Time-lapse photography compresses a series of events into one picture. Such a photo appeared in an issue of National Geographic. Taken from a Rocky Mountain peak during a heavy thunderstorm, the picture captured the brilliant lightning display that had taken place throughout the storm's duration. The time-lapse technique created a fascinating, spaghetti-like web out of the individual bolts. In such a way, our sin presents itself before the eyes of God. Where we see only isolated or individual acts, God sees the overall web of our sinning. What may seem insignificant even sporadic to us and passes with hardly a notice creates a much more dramatic display from God's panoramic viewpoint. The psalmist was right when he wrote, "Who can discern his [one's own] errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me." (Psalm 19:12-13).

I was in a small rural church one time that had a major dispute about where the pies should be placed in the kitchen prior to serving them for the annual turkey supper. One woman actually left the church community because several new comers to the church had convinced the rest of the women working in the kitchen that it would be more efficient to put the pies on the counter beside the sink instead of the counter next to the refrigerator. "It's not the right way to do it", she said. "We've never done it that way before, and I am not going to be part of doing it that way now. I won't have any part of that kind of thing. Those new people are going to ruin this church. They don't know anything. They aren't even from around here."

Sound familiar to anyone?

The apostle John came up to Jesus one day.  "Jesus", he said, "I was walking down the road with the rest of the disciples, and we saw someone casting out demons in your name. We tried to stop him because we don't know who he is; we tried to stop him because he's not one of us.

A fellow by the name of Ed Peterman tells a story from his childhood, when he grew up on a farm in Preble County Ohio. His family discovered they had some rats in the barn, so his parents got some traps. One night they baited them with cheese, and set them out around the barn. The next morning young Ed went out to see if they had caught anything. The first traps he examined were empty. When he came to the last trap, he saw something strange. The trap had been sprung, and while there was no rat in it, he noticed that it did hold the severed leg of a rat. He ran to tell his parents about this unexpected finding. They followed him back to the barn.

When they got to the trap with the rat's leg in it, his parents just nodded and smiled knowingly. "What happened?" Ed asked them. "Tell me what happened!" So they told him. The trap had caught the rat by the leg. The rat knew that its life was at risk, so it chewed off its own leg to escape. "That's the way rats are," his father said. "Better to go on living with only three legs, than to die with all four." Ed just stood there for a while, marveling at the courage it took for the rat to choose to survive by chewing its leg off and leaving it behind. 

It makes one wonder whether we would have the courage to do what the rat did. If you were caught in a life-threatening situation one day, would you be able to cut part of yourself off and leave it behind in order to go on living? That's one of those things we never truly know, unless and until we actually faced that situation. Would I be able to surrender a hand or a leg, a memory or a grudge, an obsession or a long-held opinion, if my life were at stake? Or would I cling desperately to the futile memory of how things have always been before, and so bring about my own death?

Sodium is an extremely active element found naturally only in combined form; it always links itself to another element. Chlorine, on the other hand, is the poisonous gas that gives bleach its offensive odor. When sodium and chlorine are combined, the result is sodium chloride. What is sodium Chloride? Salt. Common table salt. The substance we use to preserve meat and bring out its flavor. Love and truth can be like sodium and chlorine. Love without truth is flighty, sometimes blind, willing to combine with various doctrines. On the other hand, truth by itself can be offensive, sometimes even poisonous. Spoken without love, it can turn people away from the gospel. When truth and love are combined in an individual or a church, however, then we have what Jesus called "the salt of the earth," and we're able to preserve and bring out the beauty of our faith.

A man walking across a bridge came upon another man standing on the edge, about to plunge to his death. The first man shouted "Stop! Are you a Christian?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am."

"Well so am I. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

"I'm Protestant,"

"Well so am I. Are you Episcopal or Baptist?"

"I'm Baptist."

"Wow... I am too. Are you Southern Baptist or American Baptist?"

I'm Southern Baptist."

"Me too, that's amazing! Are you original Southern Baptist or Southern Baptist reformed?"

"I'm Southern Baptist reformed."

"I can't believe it, so am I. But tell me are you Reformed Southern Baptist of the reformation of 1879, or reformed Southern Baptist of the Reformation of 1915?"

He answered, "Reformed Baptist, reformation of 1915." 

To which the first man said, "Die you heretic," and he pushed him off the bridge.

The name of E. Stanley Jones is familiar to most long-time Methodists. He was a missionary-evangelist who traveled around the world for many, many years, especially in India, proclaiming the good news of God's love in Jesus Christ. Stanley Jones lived a life of joy and peace which came from his faith. In the ninth decade of his life he set pen to paper and wrote his autobiography titled A Song of Ascents.  (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968) In his introduction, he says, "How did it all happen? I asked myself that question as I sat in a hotel room in Alaska writing. I looked up and saw myself in a looking glass and said to myself, ‘Stanley Jones, you're a very happy man, aren't you?' I replied, ‘Yes, I am.' And then the vital question: ‘How did you get this way?' And my reply: ‘I don't know. It is all a surprise to me, a growing surprise. I walked across a field one day, and I stubbed my toe against the edge of a treasure chest, jutting out of the earth. ‘It's treasure,' I cried. Ran off and sold all that I had, including myself, and bought that field; and I've been hugging myself ever since that I had sense enough to do it!'" (p. 24) Go thou and do likewise.

The analogy of an operating room, where radical surgery must be performed, is a most useful way to understand this Scripture. Most of us today would accept the notion that the whole body is worth more than any of its individual parts, and when we develop a cancerous tumor on eye, hand, or foot, we cast aside "the offending member" — with regret, of course; but we operate on the assumption that it is better to enter life without the diseased organ than not to live at all. If a troublesome organ hampers our life or threatens our very existence we eliminate it. We recognize the principle involved. When a gall bladder or appendix is so badly diseased that it gives us no peace, we cut it out. When a hand or foot is diseased beyond help, we are not loathe to amputate in order to save everything else. When a tumor is malignant and threatens to take our entire life away, we are not hesitant to say to the surgeon, "Cut it out!" It is far better to leave behind the tumor than to threaten one's whole existence. We understand the principle involved. 

