“What Really Lasts?”
Psalm 103
1st
Corinthians 13-14:1
Rev. Craig
N. Goodrich – Sunday, August 31, 2003
First
Presbyterian Church of Atlanta
Tomorrow is Labor Day. Do you know the history of the holiday? It goes back to 1882 when the Central Labor
Union of New York organized a parade in NYC in which 20,000 workers marched.
They carried signs which proclaimed “All wealth is created by Labor” and “Eight
hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for recreation.” In 1887 Oregon became the first state to
declare the holiday and by 1894 twenty-three other states had done so. The national
holiday was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland in 1894. Some believe that it was actually done to
appease the labor unions since it occurred just after a crackdown by the
government on striking railroad workers.
Samuel Gompers, a labor
leader of that era, described the Labor Day holiday, always the first Monday in
September, as a day for the workers to lay down their tools and to “touch
shoulders in marching phalanx and feel stronger for it.” (Online News Hour, Jim Lehrer Transcript, September
2, 2001.)
Well, whereas once almost 50% of US
workers were union members, by 1995, the number was down to 15%. And as one account has it, “Over the years,
[Labor day] has evolved from a purely labor union celebration into a general
last fling of summer festival.”
(Wilstar.com, “Labor Day”)
It’s true isn’t it? In fact, I could find no reference in the
AJC or AOL Local Guide to Atlanta to any event remotely tied to the original
purpose of Labor Day. Of the 113 events listed for today and tomorrow, the only
parade mentioned was the parade of cows.
Of course, for many of us,
Labor Day doesn’t even end the summer anymore. With schools going back so early
now, the Labor Day Weekend is quickly becoming the first Fall break.
Change happens doesn’t
it? And if we are honest we have to
admit that many of us struggle with it. We long for the familiar, for the
known, for the secure.
Yet we see change
everywhere. Change in our government
leaders, the economy, technology. Do
any of you remember carbon copies or eight track tapes, transistor radios,
black and white TVs. I know some of you
probably remember when the radio first became commonplace. Who could have imagined email and instant
messaging? I still haven’t figured out
that one!
There is even change in the
Church. Hymns change. Liturgies
change. Friends and colleagues move on.
Now Fahed and AMIS are moving after more than 25 years. Fahed, we will miss you in this place. We love you.
Change… How do we, how can
we, bear it? Think of your own life. We
change jobs, careers, some of us change partners. We move to another city, to another house, to the retirement
home.
Our children who when they
were born we thought they would be around forever move on. Last week in my devotional reading I returned
to this little blue book, an old favorite, “A Diary of Private Prayer” by John
Baille. It was given to us long ago by our dear friend Rona who inscribed it,
“For Andie and Craig: With much love
always, remembering a quiet talk when Peter was a baby…”
Well, Peter the
“new baby” became “Pete”, and Pete went to college last week. Now how did that
happen?! It’s been nine days and has he
emailed or called home? We finally relented
midweek and called him and, of course, he knew exactly how he had been doing!
It reminded me of 30 years
ago when I was a freshman in college and my older brother, George, told me that
it might be a good idea to call home every once and awhile because Mom and Dad
might like to know how I was doing. Can
you imagine that? Maybe it is true,
that the more things change the more they stay the same!
Life is change. Our bodies age, much to our surprise, and
suddenly we are confronted by our own mortality. I remember as a teenager listening to my grandmother lamenting
that there was no one left alive who had been present at her wedding to my
grandfather. She would sing over and
over along with the song,-- maybe you remember it… “Those were the days my
friends, we thought they’d never end...” But those days did end.
Have you been following all
the excitement about the planet Mars?
This past Wednesday at 5:51 am Mars was only 34,646,416 miles away from
the earth, the closest it has been to us in 60,000 years. It is brilliant and I saw it in the night
sky a week ago. But have any of you had the same thought that I have… that Mars
is going to be around a lot longer than I am, that the next time around Mars
won’t be seeing me! How brief and
fleeting are our lives!
James Loder, late professor
at Princeton Seminary, wrote, “In a universe
that is about 15 billion light years old, a life is scarcely long enough to be
called a predeath experience”. (James
Loder, The Logic of the Spirit)
This also is the
perspective of the Psalmist in Psalm 103 when he writes, “As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field for
the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place is known no more” and “for
God knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.”
Of course, the psalmist
does not stop here and we must not either, for in contrast to our fragility and
vulnerability is the everlasting and steadfast love of God. And this too is the
Apostle Paul’s message of encouragement to the Church in Corinth years ago.
In the context of a
discussion about the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and prophecy, he writes what we have come to know as 1st
Corinthians 13, the great chapter on love, which we most frequently hear at
weddings.
Paul writes about “a more excellent way”.
He then goes on to describe this love.
“Love is patient and kind;
love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is
not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the
right. Love bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends… “
You see this love, is God’s
love itself. It is not passive, but
aggressive, it is unconditional, unremitting, and it is the greatest power in
the world. It is a love that always takes us beyond ourselves.
