Sermon delivered by David Burrow October 22, 2023 - First Congregational Church, Algona, Iowa
Click here for an audio version of this sermon (32 MB - .mp3)
The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
He called over a child, placed it in their midst, and said, “Truly I say to you,
unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of
heaven. They who humble themselves like this child are the greatest in heaven,
and whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.
The children were brought to Jesus that he might lay his hands on them and pray.
The disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do
not prevent them; for the realm of heaven belongs to such as these.”
O sing to the Lord a new song!
Sing to God, all the earth!
Sing to the Holy One, bless God’s holy name!
Proclaim the Lord’s salvation day after day;
declare the Almighty’s glory among the nations,
God’s marvelous works to all the peoples.
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
God is is to be revered above all deities.
Honor and majesty are the Holy One’s;
Power and beauty are God’s sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord, O tribes of the people;
Pay tribute with glory and strength.
Honor the glorious name of God.
Worship the Lord, majestic in holiness,
Tremble before God, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The Lord is our ruler!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
God will judge each nation with equity.”
Let the heavens be glad,
Let the earth rejoice,
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
Let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord!
Three weeks ago we celebrated World Communion Sunday here at church. While Rev. Burtnett had a nice sermon that Sunday, I have to admit that I paid closer attention to it when I was editing things for our radio broadcast than I did when I was actually in church. I spent most of that Sunday staring at the balloons that had been on our church’s float in the Band Day parade, balloons that were there to celebrate the church’s 165th anniversary.
I was reminded of a birthday party our family threw for my grandfather back when Jimmy Carter was president. Granddad had just turned 90, and we spent much of that party going through an endless list of how the world had changed since he was born. As I stared at those “165” balloons earlier this month, my mind went through a much longer list of changes.
It’s amazing just how different the world was
when Father Taylor came up from Ft. Dodge to establish our church. In 1858
neither black people nor women could vote. The U.S. had thirty-two states, and
it took months to travel between the east and west coasts. Most of Iowa was
unsettled, and the town of Algona had been founded just four years earlier. The
entire United States had fewer people than California does today.
Since 1858 our country has been through a civil war, two world wars, and
countless smaller conflicts. Members of our church served in those wars, and
some gave their lives for their country. We can now travel anywhere in the
country in just a few hours and anywhere on earth in less than a day. Today
people have even gone into space as tourists.
When our church was founded almost everyone
in Iowa lived off the land. Today most of our church members are professional
workers, some of whom have jobs no one could have imagined 165 years ago. Even
those who are farmers live lives far different than our ancestors did—with
expensive equipment replacing both men and horses and hybrid crops that are
grown as much for fuel as for food.
Amid all those changes lots of churches have come and gone, but we’re thankful
that our church is still here to serve our community. Things may be different
today than they were 25, 75, or 165 years ago. Until quite recently we wouldn’t
have dreamed of broadcasting our sermons on the radio or streaming them online.
We wouldn’t have dreamed of hosting an international night with Cuban cuisine on
the menu or gathering around a peace pole every fall or putting up signs
explaining that everyone is our neighbor. Throughout our history, though both
our church here in Algona and the wider Congregational and United Church of
Christ have embraced inclusion and equality. Today we’re just finding new ways
to broaden that message and serve a broader community.
Won’t you join me in prayer. Lord, thank-you for helping us to keep our church
going for the past 165 years. May you help us continue to minister to Algona and
to the world for many years to come. Amen.
Most of you know that last summer I made a big trip. It was a trip that was supposed to happen in 2020, but it got postponed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Finally the borders opened this year and I was able to head south to New Zealand. It’s a gorgeous country whose islands extend from the tropics to Antarctica, and I spent nearly a month exploring almost all of its regions.
One place I went that’s not on a lot of tourists’ radar was the city of Invercargill. This is a place the size of Mankato that lies at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island. There’s a cool antique car museum in Invercargill, but its main claim to fame is that it is home to the southernmost location of almost every chain business on the planet. I had breakfast at the world’s southernmost McDonalds, and I walked past the southernmost KFC, the southernmost Burger King, the southernmost Subway, and the southermost Starbucks. Invercargill is far from the southermost place in the world, but New Zealand is much more developed and westernized than the tip of Argentina and Chile. That’s why all the global chains put their outposts in Invercargill.
While I enjoyed my southernmost Egg McMuffin, for me Invercargill was mostly a stopover between Stewart Island (a nearly uninhabited place with nothing but the Southern Ocean between it and Antarctica) and the Dunedin (a place known for its Scottish heritage and miniature penguins).
Strangely, though, Invercargill remains in my mind more than most of the other places I went in New Zealand. It’s an attractive place, but not one that has pretentions or feels like it has to gussy itself up for tourists, and since it’s neither a small town nor a big city, it gave me a pretty good idea of how “real” New Zealanders live.
