Sermon originally preached on August 8, 2010, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC. The worship service on this day included a time of sharing the news from the summer mission trip.
Matthew 21:28-31
When I go on a mission tour like this one to Henderson Settlement in Kentucky, I have to realize that I don’t know much about home repair. I should be singing my own version of that Sam Cooke song, the one on which he sings:
Don’t know much about history.
Don’t know much biology.
Don’t know much about a science book.
Don’t know much about the French I took.
((What a) Wonderful World)
My version would go like this:
Don’t know much about carpentry.
Don’t know much stone masonry.
Don’t know much about the hammer claw.
Don’t know much about power saw.
I don’t mean to be overly modest. I’m handy enough around my home when it comes to small projects (painting, new faucet handles, changing light bulbs – even the tricky ones). But when these home repair projects get bigger, I find I am out of my league. I’m happy to do help, but my mind doesn’t have that knack for envisioning the steps of a project. And I don’t yet have much experience to guide me. In these ways, I am a lot like most of the people who go on these mission tours. We’re happy to help, and we’re not totally clueless. With those qualifications, we go out to meet these wonderful families along the Kentucky-Tennessee border, who really need basic repairs and improvements and are short on options. We look at the homes and think about the project, and we don’t have a clue where to begin. I don’t know where to begin, even though I was just in the meeting with the work supervisor of Henderson Settlement, in which he gave instructions about the project. It looked simple on paper, but now I look at all the irregularities that any home has, and his sound guidance melts from my mind. There are a lot of things that can’t be accounted for in the instructions. We have to figure it out on-site, and I don’t know where to begin.
Faith is also a work in progress. Sometimes faith seems straightforward, especially in these times when we sit together in church, and we talk about how faith means trusting God. Faith is following the way of Jesus. Faith is acted out in what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments: 1) Love God, and 2) love your neighbor as yourself. We say all those things, and we believe them, and we are happy to do them. But then we leave church and we arrive on-site at our lives, and things are not so simple. We can change light bulbs all right, and paint the walls, but we don’t know where to begin with the larger remodeling project of bringing our lives into faithful repair. As the saints of the Orthodox church would say, we all contain within ourselves the damaged image of God that God is trying to restore. But how does that begin?
Our lives are too complicated for us to give simple answers on Sunday. Yes, love your neighbor, and it is easy when that means to be friendly and pick up the newspapers when they’re away. But what if your neighbor leaves trash in your yard, and ignores your polite requests to pick it up? What if you hear fights from inside their home? When is it love to live and let live, and when is it love to confront your neighbor, or call the police? What if it’s your brother, or your daughter? How do we love others when the choices are difficult? How do you begin?
The parable Jesus told about two sons raises that question, and many more. The first son tells his father that he will not work in the field and then he does. The second son says that he will work in the field, and then he doesn’t. It’s one thing for Jesus to ask which brother did the will of his father, but I want to ask what happened to the second son? Was he lying from the start? Or did he have good intentions to work, only to realize that he was unprepared. Maybe the work was overwhelming, and he didn’t know where to begin. And it can be hard to ask for help, especially when you are the farmer’s son, and you think that you should know better. It can be hard to ask for help when you have been a Christian for years and years, and you think that you should know by now.
On the mission tour, I am so thankful for people who have the experience and construction I.Q. to devise solutions for all our complications: people like Scott Kemph and Dee West, John King, Mike and Ingrid Woodling, and from previous years, Ben Warner and Ken Brown. Without people like them, the rest of us would be like the farmer’s son and say “Yes, we’ll go work on the mission tour!” But then we would not do the project because we wouldn’t know how to begin.
How do we begin to work at our faith? For me, it is much like the work of construction. I bring what little I know and have experienced, and then I look to those who have been doing this for a long time. I look to those who have the experience of loving people in difficult relationships. I look to people who are able to be generous even when they seem to have little. I look to people who have found God’s presence not only in good times, but in times of grief and sorrow. They show me how to begin.
On the Monday morning of this past mission tour, when I arrived with half of our group at a home to which we were to install insulation and new siding over top of the existing, damaged siding, I looked at all the difficulties: irregular windows, damaged walls, porch floors and roof that were in the way. I thought…this is too much. But then Dee showed a few of us how to prepare a window with new strips of wood around it to hold the J-channel for the siding. And, instead of looking at all the different windows, especially the ones that would require a ladder to be stood on a hillside, a few of us just started with one window. And then we went to the next window.
All of the greatest saints began with no more experience than any of us has right now. Their faith was no bigger. Jesus said that faith the size of a little, itty-bitty mustard seed is plenty big enough. It is enough, first of all, because we are not alone. There are others, who have great experience, to show us the way. And with us always is God. So we can sing with Sam Cooke all we want to about the things we don’t know. Don’t know much about history or biology. Don’t know much about the Bible, or how to love when I’m angry, or how to give when I’m afraid, or how to trust in God more than in things.
It doesn’t matter what we don’t know. What matters is that God loves us, just as we are, and God’s grace makes us new, makes of us what we are meant to be deep down. By God’s grace we can begin with the one moment in front of us, and then move to the next, and in that way we will grow, and we will learn all of the wonderful riches of faith together. We will become master builders.
Do you know the rest of Sam Cooke’s song? After we admit all of the things we don’t know much about, this is the part of the song that God sings with us.
But I do know that I love you.
And I know that if you love me too,
What a wonderful world this would be.
3 comments:
Matt, I just finally read this sermon. So good! So true and honest, and the ending is perfect.
Matt, when you preached this, did you sing the passages from the song, or say them?
I sang them all. What other excuse would I ever have to perform Sam Cooke in public?
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