A TRIBUTE TO A SUPER-HERO

 Some consider “super heroes” to be merely a comic book lark, But we have a true super-hero right her at Yeamans Park.

She was DCE – now CNC, but titles can’t truly express Her dedication to this congregation, which she serves with such willingness.

She plans and she dreams – at times even schemes

To implement projects worthwhile. She’ll work day and night to render it right.  She will always go that extra mile.

She is with the STEPS program, serves the Hands of Christ Committee. That there is only one of her is often deemed a pity.  When someone is in need, she is always right there, With true Christian devotion, she will work to repair The trials and troubles that bother the soul, She picks up broken pieces and reconstitutes the whole.

Her Bible School sessions were a summer sensation,

But when they were over – no time for vacation.

She’d round up her posse and load up each car,

Taking so many children, so very far.

And despite all the cramming, complaining and heat,

She sings in the choir, is handbell director,

and in her grand office – Food Pantry Inspector.

She’s our beacon- our strength through the hustle and bustle.  Our church super-hero

AKA Martha Trussell

Thank you, Martha Trussell,

for 20 years of dedicated service

 To Yeamans Park Presbyterian Church

Dr. Chip’s Sermon, June 23,2019

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WILL OF GOD

Colossians 1:1-14

           Well it is certainly nice to find Paul in a good mood. For once, he isn't ranting and raving about all the things that are wrong with the church. He begins the letter to Corinth by saying, ''I can hardly believe the reports of immorality among you." To the Galatians he says, "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" But he greets the church at Colossi by saying, "When I remember you in prayer, I always thank my God." Here is a church that has made a good start in the Christian life. They have learned to live within the rubrics of sin and forgiveness, of judgment and mercy, and their goal is the love of God and neighbor. “We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of him as you bear fruit in every good work….”

        The will of God in this sense is a completely personal interaction between God and the individual. We look for God’s will within our feelings about things, in the opinions of others, and the way events unfold. It is our nature to take the world personally, that things happen to us for a reason. William James, the psychiatrist, coined a word to define the way we take things personally. He called it "coincidentality". Some call it fate, others use the word destiny, but it is that very human characteristic of interpreting things personally. We read into events meaning directed at us. Within the Christian sphere we call it the will of God. By that expression we mean that we have a role to play and our task is to discover what it is.

         Your task this morning is to write your own sermon out of these comments. Because this will is so personal, changing from one to the next, each one must look to his or her own history with God to reflect on what it means. I hope to suggest some of the characteristics of this mysterious will.

 What can we say about the will of God?

1.) Our beliefs about the will of God must always be provisional. We go forward in faith. Day by day we try to be open to the leading of God’s will but, in the moment, we cannot be certain. We want to make good decisions and offer those decisions for God's approval. But we never completely know what God is doing. Discerning the will of God is a matter of being open to the possibilities that come to us. It is only when we look back that we discern the invisible hand guiding us along the way. We don't believe in our ability to understand God. We do believe in God who creates our destiny. And so we walk by faith and not by sight. 

2.) The genuine will of God includes the well-being others. It is never merely ego centered, but always other-centered. Let me tell you two quick stories.

•             Many years ago, I was invited to a luncheon to hear a woman speak who was said to be very spiritual. She began by saying that her goal was to tell of the glory of God in her life. She had decided to build a house. There had been a drought and a farmer was forced to sell her his land cheaply. A contractor had a project fall through and needed work, so she offered a rock-bottom price and got it. The landscapers were illegal immigrants and she could pay them a fraction of what their labor was worth. God had arranged all of these circumstances so she could have the house of her dreams. The impression her story gave was that God had ruined the crops and the economy in order to give her an extravagant house. I don’t think so! I left that day with the secret hope that God had actually allowed the house to be built as a feast for his termites.

 •            There was a young couple who were expecting their third child. I got a note on my desk that the baby had been born, a little girl, and that she had severe birth defects, including a cleft palate and mental limitations. When I got to the hospital, the mother was sitting in a rocking chair cradling the baby. She said, "We have decided she is God's special gift to us. She will need love and more love and more love. How wonderful to have someone to love that way." The day that child was baptized was one of the transcendent moments in my ministry. The genuine will of God always includes the well-being of others.

3.)           The will of God catches up and transforms the failures and chaos of life. By failures, I mean those occasions when our pride, arrogance, and ignorance have led us into punishment. By chaos, I mean those undeserved pains and dangers that come upon us because the world is a broken and dying thing that does not obey its creator. Sin must have its due. We live in a world where actions have consequences and those consequences cannot be avoided. What is remarkable about the will of God is that it can take those consequences and make something positive out of them.

        I don’t know of any way to talk about this except personally. Thirty-five years ago, I went through a very painful divorce that was the source of personal disintegration into depression and excessive drinking. It was the most painful time in my life. But what I have discovered is God, who never throws us away, uses the failures of life to bring us to greater victory.  Over the succeeding years, my negative experience has given me the authority to reach out to those in pain and give them hope. Every time I’m able to encourage someone else, I get a dividend on what I went through. What was negative becomes positive for the glory of God. The will of God turns failure into victory. [ It sort of hurts my feelings that all those hours I spent learning Greek and Hebrew haven’t been nearly as helpful to people as my failures have been.] Never forget, the center of our Christian faith is that the brutal death of Jesus Christ was the way God provided eternal life for those he loves.  God turns failure and chaos into victory.

4.)           The will of God leads to righteousness. The core meaning of righteousness is peace with God. The will of God leads to contentment of feeling the trip has been worth it. There is the joy of fulfillment.

       Tyco Brahe was a brilliant Danish mathematician and astronomer of the 16^th century. He was also a very profane man given to debauchery and violence. He wore a silver nose glued to his face because his own nose has been bitten off in a fight.  Lying on his death bed, he repeated over and over, "Let me not seemed to have lived in vain.  Let me not seemed to have lived in vain. Oh, let me not seemed to have lived in vain."

         The will of God is to experience the dignity of feeling our lives have mattered. It is to reach the end of life and know that we have been included, useful for things that are pleasing to God. It is to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.

          In the last act of King Lear, everyone has deserted the old king except his jester and his manservant. The servant offers his own epitaph when he says, "Like an old dog I have worn out my teeth in my master's service."