Dream Awakener

Philip Yancy tells a story that helps us understand how we the church are to be an instrument of God’s grace to the world. He said, “I learned an enduring lesson about grace from my church’s response to Adolphus, a young black man with a wild, angry look in his eye. Every inner-city church has at least one Adolphus. He had spent some time in Vietnam, and most likely his troubles started there. He could never hold a job for long. His fits of rage and craziness sometimes landed him in an asylum.

If Adolphus took his medication on Sunday, he was manageable. Otherwise, well, church could be even more exciting than usual. He might start at the back and high-hurdle his way over the pews down to the alter. He might raise his hands in the air during a hymn and make obscene gestures. Or he might wear headphones and tune in bebop music instead of the sermon.

As part of worship, LaSalle [Church] had a time called "Prayers of the People." We would stand, and spontaneously various people would call out a prayer-for peace in the world, for healing of the sick, for justice in the community around us. "Lord, hear our prayer," we would respond in unison after each spoken request. Adolphus soon figured out that Prayers of the People provided an ideal platform for him to air his concerns.

"Lord, thank you for creating Whitney Houston and her magnificent body!" he prayed one morning. After a puzzled pause, a few chimed in weakly, "Lord, hear our prayer."

"Lord, thank you for the big recording contract I signed last week, and for all the good things happening to my band!" prayed Adolphus. Those of us who knew Adolphus realized he was fantasizing, but others joined in with a heartfelt, "Lord, hear our prayer…"

A group of people in the church, including a doctor and a psychiatrist, took on Adolphus as a special project. Every time he had an outburst, they pulled him aside and talked it through, using the word "inappropriate" a lot…

We learned that Adolphus sometimes walked the five miles to church on Sunday because he could not afford the bus fare. Members of the congregation began to offer him rides. Some invited him over for meals. Most Christmases he spent with our assistant pastor’s family.

Boasting about his musical talent, Adolphus asked to join the music group that sang during Communion services. After hearing him audition, the leader settled on a compromise: Adolphus could stand with the others and sing, but only if his electric guitar remained unplugged (he had absolutely no music ability). Each time the group performed thereafter, Adolphus stood with them and sang and played his guitar, which, thankfully, produced no sound…

The day came when Adolphus asked to join the church. Elders quizzed him on his beliefs, found little by way of encouragement, and decided to put him on a kind of probation. He could join when he demonstrated that he understood what it meant to be a Christian, they decided, and when he learned to act appropriately around others in church.

Against all odds, Adolphus’s story has a happy ending. He calmed down. He started calling people in the church when he felt the craziness coming on. He even got married. And on the third try, Adolphus was finally accepted for church membership.

Grace comes to people who do not deserve it, and for me Adolphus came to represent grace. In his entire life, no one had ever invested that kind of energy and concern in him. He had no family, he had no job, he had no stability. Church became for him the one stable place. It accepted him despite all he had done to earn rejection.

It gave him a second chance, and a third, and a fourth. Christians who had experienced God’s grace transferred it to Adolphus, and that stubborn, unquenchable grace gave me an indelible picture of what God puts up with by choosing to love the likes of me.

You see, the mission-shaped church is not only called to be a sign of the kingdom; pointing people to the reality which is beyond what we can see; not only a foretaste of the kingdom; embodying the ministry of reconciliation, where we grow in our ability to love one another as Christ loves us; but the mission-shaped church is also an instrument in the hands of God to bring more of heaven to earth in concrete ways, like giving grace to those who need it.

THE CHURCH AS AN INSTRUMENT
The Apostle Paul when writing to the church in Ephesus talks about how God’s chosen instrument to show the manifold wisdom and grace of God to both the visible and invisible world is the church. He says, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And we see throughout this letter to the Ephesians that the church is to be kind of a preview or movie trailer of what is to come.  The church is to embody the ministry of reconciliation, it is to be an instrument through which God’s will for justice and peace and freedom is done in the world. 

This is why Leslie Newbigin says, “The church is only true to its calling when it is a sign, an instrument and a foretaste of the kingdom.” The church as an instrument works to accomplish God’s purposes in the world.