The Last Chapter?

            Mike Kollin, a former linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, was asked to do some recruiting for his old team.  The linebacker said, "Sure, coach, what kind of player are you looking for?"

            The coach said, "Well, Mike, you know there's that fellow, you knock him down, he just stays down?"  Mike said, "We don't want him, do we, coach?"

            "No, that's right.  Then there's that fellow, you knock him down and he gets up, but you knock him down again and he stays down."

            Mike answered, "We don't want him either, do we, coach?"

            Coach said, "No, but Mike, there's a fellow, you knock him down, he gets up. Knock him down, he gets up.  Knock him down, he gets up.  Knock him down, he gets up." 

            Mike said, "That's the guy we want, isn't it, coach?"

            "No, we don't want him either.  I want you to find that guy who's knocking everybody down.  That's the guy we want!" (ill unlmtd, 466)

            Now, isn't that just the way it is?  Whether you're talking football, business, school, or just life, it seems like the people who are pursued by all the big name teams and get the six figure salaries are the ones who are always a step ahead, always able to level all their opponents, always on the winning end. But the reality for most of us is that we are more like the guy who keeps getting knocked down.  And failure is a common experience. 

            There is a very old riddle that gradually evolved into a well-known nursery rhyme.  Here's the riddle:  "What, when broken, can never be repaired, not even by strong or wise individuals?"    The answer:  an egg.  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.  All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again."  Both the riddle and the nursery rhyme echo a familiar feeling deep in our hearts.  The feeling that what is broken in us can never be repaired.     

            This feeling comes in many different varieties and springs from many different experiences.  When we were at the New Church Development conference last weekend, Ed and I were distressed to find out from some mutual acquaintances that a pastor friend of ours for whom we have had a great deal of respect, ended up having an affair, and has been suspended from the ministry for two years.  We were surprised to run into a colleague from the west coast who was no longer using her married name.  When I asked her about it she said that she came home one day and her husband's closet was empty.   And she was left with the sense of what did I do wrong?   Throughout the weekend, something that kept hitting me between the eyes was a repeated theme underlying many of the workshops and.  I heard four pastors tell their stories of how they were so absorbed in their work--so driven--that they lost all sense of how to take care of themselves and as a result had either a physical or emotional collapse.    

            Your story and mine would have different details than the ones of these people.  And yet not so different.  Some of us have done things we're not so proud of, others have worked ourselves into an unhealthy lifestyle, and for some of us, the events in our life have taken us to a place of frustration and deep searching.  And we know the questions:  Is it over for me?  Have I really gone beyond the point of no return this time?   It's a common feeling, isn't it, that nagging feeling that some event or decision has written the last chapter in our ministry or our personal growth.  It may be something that happened a long time ago, or maybe it was just yesterday, but the debilitating effects are unmistakeable.  Like Humpty Dumpty, we are broken and nothing can fix it.   

            In our story from the Bible we see a young man who can relate rather well to our feelings--John Mark.   He is a young man who very much wants to serve God.  Imagine his excitement when he is chosen to accompany the now famous evangelistic team of Paul and Barnabas.   In the world of evangelism this would be equivalent of being picked in the first round of the NFL draft by last years' Super Bowl team winner.   Of course, the fact that he's related to Barnabas may have helped get him the appointment.  He is totally jazzed.  I can imagine him at first being happy just to hold Paul's coat while he preached, or carry the suitcases and park the donkeys.   When he gets to preach himself, he stays up all night polishing up what he's going to say. 

            But then, along the way, something happens.  I don't know what it is.   Maybe he's scared.  Missionary work can be hazardous.  And Paul and Barnabas are about to go on a road that is known to be one of the most difficult and dangerous to walk.  Mark has already seen some of the violent reactions that both Paul and Barnabas get when they preach.  Maybe he is a little scared.  Or homesick.  Maybe he has a girlfriend back home.  Or a lucrative job.  Maybe the work was just too hard.  We don't know.  Luke just says that John left them and went back to Jerusalem.    That act earned him some new names:  deserter, quitter, Mr. Undependable.   Mark would not quickly forget that very decisive act.   And neither would Paul, the great Apostle. 

