We Reserve the Right to Accept EVERYONE!

Sermon Summary 2OCT11

"We reserve the right to accept EVERYONE"

Matthew 21:33-46

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." We all know how untrue that saying is. It probably was the result of a parent whose child had been hurt by something that had been said about them, and this is some consolation to the child as wrong as we know it to be. Home is a place where we have to be accepted isn't it? You go home they have to accept you, but we all experience rejection in the world and today's Gospel is about acceptance and about rejection.

Each year 4,500 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 commit suicide, and a lot of that is the result of bullying. It's a major problem in our schools and schools are having to deal with this increasing problem of bullying. A lot of it has to do with the Internet and so on which multiplies the problem, but this thing they call "sexting" really creates a lot of problems for young people. But, it is something that we have to be concerned about and it revolves around this same acceptance or rejection. Now if you go to school and you're a little different they're very likely going to pick on you. This one boy seemed to be handling it quite well; he was a high school student in Buffalo New York, and he was a gay young man, a gay teen (they are much more likely to commit suicide than the "normal" population of the schools). He seemed to be handling the bullying quite well, he even developed this t-shirt campaign (you may have seen or heard about) that said simply "IT WILL GET BETTER". You know, just hang in there things will get better... Then, a couple of weeks ago he was found dead near his home in Buffalo; he had committed suicide. I saw his parents the other day on the "Today Show" and his mother was wearing one of his t-shirts "IT WILL GET BETTER". She said her and her husband felt it necessary to keep the campaign going to encourage other gay teens that it WILL get BETTER. 

Of course other students are victims of bullying as well, when I was in school "coodie detectors" (a folded piece of paper people would rub in your hair and then unfold to reveal a message of whether or not you had "coodies") was one of the popular forms of bullying. Today it's become "cyber-bullying", ganging up on someone on the internet and spreading rumors and gossip about them to the point that a young woman's reputation can be ruined and as a result SHE commits suicide. It's a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE thing and it's not just the young people. There was another report on the "Today Show" dealing with a small town (about 4,000 people) called Mountain Grove where texting and the Internet had become a real problem because it was bearing gossip. Gossip about the local townspeople, and in that small of a town everyone knows who you are. There was a rumor started on the Internet about this older woman in town saying that she was running a "sex club". Then there was yet another rumor about one of the young women in town who was interviewed and she said "you know, it's something you just can't get away from. It's always out there in cyber space and you can't get away from it." So she said that she was moving because she just couldn't continue to live in that town any longer. 

There was a young man who was applying to colleges and he had just gotten a letter of rejection from the Dean of Admissions. So he wrote a letter back to this particular Dean:
     "Dear Dean,
          I just received your letter of rejection to my application. I'm sorry to tell you that I cannot accept it. I've been rejected by four other colleges already, and that is beyond my limit. Therefore, I must reject your rejection. I hope this is not a great inconvenience to you, but I am planning on showing up for class registration and orientation on September the 18th."

He seemed to have a healthy way of dealing with his rejection, but we don't always do that, do we? 

Of course, one of the most horrible rejections is loosing a job. How do you feed your family? How do you clothe them? How will you house them? You may loose your car, your house, your possessions all because you lost your job. There are too many people in this country today (and even throughout the world) who have lost their jobs, and that's a horrible rejection to have.  There was this man who got up one Friday morning and announced to his wife "I'm going to work today and I'm going to ask my boss for a raise. I really think I deserve it." Well, toward the end of the day he finally worked up the courage to go into the boss' office and ask for the raise. Much to his surprise the boss said "You know what? I agree with you, it's time you had a raise and I'm going to give you one." So the man goes home very happy that day. As he walks into the house he notices the dining room has been set, candles lit, napkins beautifully folded, the finest china and silverware they owned were laid out on the table waiting for a feast... everything looked beautiful. He goes into the kitchen and announces to his wife "I GOT THE RAISE!" So they go into the dining room and sit down for a festive dinner. When he sits down at the table he notices a card folded and laying on his plate, he opens it and reads: "Dear, I knew you were going to get the raise. You deserved it, and these things are to show you that I love you." After they finished a festive and delicious main course the wife goes into the kitchen to bring desert and the husband finds another card that had fallen out of her pocket that read: "Dear, I'm sorry that you didn't get the raise. I know you deserve it, and I do these things to show you that I love you." So she was prepared to go either way. I think God deals with us in that same open fashion. You know our God is not a God of rejection, but of love and forgiveness and acceptance, and the prayer that we heard today had to do with those most tragic words we hear during Holy Week "He came unto his own, and His own received Him not." If anyone ever experienced rejection it was Jesus the Christ. Today's parable had to do with the vineyard being given over to "new tenants", and the early Church saw itself as being the "new tenants" of the Old Testament promises and the gift of the Christ as he comes to us in the New Testament and in the Church of Jesus Christ. So it's all about acceptance and not rejection. 

There was a young Private in the Army who was in the habit of kneeling by his rack every night to say his prayers. Well, his Sergeant found this to be a ridiculous practice and would chide him for saying his prayers every night like that. One evening the Sergeant came in drunk and found the Private kneeling beside his rack praying, so he kicked the Private across the room. The next morning the Sergeant woke up only to find his boots at the foot of his rack and they had been meticulously polished to a fine gloss. So he walked over to the young Private and said "tell me something about this God of yours". The point is we go on with our witness even though we think we're being rejected having faith that out of the way we receive rejection, the way we handle the rejection might cause someone to come by faith to the God we know...this wonderful God of forgiveness and love. 

Did you know today is Worldwide Communion Sunday? So many Churches that don't normally have Communion in their services every Sunday are having Communion today throughout the world. So we think of the rich and the powerful, the poor and the powerless, those people from every race and nation that come to the Lord's Table. It's the one place where we come no matter what our differences are, and we find ourselves in the hands of a loving and accepting God. 

Out there in the world we may be broken by the rejection we experience. We know our God uses brokeness, doesn't he? The soil has to be broken before the grain can be planted. The clouds have to be broken before they can pour out the rain upon the vineyard. The grain has to be broken and ground before it can be made into bread. The grapes have to be crushed before they can be made into wine. So we come to the Table of the Lord in our brokeness and through the One who was broken and then Resurrected we find ourselves. Even though broken, there is the power of God to put us back together and make us whole again. We have those beautiful words from today's Gospel "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone". Even though we're by the world rejected, we are by God accepted and made part of that cornerstone which is Jesus Christ. 

There was a sign in front of a Church in New Jersey that read simply: "We reserve the right to accept EVERYONE".