“The Opportunity Before Us”

Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
 On September 4, 2005
  
Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Galatians 6:2, 9-10

On the behalf of the congregation, I extend to those whose loved ones, family and friends, have been or may still be disrupted in this storm, our compassion and our care. We have been hearing some of your stories this week at church, through e-mails and phone calls and drop-by visits. I know we have not heard all of them. I know that some of you are here with stories you are still telling. A child comes to tell me of her concern about her grandmother, who lives in Mississippi, at the end of the children’s sermon. We have heard that Sarah Mickelson has heard from her parents, who live on the coast of Mississippi, and their home is standing, while it is flooded and badly damaged. I know that Terri and Jeff Willis’ son, Jeff, is a rising sophomore at Tulane, and I have read that they have had to cancel all of their classes, that they have had to cancel their school for the fall. I keep Jeff in my prayers as he has to decide what he’ll do this fall. I think about Phil and Camille Thomas, Camille growing up in New Orleans, and her friends and extended family who are there. We have heard from John and Amy Crane, who spent a good number of years in this congregation, but moved to Louisiana, where John works in the stevedoring and crane company on the Mississippi River. Amy has communicated with us to tell us that they are alright, and that they are down to business trying to help others. I have not heard from John Nelson. He has many extended family members in the New Orleans area, and I have often heard him talk about both his family and his wife Linda’s family, there. Brian Scott, a member of our congregation in the Coast Guard, stationed in St. Petersburg, has now been activated and is part of flying rescue missions there around the New Orleans area. We keep him in our prayers. We have heard from Harriet Cale, who was an associate pastor here and is now retired and lives in Louisiana. She is safe and is working with her congregation there to receive refugees and those who are fleeing from the storm. We know, as BJ mentioned, that there are at least six Presbyterian churches badly damaged in south Florida, and we have not yet been able to tabulate not only the number of Presbyterian churches, but churches and synagogues of other congregations in faith that have been damaged or destroyed. It is a wide enough swath to cause us to believe that everyone will have been hit in some way or another before the final toll is taken.

I will not spend more time rehashing the scope of the disaster that I know you have personally observed already with painfully too much detail. I will tell you that at the end of the service, I have asked some Stephen’s Ministers to come and stand here by the organ, that they might receive the names of family members or friends that you would like to add to our intercessory prayer list.

We surely, we must acknowledge the grief that is amongst us. The loss that our country has known and knows. And the tasks before us. Once again, the task before us, the opportunity before us, as the Letter to the Galatians says, is before us because Tampa Bay was not hit by the devastating hurricane. We gathered here for worship this morning in the standing walls of this sanctuary, from our own beds and our own homes, even as we gathered here last year after Frances and Ivan and Charley, because it did not come to us. And while we say, authentically, “Thank God,” we must also say, “And now Lord, what would Thou have us do?”

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says, “To those to whom much is given, much is expected.” And this morning, at least in the mind of this pastor, it seems clear to me that he is speaking to us. Those of us who come from our own beds and our own homes, and gather in our own standing sanctuary. Those to whom much is given, much is expected.

This time, at least, and I do not pretend that we will always avoid the hurricane, but this time at least, what is given to us in being spared is the opportunity to reach out in care and in concern and in relief. The apostle says in the letter to the Christians in Galatia, “We have the opportunity to help.” It falls to us, as the opportunity which is also Christian responsibility. The opportunity which is also Christian privilege. The opportunity which is also Christian obedience, to bear one another’s burdens. To do good to all people, especially the family of believers. And to work at not growing weary in doing good.

That will be work, because this will not go away soon. Let us work at supporting one another so that we do not grow weary. Bear one another’s burdens. The Bible says this morning, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” And I believe that is the harvest of fulfillment. The harvest that comes with partnering with God to do good works. Therefore, as we have the opportunity and our being able to gather here, is a sign that we are given the opportunity. Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

In a moment I will address some of the specific opportunities before us as a congregation. But your individual Christian opportunities are undoubtedly greater. Because of your contacts, your networking, your creativity, your associations with other institutions in your workplaces and your businesses and your schools. Your opportunities will be greater than those that I mention today. Before I list those, though, I want to make some theological affirmations as a way, a small way, in beginning to bring some order to the chaos that has struck the southeastern part of the United States.

In the storm (it’s part of what we sing about in the hymns this morning), in the storm like this, we are struck both with the presence of God and the power and the capacity of creation, and with the sovereignty of God. It seems impossible for humans to go through this kind of experience without in some way being thrown onto an awareness of the fact that we are creatures, and God is the Creator. And there is this vast difference between us.

We delude ourselves at times into thinking, because of our technological sophistication, or our ability to achieve things economically, that as the Bible says, we may indeed build the tower to Babel. But this event, like so many other natural events, brings us to the awareness that there is an unspeakable difference between us and God.

So one pastor, writing out of south Louisiana, says about the southernmost Presbyterian church in that state, that God has now reclaimed St. Marks. As if creation itself has reached up and taken away something from us. We may, like Job, experience at times this alienation from God; and like Job, we are suddenly aware once again of our status as creatures. And we feel our vulnerability in our humanity.

In part it may serve to undermine any tendency amongst us toward arrogance. The scope of the tragedy undermines whatever tendency humans may have towards arrogance. The United States of America is technologically the most sophisticated, and economically the most developed, and militarily the strongest nation in the world. And yet, this hurricane, one hurricane, has been able to reduce us to a nation in great need. Unable to move at times in the midst of the tragedy.

