[0:16]honored people that you've learned from, that you have respect for, that have meant something to your life, that have impacted you. And so I just want to take a quick moment to honor Stan and I want to take this all the way back. I don't know how many years ago it is now, maybe in the five or six year mark, when maybe a little longer than that, where I think Aaron came to me and said, you need to listen to this podcast, right? It was you. And it was from Austin New Church. Funny enough, I just spent some time with that pastor, Jason Morris in um in Nashville and got a chance to meet him and tell him this story. And uh Stan was there and Stan preached a message or did a little talk with Jason that I have listened to probably 40 or 50 times. Both services. I can tell you the difference between the two. What he left out of one, what he added to another. And then I have sent that to many of you um over the years to say, I want you to listen to this because it made such a great case for why this is not just a way for a church to move forward with the message of Jesus, but the only way to really do our best to try to fulfill what Jesus intended for humanity. And Stan is at an incredible impact on my life. He spends the majority of his life on the road, um undergirding pastors who are floundering our way through this as we all are. Many of which have taken incredible personal attacks and cannon fodder and and he the other part of his time, he's working privately with families who are navigating through embracing and figuring their way through a child coming out to them, highly religious families that don't know what to do. And I know for a fact that his life and ministry has saved countless lives. Children, young adults, who wouldn't be here right now, if it wasn't for his intervention and for his kindness in supporting them and believing in them. And so I think it's just appropriate to stand to our feet and welcome our good friend Stan Mitchell here.
[2:49]Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
[2:54]Thank you, Jesus.
[2:58]Good morning everybody.
[3:02]Y'all really, you don't have to that introduction. You don't need to do that except every time I'm here. So that that and the standing. Well, thank y'all for such a warm welcome and I do look forward. I have been looking forward for some time to coming back. First time I've been in the new place. I think when I was here the last time the music and the sound equipment was just going in. But what a wonderful thing is happening here at at Harvest and I I want to speak to that if I can, and I want to get right to the things that I want to say, but suffice to say all the miners, these are precious people in my life. And um they've been really, really good to me. And what's happening here is an inspiration. And I want to I want to remind you as someone who travels full-time in this work that a lot of churches, those churches that we were with this week, Dan that are leaning this way. Scared leaders, scared pastors, worried about the hits, measuring the hits, um they're looking to places like this. This place is not just simply for Sarasota and Mid Florida and this area and for this congregation. There are a lot of people. Dan, you said it right. 99.9% of churches are still not fully inclusive. Under the canopy of the cross, we have just scratched the surface. So be not weary in well-doing. There is a weariness that comes with well-doing. There's a weariness that comes with unrequited well-doing that doesn't immediately pay dividends. Um and that weariness is real and I just encourage you, do not grow weary in well-doing for in due season. And people are watching, pastors are watching. They want to believe that this is possible. And it's not only possible, brothers and sisters, this is the gospel and all of its fullness, this is the gospel. So, today I'm I'm going to share a story from the life of Jesus that honors Harvest and honors what this family has been doing here for 40 plus years. And truly honors the spirit of this place. Now my dad, when I told him I was going to go into the ministry. Of course, I grew up old-time Pentecostal. I'll running, hand clapping, tongue talking. Our women had the big hair, you know, and we when I when we when we backslid and went to the Assembly of God, and the women cut their hair, they always said they were delivered from bondage. Um but anyway, that's a Pentecostal joke. I'm sorry. Um but my dad told me, he said, now son, just remember, and he was a a great saint, still is a great saint. I don't I don't come from a line of preachers. But he said, just remember this about sermons. He said, a really, really good sermon is one with a really, really strong compelling beginning and a really strong, compelling finish and those two as close together as you can possibly get them. Can you say amen? Now grandmother used to say, messages are like biscuits. They both go better with a little shortening.
[6:29]So I'll do my best.
[6:33]This doesn't tell the whole story of Harvest, but it tells a lot of the story of Harvest. The story's found, you can look it up in your Bible gateway. These days, what do we if you have your phone turn with me to the book of John, the ninth chapter. But it's in John 9 and it is a story that simultaneously breaks my heart and fills it. It's a story that when I read it, it embarrasses me to the point of repentant tears.
