A Missional Church

Rev. Dr. David Jones

November 15, 2009

Readings:

Matthew 14:22-33

Exodus 35: 20-29

Sermon: Keep your eyes upon Jesus

On the morning of my senior sermon at Princeton Seminary I was shaving and made the dire mistake of nicking a mole on my neck and it required a serious Band-aid. Preaching professor, Dr. Donald Macleod, a sometimes dour Scot, noticed the obtrusive Band-aid and inquired: “Mr. Jones – what is that thing on your neck?”

“It’s a Band-aid.”

“A Band-aid! On your neck – on the morning of your senior sermon! And how did that get there?”

“Well, Sir, I was thinking about my sermon and I cut my throat.”

He replied: “Well you would have done a wee bit better if you had thought about your throat and cut the sermon.”

I’ll try to be succinct today.

Seven years ago my family and I moved to Austin, TX from a little ocean-front village called Amagansett, NY. The cultural shift from the eastern end of Long Island NY to Texas is ambitious. One morning we had breakfast in a southern diner and the waitress, knowing we were Yankees asked me: “Y’all want to try some grits?” To which I replied: “Well, I’ll have one or two.” Like many towns on the L.I. coast, Amagansett has a rich history of instituting Life Saving Stations. I share this story from the Preface of Dr. Howard Clinebell’s book: Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling.

On a dangerous sea coast, where shipwrecks occur often, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was only a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. With little thought of themselves they went out day and night diligently searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time, money, and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought–new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some members of the station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more “comfortable” place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds, and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular meeting place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do the work for them. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decoration, and there was even a liturgical lifeboat the club’s initiations were held.

About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat-loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick. Some of them had black skin, and some yellow skin, and some olive skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. The property committee immediately had a shower built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities because they were an unpleasant hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out they were still called a “lifesaving station.” They were voted down and told if they wanted to save lives, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did just that.

As the years went by, the new lifesaving station experienced exactly the same changes as the first. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving stations was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters but most of the people drown.

Whether or not this story is factually true or not I do not know, but I can tell you it is true because it happens every day in the life of Christ’s church. It is true in the sense that it betrays something about the human condition. It’s a parable about the nature of human beings. The story reveals something about how people once dedicated to the simple and noble vocation of service to others can, and usually do, get side-tracked into serving themselves. Allow me to tell a true story that graphically illustrates this.

It was the summer of 1979. I had just finished my first year of seminary and was hired as a summer-intern by the Presbytery of Utica, NY to work with several rural congregations. I served a church of 15 members in a small, up-state NY, farming community. The population of the town, including the dogs, was about 90. My first weekend there, a couple from the church gave me the grand tour in their pick-up truck. Driving down a country lane, the woman exclaimed, with an edge in her voice: “Oh, there’s Stanley Kellogg!” Walking down the road, minding his own business, was a stocky, ruddy faced, older man, with a fishing pole in one hand and a bait bucket in the other. “All he does is drink beer and fish,” she said. “He’s an alcoholic, ya know. He’s despicable.”

Stanley had lived in Westdale all his life. He grew up poor – dirt poor. His family lived in a little shanty with dirt floors and no plumbing. Stanley became an alcoholic after his first wife died. He married again, and his second wife died soon after. The locals say he never recovered from the loss. For almost twenty years, old Stanley lived by himself in a tiny tag-along trailer out in the woods. Right after I arrived, the land on which Stanley kept his trailer had been sold, and the new owner kicked Stanley off. A town’s women took in Stanley as a boarder.

One day, I came upon the house where Stanley was staying. No one was home but Stanley. After listening to some very interesting country yarns, I realized this was the man I saw walking down the road with the fishing pole.

As the summer progressed a fascinating thing happened, Stanley and I became friends. It was a curious friendship–really – a rough old rough woodsman and a green “preppy” seminary student. One day someone offered me the use of a boat to go fishing. I invited Stanley to join me. We went to buy some bait and Stanley tried to convince me the day would go a lot better if I bought a 12-pack of Budweiser. I respectfully declined, but secretly admired his tenacity.

Once on the lake he said to me: “Ya know, you’re the first preacher that took me fishing.” I asked him if he had ever been to the church in town. “Nope, never been invited.” “Well, I invite you,” I said.

Shaking his head, old Stanley got an incredulous grin on his face. He didn’t have to say it because his expression said: “You’re mighty naive young preacher. They don’t want me in that church. I ain’t good enough to go to the Presbyterian Church. Preacher, them folk’s use big words and are different from me.” Remembering the woman’s words I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right.

We shared a wonderful day on the lake, and as we pulled the boat to shore he asked: “What time’s that Bible study you teach tonight?” “7:00,” I answered. “Why?” “Oh, just wondering,” he said.

Later that night as I was leading the Bible Study in Fellowship Hall, who walked in but Stanley Kellogg! He even had an old Bible in his hand. I knew how hard it was for him to come. Thinking I was doing a good thing, I asked Stanley to read a few passages from his Bible. An awkward silence fell over the room. Everyone knew something I didn’t. He looked up and said: “I’d like to preacher, but I can’t read.” He was the first person I ever met who couldn’t read.

