Text: John 15:13
How many of you are busily caught up with Spring cleaning and sprucing up? It has been a good year for that hasn’t it. Nature doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind whether it’s Winter, Spring, or Summer does she? I kind of like it because the prolonged coming of Spring and Summer allows me more time to get things done around the house before flower beds, fence rows, and the lawn become too overgrown to get ahead of.
I notice on T.V. when they show a news scene from one of the Southern States, their trees and flowers are already beautifully in bloom.
I had an epiphany last week while I was working and planting a new pasture field. It started when I began to think about the fact that I was able to quickly disc and drag, fertilize and plant a six acre field of pasture grass in such timely fashion. I thought of our ancestors who could plow probably about an acre a day with their horses, depending upon the soil composition. Once the ground was “fitted” they would then walk the whole area with a seed sack on their arm or shoulder and “broadcast” or scatter the seed by hand. Whew! I got tired just thinking about it. Here I was in my meditative state, sitting upon a shiny green tractor with the equivalent of 65 or 70 of the horses our ancestors were forced to employ, completing in one day or less, what it would have taken them a week to accomplish.
While still engaged in my reflective state I happened to glance toward the house and saw the sun sparkling off my shiny red pickup. Once again I was carried away in my mind to a time when travel and the moving of goods was more of an ordeal than it was a pleasure or convenience. I smiled as I recalled my grandfather telling about going to Ludington on his honeymoon and with only three flat tires and getting stuck in the road three or four times, they made it all the way to Lake Odessa on the first day. (Yesterday, with no advanced preparation, Alicia and I went to a sale in Mount Pleasant).
Continuing my field work, and still pondering such things, my eyes and mental meanderings shifted from reflecting on teams of horses versus modern farm machinery and Tin Lizzie’s versus modern forms of conveyance to the rest of what we moderns enjoy - and maybe more to the point, what we expect.
Two large and modern barns, a very up to date house, sitting upon forty acres adorned with two ponds, eight brood mares, and one stallion of nationally recognized bloodlines, my wife’s car, a lawn mower that cost three times more than my first brand new car, my work shop filled with tools of every imaginable use filling an area the size of a two car garage, - where shall I stop? A house filled with all the modern conveniences, four guitars, a mandolin, and a fiddle, a large screen T.V. …………… Well…………….. You get the picture.
I thought about my wife’s job and my own involvement in the ministry. I considered the success of our children and the relative good health we all enjoy.
As a people and a nation I considered how far we have come in the last several decades.
Do you realize that just a short one hundred years ago the average life expectancy was only 47 years?
One hundred years ago only 8 percent of the homes in America had a telephone.
A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
In 1904 more than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.”
One hundred years ago if you were poor and wanted to immigrate to Canada you could forget it. Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
A century ago the population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.
And finally, for our consideration, two out of ten U.S. adults could not read or write, and only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.
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Who was it who said……….. “You’ve come a long way baby.”
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We have! - Haven’t we?
Sure we suffer the normal economic vicissitudes and experience the normal aches and pains of life and growing older, but for the most part we are relatively financially sound and healthy.
For instance, I know that the collective income of our congregation this morning probably exceeds the income of some of the Third World’s largest cities or regions. We live productive (even leisure) lives far beyond that of the pre-modern world. Whole villages in Africa or South America do not own, collectively, the monetary value of what you have in your garage, or storage shed. “America, America, God shed His grace on thee………”
We are blessed beyond measure. We appear to have it all. Health, - Recognition - Education - Entertainment - and Things beyond our ability to tally.
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Coming to the end of the field I was planting and feeling quite content with all of my personal accomplishments and possessions………….. All that I have managed to do and acquire (when many said I was “heading for Hell in a hand-basket” in my younger years) I drove to the house for a lunch break.
Grabbing the remote control from the back of the couch I snapped on the T.V. and headed for the kitchen to fix something to eat. Opening the pantry and scanning the shelves of canned foods, chips, and other goodies, I decided there was “nothing to eat.” Opening the door of the refrigerator I decided the same thing. “Nothing to eat,” so I settled for a peanut butter sandwich with sugar-free jam, poured myself a glass of milk and going into the living room, plopped down in my La-Z-Boy and turned on the “News.”
