By Dawn M. Frankfurt
Glory to the
Holy and Undivided Trinity;
God who is
Three in One and One in Three; Who is beyond us, among us, within us;
Who was, and
is, and is to come, world without end. Amen.
As anybody who has worked with me will tell you, I have
a ‘thing’ for organization. Having
stuff in order makes life simpler and it aids efficiency in getting tasks
done. It might sound counter-intuitive,
but orderliness and streamlined methodologies are very important to me because
I’m basically a lazy person. I don’t
want to have to work too hard to find things.
I avoid making too much of an effort or using too much energy on
frequently repeated tasks. To this end,
one of the things I’ve done is create a detailed and highly structured naming
convention for all of the files on my computer. My goal is finding things easily the next time I need them
instead of spending endless time searching for files which I THINK exist, but
whose name and location are a complete mystery. The lazy person in me always hopes that if I make everything in
life efficient enough, there will actually be time to be lazy!
All of that to say, that in preparing for today’s
sermon, I discovered, in my highly organized computer filing system that a file
for a sermon preached on the Last Sunday of Epiphany (also known as
Transfiguration Sunday) in Year A already existed. Since I haven’t been doing this ‘preaching thing’ very long, and
since I don’t have a history of preaching every Sunday, it isn’t often that I
preach on the same Sunday this year as I did the last time we went through this
lectionary cycle three years ago.
Out of curiosity, I opened up the old file and found a
sermon titled “Tomato Plantations.”
Immediately, it brought back memories.
“Tomato Plantations” was the sermon I preached immediately after
returning from my first trip to Honduras in January 2005. It turns out that it was excellent timing
for me to look at that sermon again because later in this service today we will
say a prayer for our Honduras missioners who are leaving this week for this
parish’s sixth mission trip to Honduras since January 2004. May God bless them in their travels, in
their many labors and in all of their relations with those they meet.
When I wrote about “Tomato Plantations” on
Transfiguration Sunday in Year A 2005, my focus was on transformation. I talked about the transformation of the
construction site in Honduras into a beautiful church, and I used that image to
talk about the power God has for transformation in each of our lives.
Looking over the same gospel story this year, a
different aspect of it appealed to me.
It was what Jesus said to Peter, James and John when they were overcome
by fear. He said, “Get up and do not be
afraid.” When the disciples heard God’s
voice in the cloud, they fell to the ground – afraid. But, Jesus wanted them to do
something. And while he was telling
them what to do, he was also encouraging and comforting them. He said, “Stand up!” As quickly as he said that, he also said,
“Do not be afraid.” By doing this, he
was assuring them that they had the ability to do what he was asking them to
do. That is the point which struck me
as important right now, for several reasons.
As Episcopalians we are being asked to figure out how to
stand up for what we think is
right in the midst of the expression of many points of view about the
interpretation of Holy Scripture and the understanding of inclusion in the
Anglican Communion.
As Americans we are being asked to make judgments on a
variety of issues and assessments about the state of our nation so that through
the power of our individual vote we will stand
up and do what is right for our country.
As people dependent on the natural resources of this
planet, we are being challenged to learn about the things which threaten our
environment (and ultimately endanger the survival of our children and
grandchildren). The world is asking us
to get up and do things which
will curb pollution, halt the depletion of resources and slow global
warming.
These aren’t easy things to do. However, they are the RIGHT things to
do. We need to heed the voice of
conscience which asks us to do something difficult and encourages us to stick
with it all the while.
Even as worshippers at Trinity, we are requested to stand up by way of our annual pledges
to this parish and to do what is right by it.
Today is Commitment Sunday and we are asked to pitch in to pay for what
we receive here and to contribute to this church’s work of God in the world. I am confident this is something we are all
being encouraged to do by God – at least, I know I am. It isn’t
comfortable or easy, but generosity and giving – instead of receiving – are the
right things to do.
