08-07-22 “Jesus is All In for the Outcast”

Scripture               1 Corinthians 1:26-30

                         

          At the Ohio State Fair – everyone, from all walks of life are welcomed at the fair equally.
All are welcome and I even got in for free.
 
 Scripture           1 Corinthians 1:26-30
          Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

JOHN E. CLOUGH
Friend of the Outcastes
          On an Iowa farm in the 1860s a young man was standing on a four-horse reaper breaking off the heavy grain when one of the farmhands came across the field calling out, “Here’s a letter for you from Boston!” John Clough Clough Slide seated himself on the reaper, tied the reins around the seat, and tore open the letter. As he read, his eyes widened with surprise. Then a broad smile came upon his face. “What do you know!” he shouted. “They want me to go to India as a missionary! It’s a call from the Baptist Foreign Mission Board in Boston.”
          John Clough was more than a farmer. He was an educated man who had been head of a public school and had served as a leader in politics. More recently he had felt called to Christian service and had been distributing literature for the American Baptist Publication Society in the Midwest. It was at a Baptist Convention in Davenport, Iowa, that an address by a missionary to Thailand had stirred him to apply for appointment to the overseas mission field himself.
          Clough did not grow up as a Christian. In college he had been greatly annoyed with a roommate who insisted on reading the Bible and praying aloud. Clough had insisted on drawing a line down the center of the room with the understanding that all praying would be done on the other side of it, and he could do as he pleased on his side. One evening, however, the president of the university had persuaded him to attend a service at the Baptist church, and the experience had moved Clough deeply. Returning to his dormitory room, he stepped across the chalk line and knelt beside his praying roommate.
          Clough’s missionary assignment in India was to work among the Telugu people, a field which was known as the Lone Star Mission, because it had enjoyed so little success since its establishment a 25 years earlier. Three times the mission board had considered closing it. The final decision to keep it open had been made as a result of an appeal through poetry by the Reverend Samuel F. Smith, who was also the author of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” The final stanza of Smith’s poem about the Lone Star Mission won the Board to its support:
       Shine on, “Lone Star!” till earth redeemed - In dust shall bid its idols fall;
       And thousands, where thy radiance beamed, - Shall “crown the Saviour, Lord of all.”
So this, a decade later, was Clough’s challenge – to bring thousands to the Savior in a mission where scarcely any had responded in the past.
 
4 OUTCASTS

1)    Leper physical/relational
          Mark 1:40-45     A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"  Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."  Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

2)    Demoniac              mental/financial
          Mark 5:1-20     They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.  When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man — and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."  20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

3)    Woman at the well                 spiritual/social

          John 4:4-42     Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" 13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"  30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor." 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
 

4)    Good Samaritan           religious/ethnicity
            (not only welcomed but encouraged to participate)
Luke 10:25-37     On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
 
 
CONCLUSION
          Outcasts are any people who don’t belong. What percentage of people within walking distance of the church, would think that they would not be welcome if they came to a service here? A high percentage to be sure. What must we do to let people know they are welcome and invited and encouraged to come?
 
          We are building a church that creatively and compassionately connects people to Jesus Christ!
          Our all church theme text is: Eph 2:19-22
          You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
 
          We want all people to Believe, Belong, and Become (Sometimes, belonging will come before believing.)
 
