The first church I ever served as a pastor was a little church in a place called Forestburg, thirty-five miles northwest of Denton, out in the country.  It was a very tiny little church.  The church had a trailer house that served as a parsonage.  It was very tiny little place.  But it was part of how they paid a pastor and that made going to seminary possible for me.

Between the parsonage and the church was a gravel parking lot, which was connected to the road that went by the church.  The kids in the community, on Friday and Saturday night, used to love to come through the gravel parking lot and cut donuts in it.  That was kind of okay, unless you were inside the trailer house when they did it.  And then it sounded like millions of BB-sized meteors striking all at once and it could be a frightening experience if you didn’t know it was coming.

Some of the men in the church and I got to talking about it.  We were a little bit worried that all this might do some damage to the trailer house or to the church.  We thought we ought to do something to keep the kids from cutting donuts in the parking lot on Friday and Saturday night.  One of the men just built a little 2-foot high metal rail fence that ran the length of the parking lot and allowed for cars to go in and out but wouldn’t allow kids to cut donuts and make a quick escape.  Sure enough, that solved the problem.  The kids stopped cutting donuts in the parking lot on Friday and Saturday night.

Though I did not know it until years later, a colleague of mine was serving in a very similar situation in another rural church during his seminary years.  They had the same problem.  Every Friday and Saturday night, the kids would come through cut donuts in the gravel parking lot, throwing rocks up against the house and the church.  But, instead of putting up a rail fence to keep the kids from coming into the parking lot, they got some volunteers together and had a mobile concession stand that they’d put out every Friday and Saturday night.  Those volunteers would sit out there and serve

-2-

refreshments to the kids and, before long, they built some trust.  Before long, the kids weren’t circling through the parking lot cutting donuts.  Instead, strangely enough, they began circling through the baptistery, as the Gospel was shared.  My heart went cold when I heard him tell that story, as I thought about the rail fence that we built to keep the kids out.

We really didn’t mean to keep kids out.  That wasn’t our intention.  We were only trying to protect the church.  Yet, without conscious, prayerful consideration or a church vote, we inadvertently made protecting the church from those who might abuse it, who might not understand how important our buildings were to us, we made protecting the church the mission of the church.  And, we succeeded.

Jesus, on the other hand, in the scripture we read this morning, demonstrated for us another model of dealing with people who come across our path and sometimes get a little too close.  As usual, he was on his way to somewhere else.  If you will notice as you read the gospels, more often than not, Jesus did some of his most incredible ministries as he encountered people on the way to somewhere else.

The setting of this story, is that a man had found Jesus and told him that his daughter was dying.  He begged Jesus to go home with him and save his daughter.  Jesus had agreed to do that and was on the way to this man’s house, moving through this very large crowd of people, when suddenly, a woman reached out and touched his clothes.

Now, this woman is interesting.  She’s another example of how the scripture does not hold back on details to keep us from seeing how real and ugly life can sometimes be.  The scripture is very plain, almost graphic, to the point of describing her uncontrollable female hemorrhaging.  She was also destitute, because she had spent all of her resources on whatever medical resources were available that day, and not only had nothing worked, but she was getting worse.  In the process, because of Jewish ritual laws, she had become a

-3-

social outcast.  This was a day and time when a woman’s menstruation made her religiously unclean.  And, because it was out of control, this condition would put her in a position where she would have, in a sense, been held morally liable for a physical condition beyond her control.  Can you imagine?

Then, there’s Jesus.  When the President of the United States walks through a crowd of people he has a cordon of Secret Service agents all around him, for good reason, to keep people from getting too close.  Jesus didn’t walk cordoned off from people.  As he was moving through the crowd, this woman, who was a social outcast to everyone else in the crowd, found her way in, believing that just touching the hem of his garment would change her life.  What a simple faith!

She reached out and touched Jesus and two things happened.  First, her faith was verified.  The hemorrhaging ceased immediately.  After twelve years of suffering, she was immediately well!  The second thing was that Jesus knew someone had touched him.  Power had gone out of him.  He even asked, “Who touched me?”  His disciples kind of made fun of him.  “In this huge crowd of people, why would you even bother asking, ‘Who touched me?’”, they asked.  Undeterred, Jesus stopped and looked around.

