Sunday Sermon (Proper 28)

 

Thank you, Lord, for all the gifts you have entrusted to us. Help us to remember that all we have comes from you and is to be used in service to others, to help and encourage each other. Make us faithful and trustworthy servants, always ready for your return. Amen.

The readings assigned for this Sunday are tough. And yet as I sat with these readings, I kept hearing words of encouragement for us the children of God…

St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians: (“For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”)

St. Paul reminds us that whether we are awake or asleep or have died, it doesn’t matter in faith, because Jesus will be with us to abide with him.

Knowing Jesus is with us, then we continue to encourage one another. Build each other up.

And in these Covid days it is important to keep encouraging, keep reaching out…

From a story from Reader’s Digest:

Years ago, there was a poor farmer who was an alcoholic. When he drank too much (which happened fairly often), he'd become abusive, forcing his family to escape into their cornfield, with him frequently shooting after them with his .22 rifle.

One day, their neighbor, an elderly Amish farmer, came by. He explained that rats had been in his corncrib and asked if the farmer knew anyone who could sell him a .22. A bargain was struck and the old Amish farmer took the rifle and ammunition and set off for home.

One of the poor farmer's children followed the Amish farmer from a distance and watched him cross the river bridge. The old man stopped midstream and the boy watched him drop the rifle and ammunition into the swift water and then continue home. [James Didlow, writing in Reader's Digest.]

How do we keep encouraging each other? It is the Spirit of God that we lead us, just as it moved the Amish farmer, for his generosity of heart and humility of spirit to buy and get rid of the rifle that caused suffering to his neighbors. It may not have solved everything but it was a step in bringing light and life to darkness and suffering.

And in these days of Covid, it is important to keep up that encouragement! One more story…

At the end of August, she received the phone call: “You have been selected.” But this was not one of those annoying telemarketing calls. She had been chosen, the voice said, “to participate in the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine trial.”

“She” is Helene Cooper, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Pentagon reporter for The New York Times. In late July, after hearing Dr. Anthony Faucci’s call for volunteers for vaccine trials, Cooper went online and filled out the questionnaire with her medical and personal history. Researchers at George Washington University then invited her to be part of the trial.

What makes Helene Cooper such a desirable participant in the vaccine trial also puts her at high-risk: she’s a Black woman, a Type 1 diabetic and asthmatic. With her reporter’s tenacity and focus, Cooper asked every question about the science of vaccines, the trial process, the safety measures, and the risks. In the end, she agreed to be part of the trial.

In September, she went to the university, underwent a battery of tests, and finally was injected with the first of two shots; the second would be given a month later. Whether she was given the actual vaccine or a placebo, she doesn’t know.

She texted her reporter-friends that she had signed up for a Covid vaccine trial. One response gave her pause: “I admire your dedication to the cause. You gotta be really careful given your underlying condition. You could be given a placebo and sent to hang out in hot spots.”

Doctors at GW reassured Cooper that whether she received the vaccine or a placebo, she was expected to continue her normal routine, which for her consisted of working at home and wearing a mask when she went out.

“What’s the point?” she asked.

“We need to see if this is safe for folks like you.”

 So Helene Cooper accepted the researchers’ invitation to become number 130 in the vaccine trial.

[From “Covering Ebola Didn’t Prepare for This: I Volunteered for the Covid-19 Vaccine Trial” by Helene Cooper, The New York Times, September 11, 2020.]

More often than we realize, we encourage one another not with a matter of skills or resources but opportunities we have to make something good happen, to bring a measure of healing to a broken heart or spirit, to contribute our few minutes or dollars in order to make a difference in someone’s life.

Helene Cooper puts aside her fears and, with a reporter’s tenacity, “gives” her medical condition to the cause of finding a vaccine for COVID-19. The Spirit of God prompts us to use whatever gifts we have to uplift one another, to bring light to dark places like that Amish farmer, hope to those in despair, healing to the broken. Whatever our skills and resources enable us to do, the challenge of the Gospel is to be ready and willing to respond to the opportunities we have each day to give joyfully and generously for the sake of God’s creation here on earth.

Amen.