This past week
saw the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin
Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream Speech” delivered at the Lincoln
Memorial. At the time I was eight years
old living outside the city in a Maryland suburb. I had only a vague awareness
of the event.
In several news
retrospectives aired this week, much was made of the fact that in the segment
of his speech about the dream, the part that we all know, King departed from
his prepared text and in fact began preaching. You can see it. Everything
changed. In describing a vision of racial equality and harmony something
gripped him. As I listened again to
those words and saw his passion appealing to the best in all of us, I found
myself thinking, “now there’s a love that bears all things, hopes all things,
endures all things, believes all things.”
Several years earlier in a
sermon entitled “Love your Enemies” preached in Montgomery, Alabama King had
described his vision for an “organized mass nonviolent resistance to oppression
based on the principle of love. He went
on to describe that love as…
“The understanding,
creative, redemptive good will for all. It is a love that seeks nothing in
return. It is an overflowing love. It is what theologians would call the love
of God working in the lives of men... love is the only creative, redemptive,
transforming power in the universe.”
Do you believe that? I do and I want to believe it and trust it
all the more. A love that is a
transforming power. It is the love
which seeks us in baptism, which we saw in the baptisms of little Alex and
Ellie this morning, with God reaching out to them and to you and to me. It is God’s own self-giving love. It is a love that we see in the Lord’s
Supper, “This is my body, broken for you.”
Let me ask you, Do you know
that love? Is your heart, your life open to the Spirit which Paul says God has
poured into our hearts? Is God’s love
taking you beyond yourself?
Or are you hanging on for
dear life, buffeted by winds of change, resisting all the way?
You see, you can have the
perfect job, your kids can be in the best schools, you can have enough money in
the bank, you can even be working your tail off in volunteer or Church
activities, but what is it worth if you are not doing it in love?
Or to look at it another
way, what will you have left when all of it is gone?
Craig Barnes was our guest
preacher here this past June. In his
book, When God Interrupts: Finding
New Life through Unwanted Change, he tells this story.
Listen…
At the end of what had been a very long week, I found myself driving to a local nursing home to lead a Communion service. It was the last thing I wanted to be doing.
The week had begun with three days at a denominational renewal meeting that had been disastrous. I got back to my office on Wednesday to an “in box” that was two and a half inches thick filled with letters from people who have great dreams for our church and wanted to say that we were not doing enough to get it right. I had missed so much work earlier in the week that my day off on Thursday had to be scrapped. Friday morning I had to step into a staff conflict. Sunday was fast on my tracks, and the sermon was a long way from being ready.
Friday afternoon I raced over to the nursing home to “take care of this commitment.” In the car, I actually prayed to God to help me get through this thing so I could get back to work. Unbelievable.
After I held a brief service for ambulatory residents, a couple of elders went with me to take communion to those who were too disabled to leave their rooms. It was then that I met my priest for that day, Mrs. Lucille Lins.
Mrs. Lins is almost blind and very hard of hearing. She has gradually become shut off from the world. Her health has slipped away, and now she is confined to a small room, having given up her house years ago. She has outlived her husband and close friends. Very few people in our church still remember her. She has lost almost everything but life itself.
It was a humble scene. I tried to be cheery. She said something I could not understand. It was clear that we were not going to have a profound conversation. I muttered through the words, “This is my body broken for you. This is my blood poured out for you.” We fumbled with the Communion. I helped her shaking hands find the bread on the little tray I held in front of her. We spilled the juice on my slacks. Just one more thing that isn’t going right, I thought to myself. I prayed briefly, gave her a pat on the back and said something about how much God loved her. As I got ready to leave, she surprised me by beginning to pray.
In a clear voice she said, “Thank you, God, for being so good to me. Thank you that I am not forgotten. Thank you for always loving me.”
At last something had broken through my manic efforts at being the savior. Stunned, I dropped back into my chair. A long time of silence passed. I did not want to leave her because this was my first sacred moment all week, and I knew this woman had so much to teach me. This blind woman could see what I could not.
I have received so much, and for now I am still holding on to most of it. Mrs. Lins has lost everything but the love of God, and yet her heart is filled with gratitude. I had not prayed a single prayer of thanksgiving all week. I had been way too busy asking God to help me achieve more.
I slowly drove back to the church repeating the prayer I had just learned from this great saint. “Thank you, God, for being so good to me. Thank you that I am not forgotten. Thank you for always loving me.
Well what about you this
morning? What will you have when
everything else is gone?
Nothing… nothing but the
steadfast love of God which is from everlasting to everlasting.
Nothing but the love of God
in Jesus Christ.
Nothing but the love that
will not let us go and from which even death cannot separate us.
Nothing but the love which
bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things.
Nothing but the love which
never ends.
It is the only thing and it
is everything that we will ever need.
Thanks be to God! Alleluia!
Amen.