In Remembrance of Her

[00:00:00] So the gospel calls us to remember. [00:00:05] It calls us to think about what Jesus has done for us. [00:00:12] We do that every Sunday. We gather around the table and we remember what Jesus was, what Jesus is, and what Jesus has done. [00:00:25] And the passage that Claire read is striking to me because this phrase I'm so used to in remembrance of, I always end that with a me. [00:00:47] But he call. He. He says that this will be done in remembrance of her. [00:00:57] I have so many people in my life from church that just pop into view. [00:01:07] I have intrusive memories where it's just. I remember that lady. Oh, she was a hoot. [00:01:17] We had this woman and I don't want to give her name, so I'm going to use yours. Vic. Her name was Vic. [00:01:25] No hints at who she was. [00:01:27] I only say that because my dear friend Pat is with us. And Pat grew. Pat and I. Pat, I was. She was. She went to the same church I did growing up. She's followed me everywhere. I'm just kidding. That's not true. She was just here. But there was a lady at our church who most of the time wore a neck brace full on. I'm suing somebody. Neck brace for most of my upbringing. [00:02:01] And I remember my dad would say, don't ask her how she's doing because she'll tell you. [00:02:12] Which I always thought was a little harsh because isn't that why you ask people how they're doing? [00:02:24] You ask people how they're doing to see how they're doing. Now, I didn't know how adult language worked back then, but I grew up. And you realize that adults ask each other how they're doing just so that they can both say, fine and keep walking. [00:02:44] Oh, But Vic wouldn't. [00:02:51] She would say. [00:02:53] She would say, oh, let me tell you. And you would see people walk by her and say, go, good morning, how are you? She'd go, let me tell you. And they would just, almost just pull a hip, realizing, oh, I'm going to have to stand here for a second. [00:03:14] She was wonderful, but she kept everybody honest. [00:03:23] She wouldn't allow anybody to just have surface level conversations with her. [00:03:35] And so they didn't miss. Betty was our. [00:03:44] The first preacher I knew his name was Wayne Smith. [00:03:52] Wayne was first. Fire and brimstone, but the most loving version of it. I loved. Wayne Smith would pound on the pulpit to get a response. [00:04:11] Bam. And I think he only did it when people were falling asleep. [00:04:17] He would just like a judge with a gavel, bang on that pulpit. But he was so kind and so sweet. So is Miss Betty. [00:04:29] Wayne once preached an entire sermon on Samson and called him Tarzan the whole time. [00:04:40] Miss Betty. Miss Betty weighs and still. Miss Betty's in her 90s. She's in a nursing home in Ashdown, Arkansas. My mom still goes and sees her about once a week. [00:04:53] But Miss Betty was sitting off to the right here, and she just folded in half. [00:05:01] She couldn't get his attention. He was going, because, you know, Tarzan was a man of the Lord. [00:05:09] And she just folded down in embarrassment. [00:05:14] That's one of my dad's favorite memories. [00:05:20] Kenneth Krudwig led our singing. I'm just naming names now. [00:05:26] Kenneth was a fiddler. [00:05:28] He played the fiddle. Not in church, mind you. [00:05:34] And he just the kindest heart, but just an Arkansan through and through. [00:05:43] And he would tell stories before the song, and sometimes they had to do with anything, but sometimes they didn't. [00:05:56] And he'd get up and he'd say, well, I remember our song leaders. Our song leaders were my dad, Merle Dickerson, who was a. [00:06:07] Who was a band director. And he pitched every song with a tuning fork. That was an A. And then he figured it out from there, which always blew my mind. [00:06:20] Merle Dickerson, Kenneth Crudwig with Glenn Blakeney, who carried his pitch pipe out of a package behind his wallet so it looked like dip in his back pocket. [00:06:34] And he did that because he thought it was funny. [00:06:41] These are my people. [00:06:44] They taught us about Jesus. [00:06:49] I remember sitting in my mom's Bible class when I was. It's one of my earliest memories because I was like five, six around there. [00:06:58] And we got to Jesus Loves Me. We were singing that. [00:07:03] And he and I, you know, they are weak, but he is strong. [00:07:08] And I got to flexing and looking at my own muscles and got lost in the song. And I remember glancing up at my mom and my mom singing, and she did this, you know, that subtle and just with the head. [00:07:28] Most people can't see it, but a kid can. [00:07:34] A lot of my life was in that building. [00:07:38] Running up and down the stairs and sneaking into the balcony, wondering what the communion tasted like and going into the room where they kept it and breaking off a piece and realizing it was quite awful. [00:07:57] Oh. Oh. It's just like crackers, but worse. [00:08:04] We can have a table where we say we come to this table in remembrance of Jesus. [00:08:16] One of the beautiful things that Jesus does when he beckons us to the table is. Is he introduces us to the people who are sitting there with us, to the people who have done not great things. [00:08:36] And they're just things. [00:08:41] They've been there, they worshiped with us. [00:08:51] So verse 6 of Matthew 26 says, While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the leper, he didn't have leper here, he didn't have leprosy here. But once you get leprosy, it's just your last name from here on out. [00:09:10] A woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume which she poured on Jesus head as he was reclining at the table. Tables back then, you've probably heard this, but tables were real low to the ground. And to get to sit at the table, you actually reclined at the table, feet out. [00:09:34] You know, most of us in this room can't sit crisscross applesauce anymore. [00:09:41] I just topple over backwards. [00:09:45] My whole family can still do it, but they all will sit on the floor and play a game. [00:09:51] And they're all sitting crisscross applesauce. And I have to sit with my. I have to sort of sit with my legs out behind me just to steady myself. And they make fun of me, but I'm doing it like Jesus did. So I don't know, I don't know who's in the wrong here. [00:10:07] But they recline at this table. And so for her to, to come in where Jesus is sitting, he's not sitting at a chair like we would imagine around a table. There's this reclining element to the table. And so he's. She approaches and pours expensive perfume on him as he's reclining. [00:10:34] Now when the disciples saw this, they were. [00:10:39] The Greek word here is verklempt. [00:10:45] Says when his disciples saw this, they were indignant. [00:10:49] Why the waste? [00:10:52] They asked. You know, you become a church long enough, I mean, this is a three year old following of Jesus. They've been with Jesus three years. [00:11:01] They were already having budgetary issues. [00:11:06] This perfume could have been sold at a high price and money could be given to the poor. [00:11:16] And aware of this, Jesus said to them, why are you bothering this woman? Notice still just this woman. And if you're wondering her name, you won't get it. [00:11:31] Why are you bothering this woman? [00:11:34] She has done a beautiful thing to me. [00:11:40] The poor, he says, you will always have with you. [00:11:45] Now this seems kind of harsh, but it's just a truth. In their world, there is no working your way up the ladder of socioeconomic stages in the first century. If you were born poor, you died poor. It was just true. [00:12:06] That group is always going to be here, he says, but you will not Always have me with you. [00:12:17] When she poured this perfume on my body, she prepared me for burial. [00:12:26] So truly, I tell you whenever. The gospel or the good news? The good news. He declared early in his ministry that the kingdom has arrived, that Jesus is the king. The kingdom has arrived. And it is in this moment in history, shaping and reshaping the world. When the kingdom has arrived, the Gospel, when people preach, proclaim this good news, this gospel all throughout the world. [00:13:00] What she has done will be told in remembrance of her. [00:13:10] Jesus didn't just set up the kingdom, the church, so that we can all come to church in our own little places, in our own little groups and declare that we've done it and we've accomplished it internally, like we've checked a box and we've gone to church. [00:13:34] But we join together and worship together and commune together and pray together. [00:13:41] Because the impact we have on one another as we bear with one another in love, the impact we have on one another as we gather around the table, the table of the king. We've been beckoned by the king, but we sit next to each other. [00:14:02] The gospel is threefold, and we must not miss all three parts of it. [00:14:12] When the kingdom arrives, when Jesus is king, when the crucified Savior, who, resurrected from the tomb, takes the throne and rules us, three things happen. [00:14:26] He conquers sin, he conquers death, and he conquers division. [00:14:35] That through the blood on the cross, we find forgiveness of sins. Through the empty tomb, we find our hope in death, we will rise again. We will too be resurrected. [00:14:48] And through his presence on the throne, bringing all things together, both Jew and gentile, slave and free, male and female, he's bringing all things together. He has defeated division. [00:15:03] The people that impacted me were not my age. [00:15:08] Yeah, some of them were. [00:15:11] Scott Sloan. [00:15:15] We had a. He was a year older than me in school, and we had a Sunday where the young men led service. Sunday night, we couldn't. We had to. They made us lead at the JV service. [00:15:33] So we. [00:15:35] Scott walked in at 13 or 14 wearing shoes. [00:15:46] Now, none of you gasped just then. It's because you didn't know Scott. [00:15:50] Scott had not worn shoes to church his whole life. [00:15:55] He just hadn't. [00:15:59] Now, this is Arkansas, but I need you to adjust your mental image because the rest of us were wearing shoes. [00:16:11] We had shoes on and Scott didn't. [00:16:18] Now, were there some people who were a little bothered by his lack of. Of footwear? [00:16:29] Of course. [00:16:32] But he came every Sunday, barefoot, just full Huckleberry Finn. [00:16:43] He was a part of our church, part of our youth group. Now, eventually, once he started, we started taking him places he had to. He put on shoes, went to summer youth series. He wore shoes. [00:17:03] But the kingdom is demonstrated. [00:17:06] The gospel is demonstrated primarily and most effectively through a community of different people united under one king. [00:17:19] That's where it gets its power. [00:17:23] And so when we remember the gospel, we aren't just saying, I remember what Jesus did for me. [00:17:33] But wherever the gospel is proclaimed, we also remember what people did for Jesus. [00:17:43] There's no better place than in the body of Christ, the broken born body of Christ, to see what God is doing around us, unifying all