[7:11]And has done that several times. And at the same time it offers me so much hope for what could be. And what we're beginning to see happen in the church. I travel full-time. 48 out of 52 weeks I'm in a church somewhere. My Bayley Wick, my corner of the community of Christ is to work as a cisgender heterosexual white privileged male. On behalf of people who have voices. I'm not a voice for the voiceless because it's not a voice these people lack. It is an amplification system and a microphone and a platform. So sweet Christ, what other use or old idle preachers like me for than to defer my platform and my pulpit and the privilege of my microphone to these people. And I do that in churches and then I do that 10 to 12 times a month. I'm in intensives with families from Assembly of God and Church of Christ and Southern Baptist and Mennonite backgrounds who have a child in their home that no longer wants to live because of their Sunday School class. And these are people desperately trying to be faithful to God and love their child and at that complex intersection of faith, spirituality, sexuality, gender, these families are wrestling. And I just travel to North Dakota and Delaware and New Brunswick and offer myself as a pastor who loves scripture and who loves our faith and follows our Lord and believes that the full inclusion of our LGBTQ+ siblings is not held intention to that truth and that love, but it is consistent with and flows out of.
[9:03]So this is my life. I know of no other text in scripture, biblical or otherwise. No other text that more clearly captures the long-term, beleaguered, painful relationship that many people have had with religion. With the church. And in particular, in particular, LGBTQ people have had with religious institutions and specifically ours, Christianity. I want to say this up front. I am not trying to sing to the choir or get cheap amens or exclamation of mike drop. I am not trying to patronize a group of people who've already done this work. You have crossed this bridge and you're not in need of constant encouragement about LGBTQ inclusion. That is obvious. But what I want to say today is not only specifically the area that I work in and one remain to my heart. Everything I say today regarding this matter in the church relates to so many other groups and people.
[10:13]And so, before I press this too long, let's just go to the text. John 9. I'm reading from Eugene Peterson's inimitable paraphrase, the message, which I really love and so many instances, and this one in particular. I'll read a few verses from John 9, maybe 10 or 11 verses. Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents causing him to be born blind? Jesus turned and said to his disciples, you're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There's no such cause and effect here. Instead, you should be looking for what God can do. And we need to be at work for the one who sent me here. We must be at work while the sun shines because night's coming, the workday will be over, but as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world. He said this and spit in the dust. Made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man's eyes. This was pre-COVID, by the way.
[11:37]He rubbed the paste of saliva and dirt on the blind man's eyes and said, go wash at the pool of Salome.
[11:48]I love this syntax. The man went and washed and saw. Soon the town was buzzing. The man's relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging said, isn't this the man we knew? Isn't this the one who sat here and begged his whole life?
[12:14]Others, others said, it's him all right, and others objected, it's not the same man, it just looks like him, and the man said, it's me. I am the very one. And they said, how did your eyes get opened?
[12:34]And he said, a man named Jesus made a paste, rubbed it on my eyes and told me to go to Siloman and wash. I did what he said, and when I washed, I saw.
[12:48]Per the vision and mission of this ministry called Harvest. A story from the life of Jesus that so profoundly underscores not just the historical roots of this place, but the future hopes of this church. A story pointing to who you have been, who you're called even now, and even more to be. I rewrote this last night late and early this morning, specifically for you. I'm not a professional preacher too much these days, so forgive me if I stick with my text too closely, but I want to say this as I felt it for you. One, Jesus and his closest followers.
[13:38]Those who supposedly loved him most, and surely did. Jesus and the ones we have named the 12, were walking together one day and as they were walking down the road, they happened to cross paths with a person who had lived their entire life blind. A man who had never visually seen, a man whose life was resigned to sitting on the side of the road and as the text said begging. It was the only social system available to a visually impaired person. As the story goes, the writer of John's gospel with such an incisive, profound simplicity, describes the encounter by first saying, and please don't miss this. It will be innocuous at first, but please, just let this settle in your heart. The Bible says that Jesus saw a man. Not that Jesus spoke to, deliberated about or even considered the plight of this person. No. Instead the text said, Jesus did what Jesus was always doing. Jesus saw a person. As Jesus was walking along, the text said, he saw a man who had been blind since birth. Forgive me for belaboring. But full stop here. Jesus saw a person. Jesus saw a human being.
