Last Sunday we started a three-week series called Rest, Live, Work.
We've always said from the beginning of the church when we planted that we exist to call
Prodigals home, to invite people in, to adopt the spiritually homeless, to be a place
where no one would be left out, so that everyone can feel like they can rest, live, and work
in a great house.
So last week we started with rest in what we are talking about when we say that.
We talked about laying our burdens down, not coming from a place of legalism or thinking
that God immediately has a bunch of work and stuff for us to do, but we come to a place
of rest.
If you missed that, you can check it out on our podcast.
It's anywhere the podcast can be found out there in the internet, digital, ether, or
you can watch the whole service on Facebook or YouTube.
And this week we are going to talk about what it means to live in the house.
I'll be honest, you can ask Cindy this is true.
This is a really tough sermon to write.
It took forever.
Now there's no guarantee that means it's going to be a lot better, but it took forever to
write this sermon because live can mean a lot of things.
I kept on putting things in and taking it out and adding other things and I had to keep
on going, what is it that we mean?
What is the most important thing?
What is the central thing?
When we say live at the house, what is that one thing?
For me that comes down to this.
Becoming like Jesus and modeling the way that he lives at the table.
So with that, let's open up our Bibles to Luke.
If you don't have a Bible, there's blue ones on the table and they're also on the shelf
out in the lobby.
Feel free to grab one of those and take it home with you.
They're free.
Or you can download a Bible from any of the digital app stores.
Luke is in what's called the New Testament or the Second Testament.
It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans.
So if you see any of those, you are in the right neighborhood.
We have a tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention when they're read in the
context of the sermon.
You can do that any number of ways.
You can sit and give it your full attention.
You can stand with me as you are able.
And we read the scriptures.
We're going to be Luke 7 starting in verse 36.
Here we go.
Now, one of the Pharisees was requesting him to dine with him.
And he entered the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.
And a woman in the city who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's
house, brought in alabaster jar of ointment.
As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, this man were a
prophet.
He would know who was touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she is a sinner.
Let's pray.
God of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you that we have the
scriptures that they have persisted throughout the millennia.
We still have them to read and to consider.
Whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that it would stick.
I pray that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would
become stronger as we become more like your son, Jesus.
Amen.
Amen, sweetie.
All right.
When I started high school in 1992, all right, my 96 crowd, raise your hand, you graduated
in 96, right there, right there, we went to high school together.
We didn't really know each other very much, but we went to high school together.
So you might relate to some of this.
I'm not sure.
I had no idea where I was going to fit in at this school when I started high school.
I was a small kid.
It is a little bit of the Hampton genes.
We grow after we graduate high school.
So I was just a little kid walking into this giant school.
Just the physical size of Moline High School felt intimidating to me.
It was overwhelming.
But nothing was more intimidating to me than the lunchroom.
Then go into that cafeteria for the first time.
Not because I didn't know what I was going to eat, because I didn't know who I was going
to sit with or where I was going to fit in.
My school had something like 3,000 kids in it.
So by the time I got to the lunchroom, there was already four or 500 kids in there.
I didn't have a bunch of friends.
I know, shocker.
I didn't have a bunch of friends waiting for me, saving tables, waiting to be like, hey,
this is where you belong.
So I had no idea where I was going to sit.
Moline was saving me a seat.
I remember weaving my way through the tables.
They had round tables.
Remember weaving my way through the tables with my tray, just like scanning the room.
I had gone to both middle schools.
I went to the one for a little bit, and then I went to the other.
And so I was kind of like mixed up with who I would know.
I'm looking around to scan the room.
I was maybe even just looking for an empty table that I'd just sit down and get it over
with.
Just sit down.
Don't worry about who's going to sit with me.
And then some kind of cool happened.
Kid named Mike Sweeney said my name kind of from the side, caught my attention.
I turned and he waved, waved me over.
I came.
He invited me to sit at his table with him and his friends.
It's something that I remember and is still meaningful to me 32 years later.
Because Mike was a senior.
Now, I don't know what it's like these days, but back then at the end of the last century,
there was a social hierarchy in the high school lunchrooms of the 1990s.
When you watch those old movies about the 70s, 80s, and 90s, that stuff was true.
Like the way people acted in lunchrooms, there's some truth to that.
And as a freshman, the idea of getting to sit at a table full of upperclassmen, it felt
special.
Now, I still had a lot to figure out, right?
But at least I knew where I belonged at lunchtime.
There's something about being invited to sit at someone's table when they didn't have to
make room for you.
2000 years ago wasn't all that different.
During the first century in Israel, if you invited someone to your home for meal, you
were sharing your reputation with them.
Mike wasn't the most popular kid in the school.
This isn't like the beginning of some movie where Greg becomes prompting because he sat
down at a senior's table, right?
But he was still a senior.
There was still some of that social structure there that he was risking by inviting a freshman
kid that didn't have any friends to come sit down at his table.
Back in Israel 2000 years ago, if you invited someone to your home, you were lending them
your reputation.
You were putting your stamp of approval on them.
You were saying, I accept you as you are.
