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"A Harvest of Blessings--Blessed to Be a Blessing"
November 18, 2001 Rev. Gary LeTourneau
Our Scripture lesson is from Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. Our theme is "A Harvest of Blessings." And this morning I'm looking at the topic, "Blessed to be a blessing." It comes right out of this passage.
I wonder sometimes about the details the Bible does not include. When you read on, it simply says Abraham took his wife and they left. But I've wondered sometimes how it would feel to be told, "Go from your country, and your kindred, and your father's house, to the land that I will show you." If I was Abraham, I may have been tempted to ask, "Well, Lord, what's in it for me? Where's the blessing part of this? So far all I'm doing is giving up everything." And yet, I'll bet if we asked Abraham at the end of his life if it was a blessing, he would have said, "Yes." And as I've been thinking this week about blessings, and wanting to focus us as a congregation in an annual celebration of thanksgiving for the blessings we've received, it does occur to me that one of the main deals about blessings is, as you live life a while, you recognize that it's not always easy to tell the blessings from the non-blessings--so that sometimes what starts out as a seeming setback becomes a wonderful thing.
This week I was reading about the new University of Minnesota women's basketball coach, Brenda Oldfield, star high school basketball player recruited to the University of Arizona where she was a starter for her first three years. Then in her senior year, she had four operations on her feet and spent the year on the bench. She says that now she recognizes the good that came from that horrible experience. Sitting on the sidelines gave Brenda the chance to realize that what she really wanted to do was not to play, but to coach. "I got hooked," she says, "We had a coaching change, so I could evaluate coaching styles, and that's what got the ball rolling for me as a coach." And now here she is at the University of Minnesota. That's something that began as a setback and became a blessing.
In our family and neighborhood, we've been experiencing the opposite--something we thought was a blessing that has become something else. The blessing part goes all the way back to June and July when we were amazed, in our little residential part of Minnetonka, to see a mother turkey (about this big) with three little chicks (only turkey chicks aren't that little--they're about this big, they're sort of like geese. Just picture geese-size.) They'd come every now and then, walking out of the woods by our house or some of the other houses, and we were so excited! There are turkeys in our neighborhood! We looked forward to sightings of the turkeys.
But by September, I don't know what happened to mom, but those three chicks were all now about this big and they're everywhere! On our front porch. On the driveway. They left us little gifts sometimes (that weren't blessings). But that's still OK. It was still neat to be experiencing wildlife in our residential area.
Well, about three weeks ago, on that first really cold day in October, all the kids from the top of the circle where we live, who go down the hill and around the corner to the bus stop, were going down to the bus stop. They had run ahead. I was getting ready to follow them when, all of a sudden, here come all five kids running back up the circle towards me! They're yelling at the top of their lungs, "Turkey attack! Turkey attack!" And it ends up that these three turkeys had taken up position right in the middle of the road. You know, when you're only a kindergartner, three turkeys this high seem pretty menacing, so I did the fatherly, protector thing: "C'mon kids, you can walk with me." When we walked past these turkeys they didn't give any ground. They stayed right in the road, glaring at us as we sort of scooted by. Then I thought, "Well, now I'll have to keep a closer eye and walk with the kids because of the turkeys."
Tuesday morning, they divided us. I was down at the bus stop with Ben and three kids were at the top. I had no idea what was going on because it was around the corner and up the hill, but I got to thinking, "Where's Hannah and the other kids? They ought to be down here by now." I was just getting ready to go back and check it out and I hear a man, my neighbor Lyle, yelling, "Get out of here!" and three turkeys going, "Gobble, gobble, gobble!" I go around the corner and here are these three turkeys who are advancing on Lyle! He's using his hands, trying to get them to go into the woods so the kids could come down to the bus stop. They didn't yield until I joined him. Then with two adults, they backed down.
Well, we got to thinking about that. That afternoon, my wife watched them chase a high school boy off a bike. This may sound extreme, but turkeys can run 12 miles an hour (I looked it up on the Internet). They have talons. I wouldn't want to face one alone! I found a documented case in March of this year of a single male turkey keeping a postman out of a neighborhood. I had no idea wild turkeys could do this!
