The Man Who Slept in Church

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

In the morning lesson, Paul made the point that having the Spirit of God means being children of God. We’ll talk more about the Spirit next week on Pentecost Sunday. But let’s think today about what it means to have the Spirit of God within us. It means we can live without fear. We have not received a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but the spirit of adoption, that God is our abba, our Heavenly Daddy. When children are alienated from their parents, separated from them, disowned or abused by them, fear sets in. When the relationship of parent and child is woven together in love, fear is removed. That’s what this text celebrates.

I was drawn to this text because next Sunday we will make our gifts and pledges to the Capital Campaign. A successful campaign will require faithful dedication from each of us and all of us. So this morning I want to talk about three kinds of dedication. First, we dedicate ourselves to sacrifice. At the end of the text, Paul says we are heirs with Christ, “provided we suffer with him.” What does that mean for us?

We may think of suffering for God in terms of martyrdom. But that is unlikely for us. Suffering does not mean martyrdom but it does mean that we cannot just live any way we want. If we claim to be a Christian, Christ claims us and he wants us to be different and show the marks of his claim upon your lives.

You know, sometimes preachers stand before their congregations and tell people they have to believe this or that idea to be a Christian. You have to accept this or that truth. You have to adhere to this or that political viewpoint. You have to do this or that. I try not to preach that way. I consciously try to preach in a way that leaves room for your own hearts and minds to respond to God. I have very little interest that you think or believe like I do. I have a huge interest that you respond faithfully to Jesus Christ.

So I tell you, with all the seriousness I can muster, that if we claim to be a Christian, Christ will meddle in our lives. He wants us to change and grow. He wants us to not laugh at the same cruel jokes the world laughs at. He’s not content with the racial prejudices and ethnic blind spots we all have. He won’t let us get by thinking just anything about what is happening in the world. We need to think about what Christ is doing in the world. Where is Christ in the world? Where is Christ in your world? If a reporter followed you and me around for a day, how would that reporter describe our relationship to Jesus Christ? When we claim Christ, Christ claims us.

That means we are going to suffer in the sense that we have to sacrifice. We have to give of ourselves: time, energy, and money. If we’re a Christian, we can’t sleep in every Sunday morning. If we’re a Christian, we can’t spend all our money on ourselves. Our time is not our own. It belongs in part to God and that’s our sacrifice.

In this capital campaign we dedicate ourselves to sacrifice. We give up some of our ourselves so that the Spirit of God can work in us.

Second, we dedicate ourselves to change. When I think about what it means to be a child, the first thing that comes to my mind is that children change constantly. They grow and learn all the time. Change is natural for a child. That should be equally true in our being children of God. We dedicate ourselves to change because the church is not static.

I want to share one of my favorite Fred Craddock stories. I’m sure you’ve heard it before. In fact, I think I may have told it to you before. But good stories bear repeating and this is a good story.

A family is out for a drive on a Sunday afternoon. It is a pleasant afternoon, and they relax and take an easy pace down the highway. Suddenly the two children begin to beat their father on the back: “Daddy, Daddy, stop the car! Stop the car! There’s a kitten back there on the side of the road!”

The father says, “So there’s a kitten on the side of the road. We’re having a drive.”

“Well, then, it will have to die,” the father says angrily. “We don’t have room for another animal. We have a zoo already at the house. No more animals.”

“We never thought our Daddy would be so mean and cruel as to let a kitten die,” they say.

Finally the mother turns to her husband and says, “Dear, you’ll have to stop.” He turns the car around, returns to the spot and pulls off to the side of the road. He goes out to pick up the kitten. The poor creature is just skin and bones, sore-eyed, and full of fleas. But when he reaches down to pick it up, with its last bit of energy the kitten bristles, baring tooth and claw. Ssssst! It scratches the father’s hand. But finally he picks up the kitten by the loose skin at the neck, brings it over to the car and says, “Don’t touch it, it’s probably got leprosy.”

When they get home the children give the kitten several baths, about a gallon of warm milk, and intercede: “Can we let it stay in the house just tonight? Tomorrow we’ll fix a place in the garage.”

The father says, “Sure, take my bedroom. The whole house is already a zoo.” So they fix a comfortable bed, fit for a pharaoh and several weeks pass.

Then one day the father walks in, feels something rub against his leg, looks down and there is a cat. He reaches down toward the cat, carefully checking to see that no one is watching. When the cat sees his hand, it does not bare its claws and hiss. Instead it arches its back to receive a caress.

Is that the same cat? No. It’s not the same as that frightened, hurt, and hissing kitten on the side of the road. And we all know what changed it. Love changed it.[1]

In so many ways God in Jesus Christ reaches down to bless us with the hand of love. And if we notice carefully the hand of Jesus there are, as it were, scratches on it. But such is the hand of love. Love changes things.