What I remember most about Invercargill, though, was walking down a side street north of downtown. I happened to pass a car repair shop, and on the side of that building someone had painted some of the most interesting grafitti I’ve ever seen. On a brightly colored background someone had painted a phrase that began with the words “Live each day”.
When I first saw that sign I figured the message said to live each day as if it was your last day on earth. I’ve seen that message countless times. Sometimes people use that line to urge us to sieze the day and have no regrets, while other times they’re suggesting we should get right with God before we die. While I don’t disagree with either of those interpretations, they’ve become a bit cliché. I couldn’t begin to say how many times I’ve heard that advice, and I figured this grafitti was the same old thing yet again.
When I read more closely, though, this message didn’t say what I first thought it did. The command wasn’t “Live each day as if it was your last day on earth.” Instead it said “Live each day as if it was your FIRST day on earth.” That’s a very different command, and one I rather like.
It’s wonderful advice and fascinating to think about living each day that way. While none of us can remember our first day on earth, we’ve all seen the joy little children have when they experience things for the first time. The world is full of wonderful discoveries for children, and the thrill kids have when they discover new things is infectious. Certainly kids can complain, but they get over their problems quickly and go on to find joy in something else. Shouldn’t we be like little children and find wonder in everything around us.
I kept that grafitti in mind throughout the rest of the trip. I tried hard to notice everything I encountered—the snow-covered mountains, the narrow fiords, the deep canyons, the sheep grazing on hillsides, the artifacts in museums, and the towering cities. New Zealand is a gorgeous country, and I tried hard to follow the graffiti’s advice and really make each day a new experience. Traveling with that intention made for an outstanding trip.
That grafitti I saw in Invercargill reminded me of a piece I did when I was in high school speech decades ago. It was an essay written by Helen Keller, the woman who lost her sight and hearing in infancy but went on to overcome her disabilities. The essay is called “Three Days to See”. Keller begins by recalling a conversation she had with a friend who had just returned from hiking in the woods. She asked the friend what she had seen on the hike, and the response was “nothing in particular”.
Keller writes, “How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf, … the delightful velvety texture of a flower. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open fingers. … The lush carpet of pine needles is more welcome than a luxurious Persian rug. … At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight.”
She goes on to ponder the things she would want to look at if she were granted the gift of vision for just three days, and she challenges the reader to think what they would want to look at if they only had three days of sight. Keller imagines seeing the faces of her friends and looking at people in general. She writes, “How satisfying it would be to grasp the essential qualities of another person by watching the subtleties of expression—the quiver of a muscle, the flutter of a hand.”
Keller challenges the reader to really see. She asks, “Can you accurately describer the faces of five good friends? Some of you can, but many cannot. As an experiment, I have questioned the husbands of long standing about the color of their wives’ eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that they do not know.” She notes that like those husbands too many of us become lazy with our vision. We get accustomed to things and only really see the unusual.
Many of the things Keller imagines seeing are very routine. She ponders the colors of the rugs in her home, or exactly what dogs look like. She wants to visit a farm and see a tractor plowing the soil. She imagines what the sunset and sunrise would look like, as well as the beauty of famous works of art. She ponders what it would be like to go to the movies or perhaps a live play. She wants to see what a boat looks like, to visit a factory, and to see children at play.
Keller concludes her essay by admonishing us to use the gifts God gave us. “Make full use of the gift of sight,” she says. “Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, and touch all the textures of nature.”
When I prepared the service today I spent a long time deciding what Bible verses I wanted to include. After doing a lot of searching, I chose two brief gospel passages where Jesus refers to the value of children and urges us to become like children. I used them instead of the gospel reading the lectionary suggests for today, which is the “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s”—a reminder that this is the time of year for pledge cards and stewardship.
I did pick one reading from today’s lectionary, though. That was Psalm 96, which tells of the exuberance we should give to God: Let the heavens be glad, and the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it. Let the field exult. Let the forest sing with joy. Both in our religion and in our daily lives we need that kind of exuberence. We need to bring back the joy we knew as children that steadily faded away as we got older.
I want to close with one more of the things Helen Keller ponders in “Three Days to See”. “I should let my eyes rest,” she writes, “on the face of a baby, so that I could catch a vision of the eager, innocent beauty which precedes consciousness of the conflicts which life develops”. That baby brings us full circle to the grafitti I saw in Invercargill. “Eager and innocent” is a wonderful description of little children, and I hope each of us will be less aware of the problems in the world and find find more eagerness and innocence in our lives. May we all live each day as if it was our first day on earth.
For our benediction today, please indulge me as I share a little longer passage than usual. In keeping with our theme, I want to share the words of one of the top singer/songwriters of the 20th Century. Bob Dylan wrote these words as a lullaby for his son, but I think they’re appropriate for us at any age.
May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young
(C) 2023 davidmburrow@yahoo.com