MICAH 3:5-12

PSALM 43

1 THESSALONIANS 2:9-13,17-20

MATTHEW 23:1-12

 

Sermon – October 30, 2005

 

 

Last week I preached about “Love and Generosity” and used words like “systematic giving,” “planned generosity,” and “commitment” – words that, frankly, appeal more to some personalities than to others.  Other personality types are more attracted to what one former President of the United States called “the vision thing,” while still other personalities like to act spontaneously like an action hero or heroine and feel confined by too much planning.

Of course, living out what Jesus called the greatest commandments – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” – can involve all “personality types”, and all aspects of each of our personalities.  The vision, then, is for this congregation to be a community of faith which lives those two commandments as a community, and guides and encourages its members to live them out throughout the week in their daily lives.  The planned generosity, systematic giving and commitment create a community of faith which then has the capability to act spontaneously and creatively to love God and our neighbors, just as a sports team which has paid attention to conditioning and practicing has the capability to take advantage of opportunities which come up during a game.

The theme of all the deeds which we do as individuals, as a Christian community and especially as the leaders of a Christian community is servant ministry.  In today’s reading from the Old Testament, the prophet Micah hammers the prophets, priests and rulers of his people for being self-serving and self-aggrandizing.  In today’s Epistle, the apostle Paul declares (a little too strongly, I think) how devoted he is to the church in Thessalonica as a servant of God and of them and not as a grandee.  And in the Gospel, Jesus criticizes religious leaders who like prestige and power far too much – a criticism which is still fresh and pertinent today.  Instead, Jesus says, “The greatest among you will be your servant.  All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

So today, I’d like to tell some stories about servant ministry in this community of faith, St. Barnabas, about some of the times we caught the vision and, because we already had a committed, generous community gathered, we could act spontaneously and creatively to express love for God and our neighbors.

Today’s stories are all from late in the last century, specifically the late 1980’s and early ‘90’s, not because we aren’t doing good things now or more recently – or before then – but because most of this congregation was not part of St. Barnabas a decade or more ago and you may not have heard these stories, which are part of the “lore” of this parish.  If you have heard them before – or if you lived them – just enjoy; they are worth hearing again.  All of what I will share is already public knowledge, let me assure you.

We have often heard the expression “a vicious circle,” referring to a time that nasty actions lead to more nasty actions and so on, in a descending spiral which reinforces itself.  Well, there also are virtuous circles in which a good deed can lead to kindness, to more generosity, to more grace and so on, upwards.  So my first story is really a chain of stories.

Back in the summer of 1988, a parishioner named Helen, a single mother with four children at home, was facing the prospect of major back surgery.  After talking with her, a group of parishioners organized a team to bring hot, prepared meals to her home every night for her kids while she was in the hospital and then for the first three weeks of her convalescence. 

Later that fall, we learned that one of our older parishioners, Florence Bemiss, was hospitalized with a serious respiratory illness which was not responding to any medical treatment the way this illness normally would.  Florence had had heart surgery a couple of years before and had received some blood transfusions before the blood supply was being screened and tested.  It soon became clear to Florence and her family that the reason she was not getting well was that she was now HIV+, and had A.I.D.S.

That was a time of enormous paranoia about A.I.D.S., when people were worried about using the same utensils or handling the same doorknob as someone who had A.I.D.S.  There was panic at the business where she worked, and isolation as well as pain felt by her three grown sons.

And some churches were not behaving well either.  When one of our neighboring Episcopal Churches had its first A.I.D.S. funeral, its Altar Guild learned halfway through the funeral the cause of death of the deceased, and they all walked out of the service.  They then came back later and mopped the floor with disinfectant above the place where the casket had been on rollers, and soaked all the communion vessels with disinfectant.  The next Sunday, 30 people came up the communion rail but refused to receive communion as a protest.

St. Barnabas was different.  When Florence died and we put out the word about what had happened, our people flooded the visiting hours at the funeral home, reaching out to her family and friends with compassion.

That night, when we were preparing a lunch in the Fellowship Room to be held after Florence’s funeral for all comers, in the door with a covered dish to share, walking carefully, came Helen.  She said she just wanted to give something back.

Generosity inspires generosity; grace leads to grace.

Florence’s sons, none of whom were members of the congregation, were blown away by our response to the wake, by Florence’s funeral, and by the warm hospitality and lunch afterwards.  It was just what they needed.

Later, they met with me because they, too, wanted to give back.

The previous fall I had been to a conference on “accessibility” for church buildings and had come back all fired up to make St.Barnabas wheelchair accessible.   (Before this current sanctuary area was built, the level of the parking lot closest to the building was substantially lower, and there were a number of steps leading up to the entrance.)  Parishioner Kirt Wedemeyer, an architect, drew up blueprints and we put the project out to bid.  When we got the bids back, the Vestry members rolled their eyes at me as though I had just suggested that St. Barnabas launch a manned expedition to Mars.  The project was not one we could afford.  And back before the Americans with Disabilities Act, this was all optional.

So we just left the blueprints up on the bulletin board and prayed for guidance. 

Two things happened afterwards.

One was, a bunch of our parishioners who were experienced in construction looked at the blueprints and said, “We don’t have to have a contractor do this.  If we simplify a couple of things, we can do this ourselves for the cost of materials."

The other was that when Florence’s sons met with me after her funeral, they came up and tapped the blueprints and said, “We want to see that ramp built” and handed me a check which covered all of the costs of the materials.

Grace leads to grace, generosity inspires generosity, kindness gives birth to more kindness.