And what is true in the physical realm, translates over into the spiritual realm. If there is something in our lives: some habit, some action, some attitude, that gets between us and God, we must "cut it out."

"It's a fearful thing," writes Dr. Barclay, "for any man or any church to think that he or it has a monopoly on salvation." And G. Johnstone Jeffrey commented, "See that you do not deny the name of Christian to another because he or she is not wearing your label, denominational, ecclesiastical, or theological." Christian tolerance invites us to sit down together and assess our beliefs and doctrines by the kind of people they produce, by what these do for human need, and how limited really are our little ideas in the face of Christian truth. Bare intolerance has no place in Christian thinking for, as Dr. Barclay commented further, "Every man in need has a claim upon us because every man is dear to Christ."

Ted Engstrom of World Vision fame tells how one day he was cleaning out an old desk drawer. He found a flashlight he hadn't used in a year. He turned it on but there was no light. He shook it, and then he unscrewed one end to release what were probably dead batteries. The batteries wouldn't come out, but finally, after some effort, he shook them loose. What a mess he found! Corroded batteries with liquid acid seeping all over the mechanism - all because he hadn't used the flashlight regularly!

Batteries are designed to be turned on, to be used, not neglected or ignored. What you and I refuse to use we will surely lose. We're meant to he turned on, too. Our gifts are to be used! Our lives are not meant to be "waited out" but to be lived up! Are you and I living up to the gifts and talents God has given us? What kind of commitment do we have to ourselves and to the graces within us?

It is, therefore, an unquestionable truth, that the god and prince of this world still possesses all who know not God. Only the manner wherein he possesses them now differs from that wherein he did it of old time. Then he frequently tormented their bodies as well as souls, and that openly, without any disguise: now he torments their souls only (unless in some rare cases), and that as covertly as possible. The reason of this difference is plain: it was then his aim to drive mankind into superstition; therefore, he wrought as openly as he could. But it is his aim to drive us into infidelity; therefore, he works as privately as he can: for the more secret he is, the more he prevails.

All too often, gossip, silence, and exclusion serve just these purposes, cutting off the prophetic from the congregation.  This is what the Apostles were doing to this one man "caught healing."  They were demanding that Jesus hobble his powerful works because he wasn't one of them.

We can stop our pettiness by taking four actions:

1. Get out in the harvest.

Recognize the crisis in harvesters and the ripeness of the harvest.  If you don't bring the harvest in during its due season, it will not just sit out there and stay ripe.  This is the harvest time and we need laborers.  Let's be one and pray for more!

2.  Quit defending the faith and take the offense in outreach.

Rest with Gamaliel, the wise Pharisee who trained Saul.  In Acts 5:38 he said that God doesn't need us to defend his name; he is quite capable of that himself.  If someone's work is of God, it will continue.  If not, it will cease.

3. Recognize the signs of pettiness in our life and flee them.

If we are surrounded by ducks and quack; it usually means we are a duck.  If those around us are petty and small, guess what...

We must flee such people!  Instead, we should move in the company of giants, heading towards the outer boundaries of our "known world."  If we seek out people who don't have time or use for gossip, then we will be forced to live at their level.  They will hold our behavior and conversation to a higher standard and we will either grow to meet those standards or begin talking behind their backs as well.  Let us hope it is the former.

4. Maintain the habits of faith.

We must maintain the habits of faith:

a. Pray constantly,
b. Hunger for God's Word,
c. Maintain a small group of accountability, and
d. Be in personal relationship with "least of these." 

Attending to these habits keeps us from becoming small-minded and hard-hearted.

A journalist once asked Carl Sandburg, "What is the ugliest word in the English language?" After a few minutes Sandburg replied, "Exclusive." The ugliness of exclusive depends upon whether we are among the included or the excluded. We pride ourselves on being members of exclusive clubs, living in exclusive neighborhoods, dining at exclusive restaurants, vacationing at exclusive resorts, belonging to exclusive churches. Being an insider carries with it a sense of pride and security. Most of us, however, have been excluded often enough to agree that exclusive is an ugly word. When we are among the marginalized, the rejected, the pushed-aside or the left-out, it hurts!

The conflict in the early church centered on the question of who is in and who is out. Are gentiles to be included? Peter and Paul debated that one until Peter had a dream and concluded that "God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34). The Book of Acts is the story of God's grace through the Holy Spirit, pushing the early church out to the margins and breaking down the barriers among the people.

Judging people by whether or not they are "one of us" thwarts God's reign of justice, generosity and joy. The disciples missed the power and victory of God's liberating presence in the man casting out demons. Their assumption that only those "following us" could cast out demons blinded them to God's presence in another. Rather than being grateful that demons were cast out, they were upset that the healing was done through someone outside their group.

One person armed with the Gospel of peace can change the world. Telemachus did. He was a monk who lived in the 5th century. He felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome." He was in a cloistered monastery but he put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus.  He thought to himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this isn't right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, and tried to stop them. The crowd became enraged and stoned the peacemaker to death.

When the Emperor of Rome, Honorius, heard about the monk he declared him a Christian martyr and put an end to the games. Legend has it that the very last Gladiatorial game was the one in which Telemachus died.

Jesus said, "Have salt in yourselves - be at peace with each other." Sometimes it seems we have gladiatorial games going on inside the church, inside our homes, at work? The games have been going on for as long as we can remember! Who will be a Telemachus? Who will be the monk who jumps into the arena, sacrifices himself, and brings peace? Peace can be made but it sometimes comes at a heavy price.

My question this morning is why are we so often at odds with one another? Why don't we have peace in our lives?

1. We fight to protect our turf.
2. We destroy the weak among us.
3. We will not let go of that which destroys us.

The Society of International Law, in London, states that during the last 4,000 years there have been only 268 years of peace. This in spite of thousands of good peace treaties over the centuries. In the last 300 years alone there have been 286 wars on the continent of Europe alone.

