SERMON
– JULY 10, 2022
Luke 10: 25-37; Psalm 25: 1-9
I want to begin by telling you all how much your love and caring have meant to me ever since I first arrived at St. Simon’s five years ago. If you can put yourselves back in time you will remember the incredibly robust pounding that you gifted me with. My cupboards and paper product supply area were overflowing. In fact, believe it or not, I am still using the very last of the paper towels.
And then there is the reality
that I arrived in a non-ambulatory condition and unable to drive. A broken ankle,
which would keep me in a heavy cast and then boot for three months. Never once
was I left standing waiting for a ride to work or a ride home. Never once was
I unable to get to Publix or the Andrew's Institute where my ankle was being
closely monitored.
And then, of course, there was my beloved Devin’s grave illness and, finally, his death in August of 2018. You never missed a beat in your caring and compassion for me, and for him.
Since then, there have been many ways in which you have demonstrated the strength of your love and compassion when it comes to my little life challenges. The most recent of which was my fall in New York City while attending classes at the General Theological Seminary. Emails, calls, and offers to help in any way were so gratefully received by one very humiliated, banged-up student of a ”certain age”.
So yes, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for what you have and are doing for me. But more importantly, I say all of this to help you understand the power that you as individuals and as a congregation have. The power that only love and compassion can yield. The power of the love and compassion that Jesus handed over to us as he ascended and filled us with the Holy Spirit, and the directive to “go forth.”
It could be that we often lose sight of that power and begin to wonder “what in the world do my little efforts matter in the midst of this troubled world”?
Well, they mean a great deal. Desmond Tutu once said, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Those are important words that we all need to remember when we are wondering what we might do to make a difference. “Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” In the end, every little bit comes together to make a tidal wave of difference.
As I was slowly but successfully healing from my recent fall, I spent a fair amount of time reviewing life at St. Simon’s both as I have known it and through stories and personal accounts that I have heard about the past life of the congregation. As I was doing so, I put together a timeline of the community service projects initiated by St. Simon’s in the Ft. Walton Beach area over the past 40 or so years. I was overwhelmed by this congregation’s historical and continual outpouring of love and compassion. St. Simon’s on the Sound congregants were instrumental in the development of Children in Crisis, Opportunity Place, Sharing and Caring, One Hopeful Place, and Oasis florida. Many of you spearheaded and served as hosts in the original Cold Night Program. Over the years you housed and fed hundreds of men, women, and children who had no shelter as winter temperatures plunged below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Each Sunday Father Jack’s Kitchen fed those who had no food a hot lunch; every Sunday, for many, many years. Our partnership with Elliott Point School, has provided snacks, cleaning supplies, and scholarships to children in need over the past six or seven years. The Craft Fair with its infamous bake sale and tasty pickles, and the annual rummage sale opened the St. Simon’s doors to hundreds upon hundreds of community members bent of receiving the hospitality and love offered by the many congregation members who made certain that each event went off without a hitch. Most recently, many of you have once again offered food and compassion to those who seek shelter at One Hopeful Place on nights far too cold to be sleeping in unheated spaces.
The sum of these activities offered in bits and pieces of love may not have seemed important at the time, but as you can see for yourselves, they have added up to form a powerful presence of caring and compassion in the Ft. Walton Beach Community – and that matters. It matters a great deal. Now, more than ever, those bits and pieces of caring and compassion are needed. Urgently needed. While the impact of Covid 19 and the Omicron variant are still very much with us, with God’s help we have developed ways to better handle the effects of this frightening and to many frequently fatal disease.
In sum, it is time to emerge from our Covid hibernation and to resume offering the bits and pieces of love, caring, and compassion that has been our historical identity.
Our collect today provides a solid prayer to support us in this emergence as a presence in our community. Please refer to it in your service leaflet and let’s pray it together:
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A collect is simply a prayer meant to gather the intentions of the people and the focus of worship into a succinct prayer. Each week the collect varies in response to the readings of the week. That is certainly the case with this week’s collect in which the psalmist cries out to God seeking guidance and courage in troubled times:
Show me
your ways, O Lord, *
and teach me your paths.
4 Lead me
in your truth and teach me, *
for you are the God of my salvation;
in you have I trusted all the day long.
5
Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, *
for they are from everlasting.
And then, in the Gospel of Luke we come Jesus’ – God’s - reply to this cry for guidance and courage in the parable of the Good Samaritan. What better example of God’s response to our cry for guidance and courage than Jesus offering this famous story, which concludes with him responding to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” with the words:
“Which of
these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of
the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said
to him, "Go and do likewise."
Whenever we have cried out to God in petition for guidance, strength, and the courage to live our lives in a holy manner, God has always responded. Ultimately out of love and compassion he sent Jesus to lead us, to show us how to love; how to have courage; how to be a light our darkness. We have it all - God’s never ceasing love of all his children, and Jesus’ example of how to give that love to the rest of the world – even if it is in bits and pieces.
Currently, we are in the process of planning for fall and winter events that include many new and exciting opportunities to resume of role of lighting the community with God’s compassion and love. I will be publishing information about what is in the works and how you can join in each week in the Epistle. Please look for this information and please remember the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as he pastored a community painfully torn asunder by apartheid:
“Do your
little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together
that overwhelm the world.”
