“The Expectation Lasting Words”

Luke 21:25-36

December 3, 2006

St. Paul UMC, Little Rock

Reverend John Andrew Fleming

By now I am sure that you have seen the movie Forest Gump. If you haven’t, it’s your own fault. The movie has been out if video stores for years and every once and a while, you can catch it on a television network like USA or WTBS. I think I should tell you that one of my spiritual gifts is being able to talk as slowly as Forest.

The movie came out in 1994 and for a time, from many pulpits, the wise sayings of Forest and his family, also known as Gumpisms, were uttered. Usually the saying had some redeemable spiritual truth attached to it.

As the movie begins, you may remember, Forest is waiting on the number nine bus. He has a box of chocolates with him. He offers a nurse, who is waiting with him, one of the chocolates. She refuses the chocolate, but Forest partakes. He reaches for one out of the container, puts it in his mouth, and then he says, “Momma said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’” Forest buries his beloved Jenny under a big oak tree on his plantation. He comes back to visit the grave site from time to time. On one of those visits, Forest says, “Momma once said, ‘Dying is a part of living.’” But then he proclaims, “But I wish it wasn’t.” My guess is that we’ve all felt that way before.

Some time ago I went back and watched the movie. I was looking for a scene that I shared in a sermon. It’s the scene I want to paint with words for you this morning. In the scene, Forest and his bestest goodest friend Bubba are in Vietnam fighting. The company that serve under comes under attack. Forest runt to safety. But then he notices that his friend is not with him. Forest forfeits his own safety and runs to find Bubba. While he looks, Forest ends up saving three or four soldiers out of harm’s way. Finally the finds Bubba and pulls him out of the line of fire. Unfortunately Bubba was shot. It was an injury he wouldn’t survive. Forest says, “If I had know that that was going to be the last time that me and Bubba were going to talk, I would have thought of something better to say.” If you have seen the movie, you know that Forest’s last words to his best friend were, “Hey Bubba.” Just in case you are interested, Bubba’s last words were these, “I want to go home.”

Last words are important words. Lasting words are important, too. Today begins the season of Advent, the four Sundays and this year the twenty-two days that precede the day we honor the birth of Jesus Christ. On these Sundays before Christmas, we focus on how it is we prepare ourselves. We know that there are gifts to buy and decorations to put up and cards to send. We also know that something needs to take place in our interiors, inside of us, in our spiritual lives. We need to prepare a place for Jesus to come in and reside.

The season always kicks off not with the first appearance of Jesus, but his second one. This year it is Luke’s turn to predict what that day will be like. Luke has Jesus saying, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, a distress on the earth.” Luke has Jesus saying, “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming...” And when this happens, says Jesus, “Stand up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

But nestled in there is a powerful image. In the second third of the passage, Jesus paints this picture, “All the world will pass away, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

There is more, of course. Jesus says that we are to be on guard. Jesus says that our hearts should not be weighed down with things like drunkenness and worry. He also says that we should be ready for it.

Now there are several sermons in this passage. I’ll just preach one this morning. For a few minutes I’d like for us to think about these words that Jesus talks about, these lasting words, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but this God that we worship will always be here.” Jesus says that, I think, to reassure us. He wants us to know that no matter what happens in our personal lives, no matter what happens in our communal lives, no matter what happens in the world around us, God can be trusted. Even when it seems like the whole world is crashing down around us, God can be trusted.

So Jesus is the promised one and the one who has lasting words. But what are the nature of these lasting words? Let me tell you what I think. I think the words that are lasting are words of invitation.

Look at the Bible and you will discover that God is always inviting us, always reaching out to us, always wanting a relationship with us, always offering us grace and a life that can be more than it is. To the disciples Jesus invited, “Come, follow me and we’ll fish for people.” To the tired and weary, Jesus invited, “Come to me all of you who are tired and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” Our ritual for Holy communion even invites, “Christ our Lord invites to His table all who love him, all who repent of their sins and seek to live in peace with God and one another.

