Laurie's Sermon from August 24, 2008

“Having Gifts that Differ”
Romans 12:1-8; Exodus 1:8-2:10

I want you to reminisce a bit this morning. What is one of your favorite stories about yourself when you were a child, especially a story you grew up hearing, but maybe you were too young to actually remember the events? If you think back upon such stories, can you find any correlation between them and the person you are today? Are there personality traits or preferences that were visible then that you still carry with you today?

For me, one of my favorites came from the teacher of my 3-year old pre-school class in Dallas. Now, I was beyond petite, I was tiny when I was three. And of course, my mother had me dressed like a little porcelain doll. When the teacher first met me, she told my mother she had created a mental note to watch over this little child closely with regard the other bigger children. She was afraid I might get hurt easily. She said it took less than a day for that mental note to be erased. Evidently I was riding a tricycle when a much larger boy came over and tried to take it away from me. The teacher said before she could get to me, I gave the kid a swift kick in the shin, a punch to the gut and he ran away crying while I grinned satisfactorily and pedaled on. The teacher said after that she knew she didn’t need to worry about me because I could obviously take care of myself.

When I look back, over and over again in my life people have misjudged me based upon my size and appearance. That is probably why I worked extra hard to do what others kept telling me I was not capable of doing. Whether it was playing basketball or running hurdles at any level, being an honor student or winning a state solo first division in piano – I think I was driven as much by other’s lack of expectations as I was by most else.

But there are two other snap-shots that also are favorites that speak volumes to who I am today. One is a picture of my two big brothers leaning over the bassinet the day I came home from the hospital, which was on a Christmas Eve. They are staring, grinning, lovingly toward me and my mother always told me that I was the best present they opened that year. So no matter how intense our sibling rivalry or arguments got through the years, I knew in the back of my mind that I was loved and treasured by my brothers who I am still extremely close to today. That love has sustained me through low moments and lifted me higher in successful ones.

The epistle scripture today speaks of us all being unique. That we each have been given special gifts, which are very different, for a reason. God has given us those gifts to use to build up the body of Christ. We need to be thankful for the variety we find within Christ’s body because it is each part of the body, doing what it is capable of doing that keeps the whole body healthy and functioning in the way God desires. We need not compare ourselves to others or say that one gift is better than another because each is needed. Our biggest job is to listen to God and discern what it is that we have been given and use that gift, no matter if it seems ordinary or boring or meager, to give glory to God.

Not everyone is capable and equipped to be an evangelist or a missionary or a great visionary and that is good. We need people who are simply faithful in praying or who are good communicators or teachers or planners or workers or even learners. Some of us may have more resources to share, some have more time to share, some have more love and compassion to share. It doesn’t matter who has what, it just matters that we truly ask God what it is we are called to do and then actually do it, use the gifts we have been given.

I think this scripture is a great backdrop to remember when we look at the Old Testament reading for today. This piece from Exodus is so familiar, something we have heard over and over. We even used part of it this summer in VBS. It is a favorite of children and adults alike. I think that is in large part because it is a well-crafted story filled with intrigue, courage, defiance and irony. It is one that you can imagine was told to Moses over and over again as he grew up because we see elements of it resonating throughout his life.

The story opens ominously with the rise of a ruler who doesn’t know who Joseph was nor remembers how this foreigner’s abilities and his God helped to save Egypt and that entire part of the world during a terrible famine. Now the country has fully recovered and is a great world power. And as is often the case, powerful people become rather paranoid over the prospect of losing some of their power. This generally leads to some type of oppression and the formation of unjust and inhumane public policy.

This new Pharaoh feels threatened by the vast number of Hebrews that are living in Egyptian lands. So, he tries on three different occasions to enact policies to diminish their numbers. Part of the irony here is that these Hebrews willingly perform cheap labor that is the backbone of the local economy and the source of the man-power behind Egypt’s great building boom, which ultimately becomes the symbol of its strength and might as a world power.

The first ploy is to increase their workloads by building several new cities. The labor is hard, bitter and rigorous, truly slave work. The Pharaoh hopes that such oppression will reduce their numbers, keeping them from growing their families. Of course, this backfires and the harder they are pushed the more numerous they become. So a second tactic is employed. Two Hebrew midwives are told to kill any Hebrew boys born. But the text tells us that these two, Shiphrah and Puah, who must have been some great women to have their names even recorded, feared God more than Pharaoh. Fear here is used not as a trembling, scared emotion, but rather as a description of respect and awe. They continue to help to welcome new life, refusing to end it. When called to task about it, they sheepishly say that Hebrew women are a lot tougher than the Egyptians because they give birth before the midwives can get there. The crazy thing is that Pharaoh goes along with their story. The final plan is simply the order that any young Hebrew boy found is to be thrown into the Nile and drowned.

It is against this backdrop that Moses is born. He is one of many that the midwives refuse to kill, so God’s great plan begins to unfold because two women used the gifts they were given, especially the gifts of courage and compassion, and let a little one be born. We know little about his parents other than they were both Levites. They obviously loved this baby dearly, though they had no way of knowing what God had in store for his life. They keep him hidden until he is too big to stay under wraps. As parents, they do the desperate and dangerous act of making a little boat out of papyrus and they send him floating down the very river he would be drowned in if found by the wrong folks.

Now enters two young girls, who prove in the end to be more dangerous to Pharaoh than most boys. Big sister Miriam watches her little brother as he travels toward Pharaohs’ palace. Then Pharaohs’ own daughter hears the baby and calls for him to be brought to her. Against her own father’s public edict, she become enamored by the child takes him as her own. The quick thinking sister approaches and says she knows of a wet-nurse for the child and with that baby and mother are reunited for several years until Moses is weaned.