[15:24]Jesus didn't see a condition. He didn't see a dilemma, at least first. He didn't see a category. He didn't even see a moral conversation to be had. He didn't see a societal breach to be filled. He didn't see a theological problem to be debated and reconciled. All of those things, as good as they might be, the text said simply and pointedly, Jesus saw a person, full stop. And frankly, we would do well today, if we left this place right now and all we did was open our hearts to the spirit of God this week. and allow our hearts to based in those four simple words. The slightest phrase, breath of superlatives and grammatical devices, just a very simple sentence, complete as a sentence, but even more complete as a way of life. Jesus saw a person. But the story doesn't end there. I wish it did, and yet I'm grateful it doesn't to some to a great degree. Instead of ending there, an important contrast is made and the contrast is not between Jesus and the world. The contrast is not between Jesus and the Archangel, Satan, who fell. The story makes an important contrast, and the comparison is between two very different ways of seeing the world, two very different ways of being in the world. And the contrast is made between Jesus and those closest to him. Those who are his followers, those who represent us. After saying in the text that Jesus saw a person, the gospel of John follows immediately with his disciples then turned to him, standing in proximity to the same man. His disciples turned to him and said, you know, Lord, this does beg the question, doesn't it? In your opinion, teacher, was it this man's sins that led him to this painful place? Or do you think it was the failure of his parents? Sound familiar?
[18:07]The religious institution called him in and said, you have to admit to us that what you're calling a divine reality is a falsehood. Never asking him or addressing the reality of his sight. You see, the man's healing had not happened as these spiritual authorities deemed appropriate. The man's healing had not happened within their religious purview, beneath their oversight, their control, per them, what the man was claiming wasn't possible because Jesus had operated outside of the religious franchise that they owned the patents to. Jesus had infringed on their sacrosanct copyrights and therefore they looked at a human being who was good and perfect and blameless and healed, and told him that he needed to change his testimony if he wanted to stay in this church.
[19:19]This is a 2,000-year-old text. And it calls me to repentance and it reminds me of why I'm still Christian. Because the problem is not our text. The problem is in the hearing and the reading of our text. I look at this text now and say, how did we ever see it any other way? This, this man is the patron saint of every queer person who has ever been abstracted and talked about in church by the closest followers of Jesus. This is the man who is the patron saint of every human who has ever been blamed for something that there is no blame for. For every person who has ever been in a church and told by its leaders, you cannot claim simultaneously, this born reality of your life with the reality of divine presence, your sight and experience notwithstanding. His parents did not stand for him. And this is what I want to say to you, and this is for you fit, and oh my God, don't stop. The Bible says when he left that place. Again, this is a part of John 9. I don't feel like I've ever heard anybody talk about. But the Bible says, Jesus who had left there to go to another land, on his way to that place a few days down the road. The text says that when Jesus heard what had happened to the man, not when he and his disciples heard what had happened to the man because they hadn't learned to care yet.
[21:07]But Corey when Jesus heard what had happened, he didn't consult with the disciples. When he heard what had happened, he looked where he was going and the plans that he had. And the Bible says, he turned around. Oh my.
[21:26]He turned around and he went looking for the man. He went looking for the man and when he found him, I wish I could tell you, he took him by the hand and said, I want you to know you're okay. And we're going to go to your parents and we're going to go back to the temple and we're going to work things out. But Jesus couldn't say that because it wasn't true.
