I love this time of year.  Flowers are blooming, trees are all leafed out and lawns look their best.  It's such a beautiful time of the year when you can walk around outdoors, enjoy God's good earth and not be bothered by certain things like - mosquitos.  We here in Colorado don't have much problem with mosquitos, but I'm from Minnesota and there they have really big ones, seriously bugs - mutants!  They're out to hurt people, but you can't hurt them.  Spray them, but they survive.  Apply repellant, but they bite anyway.  People in Minnesota have tried everything against mosquitos. Some are now saying a crucifix helps a little, but you have to hit them really hard with it.

          I've been thinking a lot about what I said last Sunday, about tolerance.  If you think about it, tolerating people carries the notion that you merely put up with them, and that perhaps you can hardly stand being around them.  But God and His Word call us to more than that.  He calls us love people, not just tolerate them.  God calls us into fellowship with people, and for good reason.  Fellowship brings blessings.  It brings results!  Fellowship with people even surprises, as we find in them more of what we are seeking than ever realize.

          Recently I saw the movie, "October Sky," again.  In a particular scene, Homer Hickam, a West Virginia high school student, was faced with a dilemma.  Homer had a small group of friends.  They weren't jocks or rich kids, but they knew what it meant when you associated with the wrong kid, especially John, a pimply-faced nerd who always sat alone at lunch.  One day, Homer learned that weird John knew a lot about rockets.  More than anything else, Homer wanted to learn rocketry, and now he was faced with a dilemma - would he follow his interest and publicly talk to John?  Or would he do what the others expected, and avoid John like a plague?

          The scene is the lunchroom with Homer walking over to see John at another table.  His friends are telling him, "No, no, don't do it - don't talk to him!  No one will ever talk to you again!"  But Homer went anyway.  "What do you want?" asked John suspiciously.  After all, he knows what others think of him.  He knows he's considered social poison.  "I hear you know about rockets," says Homer.  "Well, what you do want to know about them?" says John.  And thus began a friendship that would result in the Rocket Boys, the true story of a gang of four adventurers who brought brief glory to the sleepy town of Coalwood, West Virginia, and the start of a distinguished career in space aeronautics for Homer Hickam.

          This true story begs a question - what if Homer had followed his friends' advice and avoided John?  What if Homer never had the courage to speak to this boy the others called a "loser"?  This boy who was actually brilliant and helped Homer achieve greatness?  What would Homer - and the world - have lost if he had followed accepted social order and stayed within his own circle of friends?  What would Jesus have done?

          Jesus was a friend to all kinds of people.  He ate with the rich and the poor, the great and the small.  He had friends among the mighty, but more among the lowly.  He could love the Jew or the Gentile alike, the saint or the sinner, the honest or the hypocrite.  He loved the pretty or the homely, and He wants us to do the same.  Jesus set the stage for our understanding of fellowship in our text (Matthew 9:10-13).  Open your Bibles and let's examine what Jesus did.

          What Jesus did was unusual and the Pharisees had a right to be surprised.  A Rabbi normally would only associate with the people of his small group, those he was teaching.  In the pecking order of the day, the wealthy were on top and the sinners and the poor were at the bottom.  They were considered the dregs of society.  When Jesus invited Tax Collector Matthew to follow Him and then had lunch with him, that was going outside the boundaries.  Tax Collectors weren't good people.  They were thieves and cheats and everyone knew it.  "How can you do that?" they asked Him.

          To the man who would speak the seven last words from the cross, they spoke the seven last words of the church, "We've never done it that way before."  But Jesus replied to them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor -- just the sick.  Learn what this means: 'I want you to show people mercy, not just give an offering and think that's enough."