JOHN E. CLOUGH (continued)
Friend of the Outcastes
          On November 30, 1864, John Clough and his wife, Harriet, set sail from Boston on a little ship called the James Guthrie. Scarcely seaworthy, the Guthrie rolled and pitched unmercifully and narrowly missed drifting into the wreckage of old ships as it rounded the Cape of Good Hope.
          They did not arrive in India until almost the first of April. Then they journeyed by slow stages on a springless oxcart to the mission station at Nellore and on to Ongole, where they were to open a new station. There at a place known as Prayer Meeting Hill because of a service held there by another missionary ten years earlier, Clough began his work.     
          In the area around Ongole lived a great many people known as Madigas, who were outcastes in the complicated social system of India at that time. In that system there were many social classes, or castes, into which persons were born, and which everyone observed with the utmost strictness. The mixing of persons of differing castes was severely limited, and the outcastes, who were at the very bottom of the ladder, were scorned and despised by everybody else. These Madiga outcastes had been hearing about Christ and were interested in coming to the mission, but Clough knew that to accept them would cost him the friendship of the community’s “best people.”
          It was a difficult decision, and it took a brave man to make it. The people of the higher castes, who would be desirable additions to the church, let Clough know that they would not become Christians if they would have to associate with the outcastes, who (among other repulsive practices) were accustomed to eating carrion, or putrefied dead animals, especially cows, which no good Hindu would eat.
          “Must I forbid the outcaste people to come to Christ in order to receive into membership some of the higher caste people?” Clough asked himself. Then a strange thing happened. As Clough prayed for understanding, he opened his Bible at random, and the text of 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 was before his eyes. At almost the same time in another room Harriet Clough opened her Bible and her eyes fell on precisely the same text. In the King James Version, which was the only one available to most English-speaking people in those days, this is what they read:
                    “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.”
 
          Clough interpreted this double event as more than coincidence. He felt that the Lord had spoken to him. “The foolish . . .  the weak . . . the base . . . the things which are despised . . . .”  These terms described the outcastes exactly. There was only one course to take. Clough rejected the caste system, declaring that segregation had no place in the Baptist church of India. The outcastes were to be welcome to come to Christ, as were people of every caste, with the understanding that all are one in Christ Jesus. This historic decision brought converts by the hundreds, most of them outcastes. Clough felt sure that he had done the right thing.
          He insisted that the Madigas, as a test of their faith, should make three changes in their way of life. First, they must observe Sunday as a holy day. Second, they must stop eating carrion, and third, they must refrain from pagan ceremonies. All three of these demands created problems in the community: the first, because their employers wanted them to work on Sunday; the second, because there were now many dead cows lying around; and the third, because the outcastes could no longer be the village entertainers. Thus, the Madigas I Clough found themselves under great tension. Clough himself was placed under great pressure by the leading citizens, first because he had violated the caste system but now also because he had created conflict between the once servile outcastes and their “betters.”
          But Clough survived these problems and went on to deal with others. In the years of 1876-1878, India suffered from a great famine. With the compassion of the Christ who fed the five thousand, he threw all his energies into feeding the hungry with the help of money raised through his appeals in England and the United States. To help the people earn money to buy the scarce and expensive food that was available, he contracted with the British Government to build a four-mile irrigation canal, thus providing many jobs.
          During rest periods on the canal project, native preachers serving as overseers read the Bible to the workers and taught them the gospel. Many of the natives, moved by this preaching and convinced of Clough’s sincerity by his works of mercy, desired to become Christians. For fifteen months, Clough refused to baptize them, for he did not want “rice Christians” (that is, people who accepted Christ insincerely in order to get food). Not until he had examined each of them personally and become convinced of their sincerity did he accept them for baptism. Their response convinced him so completely that he could no longer hold them back.
          Accordingly, Clough one day stood under a grove of trees on the riverbank and supervised his ordained native preachers as they baptized great numbers of people. That was a day never to be forgotten. The baptizing started a 6 A.M, and by 5 P.M. the number of persons immersed had reached 2,222. They continued to baptize for the next two days until the total reached 3,536 Indian converts, more than were baptized on the day of Pentecost.
          The next year, Clough and his helpers toured among the villages and continued their baptizing. In 39 days they baptized a total of 8,691 persons. During this time Clough also ordained 24 Telugu preachers. So amazing was the revival movement that there were 20,865 Christians connected with the Ongole field by the year 1882, less than twenty years after Clough had begun his work. To this day Ongole remains an important Baptist center in South India, including a secondary school, a junior college, a hospital, a clinic, and a boarding home among its facilities – all because John Clough had the courage to begin by accepting the outcastes.
 
COMMUNION