[21:49]The last parts. Jesus had given up hope on the institution. Jesus did not take him by the hand to go back to the church to work things out. Jesus took him by the hands and said, I want you to know, Sans my followers, your parents, and that institution that you've been in your entire life. In the absence of them, I need you to look me in the eye with those healed eyes as I tell you, you are beautiful and whole. You are okay. Now go be well and live your life. And what I wanted to say to you, was may Harvest be a place where when Jesus finds this kind of human, this jettison, dismissed human, this thrown away human. May Harvest be a place forever and a day, be that place for Jesus can bring those he has healed. And furthermore, may we not simply be the place he can bring them. May we be Jesus. There are plenty of places for lots of people to go in this area. But may we be a place that goes. May we be Jesus going and looking specifically for those who have been put out of the temple and have been told that they are to blame and the less for a beautiful part of their life. That is the ministry of Harvest, not just for LGBTQ people but for every living, breathing human being. May it ever be so.
[23:34]Well, I'm a mess.
[23:42]There's so much guilt wrapped into what many of us were a part of and participated in. And my prayer today is that that guilt, with a message like this is the catalyst that changes its chemical compound into fuel and encouragement. Not for what we should have done, but what we can do.
[24:16]And I wanted this today, I wanted Stan being here today to do what Stan accomplished, I believe, and that is to tune up our engine around here. And did not lose sight of why we gather every week, why we support this in all of the ways you all support. I stood here when we were sound checking and looked just you can just barely see out those right double doors into the kitchen space as Darla ran around this morning making coffee way before any of you got here. And oftentimes does it every week to help so that K K doesn't have to run from this to that and then all the other things going on. Pat and Lon do the same thing and that might not seem significant in the grand scheme of things, but it is acts like that that keep this place a welcome spot. Opportunity for someone to stop in the lobby before they enter those doors because I'm telling you from the feedback I've received from some of you that walk through those doors, you were scared to death to take that that one step over the threshold into the actual quote unquote sanctuary that has become such a harmful place. And so to be able to hang in that lobby and have coffee because of Darla and others that help out to just kind of warm up to the idea, to get the courage to walk in. is a big deal. So all of the ways that we support this, let us be like, feel the fire and the fuel and the passion to do it better and more eager and and more sincere than we ever have ever before because there are way too many people out there that don't have anywhere to go and don't know there's a place to go and are searching and and in desperate need.
[26:34]Some of which they don't even know that the ache in their soul is not something they have to die with.
[26:47]That the ache that they feel isn't just an everyday pain they have to learn to live with, but that ache can actually find the truth of the creator in their life.
[27:06]And so Stan, I can't thank you enough. I mean, I just I hate that you're so good at that. I can't thank you enough because this is this is um why we're here. And although it sometimes feels like we center around one community, it's not the case. We just center around people who just need a shot and a chance to be a part of a community that is walking out their faith and that they're safe to be there, they're loved and equal. And so many of you have come from that place.
[27:44]So thank you and thank you, Stan for being here with us today. We'll close in prayer. I don't even know how to pray after that other than God help us. God help us. So let's do that. Father, we we try to be sincere, an effective and carrying out your mission as we learn to unfold exactly what that looks like. But God, we need your wisdom. We need your help. We need your your guidance. Because we don't want to fill a seat for the sake of our ego. Our impact number at the end of the year. We want every seat in this place to be the soft landing and a house of worship. That people can know that they are finally home.
[28:47]That if their parents, institution and society and culture and politics and everything has told them that there's something fundamentally wrong with them, that they will come here and somehow by your spirit and hopefully by a smile or a hug or a cup of coffee. will know that every one of those I listed was wrong, that your your opinion supersedes all of them. Your intention for their life is more important than the criticism and the rejection. So today as we leave here, I I just believe that there's more, so much more for us to do in Sarasota and beyond. So we just ask that you guide us with your grace, your goodness, your wisdom. And we do speak the name of Jesus, not the name that has rejected and harmed and marginalized. Because that's never been what your name represented. We speak the name of Jesus over these neighborhoods. And Lord, may even we become just another inclusive church in Sarasota. May pastors wake up, leadership wake up to the reality that this is this is God's calling and message and and missional experience that he wants us to carry forward. Thank you for that today in Jesus name and everyone says.
