“What Order Are Our Priorities In?”

First Congregational United Church of Christ

October 30, 2011

The Rev. Sharyl B. Peterson

 

Scripture Readings:  Luke 6: 24-30; 1 John 3: 1-3

 

This morning, we’re going to begin the sermon with a little quiz.  Don’t worry about whether your own particular answers are “right” or “wrong” – there are no “right” or “wrong” answers on this quiz.  And, all of them in some sense, whatever you answer, are going to be “right” because they will all be helpful in our thinking together in just a minute about today’s topic.  So relax, and let’s see what we can learn. 

            1.  How many of you know how your favorite local high-school football team is playing this season? (please raise your hand)

2.  How many of you know what your favorite local high-school’s graduation rate was this past spring?

3.  How many of you watched at least part of the royal wedding between Prince William and Lady Katherine?

4.  How many of you watched the President’s recent address to the joint session of Congress regarding the American Jobs Bill? 

5.  How many of you plan your church attendance around whether you are planning a vacation, or going hunting, or are planning to watch a “big game” on TV? 

6.  How many of you plan your church attendance around what the liturgical season is, or what events in Christ’s life we will be celebrating?

            Now, I can’t take credit for this little quiz.  In fact, I just modified it from one of the UCC “Stillspeaking Daily Devotionals” written a couple of weeks ago[1] by the Rev. Kenneth Samuel, who is the pastor of Victory For the World (UCC) Church in Atlanta.  In his Daily Devo piece, Ken was reflecting on – and encouraging readers to reflect on – the things we focus our daily lives on … the things that form our top priorities. 

            He points out that as a rule, more of us do attend to local high school sports considerably more intently than we do to local high school graduation rates (even though the latter are plummeting – and presumably should be of considerable concern to us).  More of us did watch the royal wedding than watched the recent Presidential address to Congress.  And more people (although perhaps not so much, more of us here) are likely to vote for the next “American Idol” than for the next governor of our state!  Ken says that as people of faith, we need to reassess our priorities.  That all too many of us are focusing our time, and energy, and money on things other than what our Christ calls us to focus on. 

            Now, this is hardly an original thought with Rev. Samuel.  Philosophers, poets, adventurers, even entertainers have invited us to pay attention to our priorities for centuries.  Thoreau, for example, said, “it is not enough to be busy; so are ants.  The question is:  ‘what are we busy about?’”  In other words, what exactly are we doing with all our time and energy?  And what value does it have?    Gandhi remarked, “(our) actions express (our) priorities.”  That is, we do what we consider most important to do, whatever others might think or say.  Along the same lines, Freya Stark declared, “There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”  That is, we can’t be happy if the way we are living – the things we are doing – is inconsistent with our core life beliefs.  Sort of like a fellow named Jesus reminds us over and over, “It doesn’t matter so much what you believe about faith.  What matters is what you do about faith.”  And any number of current religious commentators have suggested priority-checks like this:  “Go to your checkbook and see what you spend money on.  In an instant, you wll know what is important to you because your money goes toward it.”  Alternatively, you can do exactly the same thing with your calendar.  Despite what we say is most important to us, our real priorities – the way we spend our money … our time … our energy … may actually be very different.

Now, you may be wondering, so what does all this have to do with the holy day we are celebrating today – All Saints Day, or (as you’ll see in your bulletin insert) from the German Evangelical side of our tradition, Totenfest? 

What on earth do our priorities have to do with being “saints”?  When we talk about celebrating the “saints,” aren’t “saints” people who literally gave their lives for their faith?  Aren’t “saints” people known to perform miracles, like miraculous healings?  Aren’t “saints” people whose faces sometimes show up in expected places, like on the side of newly-constructed buildings, or in peanut-butter sandwiches?  Well … no.  At least, not in our Protestant traditions, and not in the Judeo-Christian roots of our traditions. 

            This may come as a surprise to some of you, but in the Jewish tradition – in the Old Testament – several of the Psalms and the prophets (e.g., Daniel) talk about “saints.”  These were people who lived in “covenant faithfulness” (that’s what the Hebrew word hesed, which gets translated as “saint” means), people who are bound closely to God in love[2].  Less frequently-mentioned in the O.T. were a second kind of saints, people who “set themselves apart” to serve God, in somewhat the same way that Roman Catholic religious do today.  Along that same train of thought, the New Testament writers talk about saints as people who are “holy ones,” people who “are called to belong to Jesus Christ” (and who presumably answer that call with a “yes”). 

Notice – none of the Biblical writers define saints as people who walk on water … or who perform miraculous acts.  Instead, the saints are the people who remember that they – and everyone else – is first and foremost a “child of God.”  They are people whose number one priority (as Christians) is “belonging to Jesus Christ,” is following Jesus, is living the way that Christ teaches us to live.  And as we know, Jesus is very, very clear about what that looks like. 

I met one of these saints last week when I was on study leave at the Mercy Center in Colorado Springs.  She would die of embarrassment if she knew I was using her for a sermon illustration, but even so, I’m going to tell you about Saint Donna. 

