Sermon Sunday, May 25, 2008
Chatting and Folding
By Georgann Peck
Hosea 10: 1-12; Matthew 7: 7-12
The first thing that I think of when I think of good gifts
from God is my family. (Contrapuntal: now we all know that there are
times when our family is not the best gift that we have, but when it operates
at its finest, it is a good gift) I remember the time that my mother and I went
to visit our newest family member, Nicholas. We waited a couple of weeks after
he was born, giving the new mom and dad a while to catch their breath and the
other side of the family time with the new baby so they would be ready to
relinquish him by the time we made our move.
We took our most-prized, signature dishes with us for
dinner that first night, placing them carefully on the floorboard of our car,
and stacking gifts to the ceiling, we headed out for the four-hour trip to
The first morning we were there, we decided to do a few
loads of laundry that had accumulated. We talked about the kind of things that
mothers and grandmother think they have to pas along to new moms as we sat and
folded tiny clothes and baby blankets.
AS we sat in the living room, chatting and folding, I
could sense our deep connection. MiMi, Mom, and I were totally
connected: by our blood, our faith, our roles in life, and the love that we
shared with one another and the rest of our family. Our time together was
precious.
As we were chatting and folding,
Nicholas began to squirm and cry for his mom. MiMi
put the clothes down, picked him up, and began to feed him. They were lost in
one another’s eyes, a picture of contentment. We were watching as MiMi began stroking the outline of his ears and traced the
perimeter of his face gently with her finger, when we noticed her look of
adoration turned to curiosity, and then horror. Her bliss was interrupted when
her attention was diverted from Nicholas to her engagement ring. When she
noticed that the diamond was missing that was all she could think of. "I
can’t believe it! My diamond is gone!"
(Cp: There are many more tragic things that happen in
life, but MiMi’s eyes teared
up and her heart sunk as she began to realize her loss.)
She immediately laid Nicholas on the sofa and dropped to
the floor and began to search in the thick threads for her diamond.
Pat, pat, pat. She patted the carpet as she
searched for the tiny diamond. She systematically sectioned off a few feet of
carpet to explore. She patted it again and again, feeling for that diamond. She
continued until she searched the small living room and then moved into the
dining area.
Mom and I exchanged glances, knowing the possibility of
finding the diamond was small. But, in spite of the futility of the effort, we
joined her search, hoping to discover that little gem, nestled down in the
threads of the carpet.
After we were exhausted we ended the sweep search in the
rug and began looking on counter tops, in the kitchen, and in the bathrooms but
our efforts brought nothing. We all sat back down in a slump. Eventually, MiMi returned to caring for Nicholas as mom and I restored
order to the apartment and put away folded laundry.
The rest of the evening was spent in quiet conversation,
but disappointment, rather than joy, hung in the air.
The next morning we woke up knowing it would be our last
day together for awhile. We decided to return a couple of duplicate shower
gifts. It was one of those frosty March mornings when the grass and trees
sparkled with icy dew. MiMi wanted to drive. Mom sat
on the passenger side. I buckled in Baby Nicholas and slid in next to him,
shivering from the cold.
After Mi Mi started the car, she
reached over to turn on the heater and noticed a puzzling look on her
grandmother's face. "Are you OK, grandma?" “Mmmm.
Yes. I’m OK, but, well, I see it," she said, "I see your diamond.
It's on the hood of the car!" This time it was MiMi
and I who exchanged skeptical glances but, again moved by sheer compassion, we got out of the car and looked.
Sure enough, right there on the hood of the car, where MiMi had set her overnight bag, two weeks earlier, was her
tiny little diamond. It was so small, yet so brilliant, there amid the
glittering frosty dew.
We were dumfounded. The treasure that was lost had been
found.
It's been over 15 years since that weekend. Nicholas is in
high school, in a Presbyterian youth group in another state. MiMi and Lando have two more
children. Mom died, and I moved on. Many years have passed,
many things have happened throughout those years but one thing remains: we are
still connected. We are connected by blood, faith, roles in life, and the love
that we share.