          Fellowship means mercy and love.  Fellowship means caring for all people, even the unlovable.  It means going the second mile with the struggling.  It means lending a helping hand to the needy.  It means loving the slob as well as the beauty.  God wants our love first, and then He wants us to pass it around.  Love, not mere tolerance, is at the heart of Christian fellowship. "Love one another as I have loved you," He said.  (John 13:34)

          But how can we do this?  How can we love everyone, especially those people who are so hard to love?  Actually, we can't.  Only God can, and He will help us if we ask Him.  Bringing some people into our fellowship is easy, but others are difficult.  Like you, I've visited churches and felt left out.  Even when they discovered I was a pastor, the cliques didn't open their doors.  Sometimes they were closed tighter.

          At a pastor's study group once we discussed what to do with those tight little church groups.  Most pastors said they could see those groups form in the back of the church every Sunday morning.  I told them that when we were starting if a visitor came to our church, we almost descended on them.  We gave them a name tag, got their address and probably embarrassed them.  Now we're bigger, older, and sometimes ignore visitors.

          We have five purposes at Epiphany Lutheran Church: Joyful Worship, Faithful Service, Positive Outreach, Loving Fellowship and Biblical Nurture.  You can do well observing the other four, but without Loving Fellowship, we're just another club, a mutual admiration society.  You and I must pass along God's love in fellowship, no matter who comes to our doors.

          Whether we think we're one of the beautiful and talented ones or whether we think we're the loser, God loves us all.  He loves one just as much as the next.  God loves us because we're basically unlovable and need His love.  We're really not the beautiful people we think we are.  We're sin-ugly and need to be cleansed.  We're dirty and need to be washed.  We're broken and need repair.  We're separated from each other by sin and need God to bring us back together in Christian fellowship.

          Fellowship and love cannot be forced on us.  They can only be offered and accepted.  Philip Yancy, a Christian writer, related a meeting he had with Jake, a father in Chicago whose prodigal son had run away and never returned.  Jake spoke about his son Jim, who could not keep a job and wasted all his money on drugs and alcohol.  He rarely called home and brought little joy to his parents.  But he did bring a whole lot of grief.  Father Jake felt helpless.  "If only I could bring him back and shelter him and show him how much I love him," he said.  Then he added, "The strange thing is, even though Jim rejects me, his love means more to me than my other three responsible children.  Isn't that odd?"

          Yes, a father's love is often odd.  But love doesn't need an explanation.  It doesn't need a reason.  God loves us with a father's love.  He wants the straying to come home.  He wants the lost to be found.  Our Heavenly Father seeks all who are lost and wants them back.

          Christian Fellowship is based on love and sometimes our love must be tough.  A rose is so tender, but it's guarded by tough thorns for protection.  That's a picture of tough and tender love.  God shows His tough love to us at times.  His love to Job in the Old Testament book was tough.  How would you like losing your children, your wealth and your health just to prove a point?  God's love to Paul was tough.  Here was a man who gave God his all, and God wouldn't even heal him.  God's tough love is unnerving and helps us depend on Him.  But His tender love in Jesus is most powerful.

          No matter how bad we are, no matter if we have failed God or failed people, He forgives us.  He sees us on the road of life and runs to our side.  He opens His arms and welcomes us back into His fellowship.  Yes, God's love can be tough, but it can also be tender.  His tender love covers a multitude of sins and heals a host of hurts.  His tender mercies are new every morning.  He calls us into fellowship in the Christian Church and brings the lonely together into families.

          I know some of you are struggling with troubles in life, wondering why God has been so tough on you.  You've taken your lumps and wondered about God's purpose in them.  Whether you're toughing it out with finances, or health, or legal problems, or children or loneliness, God knows where you are.  And He loves you.  He opens His arms to you today and welcomes you into His Fellowship.  Open up to Him and trust Him.  Reach out to Him and let Him bring you in.

          The fellowship of the church must be like a hospital for sick people, not a Country Club.  We all need a refuge for the weary, not a fancy church building.  He said, "Come to me, all you who are tired and worn-out, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)   It's my fervent prayer that all who come through our church doors will experience God's love here and want to be part of His Loving Fellowship, through Christ our Lord,  Amen

Copyright © 2005 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.