Andy

Text: John 1: 35-42
October 17, 2004, Dave Philips

 

 

How many of you are not the chief executive officers of the organization you work for? How many are not the first born children in your family? In both cases, the people who are not the CEOs and not the first born are the majority. My sermon this morning is about your patron saint, the disciple that Peter Marshall called the "saint of the rank and file."

His name was Andrew. I think if he were alive today and we knew him, we’d all call him Andy. He was the non-famous brother of his famous brother, Peter. We all know about Peter, but who knows anything about his little brother, Andy?

I don’t know for sure that Peter was the first born and Andy was the little brother, but I’m a little brother myself, and I have some sensitivity about the way little brothers behave when their big brothers are around. St. Andrew fits the pattern of behavior of the little brother.

There are only three mentions of anything that Andy did in the whole Bible, and in each case he was bringing somebody to meet Jesus. In the first case, it was his brother, Peter. In the second, it was a kid who was packing a sack lunch of five loaves of pita bread and a couple of fish. In the third, it was a group of Greeks who wanted to meet Jesus. That’s about all we know of Andrew from the Bible. The rest of the time he’s mentioned as just being there. He’s not one of the stars, just one of the extras on the set, so to speak.

Andy was not a leader, he was a follower. He was governed by the Andrew principle. The Peter principle of Simon Peter was: when in doubt, make a speech. Andrew seemed to be governed by a different principle. His principle seemed to be: when in doubt, make a friend.

Andy never did anything that merited notice but make friends. But just look what those friendships meant! In the first case mentioned, his friend was his brother. Andy brought his brother to meet Jesus, and the world has never been the same since, for it was Peter who hit the bull’s eye when Jesus asked the disciples, "Who am I?" And Peter said, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."¹

And when Andy brought that little kid to Jesus with his five pita loaves and his two fish, the result was the feeding of the 5,000. And when he brought the delegation of Greeks to meet Jesus, the result was the realization of the people of God that this message of Jesus is not just for a little group of uptight religionists in one corner of the world, it’s for the whole world for all time and eternity.

See what power a person like Andy has? All that because Andy had a sharp eye for people and was inclined to make friends with them and listen to them and take them seriously.

Andy is the patron saint of all of us who feel we have no significant gifts to give to Jesus. That’s not just the second born children and the non-CEOs, either. Many of us who are movers and shakers feel we have nothing to offer to Jesus. But Andy teaches us that the most important gifts of all are not the gifts we don’t have, but the gifts we have.

Andy had two gifts that everyone has. He had the gift of himself. He was available. He gave what he had, not what he didn’t have. There was no pretense about Andy. What you saw was what you got. Andy gave himself.

The second gift was love. Love is something we all have. It is a gift we can extend to anyone, great or small. And that gift of love can introduce people to the greatest person who ever lived, Jesus Christ. And that encounter of a person with Jesus Christ can rewrite human history and change it from a series of meaningless events to something coherent and logical and beautiful.

Andy shows us that the gifts we have can change the world. This "saint of the rank and file" is an inspiration to all of us whether we’re movers and shakers or followers. What we do when we’re available for Christ is of tremendous importance.

Andy also shows us that the most important thing we can do as Christians is to be a friend, to make a friend, and to bring a friend to Jesus.

BE A FRIEND

Andy teaches us to be a friend. Andy shows us that the mark of a friend is interest and availability. Reading between the lines of the New Testament, we can see that Andy was available to focus his attention on people and talk to them. When the 5,000 got fed how on earth would he have known about the little kid with his pathetic little lunch unless he was willing to focus his attention on little kids and talk to them? Kids were seen and not heard in the time of Jesus, but Jesus took time with kids, and Andy imitated Jesus in that respect.

We can sometimes get so stuffy and so full of our own self- importance that we think we can only talk to elite people. When I was a student, I had a Jewish friend named Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt was about as godless and abrasive as a man could be. He had had a rough life full of rejection, and he told me that his ambition was to be a wolverine, someone who was so mean and tough that he didn’t have to be afraid of anyone or depend on anyone.

One afternoon Rosenblatt came to my room and said, "Come on, let’s do something together." I told him I was too busy. He pressed me. I resisted. He pressed me some more. He knew I was a Christian. I had spent a fair amount of time trying to share my faith with him, but to no avail. Finally I said, "O.K., Rosie, I’ll spend some time with you, but on one condition." "What condition?" said Rosenblatt, instantly suspicious. "That we talk about Jesus Christ," I said.

As soon as I said it, I knew I’d blown it. Rosie raked me over the coals! "You say you’re a Christian, but you don’t want to be my friend unless I talk about your Jesus. What kind of friendship is that?"

He was right, wasn’t he? If our Christianity is just talk, talk, talk, then the world has a right to turn us off. St. Andy teaches us to be a friend, because the world doesn’t want our talk, it wants our friendship, someone to listen, someone to care, some to share the laughter and the tears of life. There is a Christian church today because Jesus became our friend, and people like St. Andy imitated him.

MAKE A FRIEND

St. Andy also shows us the importance of making friends. We are to be friends, first, and then to make friends.

How do we make friends? We make friends by intentionally reaching out to people and sharing our gifts with them.

