FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Rev. Connie Lee

June 25, 2006

BLESSED ASSURANCE

Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:32-49, Mark 4:35-41

Lifetime often presents us with many challenges that test our faith to the core. As Christians, we find we are not exempt from having to make hard decisions about how to respond to life’s challenges. In many cases, we take the easy way out or we try to avoid the struggle altogether.

This past week, the 217^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met in Birmingham, Alabama. Everyone understood the commissioners and delegates were facing some tough decisions. It was clear that the choices they would make could result in more division within our own church. However, we are pleased to announce that we have another Greater Atlanta Presbyterian minister who has been elected to serve as our Moderator, Rev. Joan Gray.

Moderator Gray is well known for her expertise with Presbyterian polity, and I can tell you from first-hand experience, she has written a book on it. But Moderator Gray made it quite clear that polity will not be the catalyst for bringing about unity within our denomination. Though our form of government has certainly allowed the spirit to move throughout the process, it is faithful commissioners and delegates who seek to discern where the living God is leading us in this day and time. After her election, Rev. Gray responded to news reporters with these words. “Maybe we could reframe our current situation as the struggle in which God meets and blesses us.” God makes a way where there is no way. As a pastor, I can tell you story after story of people who got to dead ends and God met them there. Sometimes there is a calling to be in the struggle.

One who would have agreed with Rev. Gray about such a calling to be in struggle is Frances Jane Crosby who later became known as Fanny Crosby. Crosby was born in 1820 in Southeast New York. When Fanny was just six weeks old, she contracted a virus in her eyes. The family physician was out of town and so her parents called in another doctor to treat her. The doctor prescribed hot mustard balls to be applied to her eyes, which completely destroyed her sight. Later her parents learned that the man did not even have a license to practice medicine and within a year of this tragedy Fanny’s father died which meant she was to be raised by a single mom with help from a grandmother. Her mother wanted desperately for her daughter to regain her sight so she sought out help in many places.

When Fanny was five years old, neighbors, friends and family pulled monies together in order to send her and her mother to consult with the best eye specialist in the country, Dr. Valentine Mott. However, after his thorough examination, Dr. Mott responded “ Poor child. I am afraid you will never see again.” Even at five years old, Fanny did not see herself as a poor child. Instead she saw herself as a child of God, and she was able to respond to this challenge with great faith, hope and love. It has been said that Fanny never felt any resentment against the man who caused her blindness, but she believed that this great challenge was permitted by the Lord in order for him to fulfill his plan for her life. In other words, Fanny believed that she was called to be in the struggle.

In spite of her disability, the one thing she desired was to receive an education like other boys and girls. She spent most of her time with her grandmother who introduced her to the Bible, and the Bible quickly became her favorite book. Fanny could recite from memory not only chapters but, whole books at a time. By the age of eight, she wrote her first poem and finally when it was close to her 15^th birthday, she was delighted to receive the news that she would be enrolled in the New Institution for the Blind in New York City. Enrolling in school was the beginning of what turned out to be the revealing of God’s call on Fanny’s life. Fanny began to write more and more poems and word began to spread about her giftedness.

During Fanny’s 95 years, she witnessed over 8,000 of her poems set to music and over 100 million copies of her songs printed. Musicians would sometimes come to Fanny and play tunes and ask her “What does this sound like to you?” To which, Fanny would respond, “It sounds like….” and that tune would later become a well-known hymn. Fanny wrote familiar hymns like “A Shelter In The Time Of Storm,” “Near The Cross,” “Pass Me Not,” and “Blessed Assurance.” (Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby by Edith L. Blumhofer). Though faced with this tremendous challenge of living in a world of darkness, Fanny does not waste her time feeling sorry for herself or looking for someone else to blame. Instead she trusts God indeed has a plan for her life and for her that means that any experience God has brought her to, she believes God will also bring her through. Fanny has the faith that even in the darkness, Jesus is still the light of the world. The gift of faith is a remarkable gift that allows each of us to face challenges and struggles while remaining hopeful and true to our calling, a calling to love God and one another.

