"Be An Encourager"
Build up, don't tear down
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Text: Acts 11:19-30
A nine-year-old boy was not practising the piano the way that he ought, so his mother decided that she was going to inspire him. She bought tickets to hear who some consider to be the greatest pianist, certainly of his time and maybe ever, Ignace Jan Paderewski. In preparation to hear Paderewski play, she put her nine-year-old son in a bow tie and tux and sat him in the front row to hear the great Pole play the piano as some described it: “like a spiritual experience.”
Before Paderewski came out onto the stage, the young boy decided to get away from his mother for a while. He ran along the aisle and his mother didn't know where he'd gone. She looked up and he was sitting on the bench in front of the Steinway piano on the stage. The little boy began to play the few pieces that he knew. He was heckled by the audience: “Sit down and be quiet! Whose little boy is this? Get him out of here! Quit the noise! You'll put the piano out of tune!” But the little boy continued to play, not listening to what people were saying.
Hearing the kerfuffle backstage, Paderewski decided to come out and see who was playing. As the little boy was playing Chopsticks, the only piece that he really knew with any certainty, Paderewski came and put his arms around him and played a wonderful tune in harmony. For a few minutes the little boy and the great Paderewski played together.
The little boy finally got down from the bench and Paderewski's last words to him were: “Never quit. No matter what.”
I've thought about that story many times since I first heard it, because it seems to me that we are living in a world where a word of encouragement, a word of hope is often missing in a world of criticism. When the world wants to say “quit,” there is something about the power of the compassion of a Paderewski who says, “Never quit.”
If all of us are really honest with ourselves, we realize that almost any accomplishment that we have made in this life owes its roots to somebody, somewhere who gave us encouragement. Whether that person was a family member, a schoolteacher, a minister or a colleague, a brother or a sister or a friend, none of us have been able to achieve anything without some degree of encouragement along the way.
I was thinking about that this week, and recalling the time some 20 years ago, when I was struggling with a decision to give up my studies in seminary and return to South Africa from Canada. A minister who had been my supervisor took me to one side. (He happens to be the brother of a former moderator of the United Church.) He sat me down and in no uncertain terms he told me how important it was that I continue to develop my skills and my theology and my ministry, and that I must never run away, even though it might seem on the surface to be the better thing to do. He said, “Andrew, you are lying to yourself. You think you've got something better by going back to South Africa, when in fact you have a calling that is going to be just as challenging.”
His word of encouragement, his word of hope, his word of belief was without doubt, I believe, a word from the Lord to me. Where would any of us be if we didn't have someone who had encouraged us to do the right thing at a moment in our lives?
I've been thinking a great deal about today and what I would say as we begin the summer, on this Canada Day as we celebrate this great and glorious land. What has come to me is the passage that Dr. Kabasele read so beautifully for us a little while ago from the Book of Acts. It is the story of a man named Barnabas. Barnabas' name means “son of encouragement.”
Born a Jew, a Levite, he was a new convert to the early church in Jerusalem. He was clearly a man of faith. He was an outstanding Christian, there's no doubt about that. But the first time we encounter him on a mission is in our passage from Acts 11. At that time the church was at an all-time low, for Stephen had just been stoned to death and become the first martyr. Christians who had grown up in Asia Minor and also in Israel and Palestine were frightened, and wondered if they should continue.
We read that there were some men who decided by the power of the Spirit that they were going to continue to preach the word no matter what. In one of the great watershed moments in the history of Christianity, these men from Cyprus and Cyrene and Antioch began to preach the Gospel not within the context of the Jewish faith and family, but to the Hellenists, to the Greeks. Realizing that they needed support, the church in Jerusalem decided to send someone to them. They sent Barnabas, the son of encouragement.
We read that Barnabas visits those who were preaching the gospel fearlessly in Antioch. He was overwhelmed by the grace that he saw in them, and he brought a word of encouragement, for he was a good man and wanted to support them in what they were doing. As I look at the power of Barnabas, I can see that at a moment of great transition in the life and the history of the Christian church, one man was sent with a word of encouragement that changed the face of Christianity forevermore.
