Going in Mission: Commitment to Action

St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Matthew 16:  24-25, Debbie Irby, August 31, 2008

 

I’d like to quote a popular phrase, ‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’  That statement is the truth of our life, not the popular cliché it has become.  Our life is a journey. And there are many paths that we can choose to follow throughout our lifetime.

In today’s scripture Jesus tells us to ‘pick up your cross and follow me.”  What does that mean, “follow me”, where, how?  Follow him on what road, what path? We each have our own interpretation regarding the details of that passage but I believe it is done by following Jesus’ examples and teachings of service and mission.   Jesus served as The Model of service by his constant attention to the poor and sick, the less fortunate.  A path of service is based on charity, unselfishness and humility. There are two principles you have heard since you were a child that are the basis for Christian love in action:  “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Service is the very purpose of life and not something we do in our spare time if we are to be followers of Jesus.

You heard Marianne say earlier this morning and every week that St. Paul’s is a church “giving in service and going in mission”.  Here at St. Paul’s “Giving in service” is what we do within our church – serving a funeral luncheon, folding bulletins, pruning the roses in our gardens, serving on Trustees, a multitude of opportunities.  “Going in Mission” is what we do beyond St. Paul’s.

St. Paul’s has a very long history of social responsibility and mission work.  Why are we involved in mission?  Very simply, because mission is the heart of the Christian lifestyle.  As  John Wesley said:

Here at St. Paul’s we have several committees that support John Wesley’s charge.  Today, I’m going to focus on two of them.

Our Church and Society committee is the group that responds to local community needs within Helena and Lewis and Clark County.  They sponsor dinners at God’s Love, help with Food Share awareness and donations, conduct “building sessions” with Habitat for Humanity,  and next month will help coordinate “The Way Home” an outreach to the homeless of Helena helping them become connected to the community.  They will also have oversight of our new Shower Ministry for homeless women and children, providing them with a safe, warm environment to attend to their personal hygiene needs and strengthen their dignity.

The St. Paul’s Mission Team reaches outside our immediate community to greater Montana, the United States and the international arena as well.  This past year the Mission Team has supported the Kyria Project in Kenya and Mark Gold and his 100 Friends Project; they sponsored a Fair Trade Festival, (mark your calendar for Nov 16 for the next one and plan to do your Christmas shopping early!) and 2 Wednesday Night Dinners; and they participated in a United Methodist Volunteers in Mission trip to New Orleans this past April.  Mission is global in focus and local in expression.

St. Paul’s is reaching out to people who are hungry, sick, fearful and lonely and who have spiritual, physical and emotional needs.  Mission gives people the ability to look forward with faith and hope when despair permeates their very existence.  We have many opportunities for you to help make a difference in the life of someone, these are but a few.

I’d like to spend a few minutes to talk a little about the mission trip to New Orleans.  Most of you may know that there were 18 United Methodists from the Yellowstone Conference who traveled to New Orleans in April, and seven were from St. Paul’s. There is a short video produced by UMCOR I would like to share with you now about Hurricane Katrina.  Video

You’ve heard the statistics before: 93,000 square miles devastated; 80% of New Orleans underwater; 300,000 jobs lost, 450,000 people lost their homes and 1,577 people lost their lives.  Statistics are just what they are – numbers.  They don’t begin to give you a feeling for the individual.   (Show 4 slides)   Rondell, son of home owner Mary Crier, and Elinor Edmunds, Yellowstone Conference Missions Coordinator; Rondell and Harry, one of our team members, checking their measurements as they work together; Mary Crier and Rondell and team that worked on her home; team photo.

Mary Crier is the owner of one of the homes that our 2 teams helped to rebuild.  She told us she felt so abandoned and alone in the beginning.  But having had 5 Methodist teams come to work on her home she now understands that is just not true (read Mary’s e-mail).

