he has been thinking a lot about what Ron ask him. Ron has seemingly forgotten and doesn’t know what Denver is talking about. Denver reminds him that Ron had asked to be his friend.
The millionaire Ron wrote; My jaw dropped an inch. I’d forgotten I had told him at the Café that all I wanted from him was his friendship; he’s said he’d think about it. Now, I was shocked that anyone would spend a week pondering such a question. While the whole conversation had slipped my mind, Denver had clearly spent serious time preparing his answer.
He looked up from his coffee, fixing me with one eye, the other squinted like Clint Eastwood. “There’s something I heard ‘bout white folks that bothers me, and it has to do with fishing.”
He was serious and didn’t dare laugh, but I did try to lighten the mood a bit. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you,” I said smiling. “I don’t even own a tackle box.”
Denver scowled, not amused, “I think you can.”
He spoke slowly and deliberately, keeping me pinned with that eyeball, ignoring the Starbucks conversations going on the patio around us. He said, “I heard that when white folks go fishing they do something called catch and release.”
Catch and release? I nodded solemnly, suddenly nervous and curious at the same time.
“That really bothers me,” Denver went on. “I just can’t figure it out.” ‘Cause when colored folks go fishing, we are really proud of what we catch and we take it and show it off to everybody that’ll look. Then we eat what we catch… in other words, we use it to sustain us. So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all the trouble to catch a fish, and then when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water.”
Denver paused again and the silence between us stretched a full minute. Then: “Did you hear what I said?” I nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to offend.
Denver looked away, searching the blue autumn sky, then locked onto me again with that drill-bit stare. “So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me: if you are fishing for a friend and you just gonna catch and release, then I an’t got no desire to be your friend.”
The world seemed to halt in midstride and fall silent around us like a freeze frame scenes on TV. I could hear my heart pounding and imagined Denver could see it popping my breast pocket up and down. I returned Denver’s gaze with what I hoped was a receptive expression and hung on.
Suddenly Denver’s eyes gentled and he spoke more softly then before: “But if you is looking for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.”
I was moved by this Catch and Release example. I am amazed by how we in the church often decide with our actions who can be in the church and who can’t. We often find ourselves deciding who is good enough and who isn’t. If we even plan to make a lasting difference we will have to join hands with those coming into the church and let God use each of us to make a great difference together.
Ron and Denver’s story tells how they each changed the other for the better. Because they did this, God used them to make a great difference in their world. They could have never done what they did if it hadn’t been for the other one in their life. It is a modern day Jonathan and David story from the Bible. A peasant boy becomes friends with the king’s son, the prince, and together they make a large difference. What could God do with you if you joined hands with His church and stopped just talking about change and changed? It’s how the Almighty has planned to reach the world. The Book of Revelations tells us that the Spirit (the Almighty), and the bride (the Church) says come. Both together are reaching the world. If you want to matter in the kingdom of God get involved in what God is doing with His church. (Revelations 22:17)
The following is not original with me. It was written by a twenty year old girl about when she becomes age fifty.
I am part of a lost generation
And I refuse to believe
I can change my world
I realize this may be a shock but
“Happiness comes from within”
Is a lie, and
“Money will make me happy”
So in 30 years I will tell my children
They are not the most important thing in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
Work
Is more important than
Family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
But this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
30 yrs from now I will celebrate the 10 anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about the world
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.
And all this will come true unless we chose to change and reverse it.
(Now starting at the last sentence read the above lines from the twenty year old from the bottom up and see what change will sound like.)
Come on join hands with what God is doing and allow it to change your life forever.
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