[Propertalk] Fwd: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 18C

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-------- Original message --------
From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org> 
Date:09/03/2016  9:06 PM  (GMT-06:00) 
To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic at ecunet.org> 
Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 18C 

Dear Friends,

 

This Sunday’s sermon is entitled “Choose Life” or “Are You a Thermometer or a Thermostat?” and deals with all the lessons.  Here it is:

 

If you knew today was the last day you would ever see your loved ones again, and if they were all gathered around you, listening for your advice, you can imagine that the ideas you shared would be your most important thoughts, from the bottom of your heart.  Well this was the situation with Moses and the children of Israel in our Old Testament Bible reading this morning.  We heard Moses’ last words to the children of Israel, those beloved (and frustrating) people he had led from Egypt through the desert for forty years.  He remembered some of their terrible, self-destructive choices- worshipping the golden calf when they got tired of waiting for him to come down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, complaining about God, etc.  The worst was- they never seemed to learn from their mistakes.  They sinned, suffered the consequences, and turned right around and committed the same sin again.  This is probably why he implores his beloved people to “Choose life,” and this is the message that comes down to us through the ages from the Bible readings- CHOOSE LIFE!
 

Choose life- get your priorities right- God first.  Remember, Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  In today’s gospel he spells out how to live life to its fullest- by getting our priorities right.  Jesus reminds us to put God first- not family, not possessions, not even self.  If you think about it, his advice makes sense.  If we put ourselves or anything that we consider “ours” first, it’s so easy to be possessed by those things- protecting them, focusing too narrowly on them, making them better than anyone else’s “stuff,” that they will own us.  You have seen the results when parents put their children above God, so they don’t allow others in authority to discipline them- after all, they are “mine.”  All too often the world disciplines their beloved children when they are grown much more harshly than neighbors, teachers, principals, etc. ever would have.  Popularity, possessions, honor, family, even our own selves are wonderful gifts from God, when thankfully accepted in that way, but they make terrible idols- terrible masters.

 

Choose life- think for yourself.  Remember the Psalm.  Don’t follow the evil advice of other people- that’s the contribution of today’s Psalm.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wisely reminds us that, “Most Christians are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, rather than thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.”  It doesn’t make any difference what anyone else thinks or does.  You know what’s right.  Is it loving God and putting God first?  Is it loving your neighbor and doing what needs to be done to help him or her?  Don’t be a thermometer and follow peer pressure.  Be a thermostat, live Jesus’ values, and affect peer values.

 

Choose life- don’t be paralyzed by your present circumstances.  How many people let sickness, poverty, misuse by other people, the death of a loved one, age, etc. give them a depressed or angry attitude, thus making them powerless for the Kingdom.  St. Paul was in prison when he had to figure out how to help the runaway slave, Onesimus.  It sounded like a hopeless situation- but God doesn’t even know the meaning of “hopeless” and neither should we.  You know the poem about the donut and the hole:

As you go through life you will have no cares

If you watch the lines and not the squares.

As you go through life, make this your goal

Watch the donut, and not the hole.

So, don’t look at the hole- look at the donut.  Don’t look at what you can’t do- figure a way to do what you can do.  I’m telling you this story with permission.  Some years ago, our dear sister, Ms. Ellen Williams, had to tell her beloved adult son Thomas that he probably wasn’t going to get better from his cancer.  Thomas’ answer- “That’s all right, mother.  I intend to live until I die,” and he did!  His friends would come by for him in their car, and he and his medical equipment would get in.  His advice is good for all of us- don’t focus at what you can’t do, do what you can, and live until you die.

 

Choose life- don’t be paralyzed by your past.  In the epistle, Onesimus started out as a slave.  When he escaped, it seems very probable that he also stole from his master.  Now he had to face that same master, but this time with a letter from Paul commending him as a brother in Christ.  How easy it would have been to keep running.  But Onesimus did not let this difficult past diminish his future, and there is a good chance this runaway slave ended up as a first century bishop.  Remember- to Jesus- it’s not where you’ve been that’s important, it’s where you’re going.  How many people do you know who let an embarrassing, sinful, frustrating, or unjust past interfere with their future?  They’re still blaming their mother for their problems while they’re in their thirties or forties or beyond.  Use your past as a launching pad, not a sinkhole.  Here’s an example of a little boy who learned the hard way about the potential slavery of the past.  His name was Johnny; and he and his sister were visiting their grandparents for the summer.  While he was there, he received his first slingshot.  Johnny practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target.  As he came back to Grandma's back yard, he spied her pet duck.  On an impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead.  The boy panicked.  Desperately he hid the dead duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching.  Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.  After lunch that day, Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes."  But Sally said, "Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today.  Didn't you, Johnny?"  And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!”  So Johnny did the dishes.  Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing, Grandma said, "I'm sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper."  Sally smiled and said, "That's all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it."  Again she whispered, "Remember the duck."  Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.  After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally's, finally he couldn't stand it.  He confessed to Grandma that he'd killed the duck.  "I know, Johnny," she said, giving him a hug.  "I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you.  I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.  (Richard Hoefler, “Will Daylight Come?”)  Don’t let your past enslave your future.

 

So- CHOOSE LIFE- put God first, and everything else will fall into place.

CHOOSE LIFE- think for yourself. 

CHOOSE LIFE- don’t be paralyzed by your present circumstances. 

CHOOSE LIFE- don’t be paralyzed by your past. 

 

For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updated African-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s web site under “Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: http://www.stpaulsepisag.org .

 

Blessed preaching,

Judy Boli

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Saginaw, Michigan

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