A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Holy Spirit as Builder

Romans 8:18-25, Preached by Tom Lacey at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, October 29, 2006

Two men in seminary competed for top honors. Their rivalry became the talk of the campus. After graduation, they went their separate ways, one to the parish, the other to the military chaplaincy. Many years passed when by chance they met at an airport. The first had become a bishop with robes and a portly protusion to match. The second had achieved the rank of general. The bishop spoke first to the general: “Porter, where do I go to get flight 569?” “Frankly,” the chaplain replied, “I wouldn’t recommend that you fly in your condition, ma’am!”

Yes, even ministers can get caught up in chasing such things as status. But there is more to life than building one’s career or trying to impress snobs who care about such things. There is a whole huge, incredibly interesting and needy world out there that needs us to help it. But you know what’s at least as true, we need them to help us. When I was in seminary, a group of a dozen or so graduate students from the UCC went on a trip to New York City to check out the United Nations and get informed on issues of poverty, homelessness, hunger, etc. We participated in an anti-nuclear rally, toured the UN, and sat in on some open meetings. But the most powerful moment for me occurred outside the planned activities, on a street in that city. We were walking together from the UN up some street just as the city emptied its offices and people began to walk to subway stations to go home. The sidewalks and streets were crowded with fast moving New Yorkers, and we pushed our way forward. As we walked along, I saw ahead of me, up against a building wall, a homeless person sitting on the ground. He wasn’t like those you see around here on the off ramps, who have new shoes and clean shirts, and a baseball cap that’s cleaner than mine. As I came closer I saw he was in truly pitiful shape, holding out his hands for change. And then I saw he was crying, weeping, his hands stretched out for help from someone among the thousands who would pass him by in the next hour. Nobody that I saw went to him. I wanted to stop and give him some money, but I thought if I broke away from the group I would get lost. I could have asked them to stop for a moment? But I didn’t. We all passed him by. This is not the way it is supposed to be, for us nor for him who has his hand outstretched.

What we want to see this morning is that God brings things around full circle. The issue of building God’s world is really the issue of reinstating God’s will for his world. What God intended first, and was derailed second, has become what we build toward third. What am I saying? The Holy Spirit has not given up on us or the Creator’s, that is, the Father’s, world. Just because it has not worked out as planned so far, doesn’t mean God still isn’t working on fixing things to make them right, and just. This is the work of the Holy Spirit as builder of God’s kingdom. The difference is that whereas before God was the only one to attempt to make creation just right, now it is also up to us to remake it just and right. It’s the Holy Spirit who calls, inspires, pushes and pulls us into God’s plan for human society and environmental stability. Without us, there ain’t no chance for peace and justice. With us, the Holy Spirit can do it what needs to get done.

God called creation into existence and then, according to Genesis 1:28, he said to us humans, "I’m putting you in charge." That makes us caretakers of all which God has given to us. It includes the Earth and all its natural resources. It involves taking care of our lives and others’ lives. It refers to taking care of the impoverished and the unimportant. Now of course, if things had worked out as God planned, none of this would be necessary. Even if you don’t necessarily hold to the idea that Adam and Eve existed in some perfect Garden of Eden before things went wrong, terribly wrong, I know you will easily accept that the ways things are is not the way they are supposed to be. Whether Eve messed up, Adam messed up, or simply everyone since then, this thing is broken. Humpty Dumpty has nothing on us. By the year 2050, we will be using so many natural resources that we’ll need two earths to keep our consumption going, which means basically a serious decimation of our oceans and a growing greenhouse effect that would seriously jeopardize our existence on this planet. We have a genocidal war going on in Darfur and what appears to be a civil war between Muslim groups in Iraq. It appears difficult to be able to solve problems such as homelessness, poverty, mental illness, or even the lack of quality medical care for millions of Americans, which is to say nothing of the plight of a billion or so people around the world who are severely impoverished, dangerously malnourished, and medically endangered. But we can’t give up. We have to work hard to turn things around. Look, there used to be bombs exploding in Northern Ireland, and nobody thought that peace had a chance. But the IRA is completely defunct, weaponless, and life there is so much better than for who knows how long. It is possible. When people are guided by good will, and courageous, the Holy Spirit can make miracles happen. So let us fight for what’s right and best. We can do better and make the world likewise.