Stanley and I became close friends that summer, but he never came back to Bible Study. I can’t say I blame him. He took me to his secret fishing spots that he wouldn’t show anybody else. He continually asked me about the Lord: “Can the Lord really love some old drunk like me?” I saw his faith grow and deepen. Stanley responded to my friendship like parched Texas flowers respond to rain.

You must understand that Stanley was the consummate woodsman – he lived off the land. Most of his food he got from hunting and fishing. He always carried a .22 pistol on his belt – “for snakes” – he said. One day Stanley and I were way out in the wilderness on a dirt road. We had been fishing a very remote trout stream. It was almost getting dark, and he yelled: “Stop the car. Stop the car!” I jammed on the brakes, and Stanley ran out of the car and took his .22 pistol out of its holster, and shot twice in the air.

Two raccoons dropped to the ground and grabbing them by the tails and grinning like a school boy, he brought them to my car. “Can I put these in your trunk?” Just what I needed – two bloody dead raccoons in my trunk! “I can sell their pelts for $25.00 each, and buy a new fishing pole.” He never bought the pole.

The summer passed, and I had to return to Seminary. I was to preach my final sermon and attend a going away party after the service. Everyone was seated and worship was about to begin, when who walks into church–but Stanley Kellogg! He had a haircut and shave, and was wearing a brand new set of clothes! He walked down the aisle and sat in the very front row. He was shaking from nervousness. Although he lived in town all his life, this was the first time he had been in the Presbyterian Church. No one could believe their eyes.

Stanley was at the end of the reception line. “Where’d you get those new clothes Stanley?” “Remember them coons?” he said winking. “I ain’t got no present for you David.” It was the first time he didn’t call me “Preacher.” I said: “Stanley, you just gave me the greatest gift you could ever have given me.” Like the people in Exodus who brought offerings of goods and talents to build the Tabernacle – Stanley’s offerings that day consisted of what little he had – two “coon” pelts, and a bucket of gratitude and friendship.

“I’ll never forget you,” He said. “You got me sober.” “No,” I said – “The Good Lord got you sober.” I have never forgotten the day Stanley Kellogg came to Westdale Presbyterian Church or how he touched the life of a young seminarian. I’ve been telling this story for 29 years.

Some years back, I received a letter saying Stanley had died in his sleep. When I first met Stanley, all he owned were two changes of clothes, a tattered trailer, an old greasy hat with some fishing lures in it, some pots and pans, a .22 pistol, a fishing pole, and the Bible his mother left him. In sixty-five years, that’s all the earthly possessions he accumulated. But by the end of the summer of 1979, Stanley had something else–he had the Lord in his heart. See – his heart got “stirred.” When’s the last time your heart was “stirred.”

I tell this story, not to make Stanley into a saint, because he surely wasn’t, but rather to illustrate how the love of God working through simple human kindness can change people’s lives. Many in that church thought it strange that a seminary student would go fishing with the town drunk. But then didn’t the Pharisees criticize Jesus for eating with tax-collectors and sinners? Didn’t Jesus say: “I didn’t come for those who are well, for they have no need of a doctor.” Stanley was never padlocked out of the church–but he was never warmly invited to participate either. So what’s the difference?

Stanley had built up a lot of resentment towards that church over the years. Some of those good Christian people had watched his mother struggle to feed her children. There were nights they were cold and hungry and the church did nothing. For Stanley Kellogg to come to church he had to forgive. Isn’t it amazing what love can do–how it can change the human heart? In his own way–in his own very special way, Stanley said: “Thank-you.” And it reminds us that the Stanleys of the world are all around us. I bet you know where some are right now.

There are certain laws of life under which we all live. The other day I was washing my car. Have you ever noticed that all the birds watch you when you wash your car? “He’s just about done guys–let’s go!”

But there’s another law of life. Human beings, even spiritually motivated ones, have a propensity to lose sight of their calling and get off track by serving themselves instead of others. So–What is your calling – why is your church here? What mission are you called to embrace in this community?

In today’s Gospel story, Peter gets out of the boat and actually walks on water! But then he did what you or I would probably do. He gets so distracted and concerned with the things of the world–the wind, the waves, and the storm – that he loses perspective. From my Christian tradition–here’s the point of the sermon: WHEN PETER TOOK HIS EYES OFF THE LORD HE SANK–AND SO DO WE! If that tradition does not work for you – maybe you can realize that when you take your eyes off you core mission you will sink.

Proverbs 29:18 says: “Without a vision – the people perish.”

So – remember the stories of the Life saving Station and Stanley because they’re connected–they remind us of the remarkable healing power of human kindness.

Leaders of this church–you and this congregation must be a lighthouse in this community – a beacon of hope and care to a world that is lost in the fog of despair – but only if you focus on your mission. I hope you will covenant to be a lifesaving station amidst the troubled seas of these turbulent times. To all members–help this church be a haven for all who are weary from life’s storms, and may you warmly embrace all who seek the safe harbor of the healing fellowship of this caring congregation.

I hope to hear reports that this congregation continues to step out of the boat of familiarity and complacency and that I hear repeated reports that this church is “walking on water.”