of us. [00:18:03] I've spoken with you all. [00:18:07] You're different from each other. [00:18:10] You have different beliefs, different practices, different understandings of the world. [00:18:18] But it's the kingdom of God that drives the good in the world united. [00:18:32] And there are people on whose shoulders that we are standing, people who nurtured us, people who prepared us for difficult things that we have to do. [00:18:49] I can imagine Jesus here toward the end of his life, knowing what was coming and knowing that he was going to have to face it alone. [00:19:12] And, yeah, his disciples would go with him to the garden, and he would take a few of them to pray, but they would fall asleep and they would eventually scatter. [00:19:26] And then he would go before the Sanhedrin, he would go before Herod, and they would stand at a distance. [00:19:36] One of his closest friends would deny that he was ever with him. [00:19:42] He knew how he was going to go. [00:19:48] He knew the loneliness of what he was going to undertake, the pain of what he was going to endure. [00:19:59] And then this woman in the house of a leper shows him a grace and in probably more ways than one, prepares him for burial. [00:20:25] He has been blessed by her. [00:20:31] And he says to the disciples, everywhere the gospel is preached. Let's tell the story of this woman. [00:20:43] You've got people in your life. Maybe they're not in your life anymore. They're long gone. [00:20:51] They were old when you were young. [00:20:56] But they are a blessing. [00:20:59] Their remembrance is worthwhile. [00:21:04] And then we also are knowing that, you know, people younger than us are going to go through the things we've gone through, that we can, too, be a blessing to them, to prepare them for what's ahead. [00:21:25] That's gospel, too. [00:21:29] Sure, it's not in the pamphlets or the tracts where we say, this is what Jesus did for you, and here's the gospel of Jesus. But whenever the kingdom reigns, the people who sit at the table with us impact us. For the good of the kingdom. [00:21:46] They prepare us for what's ahead. [00:21:51] We would do well to remember them. [00:21:59] One of my biggest influences in ministry is a man named Jim Martin. [00:22:04] He didn't go to church with me. He was a preacher at Crestview in Waco for about 20 years, and then he was at Harding Graduate School. [00:22:14] And he didn't. He didn't abandon me when he got all high and superior. There he was. [00:22:22] He saw me as a preacher when I started preaching at 25 and decided that he would pour into me. [00:22:38] He did kingdom work. [00:22:44] People have been doing kingdom work for other people their whole existence. [00:22:51] They've been changing us and shaping us. [00:22:56] And we want to be that for others, not that we be remembered. [00:23:05] It took some work digging in and going, who do I remember? [00:23:13] There was a man named Clifford, and I don't even remember his last name, who decided to study the Bible a little deeper. With about seven of us in our youth group, it's impactful, preparing us for what's ahead. [00:23:33] And so the kingdom, as it function and as it works together, we can't lose sight. And we're going to talk about Jesus more and more as we go through this sermon series about the good news. [00:23:46] But we can't forget that when we're beckoned to the table, we're beckoned together and that we are drawn together. [00:24:00] Notice he doesn't set up a table for the senior citizens and the young adults and the young professionals and the youth group and the. No, let's get a bigger table and sit around it together. [00:24:24] Because I would love to grow up and become like so many of you men. [00:24:34] I would love for my kids to grow up and become like so many of you women and men. [00:24:42] They need you, and I'm telling you, they're a hoot. [00:24:51] But young people, you have no idea how funny old people are. [00:24:58] They're prim and proper here. But it is a mess at McAllister's. [00:25:08] And so we need to start crossing those lines so that we can be shaped and changed not just by people at church. There is no difference between church and gospel. The church is what the gospel creates. [00:25:31] Saved, resurrected followers of the king, united into one body to demonstrate the grace and love that God has shown us freely. And then we show to others and it makes a difference. Your memory of the kingdom, of the gospel, of the people who prepared you for the difficult things to come, it matters. [00:26:02] It's kingdom work. It's table work. It's the work of the gospel. [00:26:07] Pray together, Father. We are in need of each other. [00:26:20] Not because we figured this out or any of us in this room have figured it all out. But we need each other because you didn't call us to a desk chair. [00:26:34] You didn't call us to an isolated room or to an office. You called us to a table. [00:26:42] A table with chairs of different backgrounds and different histories, different experiences and God. The kingdom you've created in this place. [00:26:56] That is good news. [00:26:59] We live free from the results of our sin we are forgiven we live free from the sting of death we have hope and may we live free from the things that divide but only focus on the one who calls us to the table Together unified the body of Christ Shape us, change us, make us new. [00:27:33] Through your spirit and through your church, Father, make us new. [00:27:40] It's in your Son's holy name we pray. Amen. There are people at the back willing to pray with you. You can come talk to me, but whatever.