OR THIS VERSION OF THE SAME FACTS:

The Personnel Journal reported this incredible statistic: since the beginning of recorded history, the entire world has been at peace less than eight percent of the time! In its study, the periodical discovered that of 3530 years of recorded history, only 286 years saw peace. Moreover, in excess of 8000 peace treaties were made and broken.

We need to so fill our hearts and our minds with the love of God that there is no room for hatred and resentment of others.

Robert A. Schuller, young Robert, tells of getting into an argument with his older sister when he was eight. "You're a pig!" he screamed when she refused to give him one of his own toys. Their dad, television preacher Robert H. Schuller, heard what was going on. He came into the room and said to young Bob, "Robert, don't you ever call your sister a pig again."

"But, Dad, she is!" he objected.

"If you call her a pig, Robert, you're calling me a pig, too!" said the older Schuller. Young Bob had to think about that for a while. He certainly didn't think his dad was a pig. His father could tell that he didn't fully understand what he was saying. "Robert, if your sister is a pig, then I'm a pig. She is my child! I can't have a pig for a child unless I'm a pig. When you insult your sister, you're insulting me, too. When you mock or belittle yourself, you're doing the same thing to me. You're my son.

"The same thing is true for you and God or for your brothers and sisters in the human race and God. When you belittle yourself, you're belittling God. When you insult your neighbor, you're insulting God." Young Robert said he never forgot that lesson.

It's a lesson all of us need to learn. Can't we all get along? We can if each of us will open our hearts to the love of Jesus Christ.

There is a time honored story about a pastor who was supposedly a great lover of children. One day he looked at the sidewalk leading up to his house that had been freshly poured. Some youngsters were playing in it and leaving footprints in the fresh cement. He rushed out and yelled at the children. 

Someone said to him; "Well pastor, we thought you liked children."

He said, "Yes, I love them in the abstract but not in the concrete." 

The world is looking for concrete demonstrations of Christian love in action.

An old man named Calvin had lived a good life as a farmer for years. One day an evangelist came to the community, and, in the course of his stay, visited Calvin and asked him what denomination he was.   Calvin answered the question like this: "When my grain gets ready for selling, after I've harvested it and packaged it, I can take it to town by any one of three roads " the river road, the dirt road, or the highway. But when I get my grain to town and go to the buyer to sell him what I have, he never looks at me and asks, ˜Calvin, which road did you take to get your grain to town?' What he does do is ask me if my grain is any good." 

Friend, is your grain good  - the grain of your discipleship? That's all that really matters. When we get to Heaven we will probably find some (Roman Catholics) and some (Baptists) and some (Presbyterians). And they'll be just as surprised to see us as we will to see them. But we will all belong to just one fellowship. Let's call it the Fellowship of the Bearers of Cold Water. We will all be people who have lived out our discipleship through acts of kindness to others.

One pastor tells about listening to his father tell a story about a neighbor whose barn had burned down. The entire community gathered to help rebuild it. His father and some other men were told to saw the rafters. They first cut a rafter and then traced around it with a pencil and cut another one. They based the third rafter on the second the fourth on the third and so on. What they didn't take into account was the width of the pencil mark. Each rafter was one pencil mark wider than the one before. After a while, this can add up to quite a difference. By lunch time they looked at the barn and discovered it was going up at a very strange angle because they had deviated from the original standard.  Do you not sense that our barn is a little askew today, too?

In 1939, a coast guard vessel was cruising the Canadian Arctic when the men spotted a polar bear stranded on an ice floe. It was quite a novelty for the seamen, who threw the bear salami, peanut butter, and chocolate bars. Then they ran out of the food. Unfortunately, the polar bear hadn't run out of appetite, so he proceeded to board their vessel. The men on ship were terrified and opened the fire hoses on the bear. The polar bear loved it and raised his paws in the air to get the water under his armpits. We don't know how they did it, but eventually they forced the polar bear to return to his ice pad but not before teaching these seamen a horrifying lesson about feeding polar bears. No coast guard team has made that mistake since.

Some people make the same mistake with sin that these sailors nearly made with the polar bear. They begin feeding it a little at a time without thinking through the consequences. "It says something about our times," writes Willard D. Ferrell, "that we rarely use the word SINFUL except to describe a really good dessert."

The following differentiation between “hospitality” and “entertaining” was made by Karen Mains in Open Heart, Open Home:

Entertaining says, “I want to impress you with my home, my clever decorating, my cooking.” Hospitality, seeking to minister, says, “This home is a gift from my Master. I use it as He desires.” Hospitality aims to serve.

Entertaining puts things before people. “As soon as I get the house finished, the living room decorated, my housecleaning done—then I will start inviting people. Hospitality puts people first. “No furniture—we’ll eat on the floor!” “The decorating may never get done—you come anyway.” “The house is a mess—but you are friends—come home with us.”

Entertaining subtly declares, “This home is mine, an expression of my personality. Look, please, and admire.” Hospitality whispers, “What is mine is yours.”

Karen Mains distinguishes between Hospitality and Entertaining: Entertaining says, "I want to impress you with my home, my clever decorating, my cooking." Hospitality, seeking to minister, says, "This home is a gift from my Master. I use it as he desires."Hospitality aims to serve.

Entertaining puts things before people. "As soon as I get the house finished, the living room decorated, my house cleaning done--then I will start inviting people." Hospitality puts people first. "No furniture--we'll eat on the floor! The decorating may never get done--you come anyway. The house is a mess--but you are friends--come home with us."

Entertaining subtly declares, "This home is mine, an expression of my personality. Look, please, and admire." Hospitality whispers, "What is mine is yours."

From the rule of St. Benedict, Sixth Century A.D.:

"If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts, with wish as a guest to dwell in the monastery, and will be content with the customs which he finds in the place, and do not perchance by his lavishness disturb the monastery, but is simply content with what he finds, he shall be received, for as long a time as he desires. If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it, reasonably, and with the humility of charity, the Abbot shall discuss it prudently, lest perchance God has sent him for this very thing. But if he have been found lavish or vicious in the time of his sojourn as guest, not only ought he not to be joined to the body of the monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly, that he must depart. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of God, explain the matter to him."

