Pentecost 17
28 September 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Gregory Pope
TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS
Acts 2.1-8. Luke 14:12-23
If there had been a theme song for the Day of Pentecost I think it might have been “Takin’ It To The Streets” by the Doobie Brothers. We tried to get them here today, but they’ve just completed a long tour and at their advanced age the doctor at their assisted living facility thought they needed rest. However, we will hear from them in just a little while.
If you’re a fan of Rock ‘n’ Roll you know the experience of listening to a song for decades and one day realizing you’ve understood the words incorrectly. Though the voice of Michael McDonald, lead singer of the Doobie Brothers, is iconic, he can also be difficult to understand.
As I did a little research on “Takin’ It to the Streets,” I discovered the song was written amid racial tensions with a focus on the scores of people living in impoverished conditions. And the lyrics sound like they came from the prophet Amos. The song gives voice to those who think no one cares about them even though people say they do. Hear some of the lyrics:
You don’t know me but I’m your brother
I was raised here in this living hell
You don’t know my kind in your world
Fairly soon the time will tell
Take this message to my brother
You will find him everywhere
Wherever people live together
Tied in poverty’s despair
And you, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me
I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see.1
So what is needed, the song says, is for people to act and take it to the streets. The call of the song is for people to take their words of faith and compassion, their “thoughts and prayers” to the streets of poverty and injustice and actually do something about the terrible conditions in which many of God’s children live. “Takin’ it to the streets” is exactly what the early church did.
Have you ever realized how much of the book of Acts takes place outside – outside the synagogue, outside the homes that would have served as gathering places for the church? While everyone needs prayerful time in a sanctuary of quiet, our mission is outside these walls.
Not only does so much of the Book of Acts take place outdoors, so also the life and ministry of Jesus. Before Luke wrote the book of Acts, he penned a Gospel that includes a parable of Jesus where Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like the giving of a great feast.
A man gives a dinner party and invites several guests. At the time of the banquet the man sends his servants to tell those who’ve been invited to come on, that the feast is ready. Those invited said yes to the initial invitation. But when the time came for the feast they all began to make excuses as to why they could not come: They had family in town. They had business to attend to. The kids had travel ball. Hunting season had just begun. College football is back, baby! And we just can’t miss a game. Excuses after excuses. So the master is left with the grills all fired up, lots of food already prepared, the big brass band all tuned and ready to play – and no one shows.
So he says, Go out into the streets and invite the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame – those who cannot repay you. And so they did. And a large crowd came. But even then the hall was not filled. The master didn’t want one scrap of food or one note of music wasted. So he said, Go out again, this time outside the city into the highways and byways, and compel the people to come in so that my house may be filled. That’s what God wants – God’s house filled with hungry people feasting on God’s goodness!
It’s an amazing scene. All the VIPs said no. But the people who never thought they’d be invited to a feast said yes: the urban poor and the despairing inmates, the red light district and the nursing home residents, the homeless sleeping under bridges and those who’ve spent the night in bars. It was these who said yes to God’s invitation. It was the craziest assortment of people you’ve ever seen. Some had never seen champagne, some had seen too much. Some had never tasted green punch or those fancy little sandwiches with the crust cut off. They had scraped garbage cans for the crust. Others had never seen a whole roast of beef. They looked at the caviar and thought the cottage cheese had gone bad. They looked at each other and laughed at this crazy fortune that had come their way. People who had been the hired servants in the kitchen are now the honored guests. The band is playing. And on the dance floor, steps never before seen are being invented. Keep bringing them in, shouts the host, I want my house full!
This story of Jesus is a parable of the church’s kingdom mission today, a calling to us to hit the streets and invite to God’s table and God’s house anybody and everybody longing for the love of God. Especially those who cannot repay us or boost our budget.
We are called to take God’s love and healing to the streets into the lives of those who live around us. And it begins, as it always does in the book of Acts and in the church of today with prayer.
