To be a Christian is to live in tension with the world around you. You cannot live out your spiritual life in a cocoon; you live it out in the real world, in a community. Some, it is true, go to convents or monasteries; but that’s not an option for most of us, is it? To be a Christian, living out our spiritual identity, is to engage the world around us.
So may I introduce you to a slice of that world as a way to think about our spiritual lives? May I build a metaphor out of what is right around us to show what God is calling us to be? Let me take you to Four Corners.
Most of you know that Four Corners is a rather complex intersection not far from here, where Colesville Road and University Boulevard meet, just north of the Beltway. Several of us here live very close to Four Corners. When you stand there and watch the traffic flowing back and forth, you can see where the name comes from. University Boulevard splits into eastbound and westbound lanes, with two islands full of buildings in between. Two sets of corners, very close to one another. Four Corners.
On one of the four corners is the Woodmoor Shopping Center. It has a mix of chain stores like CVS and Starbucks, along with local shops like Woodmoor Pastry. Dave Eddy, didn’t I catch you coming out of the pastry shop one day? If you want to join me after church, I will gladly meet you at the pastry shop!
On another corner is Montgomery Blair High School. This school is a gleaming example of public education at its best, even though it became overcrowded as soon as it was built.
On still another corner you will find a row of medical offices. They hide behind plantings and make a subtle but attractive addition to Four Corners.
On the fourth of the Four Corners you see a hodge-podge of small businesses, ranging from a deli that used to be a storage shed, to an empty space that used to be a mattress store that used to be a pet shop after it was a dairy after it was a service station. Then there is a Tex-Mex restaurant that used to be a seafood house so famous that we met a man at Oxford University who knew about it; then a pupuseria that used to be a breakfast nook, a kosher meat market that used to be an old-style pharmacy – do you get the picture? Everything on this corner is a usedtobea. If you have been here for a while, you know it by what it usedtobea.
But then you also know that the distinguishing mark of Four Corners is that road split down the middle, creating islands on which there are a fast food restaurant, a pizza place, a convenience store, and a church. Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church sits right in the middle of the road, with traffic whizzing by on all sides, parking lots tucked into tight spaces. Being church in the midst of all this activity and all these diverse things.
I wonder: is this church, located at Four Corners, on an island of isolation? Or is it right where Christians ought to be, in the center of the world’s life, making a difference? Is this church hiding behind its stained glass, trying to shut out all that is going on around it; or is this church in the center of a busy intersection also in the center of the will of God?
I have very little information about that congregation. But it is a picture of what you and I face. The Scripture says to us, by the prophet Isaiah, that “the Lord will extend his hand … to recover the remnant that is left of his people … and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” And then the seer of Revelation cries out, as he envisions what God will finally do when time shall be no more, “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds … saying, ‘Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal …’. ”
These prophetic visions remind us what God is about. He is about gathering the dispersed that belong to Him; He is about holding back the end until the redeemed are sealed. He is about being in the midst of the world, saving and healing. Our God is about redemption. He wants to gather His own from the four corners of the earth and redeem them. And that is what His people must be about as well.
I
One of our four corners is filled with shops. Businesses of all kinds, from fast food to banking, from dry cleaning to flowers, from pastry to pharmacy, from coffee to Chinese, lined up for commerce. Making money is the story of this corner. If, as Calvin Coolidge famously said, “The chief business of the American people is business”, you need only go to this one spot to see it in action. Making money is a very large part of the human story.
But therein lies our problem as well. When we make money, we want more. When we prosper, it never seems to be enough. I have done my banking at Four Corners for nearly forty years; how many times do you think I have entered that bank and have told them, “I have too much in my account. Take some out and throw it away?” No, for many years there was almost always more month than money, and I thought I had not a dime to spare.
So I spent my money on the things that I considered to be priority. I took my dollars out of that bank and carried them across the street to the grocery or around the corner to one of the service stations. I expended my hard-earned cash at the doctor’s office when a child was sick, and I confess that on occasion I indulged a few coins on a Danish at the Woodmoor Pastry Shop. We spend our money on our priorities, on what matters to us.
But when I stand at Four Corners and see the world racing by, I wonder whether I have my financial priorities straight. Am I spending on myself and my creature comforts, so that I may sit on an island of isolation amidst the world’s needs? Am I spending on a hundred little luxuries, ignoring the Lord’s intent to gather the dispersed from the four corners of the earth?
Living at Four Corners makes me realize how easy it is to become obsessed with making money and how little we really do for God’s priorities. Here at Montgomery Hills we are taking steps to create an endowment fund to insure that in future generations, they will be able to say of us, “These folks had their priorities straight. They put their money into Kingdom things. They cared about this community.” Living at Four Corners teaches us about financial priorities.
II
But now recall with me that on the second of the four corners at my crowded intersection there is a huge high school. Some three thousand young people under that roof, getting an education.
Young people – children and youth – what an important part of our world! Is there anything we want more than a productive life for our children? Is there anything that demands more of our resources, more of our love and our energy, than they?
