Angels in the Treetops

The Exodus Series, Part 4 of 4

September 22, 1996

Exodus 16:2-15; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

In January of 1956 I loaded up a U-Haul and drove to the place where I was to begin my pastoral ministry. Cherry Valley is a tiny crossroad community, not even a village, in northeastern Ohio. I was twenty-five years old. As I began to learn the wonders of the pastorate, I was blissfully unaware of many problems and pitfalls. Amazing grace kept me safe sometimes in dangers I remember, and no doubt many times when I didn't have sense enough to recognize real danger. I did things backwards, I'm sure. I remember times when I was dreadfully afraid, and many times when I probably did the wrong thing.

But people in the community were saved. God blessed in many ways. God has been good to me, and given Helen and me four loving sons, and twelve wonderful grandchildren, and I have served churches where the congregations have treated me with love beyond what I deserve.

In that very same month, January 1956, a small group of young Christians just a little older than I were launching a new ministry as well. These were people with top-notch college and seminary educations, the kind who go to the very top in any field they enter. The one thing that distinguished this group was that they had totally dedicated their ambition to God.

This particular group had come together because they believed God wanted them to take the gospel of Christ to a tribe in South America where the life expectancy was barely 30 years of age, and where revenge and murder was the accepted way of life. Five wonderful, bright young Christian families believed God was leading them to take His Good News to these primitive people. They prepared in the best imaginable ways. It was as sophisticated and yet as dedicated a missionary endeavor as you could imagine, using aircraft and radio contacts. And then in their very first contact with the dangerous tribe all five men were killed.

Why have I put these two beginnings side by side? Am I comparing myself to those great martyrs? No— there is no comparison in my mind. I wouldn't change places with them, and I know they wouldn't change places with me. I have the CONTRAST in mind. Grace does not seem to treat us all alike, as the gospel lesson makes clear. But again today (as last week) we see several insights into the nature of God's grace:

[Last week speaking particularly about FORGIVENESS, we said:

GRACE IS OF GOD - HE ACTS
GRACE IS RELATIONAL - WE RESPOND TO GOD AND TO OTHERS
GRACE IS NOT 'FAIR' - IT IS LIFE-CHANGING

GRACE IS GOD'S BUSINESS, ON HIS TERMS

Our gospel lesson tells of contrasts in work and working conditions: "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hired people in the morning who worked all day in the sun— he hired them at nine, and noon, and three in the afternoon, and again he hired an hour before quitting time— and they all got a day's wage. The all-day workers cried foul. Humanly speaking, as the only way we can speak, it was unfair.

How God assigns, how God rewards, what God calls vital and important is finally His business. Our business is to follow the pillar of fire, the "Presence," where it leads. Our challenge is to believe, to trust that God will care for us.

GRACE IS GOOD, BUT IT DOESN'T MOVE TO OUR EXPECTATIONS

Exodus passage: underscores the very human traits of grumbling when things don't go was expected. What outside forces could NOT do— destroy the Exodus mission— internal dissension and bad will almost did do. The biggest headache Moses had was ...grumbling, complaining, murmuring—-

The people experienced some hunger ... and expressed their discontent. They made unfair comparisons. They remembered best times of slavery— Still on the journey, the Exodus no one starved... but some died from snakebite. Grace may be present and unrecognized, even despised; grace can be blacked out, even apparently defeated The miracle of manna is how God chose to feed his people. It required both faith and obedience. That lesson is echoed every time we pray the Lord's Prayer: "Give us THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD! Faith and obedience connect with God's grace! We have provision for today to be what God would have us be today.

GRACE IS NOT FAIR. IT IS UNDESERVED. IT IS GOOD.

When the five missionary martyrs died Life magazine carried pictures of red eyed widows, and corpses beginning to bloat in jungle heat. The reporters did make mention of the amazing calm of the women and children, and their lack of hatred and revenge spirit. But it was a sad, sad story. To a pure materialist there is no question that these people were deluded in the matter of life investment and spiritual reality. What a waste for people to study language and sociology, and to take expensive equipment into the moldy hot jungles only to be killed on their first encounter with their target tribe, and have their airplane torn apart.

The Christian world saw things somewhat differently from the start. It was not too long before the very same warriors who had killed the missionaries testified that the missionaries' God had conquered them, not with punishing power and vengeance, but with forgiveness and life-changing love.

But just recently the whole story has emerged. In the latest Christianity Today is an article by Steve Saint, who was a baby when his father, Nate Saint, was killed by the people he was trying to reach with the love of Jesus. I read to you:

"Why didn't he flee into the jungle?" Mincaye emphatically asked me. "If he would have fled, surely he would have lived. Instead, he just waited for Kimo to wade out and spear him."

Dawa, one of the three women, told me she had hidden in the bush through the attack, hearing but not seeing the killing of the five men. She told me she had been hit by gun pellets in the wrist and just above the knee. (The obviously came from random warning shots fired to scare the attacker, because Dawa was hiding on the far side of the narrow river and the men could not have known of her presence.) She also told me that after the killing she saw COWODI (Auca word for foreigners) above the trees, singing. She didn't know what this kind of music was until later she heard records of Aunt Rachel's and became familiar with the sound of a choir.

Mincaye and Kimo confirmed that they heard the singing and saw what Dawa seems to describe as angels along the ridge above Palm Beach. Dyuwi verified hearing the strange music, though he describes what he saw more like lights, moving around and shining, a sky full of jungle beetles similar to fireflies with a light that is brighter and doesn't blink. Apparently all the participants saw this bright multitude in the sky and felt they should be scared, because they knew it was something supernatural. Their only familiarity with the spiritual world was one of fear. Dawa has said that this supernatural experience was what drew her to God when she later heard of him from Dayuma. CT 9/16/96 26,7

Maybe that is something of what Paul meant when he wrote: Philippians 1:20, 27-29 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. ... Only live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is the evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God's doing. For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well— since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear I still have.

Did you get that one sentence? the end where Paul wrote: For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well—

We don't know where God's grace will lead us when we start out. AND THAT IS GOD'S BUSINESS! DO WE DARE TO FOLLOW? Steve Saint closed the article he wrote about his martyr father with this short paragraph:

God took five common young men of uncommon commitment and used them for his own glory. They never had the privilege they so enthusiastically pursued to tell the Huaroni of the God they loved and served. But for every Huaroni who today follows God's trail there are a thousand COWODI who follow God's trail more resolutely because of their example.

This success withheld from them in life God multiplied and continues to multiply as a memorial to their obedience and his faithfulness. CT 9/16/96 27

GRACE IS LOVE, IT IS HERE FOR US NOW IF WE WILL RECEIVE IT

If you decide to take the way of depending on God you may have forty years of ministry, or you may have a disaster so far as a humanist observer could see. Grace is not fair. Thank God it is not fair. But I feel sorry for the people who have no invisible means of support.

Prayer

Hymn # 443 I Know Whom I Have Believed