The psalm says, “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps on this wave, and rides upon the storm.” And with the ancient creed, we say in the face of the storm, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker, Creator, of heaven and earth.” And with the new creed, we say, “In life and in death, we belong to God.” In both the joys that come to us and in the suffering we know, we recognize in a new way that we are God’s people. We are his creatures. We are the sheep of his pasture. We are not God ourselves.

The images that we see, showing how quickly people can descend into depraved conditions, even in their behavior one to another, confirm once again what Calvin tried to teach us out of the Bible, and that is that we are all very close to that. That we are all totally depraved. That our abilities and our capacities ought not to fool us. The reason that we are gathered here today, that we are dressed and that we are ordered and that we are behaved towards one another, is not that we are better or poorer or more righteous, or more Christian, for who knows what evil we are capable of, save for God. The images of a fallen society should throw us in gratitude on the inexplicable graciousness of a God whose law and whose goodness invites us and calls for us to live another way. To bear one another’s burdens. Whose very voice gives us, this day, the opportunity to be people who can reach out and care.

That is what the letters to the Galatians says we have. We have this day, not just our own security living here in Tampa Bay; we have the opportunity, because of the way we have been blessed, to be those who can model what it looks like to lift up and care.

To those who know the consequences of the storm in a way that we do not, it is much harder for them to act that way. And so we should seek to bear their burden, and to live in the way that God is inviting us in calling us.

In the midst of the experience of the storm, we affirm that God is great. But in the face of the tragedy of the storm, we also affirm, and sometimes right in the face of death itself, that God is good. We must resist the temptation to see in the storm personalized retribution. With Jesus, we affirm the rain falls on the just and the unjust. It is not because we are better that the storm has gone there.

With Jesus, we must affirm out of the gospel of Luke, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our heavenly Father knowing it and caring about it. And it is on this Sunday, an audacious claim to make, because it seems to fly in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, and for that very reason, it is important for us as a Christian community to affirm that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our heavenly Father knowing of it and caring.

The New Testament tells us that in all things, God works for the good with those who love Him. It does not say that all things are good. We must be able to call something that is bad, evil. But rather, it says in all things God is able to work for the good. In all things God is able to find a way to bring his purposes and his intentions for the good to bear, and to work for the good with those who love Him and are called according to his purposes.

We are given the opportunity to bear one another’s burdens. This is both our blessing, it is our opportunity, and it is our Christian response. Our Christian responsibility. Let me list some of the opportunities before us. Some of the signs of hope that I begin to see blooming, even as people seek to respond.

On Wednesday, David Matthews came to me and asked (we did not ask them, they came and asked) if Jim Conners and he could at the Vespers Service tonight present a concert of music, and would the Session be willing to designate the offering from that service towards hurricane relief. And then, when the Session authorized it, his friend came forward and said that he would make the recordings of the concert, if we wanted to make them available for sale, so that one hundred percent of those proceeds could go towards the hurricane relief fund. I commend the concert to you tonight at six o’clock. And the CDs that will be available.

I am asking the Session, at their next meeting, to talk to the Witness and Service Committee to ask that committee, which Pastor Geoff staffs, which works very diligently in our congregation and has worked very diligently to lead us in these good works…and now they will have a heavier burden come to them. I am asking the Session to fund for them, and to authorize their exploring our adopting a congregation in one of the affected states. I propose that PCPC, for the next year, commit to praying specifically for the members of that congregation, to personalize our care, and that we seek to learn the needs of the community around them, and that we send care packages and aid to them, and that under our Witness and Service Committee, we investigate how we might best be able to best support our brothers and sisters in Christ as they recover from this storm over the next year. What is it that we have that they need?

The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program has contacted us, as a church that has sent out mission teams before, and they have told us that they will be in greater need now of mission teams in the impacted areas over the next year. I am asking the Session to authorize the Witness and Service Committee sending more teams in the year ahead. I am asking the Session to consider funding those teams, that we might be a part of meeting that need.

And while it is too early for the teams to go, in the chaos that is present, they have asked us to begin to organize them and to prepare ourselves to go. This morning at the end of the service, B.J. Johns and other members of the Witness and Service Committee, will have a list down front by the hurricane flag, where they will be taking the names of those who might be willing to consider going in the year ahead with one of the teams that we will be asked to send.

The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program has asked if our church will consider being a shelter. They do not know yet if it will be needed, but they have asked us to begin to consider whether or not we are able to do that. And I will ask the Session to prepare us to serve that way, if indeed the request comes for us, as they seek places for those who have had to leave their homes, whose homes are gone because of the storm, as they seek places for them to stay.

The Wednesday Night Suppers begin this Wednesday, and on every Wednesday in September and throughout the week, we will be receiving materials, different materials each week, for different care kits that we will send through the Church World Service Organization. This week we are receiving materials for the health care packets. There are lists at the table of what should go into each health care packet. I hope you will consider taking a list home with you and bringing back those materials, that on Wednesday night, that we might wrap and ship the packets, send them up to the Church World Service representatives, as they are already distributing those they had stockpiled for this occasion.

Each year after Easter, we receive the One Great Hour of Sharing offering. Already, a half million dollars has been released toward the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program. They are asking for Presbyterian churches to consider giving ten million dollars. So we lift up that appeal as we ask members of not only this congregation but the wider community to be a part of reaching out financially with our care.

The text tells us to bear one another’s burdens. Do not grow weary in doing good. Take this opportunity to do good to all people. Hear how inclusive the word is: To ALL people, especially those in the fellowship of believers.

May God help now, in these extraordinarily difficult circumstances, those who are in such desperate need. And may God guide us, as a congregation and as Christian individuals, as we seek discernment for how we can best seize the opportunity that God is truly bringing us to be agents of Christ’s love.

©John T. DeBevoise 2005