January 29, 2012

GROWING CORN AND WORKING TOGETHER

Scripture – Romans 8:28-30

There was a Nebraska farmer who grew award-winning corn. Now, depending upon your loyalties, you can make him an Iowa farmer or an Indiana farmer or an Illinois farmer or an Ohio farmer – I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter in terms of the point I am trying to make (but I know many of you have your mid-western preferences). Anyhow…each year his corn won the blue ribbon at the state fair. On one such occasion a newspaper reporter interviewed this farmer and learned something interesting about his outlook and methods. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. He was surprised. How can you afford to share your best seed corn with others when they are also entering their corn in competition with yours each year? The farmer replied:

Why sir, don’t you know how corn is grown? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of all the corn, including mine. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn also.

The farmer was very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn could not improve, or even stay at its current level of quality, unless this was equally true of his neighbors’ corn.

I think this piece provides an excellent beginning for this sermon on the day of our annual congregational meeting. And it is related to the opening sentence of this morning’s scripture reading from Romans: We know that all things work together for good… with the addition of, as an addendum and qualification, for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

I cannot even imagine how many people this verse has pulled through the tough times they have experienced and endured…and everybody does have to experience and endure such happenings sooner or later – illness, disappointments, losses, sorrows, fears. Perhaps this is particularly true today, in view of the financial crises which have affected the entire world and which make our situation somewhat reminiscent of the Great Depression. Consider what got folks through those tough times - perhaps to some extent…this verse (because of the message it conveys). But how? Reality might make us question its legitimacy and validity. If all things work together for good, how come there seems to be so much bad? And that bit about for those who love God…well, those who love God sometimes seem to wind up with the short end of the stick, don’t they?

Perhaps we have to dig a bit deeper and see what is really being said…or at least implied. I believe we have to stop viewing it as a passive, que sera sera, whatever-will-be-will-be, kind of concept. Rather look at it as a dynamic initiative, as a resource of the Spirit, as a positive possibility. You see, in the innocent bystander incidents of life, the distinctive of faith as against un-faith is not so much what happens as what one makes of what happens. All things do work together, whether or not we always recognize or realize this truth. And this happens whether or not we throw God into the equation. The question, though, then becomes…do all things work together for good or for ill. Though the happenings, the abilities, the resources, the “things”, may be almost identical for different people, some may be destroyed by them while others might be strengthened. It’s not the things themselves which are different, but the working together of them. So consider here if you generally see the glass as half full or as half empty. And faith can help determine what we do with what we’ve got; with how we “play the cards we’ve been dealt”. I don’t believe that God deliberately throws trials and temptations and tests our way, for whatever reason, but I do believe our faith in God can help us make the best of whatever we experience and ultimately turn it into that which is positive. And that’s where and when the “all things working together for good” is demonstrated.

Now, realize that they don’t work together all by themselves while we sit there watching. It is not the automatic and passive submission to whatever comes our way as being the will of God that is the secret of buoyancy, but that faith in God helps us make the best of it instead of the worst of it. It is not what happens to us that is determinative, but what happens in us. Have you ever noticed that generally when we pray, however we pray, we tend to pray about the outside instead of about the inside? We pray about the things that confront us instead of about the attitudes and outlooks by which we confront things. This whole process is not some sort of “spectator sport”. It is not a procedure whereby God or relative or friend makes things okay for us. We have to be involved.

How do you get through the tough times? And here I am thinking about one’s personal spiritual life, not of methods for dealing with the lives of others. I can find hope and encouragement in telling myself to make the best of it, whatever “it” is, but I am displaying arrogance and insensitivity if I tell someone else to make the best of it. Jesus, to the best of my knowledge, never urged anyone to “have a stiff upper lip”, to “suck it up”, to “grin and bear it”. He did, in many ways, make the point that the remedies for our ills often lie within our own attitudes and outlooks; that joy does not spring from joylessness; that peace and serenity are not products of guilt; that health does not arise when there is fear. How often did he tell those he had healed that it was their faith which had made them well? But these are lessons we can only apply to ourselves and implement in our own lives. With that in mind, remember that it may be altogether unconvincing and even unchristian to tell someone else that all things work together for good…especially if the one doing the telling is speaking from a comfortable room in a nice house to someone with no home or is pontificating with a turkey leg up to his or her mouth to someone who is hungry. Yet it is a good lesson to personally consider when we have suffered unmerited harm or when our hopes have fallen or when someone has been deliberately abusive to us.