Well, the next morning we're all wondering what's going to happen. Lyle and I (my neighbor) met on the circle. He brought a rake. I brought a hoe. We felt like fools getting ready to escort our kids down to the bus stop with weapons. I just said to Lyle, "I think this gives a whole new meaning for me to 'homeland defense.' " Our neighbors at the bottom of the circle had some construction going and there are all these machines and trucks lined up and down. We thought, "Well, surely they're not going to be around with all this noise." Sure enough, we went down and around the corner, looking and waiting for the attack, which never came. We thought it was pretty much over, got down to where we could see the bus stop, and there they were, right in the middle of the road: Three turkeys.
Nicole--all she had to do was walk out her front door, down her driveway, and across the street and she's at the bus stop. Every time she got about five feet off her porch, they would run at her and drive her back up into her house. He mom was leaning out the door, wondering how to get her there. While they had her pinned, having run up there, two kids (fifth graders) got to the bus stop while the turkeys were distracted, and put their packs down. I think they thought, "Once we're here they won't come back." The turkeys turned around, saw those kids at the bus stop, and bam! Twelve miles an hour straight at them! The kids ran! I think the turkeys had decided there will be no pedestrian traffic here on Blenheim Way as long as we're here. We actually had to use that rake and that hoe to move into position and drive these turkeys back into the woods so our kids could get on the bus.
Incidentally, it's sort of ended up now at a standoff. The kids won't go to the bus without each of them carrying a dowel, or a stick, or a broom or something, and I think the turkeys now sort of realize they're meeting armed opposition, so they're waiting for their opportunity. The city's told us that the DNR is going to come take care of our problem that we thought was a blessing. Isn't that true in life sometimes, that what you think is a blessing becomes a problem.
Well, we're gathered to think about thanking God for blessings. Over time we sort out what are the blessings, what are the setbacks. What do we do with them? First of all, we give thanks for blessings when we recognize them. That's why we're here today. We want to thank God for all of His blessings to us as individuals, as a church, as a country. The blessings of our children, the blessings of free worship, and of music. Like so many things in this very strange fall, beginning with September 11th, it seems like Thanksgiving has a renewed sense of urgency and meaning for almost all of us. You know, it's not just once a year, though, that we should give thanks.
On September 3rd, just a week before 9-11, U.S. News and World Report had an extensive article on happiness. They pointed out that 60 research scientists in various locations have been given millions of dollars in funding to help find for humanity how to be happy. They know the statistic that even though since World War II there's been a vast increase in the United States' standard of living, there is no increase at all in the number of people in the United States who regard themselves as happy. A researcher said, "Once income provides basic needs, it doesn't correlate beyond that to happiness, nor does intelligence, prestige, or sunny weather." (They say you really won't be happier in Florida than Minnesota!) "People grow used to new climates, higher salaries, and better cars. And even though since World War II we've spent billions of dollars studying and treating depression, and have succeeded in reducing the level of sadness in the United States, we haven't yet done anything to increase the level of happiness. Researchers have found that self-esteem, spirituality, family, good marriages and friendships are key to a happy life." (I could have saved them several million dollars and told them the same thing!) The article goes on: "Gratitude is another key ingredient to a happy life. Research has shown people who make a daily or frequent practice of being thankful were not only more joyful--they were healthier, less stressed, more optimistic, and more likely to help others."
The Bible says every time we enter the gates of His house, we're to do so with thanksgiving. The Bible says in our prayer time, we're to give thanks to God always, in all times, in all circumstances, if not for all circumstances. Thanksgiving isn't, as you know, a once a year celebration. It's to be the daily pattern of our lives. When you and I learn gratitude, the result is that we will be happier, more satisfied, more joyful people who recognize why we're placed on earth and what God wants us to do. That gets me to the second point of the passage:
Why has God blessed you? That's a hard question. Why has He blessed us and not someone else from another community in the United States who doesn't enjoy the material prosperity most of us have? Or someone from another country. Why us and not some residents of Afghanistan? Those are very hard questions to answer. But God makes it clear in the Bible, beginning with Abraham and all the way through, what it is that we're to do with blessings: "I will bless you so that you may be a blessing." And if you came to church today with thanksgiving in your heart because of how God has blessed you, you have a mission. That mission is to be a blessing for others. I said last week that God didn't create us to be reservoirs of His goodness, grace, mercy and blessing. He created us to be channels, so that the blessings would flow through us.