Okay, so maybe that last line was not part of the original sixth century text, but hospitality has always been central to christian practice and as I have gotten older I realize how important it is. Even Jesus spoke of being welcomed as a test of our true discipleship. Perhaps no greater witness to our internal faith is the outward practice of hospitality. Now, I'm not talking about running a BnB. I am talking about welcoming and accepting others with grace.

Note: The Rule of Saint Benedict is a book of precepts, or instructions, written in 516 dealing with the concerns and needs of monks in a community environment. The book attempts to establish due order, to foster an understanding of the relational nature of human beings, and to provide a spiritual father to support and strengthen the individual's ascetic effort and the spiritual growth that is required for the fulfillment of the human vocation, theosis. The Rule provides a moderate path between individual zeal and formulaic institutionalism; because of this middle ground it has been widely popular.

She was elected to high office some time ago. Let's call her Beverly Washington. She was the first woman Lieutenant Governor ever elected in her state. Such a first brought much deserved media attention. There were many demands for photo opportunities and interviews. Beverly Washington had never experienced the limelight quite like this before.

One of the interviews with Lt. Governor Washington was conducted by a much younger woman who was obviously taken with the Lt. Governor's success. "I see you have a degree in law from Harvard," the interviewer began. "You must have had a family which really supported your dreams for higher education. Not many women were encouraged to go to college and law school in the 20s and 30s. You seem to be the exception to the rule."

"I'm no exception at all," Beverly Washington replied. "My father's attitude was that boys should go on to school and girls should get married and raise a family. I was lucky that he let me finish high school. After high school I simply determined to go to college. There would be no financial help. There would be no moral or family support. But I decided. I thought it was unfair to hold women back the way my father wanted to hold my sisters and me back. So I decided, packed my bags, and left for college."

"Very good," said the impressed interviewer, "I guess you were blazing trails for women a long time ago. How then did you get started in politics? Not many women ran for public office in the days you first ran."

"That's true," Lt. Governor Washington responded. "It certainly wasn't easy. It wasn't easy finding a job as a lawyer either. There weren't many women lawyers in those days and no one would hire me. I took all kinds of odd jobs to support myself and our family in those early years. That's when I decided that there was something wrong with a system that could discriminate against women in such a way. So I began to wonder how I might change the system. I concluded that the best way to change the system was to get into elective politics. I would become part of the system! Then I could change it. But, of course, that was more easily said than done. It was hard, for example, just trying to get enough signatures on my petition to run for office. The office was county auditor. It took me six months to get the necessary signatures. But I did it. I got beat in the election, of course. Bad! I lost my first three tries but I finally did get elected county treasurer. I knew I was bucking the system. I knew I was blazing a new trail for women. But I had decided in the face of much opposition that this is what I had to do. I decided and I stuck with my decision."

"And here you are the newly-elected Lt. Governor," the interviewer interjected. "It must be a wonderful feeling. You continue to prove the critics wrong. Do you have any advice for women who might be inspired by your example to run for public office?"

"Go for it," Ms. Washington shot back. "You've got to decide for yourself. All the old rules may be lined up against you. Even friends and family may not always support you. So, you've got to want it very badly and be willing to pay the price. The most important thing is that you must decide for yourself. Then stick with your decision. Choose your path and don't look back.""

Bob Edmunds, former pastor at a church in Elmira, New York, tells a story of what it feels like to be denied hospitality. He and his family were vacationing one summer and decided to worship at a prominent church in the Washington D. C. area. Apparently this church had quite a reputation for the quality of their preaching and corporate worship. The reputation held up, according to Bob and Susan's standards. The sermon was riveting and the music, inspiring. That much did not disappoint them. But the lack of hospitality did.

From the moment they arrived at that church to the time they left, not one person spoke to them - except for the pastor who made a feeble attempt on their way out the door. No one directed them to the nursery. They had to find it themselves. No one invited them to the fellowship hall for coffee and refreshments afterwards. They had to find it themselves. In fact Bob deliberately stood underneath the huge chandelier in the center of that spacious hall for at least five minutes - gazing up at it and looking as conspicuous as possible. But no one came up to him or introduced themselves to him.

"We felt as though we were invisible," Bob says. "No one noticed that we were even there. I don't care how good the preaching and music were. Nothing could have made up for their lack of hospitality. That church was as cold and lifeless as a corpse."

There is a website featured in Oprah magazine, First30Days.com. Ariane de Bonvoisin started the website with the idea that a journey of a thousand miles always starts with one step. The website notes that, "The exciting thing about change, in a strange way, is that it is guaranteed to happen, yet we all act as though it's a shock when it does. It's kind of a human paradox." This website is designed to provide support and community to those going through these guaranteed changes. Many of the topics this website covers are major life challenges, ranging from losing a loved one to dealing with a medical diagnosis. In light of the New Year, the article in Oprah magazine tackles problems such as losing weight or beginning a new fitness regime.

As we face this New Year, many of us will be making resolutions and trying to initiate change in our own lives. This can be an annual ritual of disappointment and frustration if we don't realize that it is impossible to take the journey of a thousand miles without that first critical step. We also need to realize that first step takes a certain measure of spiritual discipline. Have you been prayerful about the first step? Have you asked for the support of those around you? Let us support each other through these first 30 days to achieve our goals and make our resolutions happen. After all, if we can get through these first 30 days, we will be well on our way to Lent, when we can renew our resolutions in faith.

Wilma Petersen chaired the social concerns committee in her church. She also headed an action group that lobbied the state legislature on senior citizen issues; she served on the regional Commission on Aging and was secretary of a city task force that was seeking a government grant to build low income housing. When the doctor told her she needed gallbladder surgery, the first thing she said was, "How long will I be laid up?" When she was assured it would only be four to six weeks, she said, "Oh, that won't be so bad, I can write letters and make phone calls while I'm recovering." The doctor frowned, but he didn't say anything; he didn't think it would do any good. Wilma was a determined woman. It would take a lot more than a doctor's warning and a little thing like gallbladder surgery to slow her down.