I’ve tried to imagine what that event must have looked like.  This huge crowd of people, and Jesus stops!  I wonder if everyone got quiet while Jesus stood there, looking around to see if he could connect with the eyes of the person who had touched him.  Not just because they had touched, but because her faith connection had created an empowerment that he felt go out of him.

Certainly, the miracle recorded in this story stands on its own two feet and we could spend a lot of time there.  But to me, at least in this moment in my life, and frankly, at this moment in our church’s life, the greater story is how Jesus dealt with this situation, and what

he models for us in the process when he asks the question, “Who

-4-

touched me?”

Like he still does today, Jesus always knows the difference between the casual observers in the crowd, just the curiosity seekers, and those who genuinely, sincerely want to make connection with him.  He knew when he’d been touched.  He knew when the crowd became an individual in need.  And he knew when spiritual business was being transacted.  “Who touched me?”

This was not someone “clean,” by the way.  She was a social outcaste.  Almost certainly, she would have been carrying with her, in her clothing, in her body, the sights and the smells of her disease.  Jesus, knowing she’d touched him, stopped and paid attention to a woman no one had paid attention to for twelve years.  He finished the transaction she had started.  “Daughter,” he says, “your faith has made you well.  Go in peace and be healed of your disease.” 

Here’s the thing that comes to me out of this text of scripture.  We do it as churches and we do it as individuals.  Without a lot of thought, we just do it.  We build rails and barriers to keep the wrong people from getting too close.  Others commit themselves as individuals and churches, not only to keep from building rails, but from intentionally tearing down the barriers that keep people separated.  Not only of preventing people from getting too close, but doing whatever they must to increase the possibility that they will touch.  Either way, whether we build barriers or we tear them down, both of those choices, as it did for this woman, have eternal consequences.  Jesus broke down a lot of barriers that day, in order to touch that woman, or let himself be touched by her.  Which kind of person are you?  What kind of church will we be?  It’s easy to forget this, but everything we do has some effect on others, whether we know it or not.  We are all connected.

I was reminded of that this week.  I flew to Atlanta for a CBF meeting for a couple of days, and I realized that, for the first time now, you really can’t say anymore, as an excuse for not wanting to

-5-

talk to somebody, “I’m out of town.”  With email and cell phones available on our hip at any given time, there is no such thing as “out of town.”  Wherever you go in this world, you’re connected.  Sitting in the Atlanta airport, I conducted business as though I were sitting behind my desk.  I even had a conversation by email with someone in China who is on a mission trip.  From Atlanta!  We are all so connected.  Everything we do to each other in our church, and to the other people in this community, has an effect with eternal consequences.  Whether we build barriers or tear them down, what we do is vitally connected to those around us, for better or for worse.

Based on what we know of Jesus, which of those two kinds of people are we?  Are we barrier builders or barrier “busters,” as one friend of mine likes to call Jesus? 

When we were in Latvia and Russia, there were street people there, just like there are here.  I noticed this one couple with our group who seemed particularly uncomfortable when they encountered these street people.  Frankly, it was painfully embarrassing to watch.  You know, the beggars get close, real close.  You can smell them.  Every time they did, this particular couple would avert their eyes, turn their heads down, and physically make a circle around them.

I’m only telling you that story because I have already confessed to you my discomfort in working with folks who sometimes demand more of me than I have to give.  The question comes back anyway.  What is it we’re so afraid of, when people want to touch us?  The more I know of Jesus, the closer I get to him, the more I walk with him, the more I realize that he is all the time to all of us and wants to be, through us to others, what he was to that woman.  Someone who lets himself get close enough that all barriers are broken down.  Not just by his teachings, but more by his example, Jesus breaks down barriers.  Throughout the gospels, Jesus is calling on those of us who call ourselves his followers to be people who bust down the barriers, whatever they may be.  Barriers of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, politics, geography, whatever builds barriers

-6-

between any two people, Jesus calls on us to be breaking down.  I don’t believe we are being true followers of Jesus unless we are actively seeking to pull down barriers, even those others may have constructed for us.