We're to do that as individuals and we're to do it as a community. Let me give you an example of an individual who has really made a difference by being a blessing to others. I read on CNN on the web about the retirement of a man from Chicago, at the age of 78, named Silas Purnell. He was simply known as "that man who gets people into college." What they found when people came and knocked on his door, was an energetic man who would do almost anything to help get students from the Chicago South Side into college. He would pick up the phone and cajole a college administrator into accepting a bright but untested teen, wheedle some scholarship money out of them, dig into his own wallet to help pay for books, bus fare to school, or a pair of glasses. He loaded up his station wagon with teens whose worldview didn't extend beyond their gritty Chicago neighborhoods and drive them to distant campuses.
It is estimated that in his career as a placement officer with McKinley Community Services, he helped more than 50,000 students get into college. Purnell says he didn't try to force schools to accept unqualified students. He worked with the schools and students to find appropriate situations. He would stick by them, often driving to campuses to encourage struggling students and helping many pursue graduate degrees. He said, "The ticket they got from me was one-way. If they didn't make it, they had to walk home--and that helped them stick with it." At his retirement, more than 300 of his students, who now call themselves "Silas Purnell Alumni" gathered to celebrate his career and to thank him.
Quincy Moore graduated from high school in 1968, immediately went to work at a local steel mill, hoping to make some money and help his mother who was raising seven children. "I didn't know what was going on in my life." A friend of his mother suggested he see Purnell, so he did. And he writes, "Two weeks later I found myself on a college campus thinking what in the [well, uh] what in the heck am I doing here?" Moore, now 49, has a Ph.D. in counseling education and is the dean of undergraduate studies at Westchester University outside Philadelphia. He says, "I owe a debt that I could never repay." That's one man. Over 50,000 students. "Blessed to be a blessing."
You and I can make a difference as individuals. You and I can make a difference as a community. I want to give an example that's not from my church community, but an unusual community that I'm a part of. It's an online community of people who like acoustic guitars. It's a forum--a discussion forum--sponsored by Acoustic Guitar magazine. Like most of these Internet forums, you get tired of typing so you develop some shorthand and it saves time just to put the initials in and everybody knows what you mean. On the fourteenth of this week, a man named Daniel Mayotus (I hope I'm pronouncing his name close to correctly), a Croatian student living in Croatia, wrote to say how much he liked our forum, "but I don't know what some of your jargon words and acronyms mean. For instance, what do you mean by 'IMHO'?"
Do any of you read any forums to know what IMHO means? "In My Humble Opinion." You're always giving opinions on these things, so you just sort of make it, "IMHO, [and so on]." Then he asked "What does the acronym 'GAS' stand for?" These are people who like acoustic guitars, and have several, and always want more, and someone invented the acronym "Guitar Acquisition Syndrome"--that we all suffer from GAS and the only way to resolve it is to go out and buy a new guitar.
He writes, "What is this?" and some people wrote back and told him what they were. He responded back, "I understand this GAS." Then he went on to describe being a poor student in Croatia, in a broke country, and that all he has is an electric guitar, but no amp. So he just plays that and he can't hear himself and no one else can hear him. He writes about how wonderful it must be to live in the United States where we can see, hear, play, and buy all these guitars.
Well, within an hour, a member of the form named Bill wrote back, "OK, Dan. Your last post has touched my heart. I'd like our group to do something about this. What do you think, gang?" And then he said, "I have an older guitar in my closet. I don't play it any more--it's just sitting there. I'd like for us to find a way to ship it to you in Croatia, if you'd be willing to accept it."