In our New Testament lesson, Mark describes several challenges and struggles of the disciples and their response to them. Jesus instructs them to cross over to the other side. You see crossing over to the other side challenges the disciples to take the good news to the Gentiles. Up to this point, non-Jews are not included in the community of faith. Crossing over to the other side requires the disciples to encounter people whose culture, ethnicity and even faith is different from their own. These will be people with very social, political and economic backgrounds who have not had the privilege of being in relationships with people whose love for God and each other dictates how they live in the world. As the disciples proceed to carry out these instructions, a challenge arises in the form of a storm and though at least four of the disciples were professional fishermen, the intensity of the winds and the rains begin to test their faith in their own ability to overcome the storm.

As disciples today, we are in the same boat – the church with the same instructions to cross to the other side. We are also called to engage ourselves with persons who differ from us. Many times, their needs and desires are not quite the same as ours. Because of God’s amazing grace, most of our essential needs are already met. While many around us are in need of healthcare, others are in need of gainful employment, others in need of transportation and adequate housing, and still others are just in need of someone to care, a listening ear. Yet, the winds of unequal educational opportunities continue to rise and promote increased crime in our communities. The waves of atrociously low minimum wages and astronomically high medical costs continue to slam against the sides of our boat, when we see the choppy waters of drug addiction, mental illness and greed. Like the disciples in Mark’s gospel, we too can become overwhelmed with the challenge. We too can become fearful. For that very reason, many in the boat in the church refuse to take the risk. Their hope for rescue is not in Jesus but perhaps in themselves or in their own resources. They keep their anchors dropped at the shoreline where they feel safe but for those disciples who attempt to obey Jesus, we take the risk because we, like the disciples in Mark’s gospel, we realize we are not in the boat alone. Jesus is on board. Almighty God is in the boat with us. If we were to rely only on our own resources and our own expertise, surely the storm would overtake us but because Jesus in on board, we have a blessed assurance, a blessed assurance that He cares about us. We have a blessed assurance that Jesus is able to command peace out of every challenge, out of every struggle, out of every storm.

When we take a look around in our world, in our country, in our church and even in our own families, yes, we see many challenges. These challenges in our lives may be caused by people, or situations or evil powers which we can do absolutely nothing about on our own. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and sometimes, good people suffer unjustly. However, we can still face each challenge with faith, hope and love, all because we are not alone in the challenge. One of the ways we here at First Presbyterian Church attempt to obey Jesus’ command is through our partnership with Hillside Presbyterian Church. Through our ministry together, we cross over to the other side with various partners around the city and internationally.

A few years ago, working with our partner agency Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services better known as RRISA, we sponsored a family from the Sudan. While in the Sudan, the oldest children were enrolled in school. However, after the war broke out, the mother, father and six children were placed in a precarious situation - the father soon became ill and subsequently passed away. After his death, the oldest son, John, took on the role of becoming the primary caregiver of his family. John traveled for many miles from the Sudan to Egypt, to Cairo and the like, all in search of employment. He would take on whatever jobs were presented to him in order to provide for his family. One job he began as a dishwasher but after a few hours of the owner learning that John is a Christian; he was told his services were no longer needed. However, John did not give up his faith, he still believed that God would provide a way for him and his family to live in safety and for him to eventually return to school. For five years or more, they remained in a refugee camp and finally in November of 2002, we welcomed John and his family into their new home in an apartment in the Atlanta area. That year the family lit our Advent candle right here in this sanctuary, and since that time we have remained close to them and this past month, I had the great privilege of attending a Dekalb County high school graduation in which John was one of the honored students who graduated with his high school diploma.

John gave a speech that highlighted a bit of his struggle in his desire to receive an education. When he finished his remarks, John received a standing ovation because it was clear to most of us in that room, that John is a living example of a person, who responds to challenges with faith, hope and love. John is already enrolled in a college program with plans to begin his studies this fall.

When we look back over our journeys of faith, we like Fanny Crosby, like the disciples in Mark’s gospel and like our friend John, we too can see where Jesus has already shown us that He has the power to overcome the challenges, the struggles and the storms that we may face in our lives. Therefore, let us not be afraid to cross over in the boat, the church, because we are called to face these challenges, to face these challenges with faith, hope and love. We know that we have a Blessed Assurance that as the challenges rise and as the winds blow, in God’s timing, he will speak to the storm and say, “Peace Be Still.” Amen.