Ten weeks later, Wilma was feeling worse than she had before the operation. She couldn't understand why she wasn't getting better. The doctor suggested that she come in for tests. When the results came back, he came immediately into her room and broke the news to her as gently as he could.

"Wilma, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but the blood tests show that you have AIDS."

Wilma couldn't believe her ears. How could a 70-year-old woman get AIDS? "It was in the blood transfusion you received during your surgery," he said. Wilma just couldn't believe it. What was she going to do?

It wasn't that she was afraid of dying. Wilma was prepared for death, even a slow, painful death, if that's the way it came. That was the way of the world. She had seen enough of death to know that no one was spared. Her husband had died of lung cancer and she had lost a son to polio. It was the thought of telling her family and friends. What would they think . . . that she had been indiscreet?

She didn't tell anyone at first, but as the disease progressed she decided that people had a right to know. It was an incident with a needle that convinced her to tell. A nurse in the doctor's office had been about to give her an injection one day when the needle slipped and she pricked her own finger. The fact that it occurred before the injection spared the nurse any danger of infection, but Wilma could see that it had been very upsetting to her. The nurse knew she had AIDS. Wilma decided that everyone else who came into contact with her had a right to know, too.

The word spread fast. There were many expressions of caring; phone calls, cards, letters and quiet conversations with neighbors and friends. People were horrified for her and sympathetic at the same time -- or so it seemed. She felt no sense of rejection until the following Sunday morning when she went to church. She sat in her usual pew but the people who always sat beside her, or in the pews around her, sat elsewhere. She was beginning to think no one was going to sit near her at all, when Kevin Holmstead, that nice young man from the bank who usually sat near the back, came in and sat beside her on the end of the pew next to the aisle in the same spot her husband Frank had always sat when he was alive. Kevin greeted her pleasantly as if nothing had changed. "Maybe he hasn't heard yet," she thought to herself, but something about his manner told her that he sat beside her because he had heard. That was the beginning of their special friendship. From then on Kevin sat beside her every Sunday that she was able to go to church.

Wilma lived just three years from the time her AIDS was diagnosed -- and much of the last few months of her life she was in bed at home or in the hospital, too weak to move around on her own. During that time her family members and several volunteers, organized by Kevin, took care of all of her bodily needs. They bathed and fed her and helped her with her toilet, changing her diapers when there was need. They took turns pushing her around in her wheelchair and carrying her from the bed to the couch and back again. But during the first two-and-a-half years of her illness, before she was bedridden, Wilma was very much the crusader that she had been all of her life. She organized a support group for persons like herself who were living with AIDS. She visited AIDS patients in their homes, in hospitals and hospices. Many of them told how they had been forsaken by family and friends, how they had lost their homes and their jobs, how difficult it was to get the medical treatment they needed, and how insurance companies and the government denied them financial assistance. She wrote to congresspersons and state legislators about the needs of persons with AIDS. She lobbied the city council to pass an ordinance which would prevent landlords and employers from discriminating against persons with AIDS. She spoke to church and civic groups, pleading with them to support the human rights of all persons.

On the day that she died, Wilma asked Kevin if he would help to carry on her work. He promised her that he would, and he thanked her for all that she had done. He said, "It will be easier for me because of you."

On the Sunday following Wilma's funeral, Kevin stood up in church during the time for expressing prayer concerns and said, "You all know how important Wilma's work has been in this community. Will you help me to continue what she has started? There are many persons with AIDS among us who need our love and support. A great many of them are members of the gay and lesbian community, as I am. Will you stand with us in our time of need?"

Have you heard the beautiful children's story about the three trees? The trees were talking in the forest one day about their dreams for the future. The first tree said it would like to be made into a cradle, so that it might go on living as a support for the fragile life of a tiny new baby. The second tree wanted to be made into a big ship, so that it might go on living, carrying important cargo and influential people to exotic new lands. The third tree longed to stay right where it was, existing only as a tree, but growing ever taller, and pointing ever higher, to remind everyone that there is a God in heaven who loves them.  Those were their dreams:  One wanted to be a cradle, one wanted to be a mighty ship, and one wanted to be a tall tree, pointing people toward God.

But then one day the woodcutters came and chopped down the three trees...and destroyed their dreams.  The first tree was not made into a cradle, but into a simple feeding trough, a manger for animals.  But the manger was sold to a family in Bethlehem, and on the night Jesus was born, that simple feed box became the cradle for the Christ Child.

The second tree was built into a boat, but not the kind it had dreamed of--not a mighty ocean-going vessel--but a tiny inexpensive fishing boat. A man named Simon Peter bought the boat, and on one warm afternoon when the crowds pressed in, Jesus himself climbed aboard that small fishing boats that he might preach good news to the multitudes.

The third tree also was deprived of its dream.  It wanted to remain standing tall and pointing toward God.  Instead, it was cut down and shaped into a horrible instrument of torture, a cross.  But it was on that very cross that Jesus was crucified, transforming a symbol of cruelty into a powerful reminder of God's eternal love for all the people.

The three trees were humbled, but in the plan of God, they were exalted.

That's the way it works: When we, in humility, give ourselves to God, our Lord can do great things through us and for us greater than we can ever imagine.

James Snelling, of Richmond, Virginia is 72 years old. Every single morning, unless the weather is very bad, James stands at the corner of Maple Avenue and Bremo Road there in Richmond, and what he does is he simply waves to the passing motorists, waves ‘good morning' to them. He has become a kind of self-appointed ambassador of goodwill on that corner, and every day at 7:15 he's there and he stays until 9:00 A.M.

Because he's not as spry as he used to be, he has to often use his cane as he stands there. In an interview, James said that women are generally more generous in responding to his greeting than men are. One day he counted 180 women who waved back and only 75 men. A guy kind of thing, I guess.  James went on to say, "You know, I just do it for the fun of it, and what I have found is if you are nice to people, welcoming to people, they respond to that and they are nice in return."

