Auld Lang Syne - Part 3

I am only special in that I am a child of God. I share that distinction with about 6 billion other current residents of this planet. I am loved by the Almighty, but no more so than a street beggar in India or an orphan in Rwanda or a banker in New York making $10 million a year or a single mother from Hilliard struggling to provide for her child on $10/hour. Neither are any of them more special than me. We are all special in the eyes of God.
And so I come to the point of this message. Who are we as a church and as a body of Christ? We are ordinary and yet we are special. We are ordinary in that we; like all His children share a common bond and that is God’s love. We are special for the very same reason.
Sometimes we forget that to be special we really do need to understand that we are ordinary and to identify with all of those other ordinary children of God. When we do that, we tend to love a little more willingly, to share a bit more freely and to open our hearts a bit wider. There is a lot of love in this church. We have always been willing to show that love. I wonder what would happen if we stretched ourselves a bit more in 2010. I wonder what it would be like to be thought of as the church in Callahan that can be counted on to help when people are down. I wonder what it would be like to be thought of as the church in Callahan that really cared for the widow’s, the orphan’s, the elderly and the afflicted. I wonder…
Two quick stories and then I will close. Number one concerns our recent visit to shut ins for Christmas caroling. 14 members of this congregation, young and old alike took a Sunday evening to spend a little time with several of our elderly and shut ins. It was about 3 hours out of the lives of the participants and we only stayed at each home for about 10 minutes however, the joy that was given to those dear, often lonely souls was priceless. The comment that came back time and time again was: “this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me!” Really? Wow! Just 10 minutes and some slightly off key singing – or was that Christ love we were sharing? Pretty special…maybe it should be more ordinary.
The other is the urgent plea that was received by the church from a mother with 3 children and one on the way. She had fallen on hard times recently and an unexpected expense took all the money she had for Christmas this year. She had called 8 churches and ours was the only one that returned her call. A collection was taken up and we were able to give her a $300 gift card on Christmas Eve. The tears that flowed and the offers to clean our church or do anything to say thank you were nearly hysterical. Instead, she was prayed over and told that no payback was necessary and that when she got back on her feet maybe she could do something nice for someone else…oh and btw, our services are at 10 a.m. each Sunday morning in case she was interested – she would be welcome. Pretty special – actually, around here that is pretty ordinary. We sometimes have trouble meeting our budget but I have noticed that whenever there is a genuine need we never seem to have a problem finding the funds. Pretty special if you ask me. To God, it is special but I believe He wants it to be ordinary.
Mother Teresa is known for amazing love and a gift for the written and spoken word in the name of the Lord. A couple of her best quotes are: “If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it”. She also said: “Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given”. Profound? Yes. Wise? Absolutely! Ordinary? Probably not. Attainable? What do you think? What did Jesus think?
You know… in 2009 we had some pretty good moments at First United Methodist of Callahan. We saw coats being given to cold children; we saw hungry people being fed, lonely people being ministered to and those in need having a place to come, even when others turned them away. In 2009 we had some pretty great worship and some wonderful family gatherings. We presented some great holiday musical celebrations and saw many of our members become committed to invigorating our relationship with God and with each other. All this and we shared a lot of love, a lot of laughter, some good food and fellowship and yes, we even shared some heartache. Oh, and we bought a tattoo parlor. What does 2010 have in store for us? I don’t know about you but I hope it is truly special and I hope and pray that what is considered special and even extraordinary by other folks becomes ordinary for us. I believe that knowing and spreading the love of Jesus Christ and better knowing the glory of God the Father, all the while guided by the Holy Spirit should become as ordinary for us a breathing. I am certain that God would really like that.
Oh, by the way – the headlines that I quoted to you at the beginning of this message were not from 2009 but rather from 1934. That same year unemployment was nearly 22% and that was down from the 25% in 1933. Yea, times right now are a bit tough and yes, there are definitely people in our communities enduring real suffering so maybe we need to put many of our own trials in perspective and just decide that God is with us, that He loves us and He expects pretty special things from us as a part of every ordinary day.
After all, we are created in His image…and that is pretty special.