But you know, I have never been inside that building. I have never toured the high school, never attended a play or a concert, never even stopped to watch sports. It’s easy, isn’t it, to ignore children and young people? It’s easy, once you have raised your own, to dismiss that world as somebody else’s concern.
That church that sits in the island, that church whose front door faces Montgomery Blair High School. Do you know what they have done? They have created a program for high schoolers in trouble. They have put together a ministry for students who have been suspended for misconduct. Instead of suspended students sitting home watching TV or roaming the streets, they can come to this church, keep up with their studies, get some counseling, receive tutoring, and, above all, hear the good news! Somebody cares about young people over there!
Thank God that that church saw these kids not as problems but as opportunities! Thank God that the church of Jesus Christ in Four Corners knows what God is about. What is it that Isaiah proclaims? That our God is gathering in the dispersed from the four corners of the earth. And what is it that John sees? Angels standing at the four corners, commanding that we not damage anything, but that we care for all of God’s creation. That includes our children.
Brothers and sisters, if we fail at this, we fail at everything, for they are the future present. So will we here in our church sit in isolation on an island, or will we find young people, even the ones in trouble, and embrace them as our greatest joy? Give thanks today for those in this congregation who do invest in children and who guide our youth! May their tribe increase, so that not only might we care for our own, but might also reach out to serve the young people of our whole community. Give thanks today for those who are dreaming a dream of a new form of worship that would appeal to young adults! Gather and heal young people, else we are in a cocoon and are not engaging the world as it really is. Living at Four Corners, I see a priority for young people.
III
But we are only half-way around my Four Corners neighborhood. We’ve looked at the shops where there is money to be made; we’ve marveled at the huge high school, where there are young people to be trained. But then there is that corner with the medical offices. A nice, neat row of medical suites, hiding behind green plantings – unobtrusive, quiet, no noise. Just healing going on. Health is important to all of us; the very fact that we pray for the sick every Sunday and that we experience our pastor’s wonderful care when we go to the hospital – that is a witness to our concern for health.
And indeed, Christians have always found it a priority to care for the sick and the dying. I don’t know about you, but I started out right – I was born in Kentucky BAPTIST Hospital. I never even had a chance to be anything other than a Baptist! Christians have always cared about health.
So does it not trouble us to know that millions upon millions of the world’s poorest people have almost no access to health care? Does it not give us pause to find that thousands of physicians are leaving Africa and Asia, where they are most needed, to practice medicine in Europe and North America, which are more lucrative? Does it not worry us that every night, hundreds die of starvation in a world that has ample resources to feed its population?
It may not be that the church in Four Corners can do very much with the medical offices across the street. It may not be that we will do much to increase access to medical care for this community. We are not going to agree this morning about government health care plans, nor are we going to shout at each other about that.
But surely you and I would agree that our wealth and our knowledge must be invested so that the world’s great peoples might have life and life abundant. I wonder if today I am speaking to some young person who is thinking of studying medicine or nursing or dentistry or pharmacy. You can practice that in nice quiet places like Four Corners, Maryland, of course. But you can also practice that at the four corners of the earth, where children are dying and the poor are in chronic pain. John the seer says that the Lord is calling out to the “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds … saying, ‘Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal …’ ” Do no damage; do no harm. Heal.
Living at Four Corners calls us to compassion and calls out those who could do missions and ministry.
IV
Finally – money to share, youth to train, health to provide. But to me the most poignant of all the Four Corners is the one I described as full of usetobeas. You remember, the deli that used to be a storage shed, the empty shop that used to be a the mattress store that used to be a pet shop that used to be a dairy that used to be a gas station. And all the other usedtobeas on that block. They speak to me of transition. They send me a message about change.
New peoples have come to our community. The seafood place became a Tex-Mex eatery. Different religions have come, and so the old pharmacy now handles kosher meats and Jewish delicacies. Indians operate the gasoline station, and Peruvians sell pupusas. New peoples, new ways of living, change.
So what does it mean to be a Christian in these new Four Corners? How do we reach the Spanish-speaking waitresses? Can we connect with the Indian mechanic? Are we able to share Christ with the Jewish merchant? What is our commitment to offer the good news to everyone, to each person, however different they may seem?
Oh, I pray God today for an impassioned spirit of outreach. We do some fine things in this church. We care about one another. We teach many good subjects. But there is still the issue of reaching out and sharing the good news. It remains true, in the new Four Corners as well as in the old, that the most fundamental need of the human heart is for a relationship with God. The most basic responsibility you and I have is to share the good news with everyone around us, red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight.
The Scripture says by the prophet Isaiah, that “the Lord will extend his hand … to recover the remnant that is left of his people … and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” We are called to share in this gathering from the four corners.
The seer of Revelation cries out, as he envisions what God will finally do when time shall be no more, “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds … saying, ‘Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal …’. ” We are called to share in God’s care for all things.
Give and teach and heal and share. These are the four corners of our faith. Give and teach and heal and share; these are the four corners of our discipleship. Give and teach and heal and share; these are the four corners that our God loves. Give and teach and heal and share; that’s living at Four Corners.