In this campaign we are dedicating ourselves to change. We need to repair and refurbish our church home to be a place where the changes of love can take place. We dedicate ourselves to make this building a place where the children of God change and grow from fear and hurt to love and acceptance.

We dedicate ourselves to sacrifice. We dedicate ourselves to change. Finally, we dedicate ourselves to the children of God. I’m not talking just about boys and girls but about all the people who are God’s children. So I want to tell you the true story about the man who slept in church. But relax. It’s not about falling asleep during my sermons.

The church I served before coming to Sudbury did a major building and expansion project. Before that project, our church offices were in a little house across the street from the church. One day Donna, our church secretary at the time, arrived for work a little before eight o’clock. No one else was at the office yet. So she turned on the lights and the copy machine and went down the basement steps to put her lunch in the refrigerator and get water to make coffee. The basement of that old house was not a pleasant place. It would have made a good set for a creepy movie. And when Donna turned the corner at the bottom of the steps — just like in the movies — she met the man who slept in church.

There is no telling how quickly Donna came up the basement steps but we’re sure it was a world record. She ran across the street to find our custodian and they called the police. By the time anyone got back to the office, the man who slept in church was gone without a trace. But that’s not the whole story.

The night before a number of meetings had been held in the church building. During some of that time, a stranger was seen sitting in one of the pews of the sanctuary. That was not unusual really. On certain days of the week we left the sanctuary unlocked and people would come to find a place of peace and prayer. So no one paid him much attention and when he was asked to leave, he did. But apparently he went across the street to the office and slipped inside. What’s even more interesting is that I worked in the office late that night. I was there until nearly eleven o’clock and he was in the office that whole time. I did not hear a sound and when I left and locked the door he was locked inside.

Most interesting of all is that while he did sleep in our church, he did not take anything. There were $20-30 in one of the desks. That was left alone. All the keys were left alone. Nothing was messed up or damaged in any way. Locking the door locked it from both the inside and the outside. But he could have broken out. He could have used keys to get out. He could have taken many things or destroyed many things. But he didn’t. He simply slept in our church and then he left.

Now obviously we couldn’t have that sort of thing happen all the time if for no other reason than we didn’t want our secretaries to have the dickens scared out of them. Mostly this should not happen because not everyone will be as honorable as was this man. He just needed a place to sleep but others might do a lot of bad things.

Over the years I have often wondered about that man who slept in church. I don’t know where he is today. I don’t know anything about the life journeys that led him to that church or what struggles have made it so he had to sleep in churches. I don’t know if he was then or is now happy or in great pain. I don’t know anything about him except one thing. He is a child of God and God loves him as much as God loves you or me. I don’t know where he is today but over the years I have prayed for him and I hope he finds his way home.

Dear friends, that church, this church, any church and everything connected to the church exist to shelter and nurture the children of God.[2] We exist to shelter the children of God, obviously not always in the literal sense of someone sleeping in church but in an even more important sense. We exist to nurture the children of God. This church was first built in 1836 and for more than 170 years has been a home for the children of God. And we dedicate ourselves anew in this capital campaign to this purpose, to take care of “this place” so it can continue to be home for God’s children.

My previous church where I served for 16 years was in Spokane, Washington. Spokane is called the Lilac City and today, the first Sunday of May, is the traditional day when the lilacs bloom. Today is the 32nd running of a big road race called Bloomsday where between 45,000 and 50,000 and in some years more than 60,000 runners, joggers, walkers, and wheelchairs in the 12K (7.46 miles) run. Bloomsday takes over the whole city.

In order to participate in Bloomsday, you need to register and on the Friday before the race pick up your race number at the Spokane Convention Center. Tens of thousands of people converge on the Convention Center and I remember one year I got there quite early to avoid the crowds. But it was about 90 minutes before the doors opened and there was already a long line.

While we were all standing there, a woman, obviously from out of town, came up to the line and asked, “Is this the line for something?” Then someone tried to explain Bloomsday to her.

I had to smile to myself. But then I thought, maybe that’s the church. Wouldn’t it be great if some Sunday when you were getting out of your cars and sort of lining up to come inside this church, someone would ask you, “Is this the line to something?” And you could answer, “Yes, this is the line to the home of the children of God who have in them the Spirit of God.

So, my dear friends, we’re dedicate ourselves next Sunday to sacrifice, to change, and to the children of God. And may God use our dedication and us to Christ’s glory.

[1] Fred B. Craddock, “Praying through Clenched Teeth” in The Twentieth-Century Pulpit, vol. 2, James W. Cox, ed., (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981) 51-52.

[2] The Presbyterian Church affirms six great purposes of the church and one of them is “the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God.” (Book of Order, G-1.0200)

[3] Thomas Toke Lynch, “Gracious Spirit, Dwell with Me,” The Hymnbook (Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York: Presbyterian Church in the United States, The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Reformed Church in America, 1955) 241.