            Donna is maybe two inches taller than I am, a few years younger (but not many) than I am, not beautiful by any conventional standards of beauty, and usually dressed in worn jeans and tee-shirts.  As far as I know, Donna is not wealthy or successful by any conventional standards, either.  I would guess that Donna has never owned, and probably never will own, a mink coat … or an expensive car … or a second home in Aspen. 

            Donna is the cook at the Mercy Center, and in that role, she plans, and preps, and fixes meals for between a dozen and five dozen people every day, twice a day, 50 weeks out of the year.  Even though she is working on a very limited budget, her meals were invariably simple, and absolutely delicious, and she obviously was pleased when people would compliment her on

her chicken or on the wonderful zucchini dish she had fixed.

One afternoon, as I was helping clear up the lunch dishes, (all of us staying at the Center had assigned kitchen-chores each day), I noticed Donna was putting on her jacket, and getting ready to leave until it was time for her to come back and fix our dinner.  I also heard someone ask her where she was going, and she responded, “oh, just over to check on Mildred.” 

            Out of pure curiosity, I asked her who Mildred is.  And Donna explained that Mildred was a very elderly woman, in her 90s, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, and is living in a nursing-home.  When I asked her if Mildred was a family member, or a friend, Donna answered “no…”  but that in Donna’s previous life as a hairdresser, Mildred had been one of her clients for many years.  And when Mildred started getting sick, and had no family or other friends to care for her, Donna said, “well she needed someone to help her … so I sort of took over.” 

            Mildred had indeed needed someone.  And simply because she knew her … and because she knew Mildred had no-one else who cared about her … and because she is a woman of faith (although she didn’t talk about this part that day) … Donna has taken on the arduous task of driving halfway across Colorado Springs twice a day, to see how Mildred is doing at the nursing-home, and to advocate for her, so she gets good care.  That, my friends, is what the Bible means by a “saint.”

            And I saw some other saints at work this week, in our very own church.  On Wednesday afternoon, a dozen women showed up to help tie knots in the lap-toppers (the lap-blankets) that one of our saints thought might help people keep warmer this winter as you worship in this sanctuary.  My guess is that not one of those women had “extra money” to help them pay for the gas it took to do that.  My guess is – knowing how incredibly busy each of those women stays – none of them had any “spare time” to contribute to the project.  But because they know that people get cold in here during winter-worship … because they know that you get cold in here during winter-worship … they made the time, and made the trip over, and spent several hours engaged in the very boring task of tying hundreds of knots to hold the lap-toppers together.  And I’d be willing to bet that if I’d asked any of them why they did it, if really pushed, they might admit it had something to do with “being a member of our church…” or “trying to do unto others as they would have others do unto them.”

            I could name another dozen saints among us sitting here this morning … in fact, I could probably name another 100 or so saints sitting here this morning … like those people who come to worship every Sunday they are able to, regardless of hunting-season, or football-season, because worshipping God on Sunday is their first priority.  And those people who show up to cut celery- and carrot-sticks, and to make sandwiches, or who bake cookies, or cakes, or donate money for Bereavement dinners, or who wash the dirty dishes afterward, regardless of whether they can afford to, or whether it’s convenient, or interesting … because caring for those who mourn is their first priority at that time.  And those people who visit our shut-ins, even if they’re really quite shy and uncomfortable doing it, and the ones who send get-well notes, or thank-you cards, or notes of encouragement to others because visiting (whether in person or through a card) is their top priority.  And those people who drop in to repair things here at the church (sometimes, week after week)  so we don’t have to pay for the repairs out of the budget, or who quietly donate hours of their time to do volunteer secretarial work (like folding bulletins), or who faithfully attend our semi-annual clean-up days, and rake, and clip, and clean, because good stewardship of God’s resources in their first priority. 

            Saints are those people who lead worship with their voices or their other talents, those people who come to classes or other groups here and learn how to deepen their faith, those people who volunteer for Respite Night or for the Homeless Overflow Program, those people who bring in boxes of cereal and cans of food for the Food Bank, those people who sacrificially give of their resources to support one – or more – of our many mission projects … and more. 

            Saints are not especially holy.  They certainly are not perfect.  And they are not superhuman, and able to do things other people are unable to do.  They are simply “those people” who choose to make God – and worshipping God … and serving God (by serving others) – their top priority. 

            They are “those people” … who are “you people.”  Who are “us people.”  Who are also the people we remember this day. 

            People who we remember at least in part because in their love for other people, we also saw their love for God.  People who we may remember because in their care for other people, their service to other people, we also saw their care for, and service to, God.  People who we remember because in some way – for a very long time, or a very short time – in profound ways, or very ordinary ways – their lives touched ours in ways that made God real to us. 

            So as we remember them in this time together, let our prayer this day be:  thank you!  Thank you, God, for the gifts of each of these people in our lives.  Thank you too, to every person who has shown us how to love.  Thank you, to every person who has shown us how to work.  Thank you, to every person who has shown us how to play.  Thank you, to every person who has shown us how to live.  For their lives – and for our own – for their call to live as saints,

and for our call to do so – thanks be to God!  Amen.