That takes some persistence. It’s not always easy. We’re still in the "Me Generation" aren’t we? The Me Generation says, "My needs, my fulfillment." If you meet my needs and help me toward my fulfillment, then I’ll be your friend. You can’t run a world that way.

But think about it! There are scads of people out there in the Me Generation who don’t know that you can’t run a world that way. And they’re just dying to have someone come along and meet their needs. What a fantastic opportunity for people like Andy to meet the needs of people in the Me Generation, and then to raise their vision to something higher than self gratification.

At a Christian conference on faith sharing, one of the leaders told the story of his introduction to Christ. He had a need. His car had broken down. Right in front of a church and on a Sunday morning! No garages open, no way to get the car fixed. Nothing to do but wait. This guy didn’t know much about the Bible, but he’d heard the story about the good someone-or-other -- the Good Philippian! -- so he figured he’d sit there till church was over and wait for a good Philippian to come out of church and bail him out of his trouble.

Church was over, the people came out with beautiful, saintly expressions on their faces, and every one of them passed his car with its hood open without saying a word. Finally the last saint exited: it was the pastor. The pastor came over to the car. "What seems to be the trouble?" he asked. The man with the breakdown dumped all over the pastor about hypocritical Christians who didn’t act like good Philippians and help out a person in need.

"Gee, I wish I could help you," said the pastor, "but I’m tied up today. How about tomorrow?"

"Great!" said the man sarcastically. "Why don’t you come over for breakfast while you’re at it?"

"What time?" said the pastor.

"Make it eight," said the man.

The next morning at eight, there was the pastor. He spent the better part of the day fixing the guy’s car. He refused to take any money for it. The guy figured that anyone who’d do a thing like that might have something to say. He went to the pastor’s church the next Sunday, and the upshot of it was that he became a Christian. And today the guy with the broken down car is a minister himself, all because someone used his gifts to meet his needs.²

When the Peter Principle is the only tool the church has, then the church declines. Remember, the Peter Principle of Simon Peter? "When in doubt, make a speech."

But when the Andrew Principle is in practice in a church, the church thrives and grows. St. Andy’s principle was, "When in doubt, make a friend." People who study the way churches grow tell us that only 2-3% of our church members join a church because of a program in the church, no matter how well it is done.

Only 5-6% of our members join a church because of the pastor, no matter how outstanding he or she may be.

What really makes the difference is you, the members. 75-90% of all American church members have come to faith because of a family member or a friend already in the congregation. It’s not great preaching or sensational programs that finally draw people to faith: it’s seeing the word of God alive in another human being that you know personally.³

BRING A FRIEND TO JESUS

Be a friend, make a friend, bring a friend to Jesus. That’s how the Andrew principle works. Andy brought people to meet Jesus. We can’t improve on that simple formula.

There’s a man in India whose ministry is to students. He has brought great numbers of his own countrymen who are Hindus and Muslims to faith in Jesus Christ. When he’s asked how he does it, he says that his strategy is to invite people to lunch. Every Sunday he and his wife entertain somewhere between thirty and fifty students and feed them lunch.

"So you talk about Christ at these meals?" he is asked.

"Oh no," he replies, "it’s impossible to talk openly about Jesus Christ in this country."

"Well then," he is asked, "how is it possible for you to see so many become Christians?"

"I love them until they ask me why," is his reply. "Through loving them, they meet Jesus Christ, even though they don’t know whom they’ve met. Once they’ve sensed the reality of his love through me, they’re open to discuss the reason for the love and acceptance they’ve experienced."⁴

Love them until they ask why! Not bad as a guiding principle for being a friend, making a friend, and bringing a friend to Jesus.

St. Francis is supposed to have said, "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words."

Now, what does this mean to you?

First, I hope, if you’ve got a spiritual inferiority complex, and such feelings of spiritual inferiority are not confined to the Andys of this world, that you get some encouragement. All of us, including first born children and CEOs, have fits of feelings of spiritual inadequacy. But relax! Take your cue from Andy! What the world needs now is someone just like you who is available for Jesus.

In my congregation in Phoenix I once invited everyone who was on the sidelines to come be part of the heartbeat of that church, and a lot of people responded. But there were those who said, "I don’t know how to get to the heartbeat, and if I got to it, I wouldn’t know what to do." One person wrote an anonymous note expressing his or her frustration and wistfulness. The note said, "There must be something I can do."

Believe me, there is. Take courage from St. Andy. Bring yourself just as you are with the gifts you have, come be part of the heartbeat of this church, and make yourself available. Jesus uses people like you to change the world.

Second, don’t forget the other thing Andy did. Can you be a friend, make a friend, and bring a friend to church? Several of you have done that this morning, and that’s wonderful! There’s no way I can invite your friends to church. I’m one of the weakest ingredients in the mix. Remember, only 2-3% join a church because of a program, no matter how well it is done. And only 5-6% of any congregation join the church because of the pastor, no matter how outstanding he or she may be.

But if you and four other members during the next year would through your friendship bring just one other person to join this congregation, and if the five friends you brought joined you in doing the same thing in the coming year, in five years this congregation would have doubled its membership, and in ten years you’d have 2500 members. And in twenty-one years you’d have the whole world.

The people who really makes things happen are the Andys and the Andreas of the world who are available to Jesus and willing to love their neighbors.

Can you be one of those people?