Throughout this story of Moses’ harrowing beginning we can imagine several photos or clippings that might have been placed in his baby book…items he would be shown and told about as he grew. And as is often the case, what was found early in his life marked him and contributed to his rise in stature and faith. The midwives’ actions show that God uses unlikely people to do God’s will. The courage and love shown by his parents and sister tell us that God gave Moses a family that believed in him way before they could ever have known what he was capable of. The daring send-off in the little boat, which in Hebrew is the same word used earlier in Genesis for the vessel Noah built, shows us that Moses was saved in part because God had people who were creative and not afraid to take risks. Finally, the over-arching story for me shows that anyone and everyone has needed help from others in the past and we all will need help at some time in the future. Nothing we do or accomplish is done on our own. Our lives are crissed-crossed with the intersections of others’ gifts of love and courage and faith that have helped form us and will continue to shape us.

This thought leads me to the last of my personal snap-shots I alluded to earlier. It is from Sunday mornings in my home church. I was one of four children in the congregation growing up that included my brothers and one other girl in my grade. I loved Sundays, not because I especially liked getting up early and sitting through an often boring service of ritual and liturgy I didn’t really understand, but because when I walked in the door, there were 30-40 adults who genuinely loved me and each week they would show it. I would be asked how my week had been, what did I do in school, what I was looking forward to the next week. As I got older, they kept up with my many activities, putting news clippings up in the church kitchen, asking if my team won, with many coming to my ballgames, music recitals and school awards. It always made me feel like I was an equal member of the church family, like I was fully welcomed and absolutely belonged. Their response and love to me preached louder than any sermon and I realize now that it was their love and example that ultimately formed the foundation of my ministry today.

As we sit here today, a new school year is upon us. Our congregation has already shown that it is willing to help fund and support our schools through various ministries we have. It is wonderful and greatly needed what we do as a congregation, but I want to challenge us to take it a step further. Let’s let our children, here in this church and in our wider community, see the face behind the gift, experience the love personally. We are blessed to have a lot of ruckus and rowdiness around our sanctuary. And while it can be annoying at times, this busyness of young ones is the concrete reality of God’s grace and hope. These children are OUR future – not necessarily this particular congregation’s as they may grow up and find their calling in a different location, but they are the future of the body of Christ in the world, and as such they have an opportunity to affect the future of our state, nation and world. What they take from this place, they will carry with them the rest of their lives.

What we may think of as little or insignificant, may in fact make a huge difference and impact upon the life of any child. While you may or may not know the name of every one of our young people, how many of them know your name and face? Do you know who plays sports or music? Who is in 4-H or show stock? I know first-hand the impact upon my life when an adult talked to me in the same manner and way that they spoke to their own age group. It made church a comfortable and welcoming place because I was not stuck in a corner or treated as less than a full part of the body of Christ.

This year we are continuing and growing our youth programs, but ‘the church’ is not what makes them work, people make them work. Jim and I will continue to be leaders, but these are not ‘our’ programs or groups. We need help, volunteers to plan, to be extra sets of eyes for safety, to prepare snacks and to simply let the kids know they are cared about. And while we have had some wonderfully faithful ones, especially on Tuesdays, we can always use more help so that some can take a break now and then. Plus, this year we are adding a new dimension as our kids and numbers grow. The junior high and high school will now meet on Wednesday evenings and kids should not survive on pizza alone! We have sign-up sheets in the hall for two or three families to volunteer to bring, serve and clean up a meal for this group each week. I would love for us to expand this and have volunteers to sign up to maybe come a little early and have a homework help time before the meal.

The same need is true for our Sunday school that will be starting soon. Now, I can feel some of you start to squirm. Every year this is the hardest area to fill. Maybe in the past the practice has been that anyone dumb enough to volunteer was roped in for years, but we would like to split the year up into 4-6 weeks blocks and rotate teachers or have 2 or 3 come together to team teach. This is especially great for those who maybe have never taught before, but would like to try and still have a ‘safety net’ while they gain experience. Even just having a group of 3 or 4 willing to substitute when someone needs to be gone would be so helpful. We have curriculum and we can help with training, but our children and youth need others to guide them.

Paul says in Romans that we each have been given gifts. I don’t think those gifts are necessarily static, I think we are capable of growing and changing, adding new ones. But, how do we know what God wants from us? We need to spend time checking in with God to find out as Paul says, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God….” Gifts of money and talents are so important, so needed and so welcomed, but I think the most valuable gift any of us can give to God is the gift of our presence in the lives of others, especially our children and youth. And you younger kids and youth, your gift of time and presence to our adults is important and needed too. Visits to the nursing home or shut-ins, sending cards or letters of encouragement, offers of help with yard work or house chores or even simply asking them how their week has been are ways you can contribute to the body of Christ.

We all have a responsibility in building God’s kingdom, we all are necessary and needed and valued no matter our age or experience. As harsh as it sounds, we must remember there is no retirement plan for Christians, there is no time when we can honestly say, “Well, I’ve done my share or my part; it is someone else’s turn.” Sure there will be those who don’t do their share and horde some of their gifts and that is one reason why the body of Christ is not as healthy as it could be.

So, I want to challenge you to look at a child or a youth in a nearby pew or think of one in your neighborhood… can you, and if so, will you be part of a foundational and formative memory in their lives? Hear again these words from Romans as you recall or consider the difference someone else has made in your life…”For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ... Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them...” Amen.