If ever she took a leap of faith, it was when Michelle Robinette, a 53-year-old grandmother from St. Paul, Minnesota, sold her home and left her five adult children and grandchildren behind to open "Robin's Nest" in Montego Bay, Jamaica. After seeing a sorrowful young boy begging on the streets of Jamaica, Michelle knew God wanted her to offer a safe, secluded, Christian environment to children who otherwise would be homeless or living in an overcrowded orphanage on this Caribbean island. Today a former bed and breakfast has become the very "nest" Michelle envisioned. And within its freshly painted walls decorated with artwork and Bible verses are the echoes of six Jamaican babies and young children, plus three foster children Michelle has adopted, who are being transformed through the love and nurturing of Michelle and her handful of volunteers. Additional church volunteers occasionally come to decorate, do repairs and help out. "I want children to be nurtured and rocked, bathed and baby-oiled, sung to and told Jesus loves them," Michelle explains. Martha N. Wolowicz, "Secure in Robinette's 'Nest,'" Christian History, October-November 1998

Our scripture this morning talks about how we are tied into creation. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. What happens to us will occur in turn to “our home.” We are linked together in God’s plan not just of creation but of redemption. Our peace will be come peace for the earth. Our salvation, saves it all. And so it goes as well to the opposite. If we are still at war with one another, we are war with creation. If we are unjust to others, we will be unjust to mother earth. It’s really as simple as this: When we devalue anybody else as unworthy of equal treatment that we believe we merit, all of creation is put out of balance. It’s a very, very basic and easy formula. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We are all equal in God’s eyes. God created us, each of us, as his own, nobody better or worse, certainly not because of skin color, cultural difference, religious choices, income disparity or anything else that we humans famously divide ourselves up into. As I said in this first message of this series, I will say again in the last: God didn’t just make some people in his image. Scripture says, “So God created humankind in his image.” That’s everybody, all six billion and counting of us. Always has been this way and always will be. You, created in God’s image. You, created in God’s image. If you’re different, you’re still created in God’s image. If you’re left-handed, you’re still created in God’s image. If you’re white, if you’re red, if you’re Christian, if you’re atheist, if you have an IQ of 200 or only 75, if you had an abortion or didn’t, whether you’re adopted or have both biological parents still in the home you grew up in, it makes no nevermind. God made you in his likeness. This is where your intrinsic, intensive, inherent, and eternal value comes from. This is where the stranger and the alien, legal or illegal, the victim and the criminal, the Muslim, the Arab, the Jew, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Atheist, the homosexual and the heterosexual, the black man, the yellow woman, the white child, all; this is where we all get our worth, our dignity, our soul from. Because we are created in God’s own image, according to his likeness! No human act can negate this divine act. This foundational and fundamental truth freed slaves and gave women the right to vote. It commands us to visit the imprisoned and call for justice for the impoverished. It lifts up to dignity the sick from HIV, and dying from AIDS.  In its face, we see the forward movement of humankind toward peace and justice; when we turn our back on it, war and injustice prey upon us, all of us. And until we get this right, all of creation will suffer.

See others as God sees them. Think past easy stereotypes. Reject unequal treatment. No matter what the past tells us we have to do against those who are different, the Holy Spirit is pushing toward a new day and a better way.

In The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis wrote: "When we stand before the Judge Eternal, he will not ask what we read (said) but what we did." Find a need that stirs your interest. Let the Spirit lead you to where your gifts and/or some of your time can have an impact. We don’t have to change the whole world. Nobody can do that, not even Bill and Melinda Gates with Warren Buffet’s help can do everything. They’re basically just concentrating on the medical needs for Sub-Sahara Africa, which means the rest of the world is open for the rest of us. 

You know, if you ever wonder what’s missing in your life, maybe you need to think of it in a different way. It’s not that something is missing in your life; rather, it’s your missing from someone else’s life. Cliff Docterman, President of Rotary International, cleaned up and updated an old Russian toast (If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk; if you want to be happy for a month, get married; if you want to be happy for a lifetime, have good friends) in the following fashion: If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a week, take a vacation. If you want to be happy for a month, get married. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, help other people.

Let us build, or rather, rebuild God’s world. Let the Holy Spirit stir you to seek and help the lost and lonely, the poor and imprisoned, the homeless and hungry. And do it in Jesus’ name, the one who showed us the way.

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