Jesus and the Party People, with Pastor Rick Russell.

Jesus and the Party People, with Pastor Rick Russell. Series: Beloved. Belonging. Delightful. A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Matthew 11; 23; Luke 7; 11; 14.

Ever felt left out or lonely? This Sunday, our special guest Rick Russell of Mountain View Community Development is diving into a powerful story about belonging, community, and unexpected invitations. Join us online or in-person to explore how we can build connections that truly matter.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

Thank you for your support of the mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Bend. Visit https://bendfp.org/giving/ for more information.

Keywords:

Loneliness, community needs, belonging, marginalized people, homeless shelter, safe parking, affordable housing, banquet room, case managers, support staff, virtual connections, community survey, church leadership, volunteer efforts, building relationships., presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Whitney Higdon: 0:00

You you. Welcome to worship at First Presbyterian we, at First Presbyterian, practice a spacious Christianity, which means no matter where you are in your faith journey, you belong and there is space for you at the table, there is space for your doubts and questions. We believe doubts and questions are a gift that invite us into deeper conversations and a more authentic faith. We believe diversity is a strength. Every story is sacred and everybody matters. We do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We are so glad to connect with you in this way. We would also love to worship with you in person if you're ever in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings at 830, or 10am and never hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us or how we might support You. I hope you enjoy This worship service. Welcome

Sharon Edwards: 4:46

a reading from the book of belonging, Jesus and the party people. Have you ever had that feeling, the feeling after a cozy meal where you sit back and stretch your full belly listen to your loved ones? Chatting and laughing under the twinkling lights and everything just feels deeply right, almost like a gentle lion reached out and put a warm, heavy paw on your chest. Be here. Be still. Enjoy. There is something very special about sharing a meal, something of heaven. Jesus knew this better than anyone. As he traveled from village to village, he would often be found at the table, laughing and singing, sipping and munching. In fact, Jesus spent so much time at the table that some people were starting to whisper about him. He eats all the time. He goes to parties with the sinners and the outsiders. This was because the parties Jesus attended weren't in grand palaces or in the homes of the important people. He was feasting on the outskirts, in the run down neighborhoods, at the houses of the forbidden and forgotten, with people everywhere. Everyone avoided, overlooked or pushed outside of belonging. Jesus, choices and actions told the same story. His words did. God's Kingdom is already spilling in, and there are no outsiders here. God's Kingdom is upside down and inside out. God's Kingdom is a place of belonging. One day, Jesus was invited to a very different type of feast at a very different type of house. The house was full of scholars, religious leaders and very important people. They talked in low voices about official things like rules and regulations and scriptures and obedience, Jesus then entered messy and magnificent they all began to do a special washing ritual before the meal, but Jesus did not join in. What good is it to wash the outside of a cup? If the inside remains filthy, you are all so concerned with a spotless reputation, making sure you act clean. But God sees your heart full of greed and violence. But if you clean the inside of the cup, won't the outside become clean as well? And as Jesus continued to speak, the important people probably wished they had left him to party with the commoners because he began to say things that left them shocked, uncomfortable and just plain angry. You're so focused on rules that you've forgotten how to be a blessing. The guidelines God gave to Moses were meant to lift up the oppressed, but instead, you crushed them beneath a heavy burden, one that you can't even lift yourself. The teachers and scholars shifted in their seats. Who does he think he is? Is he questioning our traditions? Who would we be without our rules? They were not used to being spoken to in this way. Thank you very much. But Jesus continued, You love being the important ones. You get the best seats, and everyone in the marketplace knows your names, but the kingdom of God is upside down and inside out. That stuff doesn't matter. Then, as he sometimes did, Jesus tried to teach them with a story, because sometimes our most important ideas can't be crammed into our specific words. They're too big and wiggly and special. So we have to say it's like God's Kingdom is like a grand feast. Jesus began as the cups clinked and the candle light danced, except when the food was prepared and the drinks were poured and the table set, the people who were invited did not show up. So the host told their servant, go into the streets and alleys. Go to the run down neighborhoods, go to the houses of the forbidden and forgotten. Invite the people who are poor. Invite anyone and everyone who has been avoided, overlooked or pushed outside of belonging. It's done, reported the worker. They have all joined your feast, but there is still room at the table. Then go. Urge the host. Shout from the highways and the walls urged the people to come and fill up my house. Jesus looked around at all the important and fancy people at the table, people who had spent their lives memorizing Scripture and studying the rules, and he loved them. He saw how their worried hearts longed for God's kingdom. He saw how they were grasping for it in the best way they knew how they were so close to the kingdom feast, yet so far outside, Jesus stood up to leave, and the important people became aggressive and mean, but Jesus had work to do, and as the doors swung shut behind him, they were left to their own private park. 30, which had lost a bit of its sparkle.