Now that's such a simple kind of thing, isn't it, but how profound that is.  Hospitality is simply the ability to make another person feel welcome in a sincere kind of way. In a lonely world where people are rushing to one place or another, these busy motorists were made to feel welcome in the world by this man who stood there on the corner waving to them - someone who dared to break through that barrier of isolation and dared to offer a sign of hospitality.

Some of us can learn mercy by reading about it in the Bible. Many more of us, however, learn mercy by taking the plunge and doing it.

Such was the case with Sister Helen Prejean. Her story is told in the book Dead Man Walking, which recently came out in film. Sister Helen hears one day of a correspondence program with prisoners on death row. She decides to participate and begins writing, even though she's been told not to expect to hear anything in return. Much to her surprise, though, one of the prisoners does respond and catches her completely off guard by asking her to be his spiritual guide. Apparently his execution date was fast approaching, and he wanted some representative of God to be there for support over the next several weeks.

Sister Helen hesitates. It is one thing to do charity long distance. It is quite another thing to do mercy face to face with a convicted murderer. Gary had been sentenced to death by lethal injection for participating in the brutal rape of a young woman and the subsequent murder of both her and her finance. Sister Helen recoils at the very thought of meeting this rapist and murderer, let alone ministering to him. But a voice deep inside of her tells her she must go. So she does. The first several meetings are difficult. Gary comes across a whole lot more cocky and arrogant in person than he did in his letters. He refuses to admit his guilt and insists that he is the innocent victim of a corrupt legal system.

To make matters worse, Sister Helen is despised and publicly villified by the victims' parents for even spending time with Gary. How could she, a deeply religious nun, befriend this cold-blooded murderer! They are horrified and let her know that every time they see her. And yet, despite these difficult barriers, Sister Helen risks her name, her reputation, her own safety, to reach across them and embrace Gary with the love of God. And the more she perseveres in loving him, the more his defenses begin to crumble. Finally on the night before his execution, Gary confesses to his crime and asks for God's forgiveness. In a flood of tears, he thanks Sister Helen for all her love and support. He then tries to send her home, insisting that her work with him is done and that he is now ready to meet his Maker.

"No, that's okay," she responds. "I'll stay through the execution."

"But why?" Gary wants to know. "I'm only getting what I deserve."

"Because," she replies, "the last face I want you to see before you die is not one of hatred and vengeance, but one of love and mercy."

The next morning, Gary is strapped into place while Sister Helen and the victims' parents watch through the window of an adjacent room. Within a matter of minutes, the last lethal dose is injected and Gary is pronounced dead. Most of the by-standers breathe a sigh of relief. Some even begin to applaud. But Sister Helen alone stands there - with arms reaching out to Gary and a look of pure mercy on her face.

Some of us learn mercy by reading about it in our Bibles. But most of us, like Sister Helen Prejean, learn mercy by just doing it to those who least deserve it - to those who are unclean, who are despised and rejected by society. Learning Mercy . . .

Many years ago, a little girl named Sarah lived in a home for unwed mothers. She was not one of the clients; her mother was the cook there. Sarah had grown up in the home, and was the special pet of all the girls who came there. One day, a new girl, young and pregnant had come to the home. As she sat on the bench, waiting for her intake interview with the director, she wept. Sarah, now about twelve or thirteen years old, had seen many girls come and go by then, and she knew most all of them had the same look of despair when they arrived. Sarah took pity on the girl, who was not far from her own age. She began talking, and as she did, the girl stopped crying. Then Sarah began to offer some advice on how to answer the standard questions, particularly the one about the father of the baby, "When she asks you who the father is, don't lie, she hates it when you lie, and, what ever you do, don't say he's dead, everyone says he's dead." The girl looked at Sarah, and much to her surprise, asked her, "So what did you say when she asked you?" 

Sarah froze; she was horrified that the girl had mistaken her for one of them. She loved and cared for those girls, but in her mind there had always been a careful separation between them and her. She could love and support them, but she could not be one of them. That, I guess is the difference between God's hospitality and ours. God chose to be us. "Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness." (Phil. 2:5b-7)

During his days as guest lecturer at Calvin Seminary, R.B. Kuiper once used the following illustration of God's sovereignty and human responsibility: I liken them to two ropes going through two holes in the ceiling and over a pulley above. If I wish to support myself by them, I must cling to them both. If I cling only to one and not the other, I go down.

Don't give till it hurts. Give till it helps. The story is told of a very wealthy man who had never been known for his generosity to the church. The church was involved in a big financial program and they resolved to pay him a visit. When the committee met with the man one afternoon, they said that in view of his considerable resources they were sure that he would like to make a substantial contribution to this program.

"I see," he said, "so you have it all figured out have you? In the course of your investigation did you discover that I have a widowed mother who has no other means of support but me?" No, they responded, they did not know that. "Did you know that I have a sister who was left by a drunken husband with five children and no means to provide for them?" No, they said, we did not know that either. "Well, sir, did you know also that I have a brother who is cripple due to an automobile accident and can never work another day to support his wife and family?" Embarrassingly, they responded, no sir, we did not know that either. "Well," he thundered triumphantly, "I've never given any of them a cent so why should I give anything to you?"

Like that man, most of us never give till it hurts or helps. It is interesting to me that people who tithe in the church never speak of it as hurting. My wife and I tithe and it has not made life painful for us in the least. We started discussing some days ago what our pledge to the church for next year would be and how we could increase it. That doesn't sound like it hurts does it? It is the grudging giver, who is the one who always registers the complaint: At that church all they talk about is money." So let us get off of this notion of give till it hurts so that we affirm we give till it helps.

One of the main reasons people hold false perceptions of God is our tendency to project onto God the unloving characteristics of the people we look up to. We tend to believe that God is going to treat us as others do. The Gaultieres agree: We like to think that we develop our image of God from the Bible and teachings of the church, not from our relationships, some of which have been painful. It's easier if our God image is simply based on learning and believing the right things. Yet, intensive clinical studies on the development of peoples' images of God show that it is not so simple. One psychologist found that this spiritual development of the God image is more of an emotional process than an intellectual one. She brings out the importance of family and other relationships to the development of what she calls one's "private God." She says that, "No child arrives at the 'house of God' without his pet God under his arm." And for some of us the "pet God" we have tied on a leash to our hearts is not very nice, nor is it biblically accurate. This is because our negative images of God are often rooted in our emotional hurts and destructive patterns of relating to people that we carry with us from our past.