So in the fall of 1989, our intrepid bunch of skilled volunteers led by Gene Sanfilippo built the ramp which led to the door to the Fellowship Room next to the kitchen.  They were helped by the teamster who drove the cement truck who, when he discovered he was delivering cement for a handicap ramp for a church, volunteered on his own time to help get it done.  Grace leads to grace.

We finally dedicated the ramp on Mother’s Day, 1990.  The first person to be pushed up the ramp was wheel-chair-bound Mary Rose Zboray.  The second person was a neighbor, who we invited as a courtesy, named Leonard Frisch, Jr., a lapsed Roman Catholic who had been in a wheelchair for 11Ẅ years after an auto accident

Leonard came back to church the next Sunday.  And the next.  And the next.  He sat in his wheelchair in the back of the sanctuary in a space we created for wheelchair parking, and a chalicer and I brought him communion.  Every Sunday.

And then one Sunday that August he wasn’t there.  Wasn’t in the “wheelchair parking” spot, that is. Wasn’t in his wheelchair, either.  He was sitting in the front row of pews.  When we got to “Sharing Time” and announcements, I looked around and said, “Does anyone have anything to share?”  Leonard stood up.  Then he said, “I’m sitting in a pew.  And I’m going to walk to the altar rail for communion.”

When grace leads to grace, much larger forces are involved than we may at first realize.

Leonard became an usher.  It took him a little longer to walk up and down the aisle than it took other ushers, but so what?  “Rise and walk” were the words from the New Testament which became immediate and “now” every time Leonard came to church, which was as regularly as Cal Ripken, Jr. showed up at the ballpark until Leonard’s recent illness and other circumstances have left him homebound.  Leonard pledged, and pledged to the Building Fund also, being one of many who made the new space possible.  Grace begat grace, generosity begat generosity, kindness begat kindness.  Sounds very biblical. 

Those are far from the only healing stories we have to tell.  Healing can take many forms; let me give you some more samples.

Prayer is one of the most important things a church commits to – especially intercessory prayer for others, whatever the circumstances, whatever the so-called “odds.”  We have prayed for people in the midst of enormous tragedies and while giving thanks as well, “dividing sorrows and multiplying joys.”  We pray as a body in services, and the Prayer Chain also has a deep ministry of detailed intercessory prayer.  We don’t always get to learn the sequels to prayer requests, but recently the Prayer Chain had a couple of sequels to the story of Justin Lefever and the newer members may not know the miracle which preceded them, so I’ll tell that story.

Sandy and Dave Lefever’s son Justin was working construction back in the early ‘90’s, driving a large front-end loader which was lifting a truckload of sheet rock up to the third story level when the front-end loader and its load flipped over.  He was underneath.

Justin, at least at the time, was the only person in the history of OSHA to survive such an accident.  I went flying up to the hospital and laid hands on him for healing but, as I told him, “Someone Else’s hands got here first, or you wouldn’t be here at all.”

He survived, with some spectacular but thankfully superficial bleeding from his head which took over 60 stitches, and with a shattered hip.  He went through long treatments to try and save the leg and we prayed away.  Jay is not exactly the “bookish” type; he likes to be outside, active, doing stuff, and he was struggling with what he could do now for work – and with vocation.

I remember sitting on his hospital bed saying, “I think there are three aspects of healing for you.  First, survival.  Second, finding a reason for living which is beyond survival.”  “I’ve found that,” he interrupted.  “I want to be an EMT – carry people on stretchers out of burning buildings, stuff like that.”

I took a deep breath, trying not to look at his shattered hip, and said, “Then, third, if God’s gotten you this far I think he will make it happen.  It may not be quick and it may not be easy, but I believe it can happen.”  Jay had a hip replacement – something not usually done for people in their early 20’s, but there was no alternative.  The prognosis – initially – was that he wouldn’t lift anything heavier than a pencil.

Initially.

But within a few years, he became a full-time, paid EMT.  Yes, lifting stretchers.  And he’s married, and recently the Prayer Chain gave thanks for the birth of his first child, and more recently prayed for and then gave thanks for another hip replacement.  I guess he needs that done every “100,000 miles” or so.  Think of all the people he has helped, and will help in his career.  Let’s multiply the joy.

One last story is a reminder that all this servant ministry stuff is not just for parishioners; there’s a wide world out there which needs us to combine vision, commitment and spontaneous acts of kindness into love for our neighbors.  And this story is actually the seed from which has grown one of our regular ministries today.

Some years ago Sharon LoRusso was working in real estate and learned through her contacts of a woman who had been beaten by her husband so badly she had to be hospitalized.  While she was hospitalized, he cleaned out their savings and checking accounts and skipped the country.  While she was hospitalized, she got laid off from her job.  Once she got out of the hospital, she and her two little boys went to the only place they could go, a shelter for victims of domestic violence.  The shelter gave them safety, food, shelter and found an apartment for them.  It was November.

Sharon stood up at Sharing Time and shared this story and said, “Would anyone like to help?”  Well, yes indeed.  We furnished that apartment, right down to the Christmas tree, new warm winter coats for the boys and presents under the tree.

In January the woman wrote us, “Last year was the worst year of my life and the best year of my life.  It was the worst year because of what happened to me.  It was the best year because of you people.  You gave me back my faith.”

These stories are just samples that tell who we are as a Christian community, called to be servants, to love God and our neighbors systematically and spontaneously.  There are many other stories that could be told – and many more that may be told in the future if we continue to catch the vision and love God and our neighbors both systematically and spontaneously.  Because our best and greatest days as a congregation are ahead of us.

 

 

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

 

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, NJ