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The “Talking Head” News Reader was babbling something about an “economic upturn” and the Kerry/Bush campaign. - The discovery of rampant HIV among porn stars must have been deemed “newsworthy” by someone because it was noted among other references to SARS in China and the continuing tussle back and forth on the Gaza Strip…………..
Bored out of my skull with the usual “news” fare, and rapidly losing any interest at all in what was being served up on the screen, I was suddenly brought bolt upright in my chair by a “This Just In.” With part of my Peanut Butter sandwich lodged in my throat and tears springing unannounced to my eyes I listened in horror to the announcement …………. “Pat Tillman, was killed last night in a fire fight in Afghanistan,” the reader intoned.
“Dear Lord…………., What?” I managed to choke out attempting to swallow my bite of sandwich at the same time. “What?!”
“Say it isn’t so!”
But, sadly, it was………… And it is.
Pat Tillman, former NFL player for the Arizona Cardinals - summa cum laude college graduate - married two years next month (May 2004) - who walked away from a 3.6 million dollar NFL contract to join the Army (Rangers) because it was the “right thing to do” - killed in a firefight with enemy forces in Afghanistan - at age 27.
My reverie was over. The pride I felt all morning for my personal accomplishments and acquisitions, the fact that I was educated, recognized and respected in my community, everything I held near and dear…….. was brought to a crashing, dust raising rubble at my feet. I wept.
For the rest of that day and all of the next I walked about in a fog. Business and pleasure were all put on hold as my mind was taken over with eulogizing and collating the ripple effect of the life and death of Pat Tillman.
Three days later I can only distill my thinking down to this: Thank You Pat Tillman. You were not the first to die in the line of duty in a foreign country, nor will you be the last, but somehow, you have managed to put a face on all of those impersonal statistics coming to us from the war zone.
Thank You Pat Tillman for modeling for words of scripture “Greater Love hath no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Thank You for showing the rest of us that there is more to life than money or recognition or the compiling of forgettable personal statistics.
Thank You for voluntarily leaving the comparative safety and nurture of family and home, and knowing the risks and dangers involved, placing your life between the lives of all Americans and the enemy, in a country most of us couldn’t locate on a map.
Thank You Pat Tillman for reminding me that, in the words of the Apostle Paul, I have nothing I wasn’t given.
American’s are fast becoming and in many areas have already become a nation of people who expect a return on anything we invest.
“You “deserve” a break today.” - You “deserve” to drive a Cadillac or BMW. I remember confessing my uneasy feelings for all I possess, to someone and being told “Don’t feel bad Steve, you have worked hard and you ‘deserve’ it.”
I do? Hmmmmm, that’s interesting. I look around the world and see people who “work” (physically) ten times harder than I do and they get nothing in return for their labor. The money my wife and I have invested for our retirement wouldn’t have been a drop-in-the-bucket to one of Pat Tillman’s weekly paychecks, but would probably pay the yearly household bills for a whole village in South America. How do I deserve that and they don’t?
Men and women, - boys and girls - around the world are suffering this morning, as we speak, from things you and I could find relief for at the corner drug store. How did I come to be worthy and deserving of such good health?
Guess What? People in the impoverished countries of the world do not fear plane hijackings……… You know why??????? They can’t afford a ticket to fly anywhere in the first place. There is no fear among them that someone will fly a plane into a national monument or land mark or commercial building……. They have none. You and I concern ourselves with such things……… because we can afford to fly and we do have such buildings and we deserve it.
Thank You Pat Tillman for reminding me that I am mortal. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return to the earth.” I “deserve” nothing. I am a guest on the earth. A sojourner like all my fathers before me.
Everything I possess. Everything I am. My health, my finances, my longevity, my accomplishments are ALL the result of God’s merciful largess and more often than not paid for by the sacrifice of someone else.
