A Satirical Sermon
Good morning brothers and sisters. This blessed Lord’s day, we’ll take our text from the book of 2nd Fort Collins Email, chapter 4, verse 21. Let me read it aloud for you:
“Mike, let’s get together for coffee on Thursday at 11:00.”
Pause with me a moment for silent prayer. Lord help us understand the true meaning of the Apostle Greg’s words. Amen.
“Let’s get together for coffee,” the Apostle says to us today. I want us to dig into that Word this morning. On the surface it seems a fairly straightforward statement. Apostle Greg wants to meet his disciple Mike for a warm beverage. Ah, but there’s so much more to this command than is seen with only a passing glance.
First, notice that tiny little word, “get.” Sure, it has the implied meaning of a request to arrive at a specified place, but in 21st Century English, that word which we translate as “get” most often was used to mean “acquire,” or “obtain.” Or more accurately “to cause to be in one’s possession.”
Do you see what that means, brothers and sisters?
Apostle Greg isn’t simply asking for an appointment, but demanding possession, insisting on the acquisition of Mike’s presence and attention for some specified purpose. This is no simple request, no causal, optional obedience. The Apostle says he must “GET” together, Mike must submit to this holy unction that he and the Apostle “GET”—acquire, obtain—together. The Apostle doesn’t say “please” or “thank you” or “would you be willing?” He simply issues the command, knowing that his disciple will instantly obey, as is his expected response to the holy writ.
For what? To what purpose must the Apostle and disciple acquire together? The answer, dearly beloved, is in the next word:
“For.”
Again, in 21st Century English, that word “For” was used almost exclusively to mean, “in the service of,” or “suiting the purposes or needs of.” It was common in that culture to say things like, “I work FOR Microsoft,” meaning “I apply my time and effort to suit the purpose or needs of Microsoft.” Or to say, “She bought lunch FOR me,” meaning “She paid the cost of lunch in generous service to me.”
And again, we see the Apostle Greg revealing so much more than what we initially thought. “Let’s get together FOR coffee,” the holy man says. It’s not time to be spent for ourselves or even time to be invested in helping others. No! Read what the Scripture says! It’s time “FOR COFFEE,” a dedicated, specific obligation of our Christian lives to be in the service of coffee.
Pay attention, now church. The Apostle is saying to us: We must, on Thursday at 11:00, devote ourselves to meeting the needs of the coffee grinds in our lives. This is both our spiritual duty and our physical purpose.
“FOR coffee!” he said to his disciple Mike, and “FOR coffee” he shouts to us today. Let’s “GET” “FOR” coffee!
Somebody say Amen, because it’s awful quiet in here this morning!
Lastly, we can’t ignore this seemingly innocuous statement: “at 11:00.”
It’s important to notice two things here, beloved. First, in 21st Century American culture, that clock reference “11:00” could indicate either a time in the morning, or a time late at night. When they wanted to differentiate between the two, in that culture, they’d add a notation that was either “a.m.” or “p.m.” In that context, “a.m.” meant morning, literally anytime between midnight and noon, and “p.m.” meant night, or literally anytime between noon and midnight.
So why did the Apostle Greg delete that notation in this verse? Was it simply an oversight? An accident in the Holy Scripture? Of course not.
The answer here is obvious, and it doesn’t take a seminary degree to see it. This is something that his disciple Mike would’ve immediately understood. Apostle Greg was commanding that, every Thursday, Mike dedicate BOTH his morning AND his nights, at 11:00 exactly, to the service of coffee.
It’s that simple. And that profound. That’s what the Christian life commands for us today.
If giving our lives in service to coffee twice a day on Thursdays, at 11:00 exactly, was good enough for the Apostle Greg and his disciple Mike, then it’s good enough for you and me too.
[Dramatic pause.]
Brothers and sisters, today let’s take to heart the Word of God, spoken through the Apostle Greg to the world. From this day forward, may we be the kind of people who wholeheartedly, uncompromisingly, dedicate EVERY Thursday, at BOTH 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m., to allowing God to “acquire” and “obtain” our time as we spend it in whole-hearted service to the needs of coffee.
Let’s bow our heads in prayer to close our meeting today. And, as the Apostle commands, “Let’s GET together FOR coffee on Thursday at 11:00.”
Amen!
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