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Sunday, September 28, 2008
How is Your Vision?
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Jeremiah 29:11-13
11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart,
I’d like to ask you a question and then tell you a story. The question is about your vision. What do you see ahead for yourself? What do you see coming about, in the words of Jeremiah, in the hopeful future that God has in store for you? What will it mean for you to be a successful person in the next three or four years – by your definition of success?
Most of you have thought about that and perhaps have even written down that vision and some personal goals. I encourage you to do so if you have not. Our congregation has done that as well, and they are on the wallet cards that we have given you as you came into worship this morning. We will look at them in a moment after I tell you a story.
One week ago yesterday we dedicated the third Habitat for Humanity house that St. Andrew Church has built in the past 15 months! Habitat for Humanity is a worldwide program that is a win/win arrangement. The founder of Habitat had a vision of being able to provide a simple, safe affordable home for every family. The homes are built with mostly volunteer labor. They are very, very basic. In Denver the materials for a Habitat home cost about $85,000 and that actually includes enough money to build a simple home here and an amount to build a small home for another family in a third world country!
Last Saturday morning fifty persons gathered for the dedication and ribbon cutting for the new three bedroom home for the Elbashir-Husnic family – Isam, Amela, and their five children. This family has been living in a small apartment, too small and unsafe, in a neighborhood where their children were harassed. They are in a new neighborhood now, not far from an elementary school where you and I sent coats in our coat drive a year ago. Some of you have met this family when you worked with them on the home. The new residents of every Habitat home are required to put 500 hours of time on their own home or on someone else’s Habitat home.
Our Holy Pretzel youth choir was present to sing a very appropriate song – “Bound for Greater Things!”
And Isam Elbashir spoke tearfully about what having their own home means to this family. Here is some of what he said:
I would like to thank the wonderful people of St Andrew church, who not only provided resources and volunteers to build this home but also brought food every Saturday to share with the volunteers and our family!! We would especially like to thank the children who wrote blessings on the studs of our house. We are so happy that our house is built on that meaningful foundation.
To our family, this house means so many things. When we had a chance to come to America as refugees from Sudan, our dream was to own a home of our own. Instead, we moved into a very dangerous neighborhood: there was a lot of drug use among our neighbors and it was not safe for our children. We were so lucky to find Habitat for Humanity and St. Andrew Church because you helped us build our dream, which will change our lives dramatically. This house provided the chance for our children to grow up in a safe place, to attend a good school, and give back and do something for America, since America has done so much for us.
When we learned that your church would help us build this home, we couldn’t believe it. We couldn’t imagine that you would help our family, a Muslim family, because we believed that after our own country couldn’t help us, no one could. We appreciate you and your help so much. God bless America, and God bless each of you for making our dreams come true.
Let me tell you just a bit more. The staff person at Habitat, Amanda Wilson, wrote me about the dedication service, since I was at a different church last Saturday participating in a funeral. She said, When Isam spoke, he was overcome with emotion. It was extremely powerful to be with him in that moment as we experienced the culmination of many months of prayer and hard work and dedication.
And then Amanda Nelson spoke on behalf of the Habitat team of staff persons and I want you to know what she said about you:
Today we are also recognizing a dynamic church that talks the talk and perhaps more importantly walks the walk as well. St Andrew United Methodist Church committed to build their third Habit Home in the midst of a multi-million dollar capital campaign. Despite its own internal pressures to raise the necessary funds for the church expansion project, St. Andrew held fast to its goal to build another Habitat home… St Andrew is sometimes described as the Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors place… On this site you’ve opened your hearts to a family that was once a stranger, you’ve opened your minds to what can be achieved through prayerful determination, and you’ve opened your doors to a ministry that, with your help, continues to create brighter futures.
You helped all that happen – each of you. Some of you wrote prayers on the 2 by 4’s. Some of you helped provide food for the workers. Some of you volunteered a day or more. If you put your check in the offering plate or prayed for this family over the past few months you helped this happen.
What is your vision for your own future – what does your image of a successful life look like? Does it include helping others, practicing generosity, living unselfishly?
I want to look briefly at how our congregation has answered those questions about vision and purpose and values. Our leaders have worked together for over a year to come up with the words that are on the bulletin cover and on the wallet cards we gave out. I believe they capture who we are and where we are going and what it means for us a community of faith to be “successful.” The statements reinforce each other quite well. We identified our core values over twelve years ago and they serve us well: SPIRITUAL GROWTH. HOSPITALITY. COMPASSION. PIONEERING. INTEGRITY. FAMILY.
Do you see how those words have come true in the story we just heard about this Habitat home? The Habitat staff persons have said no church has done what this congregation has: built three homes in 15 months – this is pioneering mission work – at the same time we are raising millions to expand our space and our ministry here.
Look at the vision statement with me: we intend God’s light to shine through five activities we do together so that all persons may know God. The activities we are involved in are important: PASSIONATE WORSHIP: Worship that touches hearts and minds and gives us inspiration and hope and direction. RADICAL HOSPITALITY. Making a place for each person, welcoming every person no matter their ethnic origin, religious background, sexual identity, ability or disability. Welcoming every person.
TRANSFORMATIONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH. That spiritual growth is what people tell us they are looking for when they join this church as people will join this morning. We find it in small groups and Bible study and short term classes. And we have just talked this morning about RISK TAKING MISSION/SERVICE AND EXTRAVAGANT GENEROSITY. We could talk about mission trips and sacrificial giving and other ways this congregation has become a teaching church for others learning about high commitment and generosity if we had time.
Our identity statement matters. We want to center ourselves in Christ: the radical, life-changing Christ who challenges our apathy and self-absorption and calls us to be more. My friend Dick Evans, pastor at Washington Park church, told me this week about a line from the film “Talladega Nights.” For protagonist Ricky Bobby, what matters is self-indulgence and winning races. He keeps praying to the Lord Baby Jesus. People interrupt him as he is praying and his wife and father in law point out, “You do realize that the Baby Jesus grew up?!” Ricky Bobby says, “Listen, you can pray to the adult Jesus. I don’t care. But in this house, we like the baby Jesus with all his magic, baby powers, and swaddling clothes.”
Centered in Christ means centered in the adult Jesus who promises us that when we follow him and imitate his compassion, his self-giving, his inclusiveness, that is when we find the fullness of life.
We are grounded in the tradition of our Methodist faith that encourages us that we do not have to think alike in order to love alike, and that faith must speak the heart and the mind. We are open and progressive in belief and willing to bring our doubts and questions and growing edges to a study of the Bible that takes it very seriously but not literally. And we practice generosity because we know that God has blessed us, not to be smug, but so we can be a blessing to others.
That is who we want to be and that is what our vision for the future of this unique faith community is. Where are you going? Who are you following? What hopeful future from God do you see for yourself?