You're here with me.
You belong.
Maybe that's what the Pharisee wanted from Jesus when he invited him over for dinner.
Or maybe the Pharisee thought that was what he was giving to Jesus.
Other way, if you listen to what we read and if you read the rest of the story, what becomes
very obvious is that that Pharisee definitely did not want to lend his reputation to that
woman.
But that didn't stop Jesus.
Didn't stop Jesus from lending his reputation.
Didn't stop Jesus from making room for her.
I don't see Jesus catering to people with reputations they're afraid to lose.
I think he's setting a place at the table for all the people with nothing to lose.
He's making room.
That is how we are supposed to live at the table.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if we can look around this room and spot the
person that doesn't belong, then Jesus still needs us to learn what it means to live in
a great house.
Because becoming like Jesus, living at the table means that we model the table manners
of Jesus.
Jesus is making room for anyone that shows up.
Now this is really important to understand for spiritual reasons, yeah?
But there's also something that's incredibly important about it, just practically speaking,
because I don't know if you have noticed, but there are a lot of lonely people in the
world.
Research says that more than a third of Americans are suffering from serious loneliness.
And that research was done before COVID.
What we also know is that loneliness increases the risk of an early death by 50%.
People need to know that they can belong somewhere.
People need to know that there is a community that will embrace them.
People need to know that we will make room for them.
This is real.
Research shows that doing something as simple as playing cards once a week with some friends
or meeting people weekly for a coffee can add as many years to your life as quitting
a pack a day smoking habit.
That's real.
If cards and coffee can do that, imagine what living in a great house could do.
If cards and coffee can add that much life to your physical existence, imagine what finding
a community in a church could do.
Imagine what finding a healthy church could do.
Now a couple weeks, we have two what we call community tables starting.
Community tables are our version of small groups, but they're laid back.
There's no book.
There's no homework.
There's food.
There's a meal.
There's conversation.
Because community tables aren't like a Bible study for a reason.
It's on purpose.
Nothing against Bible studies.
Y'all can get together and study the Bible together as well.
That would be great.
But community tables are intentionally social for a reason because we don't just need to
learn more about the Bible.
Jesus wants us to learn about each other.
Jesus wants us to know more than just each other's names.
Jesus wants us to know what's going on in our lives.
Community tables are one of the ways that we try to make room for people here at the
house.
Jen has the sign up somewhere.
You can sign up after service.
They start in two weeks.
But then next week after church is kind of like a kickoff for community tables starting.
We're going to have a house party potluck after church.
You'll get an email about it this week.
You can bring something to share.
And everyone is invited just to stay afterwards and eat, enjoy each other's company.
We'll kind of model some of that time after what a community table looks like.
Just giving you a theme to discuss.
Getting some highlights from your conversations.
Giving you the opportunity to be with each other without an agenda that feels like you're
going to have a test at the end.
Then we have something that we call Tuesday activities.
There's something that happens every single Tuesday.
First Tuesday, worship and prayer.
Second Tuesday, green bush walk.
Third Tuesday, spiritual conversations.
Fourth Tuesday, facility care.
And then on two of those Tuesdays, Robin leads something called the worship dance crew.
If you want to learn how to dance to music and worship God with that.
We have more ways to connect to this community than we have had in over a decade.
Since we started, we have never done this many things all at once.
And it is specifically because we are trying to make room at the table.
Trying to help people find the connection point.
Because not every Sunday is going to work out.
But if you can find something that is a weekly connection point with people that you know
care about you, it literally adds life.
I believe that God does something spiritual with that as well.
In the scriptures, even when you get to the very end of the scriptures, when you get to
the book of Revelation, there's a really famous verse in there that most of you have probably
heard.
Seen some meme about it online.
The idea is that there's been this letter that's been written to a church that has started
to wander away from the Lord.
And it says, I stand at the door and I knock.
Whoever lets me in, I will come in and I will eat a meal with them.
That's what it says.
Jesus is just trying to get us to sit down and eat.
Jesus is like a really good Greek mother.
Just trying to get us to sit down together.
Just trying to sit down, look at us face to face and talk.
I think we live in a great house when we sit down with Jesus.
When we become like Jesus.
When no one is left out.
When we're always making room.
Making sure that there is an open spot for someone new.
Maybe even especially for someone that didn't know that they could sit there.
Maybe even for someone that came in.
Holding all their problems on a tray.
Walking through these tables.
Just looking for a table where they can sit down with somebody.
Hoping that they'll hear someone say their name.
Wave them over and say you belong here with me.
That is what I mean when I say live in a great house.
Amen?
Amen.
Let's pray.
God, thank you for Mike Sweeney.
I pray for him today.
Pray that you pour out your blessings.
I pray that you would fill his table so full with all the blessings that he needs.
For what will feel like no reason at all.
And I pray that each of us would have our eyes open to see the person that is scanning
the room just looking for a place to belong.
Whether that room is our work, whether that room is our neighborhood, our own family,
or this church.
Give us eyes to see.
Hearts to feel.
And a willingness to sit at a table with someone new.
And make old friends.
Amen.