So what do we, here in Toronto, in 2004, derive of benefit from Barnabas? There are two things: The first is that Barnabas wanted to bring a message of encouragement. I think all of us have felt over the election campaign of the last few weeks that we have heard enough negative words, enough putting down of others in order to elevate oneself. It's a natural reality, I suppose, that people use negative means to reach positive ends. But so often over the last few weeks I have felt, as you may have: Never mind the polemics, just tell me what you believe, tell me your platform, tell me what you think and let me decide. Treat us with respect, but let us know what you stand for and what you believe.
This goes right across the political spectrum. So often things degenerate into the negative. As stress rises, as uncertainties increase, as people become unsure, it's a natural human tendency. But so often we miss the positive message. It is easy to break down; it is a much more difficult thing to build up.
I read this wonderful poem some time ago that talks about this with a somewhat quizzical and satirical tone:
I saw them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a dusty town.
With a yo heave ho and a lusty yell
They swung a beam and the side wall fell.
I asked the foreman if these men were a'skilled
As the men he had hired if he were to build.
He laughed and said, ”˜Oh no indeed, common labour is all I need.'
For those men can wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken years to do.
I asked myself as I went my way,
'Which kind of role am I to play'
Am I a builder who builds with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?
Or am I the wrecker who walks the town
Content with the role of tearing down?'
Made me think. So often it is easy to break down, but much harder to build up. I find that the church has often been guilty of exactly the same thing. At times we have also turned to polemics in our attitude towards the world. We have turned to apologetics in an endeavour to try to convince. It is a negative attitude that undergirds all these things. There is an insecurity behind it. Sometimes we have not looked at the good and encouraged it, we have only looked at the ill and almost with delight have found its errors and its wrongdoing.
What did those early Christian preachers do that made them so winsome, so successful according to the Book of Acts? What did Barnabas see in them that was really the meat and the substance of their ministry? The answer is in the passage: “They proclaimed the Lord Jesus Christ.” They did not enter into polemics with the Greek world. They proclaimed the Christ who was its hope and source. They did not point to the depravity around them, they lifted up Christ, who alone in His holiness revealed everything else to be what it was. But sometimes the church says to itself, “We want something more than Christ. We want to preach something other than Christ” - as if we have anything else to say or to offer to the world.
The point is, those early Christians were a signpost to us. As Antioch was a city that was uncertain of its future, so too our Toronto is a city that is unsure of its future. What they offered was what they knew, and what they knew was Christ. The church, it seems to me has to be true to itself and in being true to itself offer the one thing that we give the world, that which we have received - the grace of Jesus Christ. When that is lived, when that is seen, when that is proclaimed, it's amazing the results people will see.
A friend once told me that there is enough depravity, sin, injustice, violence and inhumanity in the world to keep a prophet going for a thousand years, and he's right. But if that and not Jesus Christ becomes your focus, you have given no word of encouragement, you have given no word of exaltation. It is in the light of Christ that all things are revealed to be what they are. The church needs to be the church, not just for ourselves but also for the world. And, as the church we are the body of Christ, and as the body of Christ that one word, that one name is the name we offer. Barnabas knew that and when he came to the people in Antioch from Jerusalem he encouraged them to do that. We are told “and many were added to their numbers,” and Antioch eventually was changed.
We also find a model of encouragement in Barnabas. I want to ask you this: “Where and when do you hear the word of God? Where and when do you hear the word of Jesus Christ? Do you not always require another person to hear it? Do you not need the other to speak it to you? Do you not need to hear it through the gift of someone else who is in the body of Christ? I think you do. And I think Barnabas and those early Christians had a profound sense of the church as a community in the world for others, a community that spoke the word of God to others.
But without the church, the word is not heard and Barnabas knew that by lifting up Christ we give the word to one another. So often, my friends, there is a separation between our words and our deeds. The world cries out because it wants to hear the word from us and see the word in us.