Doing the right thing isn’t automatic for us. We are much more likely to do the easy
thing. There are plenty of examples of
this. I heard a story recently about
one teenager who was attacked and beaten by five rivals, right in the center of
a busy shopping mall. Girlfriends
cheered for their boyfriends. People
walking by turned their heads the other way.
Shoppers with mobile phones in their handbags and on their belts didn’t
look up from their errand to notice what was happening. It’s not right when someone can be ambushed
under our noses and no one will step in or call for help as the victim is being
kicked and punched. We know that Jesus
didn’t stand at a distance and quietly observe a group of men getting ready to
stone a woman. Are we, therefore,
encouraged to be by-standers?
I have a friend who was telling me about a colleague of
his who had been in desperate circumstances many years ago. My friend loaned his colleague a large
amount of money. The troubled fellow
eventually managed to work his way back into a good job and pulled himself out
of a bad situation. He had been doing
well for some time and my friend decided it was time for his colleague to begin
repaying the loan he’d been given. When
asked, his colleague claimed not to remember borrowing the money and commented
that he’d filed bankruptcy years ago anyway.
Convinced that it would not only be wrong for himself but also for the
well-being of his colleague if he let sleeping dogs lie, my friend has decided
he will stand up and confront the
issue. He wants to do the difficult
thing; see that things are made right.
Anybody who drove behind the church on Johnson Street
this morning or parked in the church parking lot, probably noticed a giant hole
in the iron fence around the parking lot.
Apparently, there was a car accident which caused the damage. Our past Junior Warden, Taine McPherson, who
has only recently, yet very happily, handed off his official duties of caring
for the property, heard about the huge hole in the fence and came to check it
out at 10:30 last night. He was on the
phone in the church office with the Staunton City police trying to track down a
report of the accident which had quite out-of-the-ordinary been taken by a
State Police Officer instead of one from the City. Taine wasn’t doing all of this because he wants to start up his
own version of Staunton CSI after hours.
He was doing something he probably really didn’t want to mess with
because it was the right thing to do.
His love for and commitment to this parish are more important than
finding the easy way out of something he doesn’t want to deal with.
Speaking of things we avoid and don’t want to deal with,
Episcopalians, as we have often joked, don’t really like doing evangelism. Talking about our faith to other people
isn’t ‘easy’ for us. We feel funny,
self-conscious. Talking about religion
to our non-church friends makes us uncomfortable. A challenge to us is to go ahead and invite someone to join us
who hasn’t been to Trinity before.
MemberGuest Day is February 17 – providing you with the perfect
opportunity to practice your own act of evangelism.
Did you notice the pretty flowers on the table in the
back of the church when you came in?
They’re there today in honor of what would have been Andrew Lane’s 25th
birthday. They were given in his memory
by his parents. Unless you’re the
newest of new-comers, everybody here remembers Andrew. Everybody here learned something from him
about going ahead and doing things even when they are difficult. So many times, Andrew showed us the value of
doing something worthwhile even though it wasn’t easy.
We need reminders that doing something right, even
though it is infinitely harder than NOT doing it, is the way we need to be
going. We need examples who inspire us
go another step further to do something that could really make a
difference. We breathe deeply. We swallow.
We take a risk. We are to be
strengthened and sustained. But you
have to do things in a certain order.
You take the first step AND THEN you can feel your faith at work, holding
you up.
There are all sorts of ways we have fallen to the ground
and been terrified of God’s voice.
Being paralyzed by fear is not how it is supposed to work. When we’re sick, when we’re stuck, when
we’re wrong, discouraged or fearful, we often draw up into the fetal position,
pull the covers over our head, or turn up the volume of our iPod
earphones.
That’s not how it is supposed to go. That’s not what we’re meat to do. Take heart.
Listen to what Jesus said to Peter, James and John: Stand up. Listen to God. Pay
attention. Do what you’re supposed to
do. Be comforted. God is with you. Be encouraged. God’s got
your back. Be assured in doing the
right thing. Come on. Follow me.
You CAN do it!
AMEN!!