Unknown: 10:04

My older sister, who is in her 50s, now still reminds us of one of her earliest birthdays. She was first or second grade. She has a summer birthday, late July. That's a hard thing for a kid. Everyone is scattered on summer vacation, and that year, 40 years ago, she invited her friends from school for a birthday party at the swimming pool in the park, and no one came. It's no wonder that memory still hangs around, and I suppose it's okay that she retells that story as a warning to us to not forget her birthday amidst all of our busy summer plans. Jesus tells the story of a party, something like that. It's a parable, a story meant to tell us what the kingdom of God is like. Jesus liked talking about the Kingdom of God. He talked about it more than anything else, more than heaven or hell, anything else the kingdom of God. He often told stories, to give us a picture of what that means. In Jesus' story, he says, according to Luke 14, a certain man was preparing a great banquet invited many guests. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited come for everything is now ready, but they were all scattered on summer vacation. Actually, it says they had different excuses for not making it. The owner of the house said, then, I want you to go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town. I want you to bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame, and then there was still room. So the master said to the servants, I want you to go out to the roads and the country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house will be full. You know, it's quite an experience to throw a party and no one shows up for it. That's a searing sense of rejection. And maybe the people most able to relate to that are the ones who never got the invitation in the first place. The desire to belong, to fit, to have friends, to have community, is core to all of us, and yet we all know what it's like to be left out, uninvited, not picked for the team outside of the inner circle. Couple years back, our hospital system initiated a survey of what the community needs. They said, we'll prioritize our funding behind the greatest community needs. And in the past, I've seen topics like alcoholism, suicide prevention, they will survey hundreds of community members and listen to what the community is saying it needs. Just imagine if someone asked you, from your perspective, what would you say is the most pressing issue that our community faces after the hospital surveyed the community, do you know what they concluded? The community told them that it was loneliness, people lacking a sense of belonging. I find that fascinating, that that's what our community said. Loneliness, our region is growing as one of the fastest among the state. There are more people living here than ever. The population is always growing. We are more connected virtually, whether it's cell phones in our pockets or high speed internet at home, or the capacity to do virtual meetings or video calls with devices we can wear. Somehow, we are more connected to people than ever before, and yet many of us feel so disconnected. National surveys reveal the average American's pool of close friends is shrinking, and it seems increasingly harder to build and maintain something that feels like genuine community. So in the story that Jesus tells, the invitation goes out. It goes out to the people on the margins behind the hedges. Some translations say to the people who live out there on the margins. I always thought that marginalized people was a metaphor. I never really took it literally, until recently, the work I do these days is mostly with unhoused folks, and they are marginalized. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean that literally. These are folks who live in our forest lands, outside of our city, or beyond the industrial lands, or, you know, the other places around town, just at the edges of our cities. These are the literal margins of our community, and we have a lot of people who live there. I've been a pastor for the last 20 years, eight, 910, years ago, there, there was no homeless shelter of any kind in our community. Some friends from a nearby community came to our church and they said, if you would host a shelter in the winter in your gym and bring some volunteers, bring some food, then our staff could take the lead. We'll stay up all night. We'll make sure it's safe and operates well. I remember taking that decision to our church leadership. I think we all knew what Jesus wanted us to do in that situation, but it took us a lot of questions to get there. Homeless people inside our building? What about safety? What about sanitation? What about our children? What about our neighbors? What What about the insurance company? What about, what about, what about, they were the kinds of questions that church leaders should ask. It felt like we'd set this little idea of a boat out on the water, and then in that leadership meeting, we all took turns shooting holes in the boat. And that boat took a lot of water on but at the end of the meeting, it was still floating barely. And so we tried it every night, 2025 folks would shuffle into the gym and sleep on the COTS we had there. Every night, a half dozen volunteers from the church would come down and make dinner, and that's when something like a switch went off. Homelessness was no longer an issue. It was names and faces and stories and neighbors, relationships were formed, and we were clear with our volunteers. If you're going to come down to the church and you're going to volunteer, don't stand on one side of the counter and serve the food across to the people on the other side. You get a plate of food yourself, and you get out there, and you use Find someone to sit next to, and you eat dinner with them, and you pour them a cup of coffee, and you let them pour you let them pour a cup of coffee for you. And someone get out a deck of cards. Let's see who wants to play. And if someone goes outside to smoke a cigarette. Then you go out there and you stand out there with them, and if you haven't started smoking yet, this might be a good time for you to start right now. Seven or eight years later, we've had no