Each of us have our own family stories, some of them
reflect deep connections with one another and some of them do not but when we
gather here, whatever our stories are, converge and melt into a bigger story.
We’ve been called here to form a new kind of family, a community of people who
belong to God., sometimes with similar roles like
those we’re already accustomed to and sometimes to new roles, bringing out the
best of who we are. We are here to participate in the biggest story of all,
God’s story.
See? God wants a family, too, so God created an unchanging
plan to create us as humans, and then adopt us into the divine, bringing us
into a new family, God's family. We are
not here accidentally, our birth was no mishap or
fluke of nature. Our parents may not have planned for us, BUT GOD DID. The
Psalmist said, "You know me inside and out, how I was sculpted, from
nothing into something." (Psalms 39:15). God sculpted us to be become holy
sons and daughters, paying special attention to every detail. We are beloved
children, like Jesus, in whom God is well-pleased, (Belonging to God) “It is
our destiny and our purpose.” (Romans 8:29, The
Message)
By God’s own command, God’s role in our new family is
central. God wants to be the center of our attention and Jesus reminds us that
the most important commandment of all is that we love God with all our
heart, all our strength, and all our mind.!
But there lies the problem: We put
almost everything before God. We have become scattered, unfocused, cynical and
apathetic toward worshipping God.
Have you seen the bumper stickers
that say, “God Bless
Then there are the rest of us who
come faithfully. We come together and fuss. We fuss about the cost of living,
the corruption of our government, the weather, what we have, what we don't, the
power wielded by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and the price of
hospital care.
We even stand in our church
parking lots and fuss about the order of worship, our sisters and brothers that
we just passed the peace of Christ with, the sermon, our church leaders . . .
the absence of our younger members, and the
demise of the youth today. WE FUSS about allot of things JUST LIKE WE DO
AT HOME and just like the Israelites who were also led by the Spirit of
God, we fail to recognize who it is that we belong to by our spiritual
connections, and the genetics that make us unique.
As a result of not realizing who we are and who we belong
to, we are much like the people in Hosea’s story:
We are worried about the land that has not prospered
We’ve spent our wealth adorning our alters, our homes, and
ourselves
We’ve produced leaders who have made unwise decisions
We’ve not made God the center of our attention. Our
priorities are out of order. We have missed the mark!
I hear that 80% of our national population is on some kind
of prescription drugs. We have become lethargic, depressed, and sick. Of course
we are. We are feeling in our bodies the anguish of our spirit. Our spirit who longs to connect the SPIRIT of our creator.
Can you hear what GOD is saying to us? I believe that God
is telling us that it is time for us to get our priorities straight. Return to
me, O Israel, resounds in our ears. Return to me, O America! In
Hosea, God says, “seek me FIRST and I will shower you with good”. In
Matthew, Jesus says for us to “ASK him, KNOCK at his door, SEEK his ways, and
then, we shall FIND what we need. Sit and chat awhile with me. Find me in the
face of others as you work with them, doing the ordinary things of life, like
folding clothes. What Jesus has to give us will be good for us. When
we put God first, things will change, and then
we will be able to tell the good news instead of the bad!
Years may have past since we’ve really connected with God,
we may find ourselves distracted from our first love, but all the things that
made that connection possible first place are still in tact: God’s love for us,
the grace of Jesus Christ, the gift of faith, a place in the family, and the
community of the Spirit.
God is not absent from this wonderful space that we
occupy. In fact, there is no where that we can go that God is not already
there! God is as near as our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts, in
the very breath we breathe. God is not an elusive dream, but is alive and longs
to be known, in the divine person of Jesus Christ.
The good news is that God still wants us to be part of the
family. God is available to us. God does not avoid us, but seeks us first, and
when we turn toward God, the contact is instantaneous and it lasts forever and
ever!! Allelujah!