It was a pre-New Testament Romans 8:28 type of approach which helped Joseph get it all together, at least in the long run (which is probably the only place we can ever find ultimate sense). In his arrogance and pride as his father’s obvious favorite, Joseph flaunted his situation to the extent that his brothers sold him to slavers and he wound up in Egypt…where he was finally imprisoned after rejecting the advances of the wife of his master. He was released from prison and attained an exalted governmental position through the display of gifts and talents which proved useful to the pharaoh. Considerably later, during a period of famine throughout the region, his brothers came to Egypt to buy food to take home and Joseph, after recognizing them, had them brought before him. After a considerable time of give and take, Joseph’s entire family, including his father, moved to Egypt and, upon the death of Jacob, the brothers finally apologized for what they had done and Joseph forgave them with the words: Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good… Isn’t that another way of saying: We know that all things work together for good…?

“All things work together for good.” That should be a motto or theme of every church which claims to be doing what it perceives to be the work of the divine. And that should also be our belief as members and friends of such a church – all things, all people, working together.

When I think about working in and for the church…with others with the same motivations and goals…I think about legacies. And when I think about legacies, I think about what impact I can have on the Chapel-By-The-Sea even after I am gone. You know, we are all going to die. The story is told of two ministers whose churches were located opposite each other on the same road. One day they were working together to put up signs which read: The end is near. Turn around now before it is too late. As a car sped by, the driver opened his window and yelled: Why don’t you religious nuts leave us alone? Right after he raced around the bend in the road they heard the squeal of brakes and a loud splash. One said to the other: Perhaps we should have just written that the bridge is out. The end is near. Maybe…and we all face the advance of the years differently. Various birthdays suggest milestones on the path of a person’s life, and such “milestones” are viewed differently depending upon the person. Some years ago I was talking with Rabbi Ken Bromberg and somehow we got onto this subject…perhaps because I had just reached my fiftieth birthday. He said that his fiftieth birthday really hit him hard – it was the first time he had seriously thought about the fact that, in all probability, more than half his life was over. I’m just reaching that point…and if half my life is over, I’ll only be preaching until 2062. You do the math.

Anyhow…legacies. We have been fortunate at the Chapel that so many individuals have continued to support our work even after they died because of what, in their loyalty and commitment, they left behind. So we have the Redden and the Kruger and the Hughey Funds, to name a few that resulted from provisions in people’s wills. And we have other funds, like the Droste and the Cawood and the Kepler Funds, which were usually provided by folks in honor or in memory of loved ones. Compare these realities with what happened with one man, quite some time ago, who was very active in and committed to the Chapel and the community, but died unexpectedly without a will, and relatives he had no contact with and who he did not even like wound up with his considerable wherewithal when he might have continued to do good through various causes by making some or other provisions. Legacies. In our wills, Lorraine and I are remembering our kids and grandkids, but we are also remembering charitable causes which are important to us now and which we wish to continue to support later.

So what will you leave behind as your legacy? How will people remember you? What kind of life are you living and will your deeds provide good memories when you are gone? I’m talking more than money here…but I’m talking money too. I already mentioned provisions in wills. Some folks establish trusts. Some buy life insurance and make a charitable organization the beneficiary. Some give gifts now for special programs and projects if they can afford it. And all should be contributing their time and talents to those programs in which they claim to believe.

All things work together; all people work together – now and later…and when that occurs, good things happen. THE LIVING BIBLE (which paraphrases rather than translates the scriptures) puts today’s bible verse this way: We know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into his plans. I like that. But it raises the question…not is it, but are we? Do we love God and are we fitting into his plans? Remember the farmer who shared his good seed corn? The principle by which he lived applies in other dimensions as well. Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbors be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others live well…for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness…for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. There, then, is the lesson: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn. That’s the way to make sure that all things work together for good – only we can make it happen.

Rev. Herb Freitag