Three women in a wealthy California Presbyterian church began to pray for the kingdom of God to break into their lives in transforming ways. They were led to help an under-resourced school in East Palo Alto, a community that once led the nation in murders per capita. They prayed and planned and came up with a challenge: to have one thousand people from their church and community give up one day to plant trees and tile floors and paint murals at this school. They eventually had to cut off sign-ups at 1200 people because they couldn’t handle any more volunteers. The best part, they said, was watching God at work in ways none of them could have planned.
A young college coed was visiting their church, heard about the plan, went back to school, told her sorority, and they ended up with thirty sorority sisters among their number. That meant that scores of young single males suddenly felt God prompting them to serve too.
An East Palo Alto city official heard about the plans and told the store manager of a nearby coffee shop that he should donate coffee for all these people on Saturday morning.
The manager said, “Okay.”
“You ought to deliver it too,” the official said.
The manager said, “Okay.”
The three women who got this whole thing started went to a nearby hardware store, told the manager what they were up to and said: “We need $10,000 worth of equipment. We don’t have any money for this. You ought to just donate it.” And the manager said, “Okay.” So they got $10,000 worth of material free.
They were talking to another woman who did not attend their church, but by the end of the conversation, the school ended up getting $20,000 worth of playground material free.
For a whole day there was music blaring and balloons flying and five-year-olds serving next to eighty-five-year-olds and people working together from churches of every stripe and ethnicity. People said it was the most joyous day they had ever seen a church have.
The three praying Presbyterian women actually adopted a mission statement for their friendship that makes most mission statements sound like your reading the telephone book. It goes like this: Our mission is to identify our neighbors’ greatest needs and surprise our church into hilarious giving by providing impact-full, totally happenin’ and celebratory opportunities to serve.2
That’s what it looks like when the church takes the love of God to the streets! It can be that big!
It can also be small like random acts of kindness and compassion. In a former church of mine a group of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders went throughout our town doing random acts of kindness: passing out flowers and water at the nearby grocery store.
What about our town? Take just a moment and think about the people who live out here on the streets around us: Pio Nono and Forsyth, Vineville and Pierce and Hines Terrace. Think about what their lives are like. Couples just married looking for help in their new life together. People single and married with babies and small children needing support, guidance, and a rest every once in a while. Others are taking care of an aging parent or spouse, or maybe their spouse has died, and they’re alone now, trying to adapt to a new way of life.
And there are others who have heard so much hatred or at best conditioned acceptance from the church – they wonder if God loves them at all. They need a faith community where they can find God’s welcoming embrace. There are single people looking for a group of friends. Others in need of good work. Some wanting more than their job offers, wanting their lives to be significant and meaningful, searching for a purpose to serve greater than themselves.
And you have to know these streets are full of people in great pain – divorced, addicted, lonely, abused – most of it hidden – in desperate need of healing and hope. People all over this neighborhood just waiting, desperately hoping for the kingdom of God to break into their lives – though they may not call it that. People waiting for an invitation to a party where they can find the love and acceptance of God and a community of friends.
Jesus wants all people here, in his house, at his table, poor and maimed, lonesome and stranger, conservative and liberal, young and old, married and single, divorced and widowed, believer and skeptic, lost or found or any which way.
He wants his children to come home. He wants you home. Yes you. Just as you are. And if you come home, really come home to yourself and to Jesus, you’ll find a great feast of welcoming grace waiting for you, and you’ll be surprised to look around and see who’s come for dinner.
We’re all invited to the feast. The food’s ready. The music’s playing. There’s a place for you here. God wants the house full.
So what do you say we take the love of God to the streets of Macon and watch the kingdom of God break out all over the place?
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- “Takin It to the Streets.” Written by Michael McDonald. Performed by The Doobie Brothers. 1976
- John Ortberg, God Is Closer Than You Think, Zondervan, 2005, 177-179