Imagine a little girl of seven who has known only rejection and abuse from her father whom she loves dearly. At Sunday School she is taught that God is her heavenly Father. What is her perception of Him going to be? Based on her experience with her natural father, she will see God as an unstable, rejecting, abusing person she cannot trust. Consider just a few ways in which your image of your father possibly may have affected your perception of God, which in turn affects your self-image.

• If your father was distant, impersonal and uncaring, and he wouldn't intervene for you, you may see God as having the same characteristics. As a result, you feel that you are unworthy of God's intervention in your life. You find it difficult to draw close to God because you see Him as disinterested in your need and wants.
• If your father was a pushy man who was inconsiderate of you, or who violated and used you, you may see God in the same way. You probably feel cheap or worthless in God's eyes, and perhaps feel that you deserve to be taken advantage of by others. You may feel that God will force you not ask you to do things you don't want to do.
• If your father was like a drill sergeant, demanding more and more from you with no expression of satisfaction, or burning with anger with no tolerance for mistakes, you may have cast God in his image. You likely feel that God will not accept you unless you meet His demands, which seem unattainable. This perception may have driven you to become a perfectionist.
• If your father was a weakling, and you couldn't depend on him to help you or defend you, your image of God may be that of a weakling. You may feel that you are unworthy of God's comfort and support, or that He is unable to help you.
• If your father was overly critical and constantly came down hard on you, or if he didn't believe in you or your capabilities and discouraged you from trying, you may perceive God in the same way. You don't feel as if you're worth God's respect or trust. You may even see yourself as a continual failure, deserving all the criticism you receive.
• In contrast to the negative perceptions many women have about God, let me give you several positive character qualities of a father. Notice how these qualities, if they existed in your father, have positively influenced your perception of God. If you father was patient, you are more likely to see God as patient and available for you. You feel that you are worth God's time and concern. You feel important to God and that He is personally involved in every aspect of your life.
• If your father was kind, you probably see God acting kindly and graciously on your behalf. You feel that you are worth God's help and intervention. You feel God's love for you deeply and you're convinced that He wants to relate to you personally.
• If your father was a giving man, you may perceive God as someone who gives to you and supports you. You feel that you are worth God's support and encouragement. You believe that God will give you what is best for you, and you respond by giving of yourself to others.
• If your father accepted you, you tend to see God accepting you regardless of what you do. God doesn't dump on you or reject you when you struggle, but understands and encourages you. You are able to accept yourself even when you blow it or don't perform up to your potential.
• If your father protected you, you probably perceive God as your protector in life. You feel that you are worthy of being under His care and you rest in His security.

Anxiety's central message is that we cannot afford to share because we can never have enough. Put more strongly, in a culture marked by anxiety and fear, the very things we have traditionally called sins or vices (hoarding, greed, suspicion) become wise and prudent virtues. Fear, rather than love, governs our lives. But such fear is a kind of idolatry because it suggests we are giving more attention to our own security than we are giving to God. As Scott Bader-Saye warns, "the ethic of security produces a skewed moral vision. It suggests that suspicion, preemption, and accumulation are virtues insofar as they help us feel safe. But when seen from a Christian perspective, such ‘virtues' fail to be true virtues, since they do not orient us to the true good—love of God and neighbor. In fact, they turn us away from the true good, tempting us to love safety more than we love God."

The "human way out" of the despair of our age is through hospitality because a person well practiced in Christian hospitality chooses love over fear, trust over suspicion, and even risk over security.

Though I have never seen the Sequoia trees of California, known as Redwoods, I am told they are spectacular. Towering as much as 300 feet above the ground. Strangely, these towering trees have unusually shallow root systems that spider out just under the surface of the ground to catch as much of the surface moisture they can. And this is their vulnerability. Storms with heavy winds would almost always bring these giants crashing to the ground but this rarely happens because they grow in clusters and their intertwining roots provide support for one another against the storms.

When we are together, either as a family or a church, we provide this same support. Pain and suffering come to all of us. But, just like those giant Sequoia trees, we can be supported in those difficult times by the touch of one another's lives. The knowledge that we have someone; that we are not alone; that there is someone who is willing to touch us, hold us, keeps us from being destroyed.

Her name is Donna. Donna is a member of our church. She is a mentor in our Kids Hope USA program. Every week she goes to a nearby elementary school to be a friend, encourager, and mentor to a little boy named John. John looks to be 6 or 7 years old. Donna and John have bonded in a beautiful way. Though there is quite a difference in their ages, Miss Donna – as John calls her – has become John's best friend. Once each week, she visits him at school, helps him with his school work… and then "going the second mile" every Saturday, Donna takes John to do exciting things that without Donna, John would likely never get to do – things like the zoo, the museum, the Galleria.

A few months ago, Donna's husband died in his sleep. Little John came to the funeral to support his friend Miss Donna in her grief. At the reception in the Hines Baker Room after the memorial service, John stood beside Donna and held her hand. She had been there for him and now he was there for her. He would not leave her side. It was a beautiful moment and people in the room had tears in their eyes, so touched by John's intense commitment to lovingly stand by Miss Donna, his friend and mentor.

Some of us saw John eyeing the goodies on the reception table – punch and chocolate chip cookies in abundance… and some of us said to him, "John, would you like to walk over here and have some refreshments?" But no, he would not leave Donna's side. "I want to stay here with Miss Donna.," he would say. The love between the two of them was so radiant and powerful in that room.