The Well, the church that meets here in our facility on Saturday nights and then has a day center near the chapel, is a church devoted exclusively to ministering to the people in our community with some form of mental illness.  With what little contact I have had with the ministry The Well has, I’ve come to appreciate more than ever how much of a barrier mental illness creates between people and how grateful I am that we are in the process of doing something to break down that barrier.

Poverty is a barrier.  I am more and more convinced that global poverty is the moral issue of our day.  There is a growing disconnection between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in our world.  With all my heart, folks, I believe we will be judged for how we respond to destroying the barriers that keep people in poverty from getting too close to us.

It will not always be easy.  Yet, we will not be judged for being successful in our work.  We will be judged for being faithful to our calling in Christ.  And, the work never ends.  Never!  Not only that, this work of barrier busting begins right here, in this fellowship.

Let me ask this morning.  What would you say is the single greatest defining characteristic of a disciple of Jesus?  I don’t know of any other way to respond to that question than with Jesus’ own words from John 13:35.  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  That you’ve built a great name for yourself, and large buildings with great attendances and massive programs?  No.  “By this shall all men know that you really are serious about following me, that you have love one for another.”

What is love?  Let’s allow scripture to answer that for us as well. 

-7-

“Love,” the love that defines us as disciples, “is patient and kind.  It does not envy.  Love does not boast.  It is not proud.  Love is not rude.  Love is not self-seeking.  Love is not easily angered.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  Love always protects.  Love trusts.  Love hopes.  Love perseveres.  Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13, NIV).  When we are behaving like that, the scripture says, then we are being disciples.  When we are not behaving like that, no matter what we may call ourselves, or what we may say we believe, we are not being followers of Jesus.

I learned a hard lesson this past week that I won’t have to learn but one time in my life.  I told you I went to Atlanta, and my plane was to leave at 8:20 on Thursday morning.  I got up at 5:00 and left the house at 6:00 so I could be at the airport at 7:00.  Plenty of time to catch my plane.  Because I wasn’t checking any luggage I went to the little e-ticket self-service kiosk and acted like I knew how to work it.  I got my ticket, went to the security check-in line, the lady looked at my license, and said, “Your license is expired.”  Well, I kind of knew that.  But it had only been three weeks.  I thought I had some time to get it taken care of.  She said, “You’ll have to talk to that woman down there at the counter.”  Down there at the counter was at the end of a long line that I had avoided by doing the self-service e-ticket kiosk. 

I had to go get back in the line, and I stood there and walked through the line, got to the lady, and she said, “Your license has expired.”  I said, “Yeah, I know, but I really need to catch this flight, and that picture of that person on there, that’s me.”  She said, “I know, but you’ll have to talk to that man down there.”  So, I had to go stand in another line.  Finally, I got to him, so he could tell me what I was really hoping he wouldn’t tell me.  I wasn’t going to fly to Atlanta with an expired driver’s license. 

I was very proud of myself.  I didn’t deal with the woman across the counter like Steve Martin did in Plains, Trains and Automobiles.  I just

-8-

collected my Christian conscience, turned around and walked out, got in my car, drove all the way back to Rockwall, got my passport and drove back to the airport and caught a flight, making me four hours late.  Two hundred miles round-trip to catch a flight that morning.  I won’t have to learn that lesson again.  The lesson that, in this day and time, you have to be able to prove your identity.

In this world, the way we prove our identity as followers of Jesus is by identifying the barriers that keep people separated and, one brick at a time, tearing them apart.  If we are not committed to that, I don’t see how we can call ourselves followers of Jesus.

I love John Lennon’s song from the 1970s, “Imagine.”  It’s a song about social justice.  It’s by no means a Christian song.  But, I love that word, “imagine.”  What if we spent the rest of our lives imagining?  We actually have Biblical mandate for that.  Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us.”