Over 60,000 volunteers from our denomination alone, United Methodist, have traveled to New Orleans.  They have gone in mission helping their neighbors.  I believe that out of this devastation and misery there will be an lasting legacy.  Everyone we met who knew we were volunteers thanked us profusely for coming, saying “thank you so much, we couldn’t do this alone, without all your help.”  I saw racial and cultural barriers that have not only been broken but blended and mended.  In both directions, from both sides of the fences. What happens on our life’s path matters.  What happens when our journeys intersect with others matters.

To a person, I think our entire team would agree this was a life changing experience.  The personal growth for me was as measurable as the amount of dry wall we hung that week!

You heard Mary’s words of gratitude.  She can’t be here today but there is a member of our own congregation who was also on the receiving end of mission earlier this summer.  Lorraine Kuntz’ family home is in Oakville, Iowa.  A town that was 12ft underwater.  It took a month before the water stopped rushing through the broken levee, which was over a mile away, allowing Lorraine and her daughter Gail to enter the house and begin the daunting task of recovery.  There were many volunteers who appeared out of no where and I’ve asked Lorraine to tell us what being on the receiving end of mission meant to her.

Do you remember another phrase you’ve heard most of your life – “Charity begins at home”?  It truly does begin there, well, maybe not the way we said it as children, but it doesn’t end there!  We are all capable and called to acts of service and mission in our daily lives.

I am the administrator here at St. Paul’s, a somewhat dry, financial oriented, managerial job – if I let it be just that.  But I have the option of caring and interacting with compassion with everyone I come in contact with.  And I choose to do that, you feed me.  I am also the staff liaison for the Mission Team and volunteered to take on that extra duty a few years ago. It is something that not only have I grown into, but has definitely grown on me.  I am still rather stunned that I am standing here today giving this sermon.  But it is something that I wanted to do, hoping that maybe I can light a fire, or even create just a spark, in someone. Someone who decides to make a difference, no matter how small.

Not everyone can afford to travel to New Orleans, and there is another mission trip planned there for November 8th if you missed the first one, and after Hurricane Gustav who knows what the need will be, to South Africa with St. Paul’s 2009 Mission Trip or have the physical ability to help build houses with Habitat. But we all have our own unique gifts and talents that can make someone’s life richer because you cared. Right here in Helena, right in your own neighborhood.  Maybe it is a simple smile at the check out lane, knitting a prayer shawl, volunteering to cut an elderly neighbor’s grass, or giving a home cooked meal to someone home from the hospital.  And my personal goal – to say ‘no, thank you’ with a smile as I hang up from a telemarketer!

I have 3 more pictures to show you…..This is Reggie who lived next door to the house we worked on in New Orleans.  On Wednesday Reggie came over to tell us he would be cooking us a true New Orleans meal on Friday and brought us this menu of salted Pot Beef Roast, Jambalaya with sausage and veggies and buttered corn.  We could hardly wait!  As Reggie ate lunch with us that Friday he explained he cooked for every volunteer team that came to the neighborhood.  It was the least he could do, he said.  Cooking was his passion and God saw to it that he was able to give thanks for all he had received by spreading his passion. What is your special passion, how can you share it?  What is your commitment to action?

On the spiritual path, following Jesus’ path, we become less isolated, we have fewer feelings of aloneness, as Mary and Lorraine came to experience and understand, as did all of us who traveled to New Orleans came to understand as well. Giving is indeed receiving.  We are all interconnected, we are all one.

Can you and I offer kindness and sympathy?  Of course we can; we have all felt the sting of rejection, pain and fear, whatever the source, however long ago.  It won’t be easy because we feel safe with people who think like us.  But nothing brings down walls and barriers as quickly as acceptance.  Jesus added to the lives of the poor and weak the one thing they couldn’t create on their own: a sense of worth. At every stage of our journey each of us can give the same gifts Jesus did.  We can see more in others more than they see in themselves and we can consistently see the world from the viewpoint of the humblest, weakest, and poorest, just like Jesus did.  A smile, a word of encouragement; a friendly hug – I believe this is the start of taking up our cross and following Jesus and is the heart of the Christian life.