Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ /“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . . .

*how often I have longed to gather your children together,* as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, . . . .

”(Lk.

13:34-35)/

 

We spent a wonderful day together with the Doige and Kemshall families as they celebrated Matt and Rebecca’s wedding.

Pastor Ed was there as “The Wedding Singer” and his rendition of “Matt in a Vest” was unforgettable.

I just wonder from time to time, how deep that creative well is and just about the time that you think you are there, he pulls something else out of the bag.

I have to say Marc, that I love you and I bless you for surrendering this gift to God, to the church and I believe as the Old Testament prophets were used by God to speak uncomfortable truth to His people, so He uses you in our church today to keep many of us from becoming too comfortable.

Personally I am afraid of that.

More than anything else, I am afraid that I will “settle in” for something less than what God has for me.

I am so blessed here at First Wesleyan, so grateful . . .

I just don’t want to get too comfortable and I don’t want the church to get too comfortable.

I am convinced that as individuals and as a church we need to be always prepared to lay everything on the line for the kingdom.

When we forget that God is the source of all that we have and when we begin to operate out of an overly cautious perspective where we are no longer willing to take risks, the blessing of God is removed.

The essence of faith is a willingness to follow the direction of God and there are times when God will ask us to simply trust Him for the outcome and obey.

You see churches die at all sizes.

A church of 5,000 people can be as dead as a church of 25 people.

God help us to be willing to lay it on the line.

At the rehearsal on Friday evening, Matt wanted to do something that was different from the norm at a point in the service.

His dad, Rick said something to the effect that that is not the way that we do it or that he had never done it that way before.

It wasn’t meant to say that it shouldn’t be done differently, it was just an observation.

I was assisting Rick and I tapped him on the shoulder  and said, “Guess you can’t teach an old ‘Doige’ new tricks.”

It’s a corny play on an old adage.

*/An adage is a traditional saying that expresses something taken as a general truth.

And often we fail to question and just cave to an observation that we accept as generally true./*

The truth of that adage depends on the “Doige” or the dog.

Personally, I think that any person who decides that there is always something new to learn can be taught “new tricks” – as a matter of fact they want to learn new things and that desire is what keeps them fresh and relevant.

Another adage that came to mind this week was, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

A senior pastor that I once worked for quoted that to me.

One staff member would spend his entire budget within the first few months of the church year and we would find ourselves in a fall financial crunch and the budgets of other departments would then be curtailed and other plans would fall by the wayside.

I questioned that and the adage was the answer that I received . . .

as though it was a discussion stopper – an observation not so much of truth as of behavior.

I wasn’t sure what the lesson was.

Did that mean that I had to “squeak” more if I wanted to be able to be able to carry out my plans?

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to become that kind of a person – no I was certain that I didn’t want to become that kind of a person.

Problem was that the adage was incomplete.

Personally I think that if a wheel squeaks often, there may be a problem with the wheel and perhaps it needs something more than grease.

This adage is fresh for me this past week as well because of the death of Opal Duncan.

She was one of those persons who in my mind had every right to “squeak” but I never heard her do it.

I’m sure that she did occasionally but I never heard it.

Opal was Bill Lapointe’s sister.

I received word of her death while on Grand Manan Island.

The news came to me just prior to a drive to Stanley’s beach in North Head.

There are a few places better to think of eternal issues.

Even as a child, I found refuge and a presence on that beach.

It was a place to go to tell the secrets of my soul.

Whether calm or storm stars or the thickest fog, that presence was there.

The eternal nature of God reflected in the ever-moving, restless waters.

You can watch time race past you on a beach, . . .

things changing every moment.

The tides flooding and ebbing, changing the visage of the sands with each cycle.

New streams burrowing their way back to the ocean – the common destination of every waterway.

I talked to God many times on that beach as a young unchurched boy.

We talked about failed romances, my parents’ floundering marriage, the uncertainty that this brought into my life, the pain of watching two people that you love in the process of destroying one another.

I questioned Him there about the call that I felt on my life to become a preacher.

No I argued with Him about that.

I thought it was cruel to ask someone who was so afraid of people to “preach” the gospel.

He won – I am so glad.

Now I can’t imagine another path that would have brought such fulfillment and joy.

God sees things that we don’t see you know.

And eventually we come to see them.

Either here or there, this world or the next.

He tells us that if we are willing to trust Him He will bring us to the place where we can see what He sees enough to understand that it was His love that attempted to lead and guide us – not cruelty or the desire to take something good from us – but to bring ultimate good to us.

I still hear the beautiful echoes of some of those wonderful conversations when I wander some of those beaches.

I began to learn those initial lessons of trust on that beach.

We were there that night to try to find some sand dollars.

The tide needs to be dead low to find any and you only have a short window of time.

And so stepping around on the sand bar, looking for the tell-tale signs of a sand dollar, a small irregularity in the sand, I found myself once more in conversation with God and we talked together about Opal.

I don’t want to try to convey to you today that I knew her as a best friend or a family member.

I visited with her several times over the last seven years in her home in Risteen’s Landing.

I will tell you this though.

I had the same experience with Opal that I have with most people who learn how to face adversity with the grace and help of God.

I think of Barb Shipley or Rev. A.D Cann, people who rise above the adversity that they have faced in life and seem to be able to find a deep “grace well” that they draw on – not a “grease well” for squeaky wheels but the well of grace – God’s grace.

It would be patronizing for you and I to pity such people.

I guess we could pity the person in such circumstances who try to find the strength to face life on their own.

I guess I pity the person who chooses to face life that way whether they have an obvious disability or not.

I surely didn’t feel pity for her – there was something else.

In the few and short times that we had together, God used the life of this lady to inspire me relative to my own life . . .

my own walk with God.

I’d buzz into the building, find my way to her apartment and knock on the door.

At her invitation, I would let myself in and sit with her.

Of necessity, the things that were most crucial in her life were closest to her.

A remote control for the TV – seems to be there was some kind of medic alert device, Kleenex, some medications.

The most important things in her world within arms reach.

Music, . . .

there was music, her favorite musician, Billy – was she ever proud of Billy, . . .

and the pictures of her family most all within arm’s reach.

Typically from my experience, we never talked much about her physical challenges.

She was always grateful for the shortest visit.

I never knew Opal as a church-goer – she was always confined.

I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had whined and complained.

But she wasn’t a squeaky wheel.

Unlike Opal, I know of people who have adopted “squeakiness” as a life pattern.

To get attention, make noise.

Rather than trusting God as time wears on and drawing closer to Him, they just get squeakier.

And grease doesn’t do the trick, it may ease the squeaking but not for long and it never really stops.

The squeaky wheel just wants attention – from people.

And no one is more dissatisfied with life because attention from people is like trying to drink salt water to quench your thirst, it just makes you thirstier.

It’s nice when people care for us and all of us want to be loved but it takes something more than that to do the trick.

We have this tendency to set our expectations on people to meet our needs and the best of human care-givers can’t meet the needs of our souls.

Often it is our souls that cries out in adversity and we sense that need and misinterpret it as something that could be “fixed” by another person.