Now, let me ask you to do some imagining with me for a moment.  Just for a moment.  Think of the point in your life right now, today, where the greatest barrier exists between yourself and any individual or any other group of people, whoever that may be.  Think of that barrier for just a moment.  Now, imagine what life would be like if you could find some way in the power of Christ that resides in you, to break that barrier down.  What would your life be like?  Walk to the edge of your imagination.  Peer over the edge of your imagination.  Look as far as your imaginary eye can see.  This is the promise of scripture.  When your imagination has reached its limit, God’s work has just begun.  That work, for all of us, is the most uniquely personal spiritual work we will ever, ever do.

I heard a story this week that brought tears to my eyes.  A friend of mine was telling me about being in the fourth grade when he was nine years old.  He lived in Ohio at the time.  There was a little boy in his class named Charlie.  Charlie came from a poor family.  He

-9-

remembered that he had red hair, but more that he was very, very poor.  He said his coat was so thin that in the winter, when they went out on the playground to play, as you can imagine in Ohio, he would just freeze to death during recess.  My friend went on to say that everyone in the class said Charlie had cooties.  They would laugh about Charlie and his cooties.  In fact, all the kids in the class wrote, “S.O.C.” on their hands, which meant “safe on Charlie,” so that, if Charlie caught you, you were safe from the cooties.  Every day at recess, the kids made a game out of running from Charlie and his cooties.  Charlie would chase the other kids around, trying to touch them to give them the cooties. 

Because they laughed at him, and they cut him off, the only way Charlie got to play was to chase these other kids around and try to give them the cooties.  My friend remembered one time when Charlie got really close to catching him on the playground.  Really close.  In fact, it was the closest he ever got.  He said that the memory he cannot erase is that, as Charlie was chasing him he was laughing hysterically but he also noticed that his eyes were full of tears. 

As he told this story, I thought about the Charlies in my life and in this community.  My friend said he now tries to imagine a world in which Charlie would have friends and be allowed to play with them.  Where it would be okay even if Charlie even got close enough to touch.

I’m reading a marvelous little book right now called, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom, Hyperion, 2003). If you can use your Christian imagination, it’s a great book.  Otherwise, don’t bother.  In other words, if you read it, please don’t come tell me later it’s not a Christian book.  I know that.  You have to use your imagination.  But, one line from that book stands out for me this week.  “Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.”

Only if we get close enough, and only if we let other people get close enough, will we find ourselves asking, “Who touched me?”  Only then

-10-

will we find the power of Christ that resides in us going out of us to transform lives.

Can I tell you about some people who got close this week?  Laughing hysterically with tears in their eyes kinds of people?  If you go upstairs on Wednesday night at 7 o’clock and watch 24/7, you’ll see them.  Kenny sent me an email this week, containing the prayer requests from these kids.  There were 87 middle school and high school students there Wednesday night.  Kenny baptized one of them Wednesday night.  When he asked for prayer requests, fifty-three turned in written requests.  Without identifying who wrote them, I’d like to share just a few. 

“Pray for my big brother, who is in a gang.”  “Please pray for my best friend.  He’s having a hard time right now.  He ran away from home this week.”  “Help my father to be safe, wherever he is.”  “I need prayer for my family, to make us closer and not to hurt each other.” 

“Pray for my family to find a place to stay.”  “My friend had a miscarriage.”  “Pray for my friend in jail.”  “Please pray for people to stop picking on me.”  “Pray for my friend who is in the drug thing.” 

“Help me not be selfish in everything I do.  Help me see the best in people.” 

Who touched us?  These kids did.  They’ve come spinning up on our parking lots on Wednesday afternoons when school is out.  They get here around 3:30 or 4:00, because they have nowhere else to go, and no way to get there if they wanted to.

I had to tell you this wonderful story, so I could tell you two other things.  Some of these kids who are beginning to circle on our parking lot, that we’ve let get close, to whom we have said, “You know, we’re not going to be first and foremost concerned about protecting our church.  We’re not going to build any rails.  We’re going to open the doors.”  Some of these kids who were circling our parking lot have actually started circling through our baptistery.

-11-

I preached this whole sermon this morning for one reason, believe it or not.  Just one reason.  I wanted to thank you for being the kind of church that keeps tearing down barriers.  We have so far to go.  But you have done so well.  I thought it was really important for someone to stop and thank you for being that kind of church.  I can’t wait this week to see who touches us next.