Nothing Except....From Misery to Mercy to Ministry - Part 2
We were newly-wed, twenty-one years old and in New York City for the Billy Graham Crusade School on Evangelism. One of the seminars was in an old city church and on the wall was a plaque with these memorable words:
Expect Great Things from God
Attempt Great Things for God - William Carey
Chuck and I saw this exhortation as our unique marching orders from our God and we enthusiastically accepted the call. Yes! We would do just what William Carey challenged us to do. Nothing could stand in the way of our desire to do something "BIG" for our God. Chuck was a new believer and I was newly dedicated to walk by faith, no matter how difficult the pathway.
GREAT - yes GREAT - would be our impact.
So when God opened doors for Chuck to pastor a tiny, dying inner city Philadelphia church while he attended seminary, our answer was, "YES!"
It did not matter that Chuck's salary would be below poverty level. We had Jesus! It didn't matter that this little church was dying. We would turn around this little congregation into a vibrant, living testimony to God's power and grace! We planned, prayed and dreamed of the day this BIG, beautiful, stone building with enormous, glorious stained glass windows that told the story of Jesus, our GREAT Savior. would one day be packed!
We would succeed in our passion to turn our world upside down for Jesus. No matter that only 30 people were left in this once vibrant mission, established in 1903. We had a call -
Attempt GREAT things for God. Expect GREAT things from God.
And surely, a GREAT BIG vibrant city church was God's will and we would make it happen!
Twenty-one years old. Pastoring a church as a "one-year-old" Christian with no background as a Protestant. Ah, yes, we would definitely turn things upside down. But not exactly as we planned.
God's definition of GREAT is often quite different from our own.
God's idea of great was to use that little congregation as our School Master. Something great was happening, but it was not in the size of the congregation. The greatness could not be measured with numbers. Something great was happening in our hearts. Three years later Chuck asked to be moved to a suburban church. Instead God redeployed us to another inner-city church - this one deeper in the city and far more dangerous. In a neighborhood whose claim to fame was that it had the highest rate of day time gang killings. A once white, prosperous, Polish neighborhood. Now, numerous ethnic groups and skin colors. Our children's best friends were Bindu and Sindu Babu, two little Indian girls who lived in an apartment that overlooked our postage stamp, fenced in concrete yard. Women carrying grocery bags on their heads was a common sight. Such diversity made our move more exciting. YES, this time, we will do something GREAT for God in this tiny dying inner city church. After we moved in to the huge old parsonage one of the leaders told Chuck, "This is three dying congregations that came together out of desperation. We're gasping for breath. The hearse is backed up to the door....." implying, "Good luck."
Our first Sunday in our new mission. We should have been high on Jesus. Yet, after I put the two babies down for their naps, I found my young pastor husband crying quietly as he sat on the front porch. The promised "amazing music program" consisted of a powerful pipe organ and a choir of 3 elderly women. One couple without white hair sat in the pews of the 500 seat sanctuary. The other 27 were elderly, tired and almost hopeless as they listened to this new energetic, twenty-four year old preacher call them to action and silently wondered who this young guy thought was going to do all the work to accomplish his vision.
"Go for it!" was their response.
I didn't know how to respond to Chuck's soft words, "Sharon, there is so much work. Look at this community that needs Jesus. I don't know where to start. The needs are beyond me. We are so alone. I don't want to stay here."
William Carey, 1761-1834
What does attempting
GREAT THINGS FOR GOD
look like in a dying church, a young pastor's family, a congregation of people longing for something more, desperate to hold on to the past glory, not sure what expecting great things from God looks like? William Carey, the one credited with this great quote was called the father of modern missions and lived in the late 1700's. I'm thinking that if he lived today, he would say that attempting great things for God was his mission statement and this one, also credited to him was his business plan:
"I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything."
Over the next few weeks, Elisha's question to the hopeless widow in 2 Kings 4:1 [See Part 1 for an introduction to this broken widow's story:
Nothing Except....From Misery to Mercy to Ministry, Part 1
took on life as we began to take stock of what little we had to offer in what felt like a hopeless mission. Chuck concluded, "If only I had two strong families who shared the vision of the Gospel...." But there didn't seem to be anyone who had the energy or the passion for Kingdom Building in this neighborhood.
Chuck's cry to the Lord, "The inner city is not where I want to be. What have You done bringing us to this place? I have nothing to give to this needy community. The needs are bottomless."
Implied in that cry was, "I am your servant. I gave you my life. Surely you have something more exciting for me to do than trudge through life in this dying community, all by myself."
Chuck's cries sound eerily like the widow in 2 Kings, when she reminds Elisha that her preacher husband, one of Elisha's guys, is dead,murdered by Elisha's arch enemy, Jezebel, implying Elisha must take responsibility for saving her family.
Elisha's response to the widow is not much different than God's response to us in those lonely days.
Watch as the prophet Elisha seems to callously respond to a grief-stricken, hopeless widow's pleas for help from him and see if you can detect the similarities. She is about to lose her two sons. The widow's husband was one of the prophets murdered by the wicked Jezebel. Surely Elisha, God's representative should take responsibility for saving her penniless family. A creditor is coming to take her two sons as payment for her bills. She asks Elisha for help. She has nothing - or does she? Elisha asks her a critical question, one that we would do well to ask ourselves when life seems hopeless:
"What do you have in your house?" Her response,
"Nothing, except......"
Nothing, except......
What is the "except" in your house, your hands?
"Nothing....except....well, I have a little bit of oil." She most likely was thinking, "The oil is worthless, Elisha - not even enough to bake a loaf of bread. And in fact, I don't even have flour for bread....so what can you do with that? Can't you just pay my bills so that my sons aren't made slaves?" Maybe Elisha could have paid the bills for her, but he had something better in mind, a life lesson that would not only pay the bills today but meet her needs in the future. Elisha was about to show this widow how to attempt something great for God and to expect something great from God.
And God could have magically filled that city church with like-minded, passionate about the Gospel families. But He had something bigger in mind for us.
The Widow starts to see hope in the mundane.
Elisha's directive in response to her answer had to be even more confusing, but this desperate woman immediately obeys his directions,
"Go around and ask (beg) all your neighbors for empty jars.
Don't ask for just a few
(expect something big and GREAT to happen!). Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons (I LOVE that Elisha wants her sons to witness this miracle). Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side."
She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons (this is a private, family miracle). They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.
Imagine the excitement growing with the filling of each jar!
When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one."
But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."
2 Kings 4:3 - 7
God's response to Chuck's hopeless cries was similar to Elisha's response to this broken widow. "Chuck, what do you have in your heart?"
Chuck's response: "Nothing except disappointment, despair, weariness....well, nothing except .... a love for Jesus and His people."
God's Response: "Start walking your neighborhood and extending that love to each person you meet. Extend that love to each person in this dying church. Tell them: 'God loves you and so do I!"
Such a directive seemed like spraying a destructive roaring fire with a water gun instead of a fire hose. But each day, I watched as Chuck said those words over and over again. The neighbors took notice of this young, vibrant pastor who spent time on the streets connecting with young people and before long, our home filled up with hope and laughter and transformed lives.
God was using this little dying church as our second School Master, teaching us that obedience in the mundane things is often the key that unlocks the "great things" God has planned for each of us.
Elisabeth Elliot once stated:
“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”
In my next post, this despairing widow will be a spiritual mother for us, as we pull "Teaching Moments" from her life. In the meantime, "Do what God tells you to do now, and depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next."
In His grip,
Sharon
PS Catch up on the introduction to the story of Elisha and the widow: