September 21, 2025 • 22 mins
Have you ever wondered about the real meaning behind Jesus's parable of the sheep and goats? This exploration of Matthew 25 takes us beyond simple interpretations into the heart of what it means to serve others.
The journey begins with a humorous confession about a teaching mishap involving teenagers and a misquoted Bible verse, setting the stage for a fresh look at familiar scripture. As we dig deeper into the text, profound questions emerge: What happens to grace in a story where people seem judged solely on their actions? Who exactly are "the least of these who are members of my family" that Jesus mentions? Does this refer only to fellow Christians or to all of humanity?
When paired with Jesus's Good Samaritan parable, we discover a revolutionary understanding of service that transcends tribal, religious, and cultural boundaries. This message resonates deeply because we all recognize moments in our lives when we have been "the least of these" – perhaps not lacking food or water, but experiencing vulnerability in other ways.
Through vivid stories of youth mission trips – from building wheelchair ramps on Native American reservations to constructing homes in Mexico amid challenging conditions – we witness the paradoxical truth Christians have discovered through centuries of faithful service: joy isn't just something we bring to service; it's what we discover through service. Standing just yards from the border fence between Mexico and the United States provides a powerful metaphor for the arbitrary divisions we create in a world where all are meant to be served.
Ready to discover the secret Christians know about service? Listen now to uncover how becoming a blessing to others might be the surest path to experiencing blessing yourself.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Darren (00:00):
I start today with a little bit of advice.
If you find yourself teachingthis passage with a bunch of
young people teenagers, let'ssay, maybe even you're on
retreat with a bunch ofteenagers and maybe even it is
(00:23):
the culminating talk of theretreat and you're at the
campfire and everybody's reallypulled together and you're
trying to solidify that themeand you begin to teach this
passage and amidst all the I washungry and you gave me
(00:44):
something to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave mesomething to drink you
mistakenly say I was naked andyou visited me.
That is going to lose theteenager crowd.
That is going to elicit laughsand joy and any real hope that
(01:08):
you might have driven your pointhome about the value of service
will be lost.
You may as well just pull outthe s'mores material and go for
it.
That's just my advice to you ifyou are teaching this.
The irony is it's a pretty goodstory to open a sermon 25 years
(01:29):
later.
Pretty good, I guess.
Matthew 25, somewhat familiarpassage, I think, probably
people who have journeyed for abit with their Bible and
happened on this.
It's a significant teachingfrom Jesus and Matthew, pretty
straightforward too.
(01:50):
We're supposed to serve others,right?
Nothing too provocative there.
We kind of know that was one ofJesus's things, right.
But it is interesting when youactually dig in like you might
getting ready for a sermon andlike one question you might ask
we got these sheep and thesegoats and we're all like dang, I
(02:12):
don't want to be a goat, and itthrows you into this place of
well, where's grace then?
That unconditional love?
Where did it find its place?
Is there no redemption for thegoats among us?
A second question is what's thenature of this blessing right,
(02:33):
with the king separating sheepand goats, the sheep who served
others and the goats who did notserve others?
Is God handing out judgments?
Is that how this works?
Is God handing out judgments?
Is that how this works?
Or is it something like maybesome sense of the work being the
(02:56):
blessing itself, the serving ofothers being its own blessing?
It may help us answer thisquestion of God's grace.
In this passage, that grace,that unconditional love, is
still there.
It's just us.
We cheated ourselves if wechose this goat route because we
didn't get the blessing ofbeing able to serve, to know
(03:17):
what that feels like, to knowwhat that relationship feels
like.
Now another interesting questionabout this passage, and we're
doing like Bible study, to startthis thing.
Some of y'all really like Biblestudy.
So here's, you're getting alittle bit of it.
And another interestingquestion, this last line.
The king says truly, I tell you, just as you did it to the
(03:40):
least of one of these who aremembers of my family, you did it
to me.
Interesting little caveat thereTo those who did it to the
least of those in my family, youdid it to me.
Who's that family?
(04:01):
Would that be the Christians?
Is it the Christian family?
Is he implying that this king'sfamily is just Christians?
Right, and we know the king issupposed to be talking about God
and God's kingdom, meaning thewhole world.
So is he talking about just theChristians or was he really
(04:23):
implying the king's family,god's family, being all of
humanity?
Are we to only serve the leastof just the Christians?
It's an interesting distinctionto me.
As I'm reading it I'm like, ohwell, that's disappointing.
You complicated this, matthew,you got it in there.
(04:47):
And Matthew, for those of us whostudy our Gospels we know he's
a little more hierarchical, he'sa little more tied to the
Judaic origins, so these kindsof distinctions sometimes are a
little easier for him.
But it's to me a little bit ofa scary distinction, because
we're creating this kind ofseparation, this illusion of a
(05:12):
hierarchy amongst humanity thatone is better than another.
And my problem, my concern, myanxiety does this lead to some
real division in a culture, in acommunity, in a society, a
division where everybody thinks,well, they're in the right,
(05:33):
right, we're in the king'sfamily, you're not in the king's
.
Well, you know why you're notin the king's family.
It's because you do that.
Well, wait a minute, I'm in theking's family because I do this
, and you can see how thedivisions would start.
And it may look a little bitlike our culture looks today.
I don't know, but I would putthis passage up against a story,
(05:56):
maybe from Luke's gospel, thestory of the Good Samaritan.
Some of you, many of you,another famous story we'll
remember.
It's the story of the man whogets robbed and beaten, left for
dead, on his trip right, andother folks who are supposedly
the ones who would help him.
Don't help him, but who helpshim?
(06:17):
The good Samaritan.
And I'll remind you, we werekind of rivals, slash enemies,
with the Samaritans.
So for the Samaritan to stopwas actually not expected.
That was contrary, that'scounterintuitive.
And so Jesus was pointing out,when he asked the question, who
(06:37):
was the real neighbor, and itwas the good Samaritan, the one
who helped him out.
But Samaritan the one whohelped him out.
It really does help us get afuller idea, I think, of what
Jesus means when he says we gotto love our neighbor, and who
our neighbor is.
It's not just members of theking's family, but it's all of
(07:01):
us, even our rivals, even ourenemies.
Nobody should be bereft of thelove that we have been given to
share with the world, inwhatever forms we share that
love, in whatever forms we offerit to others.
We wouldn't want to pretendthat everybody's all lovey-dovey
(07:22):
.
We know the world can bechallenging, but there's always
a form of love that we can share, you know.
Taken with this emphasis, it'seasy to me why people find
comfort in this passage abouthelping the least.
We like the idea that the leastare being taken care of.
(07:47):
Even in our current culturalenvironment, where we have
concerns about whether we canafford to care for everyone,
it's very few of us, I think,who don't want the needy to get
the basics.
We want to know people arebeing taken care of.
We like this ethos, we likethis belief.
(08:08):
I think also that is why welike this teaching, because we
all recognize that in some ways,in certain aspects of our lives
and in our hearts, in ourjourney, we are the least of
these.
(08:28):
We know what our ownvulnerabilities are.
Maybe it's not water, maybeit's not food, but maybe it's
love, maybe it's confidence,security.
We know there are times when weare the least of these, or at
(08:49):
least feel to be the least ofthese, and so we're comforted by
this passage that says theleast of these are going to be
cared for, they're going to belooked after.
It lands me right back to thisguiding vision of the United
Methodist Church here in 2025.
(09:12):
And we tackle the second piecetoday serving joyfully.
Serving joyfully, pay yourtaxes Joyfully, clean your room
Joyfully, do all the detail workJoyfully.
(09:39):
Doesn't it feel a little bitlike that?
Serving Wait a minute, Okay, wedo it because we're supposed to
, but don't put this marker onit.
I don't have to be happy aboutit, am I right?
Clearly, we're being urged bythe United Methodist Church and
(10:00):
through this passage, reallyfrom Christ, from Christianity,
really from Christ fromChristianity, to serve others.
So in the journey, it took me toa story of my own life.
I did a lot of youth work.
I was one of those.
For a while I thought I mightbe a lifer.
(10:21):
You know that was what I wasgoing to do, that was my calling
.
And then I got tired ofsleeping on the floor at
lock-ins, got to recognize yourcall.
But one year, many years backI'm in the 90s, right when Nancy
(10:41):
was doing her work here withyour youth and we would go and
take our church youth to SierraService Project, which I think
you did a few times.
I think that is part of yourhistory here.
Yeah right, sierra ServiceProject great program.
You go off and you work onNative American reservations.
You do work on their homes toget them more safe, get them
(11:02):
more sealed and protected, andyou learn about another culture
too, which is kind of cool.
Well, I remember when I firstlearned about Sierra Service
Project and I was readingthrough and I says, oh and look,
they pay you $150 to go to thisthing.
Then you read a little furtherand like, oh, no, you pay them
(11:23):
$150 for the capacity, for theability to go and serve.
So I ended up.
I thought, well, this willnever work.
But then I ended up at a churchthat goes every year, right.
So I start going and I'm okay,I get this, I get this.
I feel the warmth in my heartfrom this.
(11:44):
I feel like our young peopleare learning the value of this.
I feel the warmth in my heartfrom this.
I feel like our young peopleare learning the value of this.
So we went to SSP every singleyear, and there was one year I
had been going enough that someof my kids were now going to be
going to their fourth SSP and Ithought, okay, I can feel
(12:05):
they're ready for some movement,right, something.
What's the next step we couldtake here?
And so we started looking at aMexico mission and we were up in
Northern California.
So that included more of adrive than it would have been
from here.
But a Mexico mission split myyouth group.
I'm going to take my older kidsto Mexico.
My younger kids we're all goingto go to SSP again, and that
(12:29):
year we took it was 63, I thinkunique people on mission in that
summer, and so I wear it.
It's a stripe I got.
We took a lot of people onmission.
Here's how I plan this outthough young and foolish, we go
to SSP.
We come back on a Saturday.
(12:50):
I sleep in my own bed one nightand on Sunday we drive to
Mexico Back-to-back missions.
Second one, a mission we hadn'tdone before, so it's a first go
.
So we take our younger kids,we're all up at SSP.
It's a really good trip, thekinds of things you would do.
(13:11):
We learned about roofing, welearned about building
wheelchair ramps, we learnedabout building decks.
We're doing drywall in thehouses, a lot of painting
actually, because that'ssomething that doesn't take too
much training to be able to do.
But we're getting into thesehomes and especially the kids
(13:32):
are looking and they're seeingthe need and then they're
getting to fill that need.
So it really was every yearjust such a good experience.
But we come back, we have somecar troubles, the whole deal,
you know.
And I get back.
It's Saturday and I'm sittingon my couch and I'm thinking I
(13:53):
got to go to Mexico tomorrowafter this whole SSP adventure.
Right, and I think we were inParadise Valley that year, which
is the desert, and I was onroofing, so I was roofing in
like 105 degree weather.
So I'm like, all right, here wego, tough guy's going to make
(14:13):
this work.
So we show up on the Saturday,I get one night in my bed.
The next morning we brought bothgroups together into church, we
celebrated the younger onescoming back, we sent off the
older ones, we all hop into vansand we start cruising down
Interstate 5, coming down to goto Mexico, and we start
(14:35):
realizing that hot air isblowing through the vents onto
everybody.
In my big bus, you know.
So, all nine, 10 people thatare behind me, and there's one
of these, uh, uh, well, 15passengers with the van with the
back bent, taken out.
That's really hot, right, andwe're like what's going on?
What's going on?
Meanwhile, driver, this guy isblowing.
(14:58):
Fine, I'm getting cold air,it's great.
Well, the teenagers behind meare like, oh, it's all fine.
But I look back, they're takingtheir shirts off, they're
sitting there in the back like,hey, it's hot.
And what am I going to say?
It's really hot.
And you know, put your jacketson.
I can't say this.
So we get down.
We're halfway down.
We stay at my folks' house.
(15:19):
There's 25 people in my folks'house.
How many beds do you have inyour house?
They had about the same amountin my parents house, right, and
so we're staying there.
We took them down to thecommunity pool.
We hosed them all off, so theywere, you know, clean them up.
(15:40):
But I had to go down, take thevan down, to figure out what the
heck was going on with the coolair and the hot air.
And so finally, I'm talking tothe Chevron guy and he asks me
this question right?
He says, all right, there's aflap in there, it's broken.
You've got to choose.
Do you want all hot or all cold?
I almost punched him in theface.
(16:02):
It was July and we're going toMexico, punched him in the face.
It was July and we're going toMexico.
Cold please, I said withoutsarcasm.
But then we go down.
You know, and I've never donethis thing I'm taking a bunch of
kids into Mexico.
They've got this thing.
They escort you over.
You're like, okay, I hope thisall works well.
And we get in and everythingseems to be going all right.
(16:23):
And then we get to the site,get in and everything seems to
be going all right.
And then we get to the siteright, the site where we're
going to more ministries youcamp, so we have all of the
equipment you need to camp,right.
And you walk in and it's justthis clearing, maybe football
size clearing and they're likeokay, just find a spot on dirt
(16:45):
and I'm looking around, I'm nota camper, I had campers with me,
I'm not a camper.
And I looked around and I wentwhat have you done?
You brought all these kids tothis crazy place, and you know.
So I'll be honest with you.
I grabbed a chair, I sat downand I said I need to sit for a
(17:05):
while.
You guys get started.
Cool thing happens, though.
That thing was set up in a halfhour.
They had dinner going in about45 minutes.
They all came together.
This crew of young people andthe adults that I brought down
really came together.
It was really pretty cool,right.
And so the next day we start onour work adventure with the more
(17:28):
industries you're doing kind ofreal work.
We had to lay a slab, then wewere going to build up walls and
then have stucco walls and thenwe were going to have a roll
roofing kind of roof.
But we're building a building.
We're not fixing stuff, we'rebuilding something.
I remember day one we had extralarge crew because it was our
first go and I decided I'drather do that than do two
(17:51):
houses, right?
So we get about two-thirds donewith this slab that needs to be
built and it starts gettingdark and I'm looking at my kids
again figuring.
We got to drive back to ourwork site and I foolishly asked
the workers.
I said, well, can we stop attwo-thirds and then we'll do the
rest of the slab tomorrow?
(18:13):
Any builders out here?
How dumb a question was thatone.
Right there, you start a slab,you got to finish the slab.
That's just how it works, right?
But we hammer it out and we'redoing the thing and we're mixing
concrete.
Next day we get our structuretogether and putting all the
things in and finally we'reclimbing on the roof and we're
(18:33):
putting all the roofing on.
We do the stucco.
It was just an amazing adventurebecause we thought we had seen
need on the Native Americanreservations.
Right, we thought that was realneed.
Then we went to Mexico andwe're like holy smoke, there are
houses that had garage doors.
There are houses that hadgarage doors, likely from up
(18:57):
here in the States, that wereroofs that they had just put on
the top of what was going on.
And obviously you're not goingto seal a house that way.
You're just sort of shieldingyourself.
And it was such an eye-opener Iremember distinctly at our work
site.
They pointed to a big, tallfence that we were maybe 50
yards away from and they said tome that's America.
(19:20):
It was the weirdest thing,because we have this such a huge
distinction between Mexico andthe United States, and then to
be staring at the literaldistinction, which was just this
tall fence, that we as humanbeings decided should go there.
It was just such an eye-openerto the way our world has worked
(19:45):
and the way it's beenestablished.
But we had a great time.
We were camping in the eveningand cooking and then we were
working all day.
We got this house piecedtogether.
We ended up coming back onschedule, which was cool, and
had a little fun on the way home, went to Laguna, laguna, maine
Beach, played a littlebasketball, even got all the way
(20:08):
home and I remember after thefirst week I was like I need a
break.
I got to take a couple of dayswhen we finished the second trip
, got back on a Saturday, hadchurch worship on a Sunday.
I showed up to work Mondaymorning ready to go.
(20:32):
I think there's some secret thatChristians have, and some other
groups too, but we Christianswe're kind of focused on it a
little bit.
The secret is we know the joyin serving others.
We know the blessing that comesto us when we serve others.
We know the blessing that comesto us when we serve others.
(20:53):
We know the best way to get ablessing is to be a blessing.
So when I see something like weneed to serve joyfully, I don't
hear it with that sort of oddconnotation you need to clean
(21:17):
your room joyfully.
You need to get your house inorder joyfully.
You need to take your car intothe mechanic joyfully.
I don't hear it like that.
I hear it as a reminder of thejoy that comes from being part
(21:38):
of the team that delivers joy,that delivers wholeness, that
delivers healing, that deliverslove to the rest of the world.
We know there's joy inrecognizing and having an
experience of being part of thebody of Christ and the
(21:59):
empowerment that comes fromfeeling that I'm not just
working alone here.
I'm part of this movementthat's blessing this world,
that's building this kingdom,that's strengthening the love
with which God has given us toshare, serving joyfully.
(22:21):
It can feel like a command, butwe know differently, don't we?
Amen.
I start today with a little bit of advice.
If you find yourself teachingthis passage with a bunch of
young people teenagers, let'ssay, maybe even you're on
retreat with a bunch ofteenagers and maybe even it is
(00:23):
the culminating talk of theretreat and you're at the
campfire and everybody's reallypulled together and you're
trying to solidify that themeand you begin to teach this
passage and amidst all the I washungry and you gave me
(00:44):
something to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave mesomething to drink you
mistakenly say I was naked andyou visited me.
That is going to lose theteenager crowd.
That is going to elicit laughsand joy and any real hope that
(01:08):
you might have driven your pointhome about the value of service
will be lost.
You may as well just pull outthe s'mores material and go for
it.
That's just my advice to you ifyou are teaching this.
The irony is it's a pretty goodstory to open a sermon 25 years
(01:29):
later.
Pretty good, I guess.
Matthew 25, somewhat familiarpassage, I think, probably
people who have journeyed for abit with their Bible and
happened on this.
It's a significant teachingfrom Jesus and Matthew, pretty
straightforward too.
(01:50):
We're supposed to serve others,right?
Nothing too provocative there.
We kind of know that was one ofJesus's things, right.
But it is interesting when youactually dig in like you might
getting ready for a sermon andlike one question you might ask
we got these sheep and thesegoats and we're all like dang, I
(02:12):
don't want to be a goat, and itthrows you into this place of
well, where's grace then?
That unconditional love?
Where did it find its place?
Is there no redemption for thegoats among us?
A second question is what's thenature of this blessing right,
(02:33):
with the king separating sheepand goats, the sheep who served
others and the goats who did notserve others?
Is God handing out judgments?
Is that how this works?
Is God handing out judgments?
Is that how this works?
Or is it something like maybesome sense of the work being the
(02:56):
blessing itself, the serving ofothers being its own blessing?
It may help us answer thisquestion of God's grace.
In this passage, that grace,that unconditional love, is
still there.
It's just us.
We cheated ourselves if wechose this goat route because we
didn't get the blessing ofbeing able to serve, to know
(03:17):
what that feels like, to knowwhat that relationship feels
like.
Now another interesting questionabout this passage, and we're
doing like Bible study, to startthis thing.
Some of y'all really like Biblestudy.
So here's, you're getting alittle bit of it.
And another interestingquestion, this last line.
The king says truly, I tell you, just as you did it to the
(03:40):
least of one of these who aremembers of my family, you did it
to me.
Interesting little caveat thereTo those who did it to the
least of those in my family, youdid it to me.
Who's that family?
(04:01):
Would that be the Christians?
Is it the Christian family?
Is he implying that this king'sfamily is just Christians?
Right, and we know the king issupposed to be talking about God
and God's kingdom, meaning thewhole world.
So is he talking about just theChristians or was he really
(04:23):
implying the king's family,god's family, being all of
humanity?
Are we to only serve the leastof just the Christians?
It's an interesting distinctionto me.
As I'm reading it I'm like, ohwell, that's disappointing.
You complicated this, matthew,you got it in there.
(04:47):
And Matthew, for those of us whostudy our Gospels we know he's
a little more hierarchical, he'sa little more tied to the
Judaic origins, so these kindsof distinctions sometimes are a
little easier for him.
But it's to me a little bit ofa scary distinction, because
we're creating this kind ofseparation, this illusion of a
(05:12):
hierarchy amongst humanity thatone is better than another.
And my problem, my concern, myanxiety does this lead to some
real division in a culture, in acommunity, in a society, a
division where everybody thinks,well, they're in the right,
(05:33):
right, we're in the king'sfamily, you're not in the king's
.
Well, you know why you're notin the king's family.
It's because you do that.
Well, wait a minute, I'm in theking's family because I do this
, and you can see how thedivisions would start.
And it may look a little bitlike our culture looks today.
I don't know, but I would putthis passage up against a story,
(05:56):
maybe from Luke's gospel, thestory of the Good Samaritan.
Some of you, many of you,another famous story we'll
remember.
It's the story of the man whogets robbed and beaten, left for
dead, on his trip right, andother folks who are supposedly
the ones who would help him.
Don't help him, but who helpshim?
(06:17):
The good Samaritan.
And I'll remind you, we werekind of rivals, slash enemies,
with the Samaritans.
So for the Samaritan to stopwas actually not expected.
That was contrary, that'scounterintuitive.
And so Jesus was pointing out,when he asked the question, who
(06:37):
was the real neighbor, and itwas the good Samaritan, the one
who helped him out.
But Samaritan the one whohelped him out.
It really does help us get afuller idea, I think, of what
Jesus means when he says we gotto love our neighbor, and who
our neighbor is.
It's not just members of theking's family, but it's all of
(07:01):
us, even our rivals, even ourenemies.
Nobody should be bereft of thelove that we have been given to
share with the world, inwhatever forms we share that
love, in whatever forms we offerit to others.
We wouldn't want to pretendthat everybody's all lovey-dovey
(07:22):
.
We know the world can bechallenging, but there's always
a form of love that we can share, you know.
Taken with this emphasis, it'seasy to me why people find
comfort in this passage abouthelping the least.
We like the idea that the leastare being taken care of.
(07:47):
Even in our current culturalenvironment, where we have
concerns about whether we canafford to care for everyone,
it's very few of us, I think,who don't want the needy to get
the basics.
We want to know people arebeing taken care of.
We like this ethos, we likethis belief.
(08:08):
I think also that is why welike this teaching, because we
all recognize that in some ways,in certain aspects of our lives
and in our hearts, in ourjourney, we are the least of
these.
(08:28):
We know what our ownvulnerabilities are.
Maybe it's not water, maybeit's not food, but maybe it's
love, maybe it's confidence,security.
We know there are times when weare the least of these, or at
(08:49):
least feel to be the least ofthese, and so we're comforted by
this passage that says theleast of these are going to be
cared for, they're going to belooked after.
It lands me right back to thisguiding vision of the United
Methodist Church here in 2025.
(09:12):
And we tackle the second piecetoday serving joyfully.
Serving joyfully, pay yourtaxes Joyfully, clean your room
Joyfully, do all the detail workJoyfully.
(09:39):
Doesn't it feel a little bitlike that?
Serving Wait a minute, Okay, wedo it because we're supposed to
, but don't put this marker onit.
I don't have to be happy aboutit, am I right?
Clearly, we're being urged bythe United Methodist Church and
(10:00):
through this passage, reallyfrom Christ, from Christianity,
really from Christ fromChristianity, to serve others.
So in the journey, it took me toa story of my own life.
I did a lot of youth work.
I was one of those.
For a while I thought I mightbe a lifer.
(10:21):
You know that was what I wasgoing to do, that was my calling
.
And then I got tired ofsleeping on the floor at
lock-ins, got to recognize yourcall.
But one year, many years backI'm in the 90s, right when Nancy
(10:41):
was doing her work here withyour youth and we would go and
take our church youth to SierraService Project, which I think
you did a few times.
I think that is part of yourhistory here.
Yeah right, sierra ServiceProject great program.
You go off and you work onNative American reservations.
You do work on their homes toget them more safe, get them
(11:02):
more sealed and protected, andyou learn about another culture
too, which is kind of cool.
Well, I remember when I firstlearned about Sierra Service
Project and I was readingthrough and I says, oh and look,
they pay you $150 to go to thisthing.
Then you read a little furtherand like, oh, no, you pay them
(11:23):
$150 for the capacity, for theability to go and serve.
So I ended up.
I thought, well, this willnever work.
But then I ended up at a churchthat goes every year, right.
So I start going and I'm okay,I get this, I get this.
I feel the warmth in my heartfrom this.
(11:44):
I feel like our young peopleare learning the value of this.
I feel the warmth in my heartfrom this.
I feel like our young peopleare learning the value of this.
So we went to SSP every singleyear, and there was one year I
had been going enough that someof my kids were now going to be
going to their fourth SSP and Ithought, okay, I can feel
(12:05):
they're ready for some movement,right, something.
What's the next step we couldtake here?
And so we started looking at aMexico mission and we were up in
Northern California.
So that included more of adrive than it would have been
from here.
But a Mexico mission split myyouth group.
I'm going to take my older kidsto Mexico.
My younger kids we're all goingto go to SSP again, and that
(12:29):
year we took it was 63, I thinkunique people on mission in that
summer, and so I wear it.
It's a stripe I got.
We took a lot of people onmission.
Here's how I plan this outthough young and foolish, we go
to SSP.
We come back on a Saturday.
(12:50):
I sleep in my own bed one nightand on Sunday we drive to
Mexico Back-to-back missions.
Second one, a mission we hadn'tdone before, so it's a first go
.
So we take our younger kids,we're all up at SSP.
It's a really good trip, thekinds of things you would do.
(13:11):
We learned about roofing, welearned about building
wheelchair ramps, we learnedabout building decks.
We're doing drywall in thehouses, a lot of painting
actually, because that'ssomething that doesn't take too
much training to be able to do.
But we're getting into thesehomes and especially the kids
(13:32):
are looking and they're seeingthe need and then they're
getting to fill that need.
So it really was every yearjust such a good experience.
But we come back, we have somecar troubles, the whole deal,
you know.
And I get back.
It's Saturday and I'm sittingon my couch and I'm thinking I
(13:53):
got to go to Mexico tomorrowafter this whole SSP adventure.
Right, and I think we were inParadise Valley that year, which
is the desert, and I was onroofing, so I was roofing in
like 105 degree weather.
So I'm like, all right, here wego, tough guy's going to make
(14:13):
this work.
So we show up on the Saturday,I get one night in my bed.
The next morning we brought bothgroups together into church, we
celebrated the younger onescoming back, we sent off the
older ones, we all hop into vansand we start cruising down
Interstate 5, coming down to goto Mexico, and we start
(14:35):
realizing that hot air isblowing through the vents onto
everybody.
In my big bus, you know.
So, all nine, 10 people thatare behind me, and there's one
of these, uh, uh, well, 15passengers with the van with the
back bent, taken out.
That's really hot, right, andwe're like what's going on?
What's going on?
Meanwhile, driver, this guy isblowing.
(14:58):
Fine, I'm getting cold air,it's great.
Well, the teenagers behind meare like, oh, it's all fine.
But I look back, they're takingtheir shirts off, they're
sitting there in the back like,hey, it's hot.
And what am I going to say?
It's really hot.
And you know, put your jacketson.
I can't say this.
So we get down.
We're halfway down.
We stay at my folks' house.
(15:19):
There's 25 people in my folks'house.
How many beds do you have inyour house?
They had about the same amountin my parents house, right, and
so we're staying there.
We took them down to thecommunity pool.
We hosed them all off, so theywere, you know, clean them up.
(15:40):
But I had to go down, take thevan down, to figure out what the
heck was going on with the coolair and the hot air.
And so finally, I'm talking tothe Chevron guy and he asks me
this question right?
He says, all right, there's aflap in there, it's broken.
You've got to choose.
Do you want all hot or all cold?
I almost punched him in theface.
(16:02):
It was July and we're going toMexico, punched him in the face.
It was July and we're going toMexico.
Cold please, I said withoutsarcasm.
But then we go down.
You know, and I've never donethis thing I'm taking a bunch of
kids into Mexico.
They've got this thing.
They escort you over.
You're like, okay, I hope thisall works well.
And we get in and everythingseems to be going all right.
(16:23):
And then we get to the site,get in and everything seems to
be going all right.
And then we get to the siteright, the site where we're
going to more ministries youcamp, so we have all of the
equipment you need to camp,right.
And you walk in and it's justthis clearing, maybe football
size clearing and they're likeokay, just find a spot on dirt
(16:45):
and I'm looking around, I'm nota camper, I had campers with me,
I'm not a camper.
And I looked around and I wentwhat have you done?
You brought all these kids tothis crazy place, and you know.
So I'll be honest with you.
I grabbed a chair, I sat downand I said I need to sit for a
(17:05):
while.
You guys get started.
Cool thing happens, though.
That thing was set up in a halfhour.
They had dinner going in about45 minutes.
They all came together.
This crew of young people andthe adults that I brought down
really came together.
It was really pretty cool,right.
And so the next day we start onour work adventure with the more
(17:28):
industries you're doing kind ofreal work.
We had to lay a slab, then wewere going to build up walls and
then have stucco walls and thenwe were going to have a roll
roofing kind of roof.
But we're building a building.
We're not fixing stuff, we'rebuilding something.
I remember day one we had extralarge crew because it was our
first go and I decided I'drather do that than do two
(17:51):
houses, right?
So we get about two-thirds donewith this slab that needs to be
built and it starts gettingdark and I'm looking at my kids
again figuring.
We got to drive back to ourwork site and I foolishly asked
the workers.
I said, well, can we stop attwo-thirds and then we'll do the
rest of the slab tomorrow?
(18:13):
Any builders out here?
How dumb a question was thatone.
Right there, you start a slab,you got to finish the slab.
That's just how it works, right?
But we hammer it out and we'redoing the thing and we're mixing
concrete.
Next day we get our structuretogether and putting all the
things in and finally we'reclimbing on the roof and we're
(18:33):
putting all the roofing on.
We do the stucco.
It was just an amazing adventurebecause we thought we had seen
need on the Native Americanreservations.
Right, we thought that was realneed.
Then we went to Mexico andwe're like holy smoke, there are
houses that had garage doors.
There are houses that hadgarage doors, likely from up
(18:57):
here in the States, that wereroofs that they had just put on
the top of what was going on.
And obviously you're not goingto seal a house that way.
You're just sort of shieldingyourself.
And it was such an eye-opener Iremember distinctly at our work
site.
They pointed to a big, tallfence that we were maybe 50
yards away from and they said tome that's America.
(19:20):
It was the weirdest thing,because we have this such a huge
distinction between Mexico andthe United States, and then to
be staring at the literaldistinction, which was just this
tall fence, that we as humanbeings decided should go there.
It was just such an eye-openerto the way our world has worked
(19:45):
and the way it's beenestablished.
But we had a great time.
We were camping in the eveningand cooking and then we were
working all day.
We got this house piecedtogether.
We ended up coming back onschedule, which was cool, and
had a little fun on the way home, went to Laguna, laguna, maine
Beach, played a littlebasketball, even got all the way
(20:08):
home and I remember after thefirst week I was like I need a
break.
I got to take a couple of dayswhen we finished the second trip
, got back on a Saturday, hadchurch worship on a Sunday.
I showed up to work Mondaymorning ready to go.
(20:32):
I think there's some secret thatChristians have, and some other
groups too, but we Christianswe're kind of focused on it a
little bit.
The secret is we know the joyin serving others.
We know the blessing that comesto us when we serve others.
We know the blessing that comesto us when we serve others.
(20:53):
We know the best way to get ablessing is to be a blessing.
So when I see something like weneed to serve joyfully, I don't
hear it with that sort of oddconnotation you need to clean
(21:17):
your room joyfully.
You need to get your house inorder joyfully.
You need to take your car intothe mechanic joyfully.
I don't hear it like that.
I hear it as a reminder of thejoy that comes from being part
(21:38):
of the team that delivers joy,that delivers wholeness, that
delivers healing, that deliverslove to the rest of the world.
We know there's joy inrecognizing and having an
experience of being part of thebody of Christ and the
(21:59):
empowerment that comes fromfeeling that I'm not just
working alone here.
I'm part of this movementthat's blessing this world,
that's building this kingdom,that's strengthening the love
with which God has given us toshare, serving joyfully.
(22:21):
It can feel like a command, butwe know differently, don't we?
Amen.
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