When I go on my summer vacations I usually like to drive. Most years, I have had a tendency to drive through a little town, I will not mention its name, in northern New York state that borders on Ontario. As I go through this town I am always exceedingly cautious and careful, because the first time I drove through that little town I got a speeding ticket. Even now when I have gone through without Marial, I will phone her and say, “I made it through without getting a speeding ticket.”
What irks me about that speeding ticket was that (and here I am declaring my innocence before all humanity) I was driving in a line of cars into the town and I was pulled over because I had Canadian license plates. The officer tried to tell me I was doing 45 miles per hour. He thought he could hoodwink me into not knowing miles per hour because I'm a dumb Canadian and all I know is kilometres. But I know that 54 kilometres per hour is not 45 miles per hour. However, I paid the ticket, I obeyed the law.
I have driven through that town many times since, but I have never once spent a single penny within its borders. I have driven past its McDonald's and never stopped. I have bypassed its gas stations, even when I'm driving on vapours, until I get across the bridge. I have not left one scintilla of my being in that town, nor will I until I am put in the grave.
There is another town, called South Windsor, in Connecticut. It is just outside of Hartford and in 1993, according to Reuters, the police decided to do something different. They would stop people for driving well and give them two dollars and a word of congratulations. They were so fed up with people speeding through their town that they didn't know what else to do. It's a true story.
A woman named Laurie Carlson had actually stopped at a stop sign with her right turn signal on, waited for a pedestrian to cross, and continued when the road was clear. Lights went on behind her and the police pulled her over. The officer approached her and said: “Madam, I want to congratulate you. You're wearing your seat belt, you used your signal, stopped at a stop sign. Here's two dollars. Keep doing what you're doing.”
After that one day, the number of people who were caught for actual misdemeanours for the next 12 months dropped by about 75 per cent.
So often, my friends, we do the negative, we do the critical, but we don't give a word of encouragement or a word of hope. The thing about Barnabas that was so spectacular was not just that he was a man of the Word, but also that he was a man as we read in Acts Chapter Four, who when he saw people in need in the church of Jerusalem sold his land and gave the money to help them.
What made Barnabas the son of encouragement was not just that he lifted up Christ, but that he took that commitment so seriously that it was everything to him. And so when Barnabas went to Antioch, word would have gone around: “This man is worth listening to, because he is a man of his deed as well as his word.” My friends, we never know (and this is my point) when we are going to be that word of encouragement for someone else. We never know when we are going to be that sign.
This last week I've been teaching a course in the seminary. After I taught on Wednesday, a young many came to me to talk. He is now part of the maintenance crew at the college, but is also studying for a divinity degree. He asked me: “During the Billy Graham crusade in Halifax in 1981, were you a counsellor to those who had come to the front?”
I had to think long and hard, for it was 23 years ago but, yes, I was one of the counsellors there. I and many others had offered our services so if anyone felt they wanted to commit their lives to Christ we would be there to encourage them and to pray with them.
He said: “In that case, you were the person who prayed with me.”
I said: “How on earth do you remember that?”
He said: “Because my name is Andrew and it was another Andrew, an Englishman who was at the front praying with me. I began my life in Christ on that day.” One never knows - it's not about me, it's about Christ - but you never know when you are a word of encouragement for somebody else.
There is a painting in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, painted in 1770 by the great artist Benjamin West. It's called “The Death of General Wolfe.” As a little boy, Benjamin West decided one day when his mother was away to paint a portrait of his sister. He made a terrible mess of it. He spilt all the ink and the paint everywhere. He got things all messed up; it was an awful thing. His mother came home and saw the terrible mess he made. She took him to one side and he explained that he was trying to do a painting of his sister. The mother then stopped, took a look at him and said, “May I keep the painting? And game young Benjamin a kiss on the cheek.
Benjamin West said, “With that kiss I became a painter.”
A word of encouragement in a time of need. My friends, I think that the world is crying out for a word of encouragement. Whatever is holy, whatever is true, whatever is pure, whatever is right, whatever is noble, these are the things we should proclaim.
From one of my favourite passages of all Scripture, the apostle Paul put it this way, and I will leave you with the Word of God and not my words, a fitting way to celebrate summer:
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.