issues with safety, no issues with neighbors, no issues with insurance, sanitation, though, I'll confess to this, during the winter months, our church smelled like body odor for for several winters, I tried to tell the church, well, that's just what Jesus smells like. I don't think they bought it, though. That's when someone said, you know, we have that large storage closet down the hallway. It's for the quilting group. They store all the materials in there. What do you think they would be willing to let us convert that into some showers and some washers and dryers? Someone said, I know a plumber who'd help out. I think he'd volunteer. And one of the other folks there said, Well, I'm a general contractor. I think we could get some volunteers and some donated materials, and we could do this whole thing for three or $4,000 and I thought, wow, showers and laundry for three or $4,000 we should do that. We did it. It was more like 40 or $50,000 but the seed had been planted, and the it had taken roots, and volunteers set it up, and shelter guests would come in, and they could do laundry, and they could take a shower, and the building no longer smelled like body odor, and our volunteers opened it during the day for anyone else who needed access to a shower and some clean clothes. Last year, about 20 volunteers fulfilled over 2500 appointments. That's 2500 showers, 2500 loads of laundry. From there, it just seemed like everything we did got bigger and more complex, but easier, because we had relationships with people who lived on the margins. The next thing you know, we were hosting a safe parking area in our parking lot. We were providing a safe and legal, sanitary place for. People who lived in cars and RVs, and we provided a case manager to help them work toward a stable housing goal. And then we went down to the VFW, and we asked the vets if they'd like to do the same. And they said, Sure, yeah, we'll do that. And the next thing you knew, we had 10 locations and 45 spaces and an office in two different communities, and I could keep on going. Of course, the challenge for in house folks to finding housing is to find housing that they can afford. And so our next project is bigger and more audacious and yet somehow still easy. Right now, we're going to build a neighborhood of 75 homes for chronically unhoused people, folks with a disability, most of them in their 60s and 70s. It won't be fancy, but it'll be good. They'll pay rent that they can afford. These are small homes, 400 square feet, 600 square feet, but real homes on a foundation with a kitchen and a bathroom. 10% of those homes will be for people who are not leaving homelessness, meaning they will be homes for people like you and for me, who want to belong to a community like that, people who want to be a neighbor of peace amidst people who have lived through chaotic circumstances in the middle of it all will be a big service center for case managers and support staff, and, Most importantly, a big banquet room for parties, for birthdays that never got celebrated, for open mic nights, for artists who never got to perform, for bingo and karaoke nights for people who just want to have a good time. And who knows, if you come down, maybe you can be the card dealer. The Kingdom of God is like a party. It's like a banquet, according to Jesus. And if that's true, then I think the followers of Jesus should be party people, not partisan people who identify with the powerful and the connected, but party people who know how to have a good time with people on the margins. Friend of mine used to travel once a week out to the margins of the city. There's a prison out there. She'd bring with her guests business owners and hiring managers. She had a whole course for teaching men in the prison, how to start a business, how to find a good job, how to interview, how to name their dreams for their lives. And each year, she'd have a group, a big graduation class for these men. At the end of the program, she'd invite me as a guest. The inmates, who would work in the kitchen, would make all of this food for the party. I remember cinnamon rolls as big as a dinner plate. And at the party, she'd bring these graduates up one by one, and she would heap praise on them. She would name their dreams and aspirations. She'd call out the distinctive good she saw in each one of them. Those graduation parties always felt like the kingdom of God. Maybe it's time for you to join the party, to find people to celebrate with, to gather around some food, to send out some invitations, to put yourself in proximity to people on the margins, in essence, to become a builder of belonging. Let me pray gracious God. I i pray for everyone that you would stir in us a desire and a calling to be a builder of belonging, Lord, that You would help us to see those right around us, those who who may seem invisible at first, But help us to see the humanity right around us to whom you are calling us to build community with Lord give us that vision and give us the courage to respond to form relationships where, right now, It's strangers, and we pray all of this in Jesus name Amen. And now a blessing from the Hebrew Scriptures, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord, make his face shine on you and be gracious to you, and the LORD, turn his face toward you and give you peace. Go in peace. Go in Shalom. Go in wholeness. Amen.

Whitney Higdon: 28:54

Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this worship service. If you would like to make a donation helping make these broadcasts possible or support the many ways. First, Presbyterian seeks to serve our community. You can make a financial gift online@bendfp.org every week, we hear from someone thanking us for the gift of these broadcasts and what a difference they make. Your support makes that possible. Our church is committed to reach beyond our walls, bringing hope where there is despair and love where it is needed the most. Your generous support helps us to be generous in love. Go to our website, bend fp.org, and click on the link. Give online. Your support is really appreciated and makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks again. I hope to see you next week. You.