Sunday, October 29, 2006, 07:00 AM - Sermon
Matthew 6:19-21Hebrews 11:29-12:2;12-13
The modern Olympics include bringing the flame from a torch lit in Greece where the original Olympics were held to the site of today's games. Usually the torch is carried by a relay of runners accompanied by escorts and cheered on by onlookers. It is a link from events of thousands of years ago, carried into the present day to give light to millennium old values of excellence in athleticism and peaceful cooperation among peoples.
Contrast the carrying the light of the torch over miles and millennium to the flickering light of flashbulbs that dominate our lives: the scandal of the day, the crisis of the hour, the celebrity of the moment. Instead of following ancient values in our daily walk, we have the urgent blinding us to the important, the transient covering over the eternal, and the urges of the body eclipsing the gifts of the spirit.
How can we be torchbearers in a flashbulb era?
First we can reach out to take the torch from those who carried it in the past. The stories of faith in the scriptures are examples to us, but also the faith of our father and mothers. We do that today with our All Saints Day observance. What good and faithful activities did they give their time, talents, and treasure to? What values can we find in their generation that we want to pass on to our generation? Further, their faithful witness in the past should encourage us as a cheering crowd encourages athletes. They had challenges and obstacles of their own yet they manage to do good and remain faithful. We can do the same in our time. Listen to the crowd. Pay attention to others.
We need to be the connection to others. As technology of cell phones and ipods tempt us to carry our personal spaces with us into public spaces we are in danger of losing touch with others around us. Not just the voices of the past, but even the voices of the present as we ignore those around us wrapped in our own conversations with invisible folks and substituting a self-chosen soundtrack to the song of humanity that surrounds us.
Next we can move from the moment to the movement. The instantaneous media amplifies and reflects back to us the anxieties of the moment. A new study grabs headlines, a disaster fans fears, a celebrity stumbles and we are blinded by such flashbulbs, forgetting that we are carrying a torch in a marathon. Only when death intrudes it seems do we stop and take the long term view, review life and purpose instead of appointments and commitments.
Stephen R. Covey tells us one of the habits of highly effective people is to begin with the end in mind. He has a striking image of a funeral, your own, when he asks his readers to imagine who will be there and what will they say. He asks them to imagine one from work, one from family, one from your church, one from neighborhood, and a friend and what they would say at your own funeral 5 to 10 years in the future. Of course, the lesson is to work so they will say what you would like to be remembered for after you are gone when your race is finished and you join the great throng of those in heaven. Looking back at your life, before it is gone is help to have you get out of reacting to the moment and joining a long-term movement toward making a better you and a better world.
Where looking at the crowd that carried the torch before us looks to the past for inspiration and hope; looking to the goal line, the finish line, the destination for our souls of the kingdom of God calls us forward in hope toward the future.
I dream of a Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church where every room is used everyday. Where children are helped and sheltered, where regular folks and poor folks pool their resources to get good inexpensive food from angel food. There are thousands waiting in a church parking lot for hours to get food to help make ends meet. Good hard working folks that can use a break. I dream there will be a time that they would wait here in our sanctuary. Singing hymns and being warm. I dream that when folks look back at Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church they will say, they helped people, all people, not just themselves.
We have past and future. I like to include the present. Here's one you probably haven't though of. Put your money where you want your heart to be. It is a strange relationship. But where your treasure is that is where your heart is as well. Unions ask us to do this when they encourage us to Buy American. We all know the dark side of this, when we buy a new thing, like a car, or a fancy phone, and then it breaks. I always dread getting a new car, because I know that sooner or later I'll bump, chip, or crash it. That first one is the hardest. I remember the sinking feeling when I came out to my car, just a few weeks old, to find the windshield smashed. Why was I so upset? No one was hurt, it was drivable and fixable. I just had put so much treasure into it my heart was there also.
How often do we say something is important to us and then not commit money to it? I know you will tell me about things money cannot buy, but stay with me on this. Prayer doesn't solve every problem, neither do Mission and Outreach or Worship but no one ever angrily dismisses Prayer, Good works, Worship with the argument “But you know, prayer isn't everything, you should give money as well!” Jesus here tells us not to look for our heart where are prayers are, not where our service is Jesus, not me, says our hearts are where our treasure is. A quick spiritual inventory would be to look at our bank records and see where our money goes, for there goes are hearts as well.
There is good news! Stewardship is not a burden, not an obligation, not our fair share. It is putting our money where our hearts are. If you want to be more spiritual, more connected, more giving, in short if you want your heart to be moved, move your treasure and your heart will follow. We don't have to wait until death rips away our pretense and reorders our values from the temporal to the eternal. You don't have to stay in the past remembering the great things others have done. We can be a living memorial today putting our lives in order of where our hearts are, so that when we are gone, others will light candles for us and say, “Well done good and faithful servant, enter the joy of your master.”
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race set before us.
Copyright © 2006 Advanced permission is given for non-profit, for-prophet use of the above at no charge as long as it is reproduced unedited with notices and copyright intact. Written copies are provided after they are preached as a courtesy for the personal, private, appreciative use of the congregation of Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church, their families and friends to support the ministry of Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church and its pastor the Rev. J. Christy Ramsey. Join us Sundays! 8:15 Traditional Worship and 10:15 Blended. Mingle in our Gathering Room between services and take advantage of Christian Education opportunities.