In the next hour, posts just flowed in. I printed them out. One member named Terry said, "You know, interestingly enough, I purchased a bunch of light gauge strings I'm not going to use any more. I'll be glad to donate them. Just tell me where." Another member said they would donate strings. They made some inquiries that morning, on the fourteenth, to find out about shipping it at a guitar store. The guitar store said, "Listen--this is a neat project. If you bring us that guitar, we'll have our technician go through and set it all up and get it playing just right for free to help you guys ship it." Another person reading the forum, hearing that said [he's known on our forum because he sells ivory saddles--fossilized ivory saddles. You can't buy new ivory any more. It's illegal. You can just get fossilized ivory. It's very expensive. It's sort of the ideal thing to have on your guitar for a saddle and it costs a lot of money. We all want it.] But he said, "Why don't I just send a set to that guitar store. They can install it on the guitar." This all happened in three or for hours while Daniel in Croatia was asleep, or at work, or something. I can't get the time figured out.
But later on that evening a new topic is started by Daniel and here's what it's headed: "People, you are nuts! All I did was write to talk about how much I wish I had a new guitar and now you're doing something about it." Then someone wrote back, "You know, we may be nuts, but we're not stupid, and we really want to do this." Several said that. And he declined and said, "I couldn't possibly accept it." People in the forum wrote and said, "Daniel, you have to understand, we've never felt so good about doing something. We want you to have this guitar. We feel powerless, like we want to reach out to others in another part of the world. I think we're all responding to how we feel coming out of September 11th."
So the morning of the sixteenth, we had a new post. Daniel wrote, "Well, it's a new day and I've reconsidered it and maybe you are right. So I will now say I accept it." So some time in this next week or two, this community that doesn't even gather face-to-face (we just know our names), is going to do something nice for someone in Croatia (which most of us have no idea exactly where it is in Eastern Europe), because we realize we're blessed. And we have a lot. And we want someone else to have that.
Friends, you and I as a community are blessed. We saw that blessing with all our children on the steps. We see that blessing when we look in the faces of each other. We see that blessing when we hear from the Families Moving Forward people that the families love coming to our church because we have such a good place to host people, and we feed them so well, and we have the gym to run through.
We can't just celebrate Thanksgiving by saying, "Thank you" to God. We're not done yet. What we have to do is say, "Thank you, God. I know I'm blessed. Will you open up for me how you want me to be a blessing, how you want us to be a blessing?" That's what the Christian faith is all about. That's what it means to say "thank you" to Jesus for what He's done for us and given to us.
We're going to end our service with an invitation to you to participate in a little object lesson in being blessed to be a blessing. This is a sort of small thing, but I really like this idea. Our stewardship committee has prepared a whole lot of packets of cookies that say on them, "Enjoy a harvest of blessings. Your friends at Faith Presbyterian." We want every family, as they leave here, to get one of these packets of cookies. But we don't want you to eat them! No one in this room is allowed to eat their packet of cookies. We want everyone to take a packet of cookies and find somebody else in your neighborhood, at work--you could take them to work, family members. We want you to give them away. And if they ask why say, "I know this sounds crazy, but my pastor asked me to give you these cookies because we're blessed and we just want to be a blessing to our friends and community, so take them." A little detail thing here. If there are--we have about enough for one packet for every two people. So if you are a family unit of one or two, if you'd take one. If you're four or more, take two. If you're three, you can decide. If you've got a place to give them, though, then do that. We want everybody--you'll be met at the door with your packet of cookies. This is a blessing you're receiving. We want you to be a blessing to somebody else. It's a church object lesson, OK?
Let's join together in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, that in so many ways you have blessed us. We thank you for all the people who make up Faith Church and all the ways that you come to meet us in this body of Christ. Lord, I pray today that as we celebrate Thanksgiving, that you will help us to think about how we may be a blessing to others as individuals and as a community. We have so much for which to be thankful in Jesus Christ. Let our expression of thanksgiving overflow in abundant blessings for others. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Rev. Gary LeTourneau Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[Transcribed from an audiotape of the 10:00 a.m. worship service on November 18, 2001] |
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