Now you need to know this. With accepting Jesus’ invitation comes a responsibility. God is a God of grace, you see, and that grace is supposed to flow out of us. We’re supposed to live in such a way that people can see that.

One of the great invitation stories comes from the twenty-second chapter of Matthew’s gospel. There Jesus tells the story of the king who was hosting a wedding feast for his son. The king, as was proper in his day, sent out invitations. It probably came on a piece of parchment, hand delivered to homes of those invited. When it arrived, those invited were supposed to getout their calendars and mark the date and time. That was the first invitation. The second one came later. It went out the day of the wedding. The servants of the king wold go door to door to those invited and say, “Today’s the wedding day. Be at the house on time. It all starts at four o’clock. You don’t want to miss this!”

In this story of Jesus, though, when the first invitation went out, everyone ignored it. No one calendared it. No one wrote the date down. No one thought this wedding was all that important.

When the day arrives, everyone has an excuse. They all have something else to do. Their calendars are full. They have commitments they cannot change. So they cannot come. This is reported to the king who promptly orders the servants, “I want you to go out a third time. Don’t go to the ones you went to before. I want the house packed!” The king arrives, the wedding begins, and the house is full, not with honored guests, but with anybody and everybody. We get the idea that this king, this Lord of us is full of grace. He invites not once, not twice, but three different times.

Philip Yancey included in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace tells a story that ran in the Boston Globe in 1990. It is the story of a woman and her fiancé. The two went to the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston to plan their wedding reception. They met with the professional coordinator at the hotel. She was gracious. She helped them with the details of the party. She helped them pick out china and silver and flowers. She helped them decide how the room would be set up. She helped them with all those things. The bill, in 1990, came to thirteen thousand dollars ($13,000). This was no small party they were planning.

The coordinator said that they had to put down fifty percent of the fee. The bride to be pulled out her checkbook and without thinking about the cost, wrote the check. She was excited. She was getting married. This was going to be great!

The bride went home and picked out announcements. She ordered them. The invitations arrived and she quickly hand addressed all of them. On the morning she was going to mail them, her fiancé called. He had gotten cold feet. He said, in so many words, “I don’t think I can do this. I’m not sure about this. This is an awfully big commitment, isn’t it? Could we take a little more time and think about getting married?” The bride knew what his words meant. It meant the wedding was off. To her it meant the relationship was over. It meant she had to go back to the wedding planner and cancel the party.

The planer was wonderful. She was full of grace. She sat and listened to the bride’s story. She received her tears. Then she said, “I know what you are going through. I, myself, experienced a broken engagement. I’m so sorry that I have to say this to you. You signed a binding contract. I can give you back thirteen hundred dollars ($1300) but that’s it. You will have to forfeit the rest if you cancel the party.” Then she said, “I do have a suggestion. You could just throw a big party of some sort.”

The bride wasn’t ready for that just yet. But a few days later she was. She remembered that ten years ago, she had been without a home, living in a shelter in Boston. She got a break. She got her life back together. She got a great job, put back a lot of money, worked long hours. She had made it. The woman decided that she would throw a party. She would send invitations to shelters, to missions, and to senior citizen centers. She sent invitations to those who were never invited to anything.

So on a June night, in 1990, at the Hyatt in Boston, there was a great party. Those who were invited to nothing ever were served by waiters in tuxes. They nibbled on hors d’oeuvres, they sipped champagne. They enjoyed chocolate wedding cake. They danced to big band sounds. The only change was the main course. The woman changed the main course to boneless chicken in honor of her former fiancé.

I don’t want you to remember that. What I want you to remember is that when a personal tragedy happened in her life, what she recalled was Jesus’ invitational spirit. She remembered that Jesus reached out to her.

Now let me ask you church, what lives on in us? What word of God, what words of God mean the most to us? And why do they? Jesus said the whole world will pass away, but my words will never pass away. What words of his become a part of who we are?

That’s what I would like for you to think about this week. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to the writers of the movie Forest Gump. Thanks is also due to the writings of Philip Yancey and his story about the bride and her party).