            Sometime later, when Paul and Barnabas are about to start off on the second missionary journey, Barnabas wants to take Mark again.   Paul is incensed.  And for a while he starts preaching the Gospel according to Humpty Dumpty.  Mark has shown his true colors already.  Let him stay home with his mother.  He's had his chance and he's blown it.   Mark, color yourself eggshell white with yellow blobs.  You can't go back and put those pieces back together.   You're not fit for the ministry, Mark.

.           Of course, the story of Humpty Dumpty--and Paul's attitude--both fail to take into account the Gospel and people like Barnabas who are unwilling to let "no" be the last word.  You may remember that  the name Barnabas means "son of encouragement" and he got this name by how he lived.  He had already shown himself to be a great encourager to many, including his friend Paul.  He knew that the grace of God was bigger than Mark's failure or immaturity.   So he insists on taking Mark along. 

            Paul and Barnabas are both adamant.  Neither will change his mind.  The argument becomes so heated that they end up going separate ways.  Suddenly instead of one missionary team, there are two--Barnabas and Mark, and Paul and Silas.  

            That's the last we hear of Mark, for about twenty years.  You won't find this in the Bible, but many people believe that Mark went to Alexandria and Egypt and started churches there.   At any rate, when he does show up again in the Bible, he is a different Mark.  He's a mature Christian who is respected by other Christian leaders.  Barnabas' ministry has done its healing and growth-producing work.  Even Paul, who was sure that Mark was Humpty Dumpty reincarnate, praises Mark in some of his letters.  You'll find some very affirmative comments in the letter to the Colossians and in a letter to Timothy.   Beyond that,  Mark, as you may know, is the one who is given credit for writing the very earliest of gospels in the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark. 

            So, maybe failure isn't the terrible thing we thought it was.  Maybe it can be a tool for learning. 

            There was a young man who had just been appointed president of a bank.  He'd never dreamed he'd be president, much less at such a young age.  So he went to the chairman of the board and said, "You know, I've just been appointed president.  I was wondering if you could give me some advice."  The old man came back with just two words:  "Right decisions!"  The young man had hoped for a bit more than this, so he said, "That's really helpful, and I appreciate it, but can you be more specific?  How do I make right decisions?"  The wise old man simply responded, "Experience."  The young man said, "Well, that's just the point of my being here.  I don't have the kind of experience I need.  How do I get it?"  The reply:  "Wrong decisions!"  (ill unlmtd, 186)

            Learning from our mistakes is a good thing.  If we all did that, the world would be a better place. 

            But when we turn to God in our failure, we go beyond just learning all the way to transformation. 

            (Insert:  Bruce Larson & leaders who fail)

            Do you remember the TV show that was on a few years ago called Quantum Leap?  Scott Bakula, who played the main character, was a time traveler.  And he was on a mission to make right the things that once went wrong.  What God does for us in Jesus Christ is something like that.  God makes right the things in us that once went wrong, and it involves a kind of time travel.  Jesus died on the cross a long time ago.  But, because of the resurrection, Jesus is able to reach forward into our time to be with us right here, right now.  Then, if we allow him to do so--for he will never force us--he reaches back in time to that place in our heart that is broken like Humpty Dumpty.   He reaches into that spot and does the impossible.  He puts Humpty Dumpty back together again.  Good as new. 

            No, better than new.  

            This is what God has done for John Mark.  And me.  And Ed.  It is what God does over and over again, as we continue to make mistakes, and as we rediscover old wounds.   It is what God wants to do in you. 

            Maybe as I've been talking you've been thinking about things in you that are broken and that give you those feelings of failure.  Things that you think can never change.  I invite you to open yourself to God and dare to believe that God can make it right.  Think of the Lord's Table as a kind of a time machine taking you back not just to the place and the time when you were broken in pieces, but all the way back to the day that Jesus walked out of the tomb, risen from the dead.  Open your heart to the power of the resurrection; open yourself to the healing and restoring work of Jesus.