Poor Richard's Almanac Sermon

In the year of our Lord 1733, more than 40 years prior to the American Revolution, almost 275 years ago, Benjamin Franklin published a pamphlet of PROVERBS titled “Poor Richard’s Almanac”. In contrast to The LAW and Taxation Decrees of the King, these were simple rules for the common family to live by. The source of wisdom like “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” “A Stitch in Time, saves Nine.” Or “The early bird catches the worm.” Franklin’s point being that Monarch’s and Governments create Laws, but these have far less to do with being human or the conduct of living life, than Proverbs do. From APPEARANCE sake, Laws are created to establish social behavior and rules of living, but CONVICTIONS are what we live by.

The same point was made by Jesus, when confronted by the Pharisees demanding to know why the Disciples failed to follow the LAW, when cooking in separate pans for meat and dairy, designating food clean and unclean, of ritual washing and ritual prayer. The 10 COMMANDMENTS were established as THE LAW for the right relationship of people to God and people to people. But over time, laws had been added to protect and preserve the Law, to split hairs and define under what circumstance could the LAW be neglected. By logical deduction and common sense, Jesus demonstrated that food goes into a person, to our stomachs and on to the sewer. So if television shows want to gross people out with eating maggots or slugs; or if children’s movies want to describe the epicurean delight of Fried Worms, there is nothing Morally repugnant in this. HOWEVER, the words and our mouths, the meditations of our hearts, the actions conceived in our minds, these are what come out of a person’s very Being, out of our Soul, therefore our words and actions and convictions these demonstrate what we really are and overtime what we become.

How often it occurs, and how odd life is, that after saying something, after reading an idea, we suddenly find ourselves in a circumstance that catches us in our own words. Jesus leaves the Pharisees and goes to a foreign place, among the non-Jews, in the Syrian province of Phoenicia. In the LAWS of the class system of that time and place a Jew and Gentile would co-exist for generations, living and working side by side, never talking, as if the other did not exist. In like manner an Educated Leader, an authority, a Rabbi, would never converse directly with ordinary folk, especially in a market place. And of coarse a woman and man would never speak, unless formally introduced and chaperoned. YET, this Greek Woman’s Child was ill, convulsing in her bed, and the Mother ran to Jesus to beg his help for her child. While Jesus had only verses before rebuked the Pharisees and his Disciples, that while they hide behind LAWS and justify their actions, people were in need; when this Foreigner, this Uneducated Gentile Greek, this Woman comes to him. When she makes her point and proves him wrong, Jesus does what we so often fail to do. Rather than becoming haughty, justifying himself even when wrong, or scoffing and storming away, he accepts her point. There is no explanation, no description of Jesus going to the child, or the words that could be said, the actions and treatments; instead Jesus announces that she has made her case and the child is well.

Again, in like manner, the point is not only for us within this House of God, or in far off foreign places, but also with the community all around us, and perhaps that is the hardest of all. Jesus went out into the Decalpolis, the market place of his own community, and they brought him a man who could not hear, who spoke with an impediment. According to the LAW, someone, either he or his parents had sinned to cause this. They would need to confess what they had done, make a sacrifice to repent and pay for the wrong committed, and only then, and only maybe, could the person be healed. Instead, Jesus took the man in private and Jesus touched him, Jesus himself spat his own bodily fluids on his own hands and touched the man’s tongue, and looked toward heaven and sighed. Sighed as if to speak volumes about the need of this man to communicate, to be able to hear and to listen and to speak.

According to Time, Newsweek, Dateline, the Today Show and Good Morning America, five years have passed, since September 11th, 2001. These entertainment news programs have researched and theorized and questioned how and why those events took place. Amid the questions …THERE IS A SIMPLE TRUTH. One people judged the world, according to a strict interpretation of THE LAW, and finding others acting as if eating with DEFILED HANDS that people were filled with hate.
What had been awesome and holy, in the midst of that horrible atrocity, was that in the moment of crisis, and for the next several days, all of us persisted constantly to provide compassion and caring, to help one another in our fears. The APPEARANCE had been of Judgment for defiling the LAW, the CONVICTION had been of standing together.

Like the day John Kennedy was shot, we all remember where we were when the planes fell from the sky. It was a bright clear blue-skied morning. School had just begun the week before, routines and schedules of behavior resumed as normal. The clergy and Christian Educators were meeting together as we do each month. When we received the witness, we prayed together as Apostles being sent, then each followed our assignments of going out into the community to listen, to offer comfort and healing.

I recall being at the factory on Jordan Road, trying to report accurately what we had been told on the news, “2 planes had hit the World Trade Center, a 3rd had hit the Pentagon, there appeared to be others headed for the Capital building.” Someone tearfully asked “if this were the end of the world?” I recall listening to peoples’ fears, praying to God in petition for comfort and for hope. There was a heaviness in the air, as we all seemed to be breathing as one. I got back to the church about 1:30 and the phone rang, as leaders asked if we could come to the State Street Offices to listen and to pray with telephone personnel and engineers. Like the Gospel of Mark, I do not recall the words of the Prayers. I recall identifying how unreal this all seemed, my fears that my own sons would be of an age to fight in war if that should come.

The very night before, the Session had met for a special meeting. For years, someone had been losing their temper, screaming and spitting and throwing things at people. And the Session had chosen to do an awesome act of CONVICTION, rather than judging this one and disciplining, which could have occurred, the Session recognized if anyone needed the church, needed the love of God it was this person. So the Session named the circumstance and the church’s standing beside him to help him seek healing, even offering to pay for counseling, but at the same time limiting his opportunity to abuse others.

The night of the attack, the Sanctuary was filled beyond capacity, as people, Presbyterian and Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal came together to pray. For the whole next week, the doors of the sanctuary stood open as police and firefighters and people off the street came in to pray and to ask God for healing.

Even three months later, we were still searching as we described that that Christmas was different from passed ones. That we were hanging wreaths on graves instead of on doors. That instead of worrying about pressure at the Office, we were thankful to have offices. That rather than considering what it meant to be affluent, we gave thanks to be alive. Rather than seeing angels on tree tops and in heaven, we had seen angels in our lives.

Yet, five years after, all the focus APPEARS to be on whether there were ever weapons of mass destruction, whether anyone could have prevented this, whether it will ever happen again, instead of keeping alive that feeling of PERSISTENCE FOR HOPE, SEARCHING FOR UNDERSTANDING.

Five years ago, in the summer of 2001, three refugees came to live among us. There needs were enormous, far beyond our ability to comprehend. On the evening of 911, they worshipped as part of this community, this body, and described this is the kind of terrorism we have lived with for 20 years. Though we did not have the answers, or know where life would lead, we PERSISTED WITH CONVICTION. Not quite 2 years ago, John began forming a Committee to give back to his home Village, from all that he had received, that we knew we could partner to provide. Along the way there have been insurmountable obstacles that through conviction were addressed and overcome. YESTERDAY, a 40 foot Sea Container, weighing 20tons, filled with PUMPS for fresh wells, and a GENERATOR to create ELECTRICITY, STEEL and TOOLS all left Greenbrier Arkansas, to go over the oceans and across the seas, past the Cape of Good Hope and up the coast of Africa to MOMBASA KENYA. We do not know yet, how this resource will be trucked to a Village 200 kilometers north of where any trucks have ever gone, but we PERSEVERE WITH OUR CONVICTIONS OF HOPE.