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Sermon Pentecost 5B July 5 2009
St. Paul’s Church 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
Texts:
Mark 6:1-13
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
In whom or in what do you have confidence? In whom or in what do you trust? If you have confidence in other people, then your trust will change as you go through different stages of life and as the people move into and out of your life. When I was a little girl, the person I trusted the most to keep me safe was my mother. Some of my fondest memories are of her rocking me in the middle of the night when I was sick or scared. The rocking chair had a squeak and a rhythm all its own, and even today when I sit in it, I can still feel the comfort of my mother’s arms.
When I married, my safe person was my husband Paul. I remember one Sunday after a terrible ice storm in Augusta. Augusta College had announced that it would be open Monday and I knew that I would have to go to work. My fear was that I would fall on the ice. My balance was bad and I had no suitable foot gear. I didn’t even know that foot wear with ice-proof tread existed. On Sunday afternoon, Paul called a sporting goods store. They were closed, but the owner was there doing inventory. Paul explained the situation and the man said to come right over. We bought a pair of boots with such good tread that I could indeed have the freedom I needed to walk on the ice.
As you all know, a few years ago I was close to becoming incapacitated. I had been in tremendous pain for years when I walked. Again, I didn’t think anything could be done about it. But then my podiatrist told me that they could brace my foot. They did, and I have been walking virtually pain free ever since. I have spent a summer teaching in Paris and have made 4 mission trips to Honduras. I have walked all over Washington DC. I have complete faith in my brace. It has given me a new sense of life, liberty, and my own pursuit of happiness. When the little girls in Honduras have expressed concern about seeing my brace, I have told them that my brace is my best friend.
Last night here at St. Paul’s, the Riverwalk Series put on a joyous birthday party. Our country is now 233 years old. Instead of birthday candles, we light up the sky with blazing fireworks. Little kids’ noisemakers are replaced by firecrackers. Balloons are replaced by sparklers. Peach cobbler and watermelon take the place of birthday cake. Songs of remembrance and songs of freedom are the Happy Birthday song to our country.
The stability of a country that keeps one government for 233 years is remarkable. Presidents come and go just as the people closest to us do. We like some presidents and dislike others. But the system doesn’t fail. Whether we are Democrat or Republican, whether we favor the party in power or not, we know that if we want change, we have only to wait at the most 4 years in order to bring it about. Even when tragedy strikes, as it did in November 1963 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, we could be sure that we would have a new president and that somehow our country would go on.
Whatever problems the United States may face, we may be sure of waking up every day and knowing that we have a president and a government. We have the comfort of that constancy, that stability.
As we well know, that is not something that every country in the world can say. Just a week ago, I preached at an outdoor Eucharist at Our Little Roses in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The people of Honduras had awakened to find that they had no president. On the order of Congress and the Supreme Court of Honduras, the military had arrested President Manuel Zelaya and taken him away in the night. Zelaya had called for an election that was to take place that Sunday, that would rewrite the constitution so that he could succeed himself. Pro-Zelaya forces call what happened last Sunday a “coup.” Anti-Zelaya forces call it a constitutional crisis, saying that what Zelaya was proposing was illegal. President Obama and virtually the whole world are denouncing the coup, not because Zelaya is a good man, but because he was elected democratically four years ago and they believe he should serve out his term.
Central American governments are not known for their stability, but Honduras had been doing pretty well, being for the most part stable for about 20 years. Twenty years – that’s a far cry from 233 years, isn’t it?
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus sends his disciples out to preach the Gospel. People often wonder why he seems to spurn those who don’t want to hear it. I believe that he simply doesn’t want to force it on anyone. Forced religion is no better than a despotic government. When Jesus told the rich young man to sell all he had and give to the poor, the young man just walked sadly away. Jesus didn’t follow him and beat the gospel into him; no, Jesus gave the young man his freedom, his liberty to live his life as he saw fit.
I think that the opposite of what Jesus says today is also true. If people are receptive to the message, then sit and stay awhile. Form relationships. Let the others know that you will be a constant in their lives, and that Jesus will be a constant in their lives. God works through us. We are the hands and feet of God here on earth. Last week when we left the little girls in Honduras, they cried, and we cried. We assured them that we would see them again, that we would be back. That relationship, that constancy, that stability, is very important to them. They don’t have their own mother to rock them or to pick them up when they hurt themselves. So the house mothers and the big girls step in and act as mothers to the little girls. And we and other visitors also act as mothers and friends to them. My heart skips a beat every time I hear a 3-year-old call one of the big girls “Mama.”
But ultimately people go away. We can tell the little girls that we’ll be back, but no one ever knows what another year will bring.
The most important message, when people may fail us or when the country may fail us, is that God is always with them, is always with us. One of our teenagers asked a Honduran teen last week if she wasn’t afraid of what the political upheaval might bring. The Honduran teen took her by the shoulders and said with conviction, “We must have faith in God.” This is a girl who has no family to comfort her. This is a girl who can not necessarily depend on her country to keep her safe. This is a girl who understands perhaps the only constant in life – the love of God.
God is constant. God is stable. In comparison to the Honduran government, our having the same United States government for 233 years is remarkable. But in comparison to the eternity of God, 233 years is still insignificant. Neither death nor life, neither things present nor things to come, shall separate us from the love of God. Jesus said to us, “And lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end of the ages.” May these words of Jesus be our comfort, our constancy, our stability. Amen.