Today………… I am humbled. Humbled, as I am reminded of the doctors who conducted experiments upon themselves in their attempt to discover cures for human ills. Humbled, as I consider our fore-bearers who left everything behind in the “Old World” to venture upon wind swept seas and an unknown social and economic order in their hope for a better life. Humbled, when I remember those men and women who risked their lives to walk the picket line in order to secure a living wage from the Robber Barons of their time. Humbled, because I know that literally millions of men and women lie sleeping today in everything from finely coiffed mausoleums to mass graves, having given their lives for our freedom.
Thank You Pat Tillman.
As I watch highly paid athletes, who never seem to have enough, selling their autographs to the children…….. When I see people who never got closer than a T.V. screen to their favorite auto racer openly weeping at his death……… When I see people lined up to visit the home of Elvis Pressley, 25 years after his passing………… When I watch modern Rock stars baring their breast or grabbing their crotch, or being indicted for child molestation…………….. When the personal acquiring of more stuff and things comes before my giving to the local church………….. When booze and drugs and perverse sex are promoted and defended by those who should know better………….. When we begin to believe and act as if because we are personally untouched by these problems we are free to ignore them…………. When as a nation, we become so demanding of our “personal rights” we feel free to abort any future responsibilities or euthanise present ones………………….. Shall I go on? I don’t think it’s necessary.
When I see these behaviors and worse, I will “Thank You Pat Tillman, for being the shining star that you were and are. Thank you for showing us a better way.”
Thank You for reminding us in such painful fashion that indeed we have nothing we were not given. Thank You God for giving us this great man for such a short time.
Concl:
Parents, begin today, if you haven’t already….. Teaching you children about the lives of great men and women throughout history and living today. It may take some research. You probably won’t hear their name on the daily news. Human beings seem to have a penchant for making heroes of someone. Teach your children about those who have made selfless and even self sacrificing contributions to human kind and particularly to the expansion of God’s Kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
How will you respond to Pat’s death and the death of several hundred others in our present conflict? We all seem to mimic the phrase “They died for our freedom.” That is true. What will we do with that “freedom?”
Freedom to become more self indulgent or freedom to turn our thoughts and hearts outward unto others.
Freedom to continue our quest for more stuff and things or freedom to use our time and money helping others.
Freedom to spend our health and longevity amassing to ourselves that which we will not take with us into eternity or freedom to spend ourselves in service to God’s kingdom work.
Imagine arriving at the Gates of Heaven having amassed a fortune on earth, lived a long healthy life, with all of the resources available to us………. Imagine with all of that, coming into God’s Heaven alone.
Digression: (I’m glad to see folks coming together to make plans for fund raising for our new building, BUT I’m not proud of the fact. In fact I think it shows some problems with out spiritual maturity. Hot-crossed buns will not finance a work such as we envision for this area. ONLY the sacrificial giving of God’s people will do. You know as I do that we DO have the money. It IS here among us. IF we will give heed to what’s eternal - If we will catch God’s vision for this area. IF we will open our wallets and check books on a disciplined and regular basis and support this work financially.)
Do you believe with me that only God has the answer to our personal and national woes? Do you believe God’s answer is found only in Jesus? Then catch His vision. Catch His love for people everywhere. NEVER, NEVER think of His people at CCC as only a building. Every time you envision our new meeting place, ALWAYS do it with a vision of the loving, caring, forgiving, God honoring, Christ exalting, Spirit led people who will be meeting there.
“Remember, you are mortal,” Caesar’s servant would continually whisper in his ear as he came before the Roman Senate. “Remember, you are mortal,” I remind you as you sit here this morning.
“Only one life. Twill soon be past.
Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Prayer: Our Father in Heaven. We thank you for our fighting men and women around the world who are even now protecting our freedom to congregate and worship you. Thank you for Pat’s life, modeled so closely upon the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus.
The Bible tells us that our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name…….”
Father, the time has not yet come for our awards, rewards, and personal recognition. That will come on the day we come into your presence. Today is the day of sacrifice and service. Today is the time not for putting ourselves forward, but for lifting up Jesus. Today is the day of Salvation.
May we be found pouring out our lives and utilizing the blessings with which you have blessed us for the salvation and sustenance of others whom you are calling and have called.
