Library
Sunday, October 25, 2009
RECOMMIT
5th in the Series; Rethinking Church and Rethinking Life
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Isaiah 6:1-8 New Revised Standard Version
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.
5 And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"
We have been talking together during October about instilling the posture and practice of generosity as a life posture, and I saw this week two dramatic examples of generosity from people we might think are not able to be generous.
You probably saw the same story I saw in last week’s Denver Post about an exciting act of generosity from nine year old Allison Winn. Allison is a survivor of cancer. She had surgery and chemotherapy for a brain tumor and is doing well. Part of why she is doing well is because she has had, for the past two years, a companion dog named Coco who has given her companionship, encouragement, and unconditional love.
Having Coco has meant so much to Allison that Allison wanted to help another sick child have their own companion dog as well, so she did something about it. She embarked on a fund raising campaign to pay for other children to be able to have their own dog to help them recover from their illness. Her idea was to bake homemade dog biscuits from flour, bullion cubes, oil and dried milk powder, and she sold the homemade dog biscuits at a lemonade stand in front of her home! Get this-she sold a thousand dollars worth of dog biscuits! And then she began to explore how to use all this money, not for herself, but to buy companion dogs for other children.
She told her mom, “I want to do this-provide a companion dog-for a kid who has cancer.” And so, last Tuesday, she did that. She and her mom went to the lobby of the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, where the dogs are trained by inmates, and there she was able to meet another little girl with cancer and provide that child a companion dog!
In the lobby Allison got to meet two year old Krysta Hubbard who is also a survivor of brain cancer. Krysta has become blind from the effects of her tumor. She was not able to see the three dogs there in the lobby that she was able to choose among, but she sniffed them and patted them and put her face close to them so that she could finally choose from the three, a gentle black Labrador named Lucky Bug. So two year old Krysta and her mother and Lucky Bug drove back together to their home in Wyoming where her life will now be enriched by the generosity of nine year old Allison Winn, and, there is more good news of course, because the money Allison raised will still allow her to do this two more times with two other children who are, like her, cancer survivors.
I am sure that Allison understands the words we heard a couple of weeks ago from St. Paul, his promise to Allison and to each of us that we will be enriched, and our lives will be enriched, by our acts of generosity! I feel enriched just from knowing about Allison’s story. And I feel that from looking over the list of ministries that we support together through this very active church named after St. Andrew!
We might not think that a nine year old child could practice generosity in so important a fashion, but Allison shows us otherwise.
Most of us are able to be generous. I have met very few people, very few people, who are not able to share and give to others. Sometimes we hear excuses like, “I just am not able to give anything,” but here is another story to counter that misconception.
Dean Nelson is a professor at a university in California. In his new book, God Hides in Plain Sight: How to see the Sacred in a Chaotic World, he tells of another person whom we might think cannot afford to give anything away to others, but manages to do so. Nelson tells of his friend, Michael, who was working as a volunteer for a few months in one of Mother Teresa’s programs in Calcutta India. This was the Home For Dying Destitutes, the center where people were brought during their last days when there was no one else to care for them. Michael was attempting to feed a very sick man who was too weak to feed himself. His meal of rice and curry and fish ended up being mostly smeared on his shirt.
He became agitated during the attempt to feed him, and his volunteer caregiver learned that it was because he had a fishbone stuck in his throat. Michael reached into his throat and removed the bone. The man was exhausted from the efforts to be fed. He wanted no more of the meal, but he did want the small portion of a tangerine that was meant for dessert. The volunteer pulled the tangerine sections apart and brought them to the sick man’s mouth. He ate those and smiled. It seemed to be the only part of the feeding ordeal that he enjoyed.
Then, a couple of cots away, another emaciated man waved weakly. He had noticed the ordeal of the meal, and he was waving the volunteer over to his cot where he also had half a tangerine. He was offering his half of the tangerine to Michael to give to the first dying man who had only seemed to be able to eat and enjoy that small part of his meal.
The volunteer said this, “I will never, never, ever say again that I have nothing to give. If a dying man can offer a few sections of fruit to relieve the suffering of another dying man, then I will always have something to give.”
Perhaps those two exceptional stories can best set the stage for this commitment Sunday today. It is one of the more important Sundays in our life together as a congregation. We take time every October to remember how blessed we are. We remind ourselves of some of the bible passages about sharing and about giving. We learn again about our own need to give, about part of being a healthy human being, and a faithful disciple of Christ, is to dedicate a portion of what we have to go beyond just ourselves and our own family. We remember that generosity is one of the characteristics of following Christ and that self-absorption and self-centeredness are not!
Today we have reminded each other that almost all of us can do something to share beyond ourselves. If a nine year old cancer survivor and a dying man in Calcutta can find a way to do that, we can, too.
Let me speak for a moment to anyone new with us. We don’t expect you to participate in what we are about today. If you desire to, we welcome you, but the people we want to involve first are the members and active friends of our church who, today, are reliving and recommitting to our membership vows. We have vowed, we have promised, that we will support God’s work here by praying and being present and by giving and by serving and by our witness. We are fulfilling that promise again by bringing cards to the altar table as a sign that we want to continue to pray and be present and give and serve and witness.
This is a very active congregation, a very committed congregation. Christ asks us to follow him, not to admire him or to think occasionally about him, but to follow him, to imitate him, and to live by his teachings to: be compassionate, take up a cross, lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, and THEN you will find abundant life! This is one of the ways we live those words.
We will hand out the commitment cards in a moment. We ask each other to fill in the blanks about places we will serve and about what we will give to God. We ask each other to let our giving to be sacrificial and generous and in proportion to how we have been blessed. I don’t know what those words mean for you and your loved ones. No one knows that but you. You are the expert on what is sacrificial and generous, and you are the expert on how you can continue to move toward the Biblical standard of the tithe or ten per cent as a goal for every Christian.
We believe that making a promise about our giving is important because supporting Christ’s healing, compassionate work is important. We believe that making a promise is so important that for every new commitment card turned in today, we have the gift of a brand new study Bible for you. Bring your first time pledge to the altar table and pick up a new Bible as you leave. We are on the honor system about this. We trust you to take a bible if you are pledging now and did not pledge last year. We trust that you will not only make that pledge but that you will fulfill that pledge as well!
We said last week that the Bibles are a gift from three families who understand how important this day of commitment is. We also said that we will be bringing back several thousand crosses from Israel in a few days, and we said that the cross reminds us of living a sacrificial life of service to others, a life that says what our final hymn says based on that story of the prophet Isaiah who, when he heard and felt God call to him in worship about the needs of God’s people, said - Here I am Lord. I will be your servant. Send me and use me to point others to new life.
The words of the hymn are a good way to close.
I the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save
I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord. Is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night
I will go lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.