Also in the room that day was a man from Chicago. He had flown all the way from Chicago to Houston to be with Donna. Do you know why? Because 38 years ago when he was in first grade, Donna had been his mentor at an elementary school in the Chicago area. He flies from Chicago to Houston every summer to see Donna and to thank her for what she did for him 38 years ago – and then he made this special trip to be with Donna when her husband suddenly died. That man from Chicago says to Donna every time he comes, "I am what I am today because of the love and support you gave me 38 years ago." He says, "Ms. Donna, you were the first person in my life who believed in me." And today little John says to her in words and actions: "Miss Donna, I love you. I know you love me. You are my best friend." Now, where did Donna learn to love like that, to reach out to people in need like that, to make a difference in people's lives like that? You know, don't you? The same place the disciple Andrew learned it – from Jesus.

Someone asked Sir Winston Churchill, “Are you a pillar of the church?” He quipped, “I am more of a flying buttress: I support it from the outside.”

The Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament reminds us of that incident, and counsels Christians to make hospitality a Christian virtue. "For you may be entertaining angels unaware." But more than that, you may be doing it to Christ, who said, "If you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me."

Tom Long teaches at the seminary at Princeton. But for a while he lived in Atlanta, and attended a Presbyterian Church in downtown Atlanta. Like most downtown churches, it has to cope with the problem of the homeless. So they opened up their gymnasium in the winter as a shelter. It was the practice of that church, as it is in this church when we open our buildings as a shelter in the winter months, to have people from the church serve as hosts and hostesses.

Long volunteered to be a host one night. The night came and since no one else volunteered, he invited a friend to come and join him. His friend was not a member of that church. In fact, he wasn't a member of any church. But periodically, in their conversations about religious matters, this friend would say, "Tom, I'm not a theologian, but it seems to me...," and then he would express his opinion.

On this night as they were hosting the shelter, they met the men as they arrived, saw that they had something to eat, hung out with them for a while. Then as the men began to prepare to retire, Tom's friend said, "Tom, you get some sleep. I will stay with them the first watch, then I'll wake you up, and you can come and stay with them for the rest of the night."

So the friend stayed up and mingled with the guests, listened to them, asked questions about who they were, what had happened to them in their lives that they were now homeless. At 2:00 a.m. he went in and woke up Tom. He said, "Wake up! Wake up! I want you to come and see this. Granted I am no theologian, but I think that Jesus is down there."

It was promised. "Those who show hospitality to the least of these," he said, "have done it to me."

Dr. Paul Tournier was a renowned Christian therapist and a spiritual writer. One day Bruce Larson, a pastor in California, asked Dr. Tournier how he counseled people. Dr. Tournier replied, "You know, I'm embarrassed, really, by all of the people who seek me out for counseling. I don't really know how to help people. I don't really do anything at all". He said simply, "What is important is that people are trying to find their way, and so I try to welcome them and I try to support them. And in that welcoming and in that supporting, the possibility for healing is opened."

When we extend hospitality, we open the door for healing to happen.

Living, breathing churches are always going to have more problems and tension, than churches that are dead. Churches can be alive and well without growth but they need programs and services. Here's a list of contrasts: 

• Live churches' expenses are always more than their income; dead churches don't need much money!
• Live churches have parking problems; Dead churches have empty spaces!
• Live churches may have some noisy children; Dead churches are quiet as a cemetery.
• Live churches keep changing their ways of doing things; Dead churches see no need for change!
• Live churches grow so fast you can't keep up with people's names; In dead churches everybody always knows everybody's name.
• Live churches strongly support world missions; Dead churches keep the money at home!
• Live churches are full of regular, cheerful givers; Dead churches are full of grudging tippers!
• Live churches move ahead on prayer and faith; Dead churches work only on sight!
• Live churches plant daughter churches; Dead churches fear spending the money, time, and talent!
• Live churches outgrow their Sunday School facilities; Dead churches have room to spare!
• Live churches welcome all classes of people; Dead churches stick to their own kind!
• Live churches' members read their Bibles and bring them to church; Dead churches' members seldom do!
• Live churches' members enthusiastically support the ministries; Dead churches have no ministries only functions!
• Live churches' members look for someone they can help; Dead churches' members look for something to complain about!
• Live churches' members reach out to share their faith in Christ; Dead churches' members don't have enough to share!

The unanimous Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies in Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

• We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
• We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.
• We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare.

That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

• New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
• Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
• Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
• Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
• New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
• New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
• Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
• Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
• Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
• Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
• North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
• South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
• Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Background

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), approved the Declaration of Independence. Its purpose was to set forth the principles upon which the Congress had acted two days earlier when it voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee's motion to declare the freedom and independence of the 13 American colonies from England. The Declaration was designed to influence public opinion and gain support both among the new states and abroad especially in France, from which the new "United States" sought military assistance.

Although Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston comprised the committee charged with drafting the Declaration, the task fell to Jefferson, regarded as the strongest and most eloquent writer. The document is mainly his work, although the committee and Congress as a whole made a total of 86 changes to Jefferson's draft.

As a scholar well-versed in the ideas and ideals of the French and English Enlightenments, Jefferson found his greatest inspiration in the language and arguments of English philosopher John Locke, who had justified England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 on the basis of man's "natural rights." Locke's theory held that government was a contract between the governed and those governing, who derived their power solely from the consent of the governed and whose purpose it was to protect every man's inherent right to property, life and liberty. Jefferson's theory of "natural law" differed in that it substituted the inalienable right of "the pursuit of happiness" for "property," emphasizing that happiness is the product of civic virtue and public duty. The concept of the "pursuit of happiness" originated in the Common Sense School of Scottish philosophy, of which Lord Kames was the best-known proponent.

Jefferson emphasized the contractual justification for independence, arguing that when the tyrannical government of King George III of England repeatedly violated "natural law, " the colonists had not only the right but the duty to revolt.

The assembled Continental Congress deleted a few passages of the draft, and amended others, but outright rejected only two sections: 1) a derogatory reference to the English people; 2) a passionate denunciation of the slave trade. The latter section was left out, as Jefferson reported, to accede to the wishes of South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the importation of slaves. The rest of the draft was accepted on July 4, and 56 members of Congress began their formal signing of the document on August 2, 1776.

Five major needs of women:

1. Affection
2. Conversation
3. Honesty and openness
4. Financial support
5. Family commitment

Five major needs of men:

1. Sexual fulfillment
2. Recreational companionship
3. An attractive spouse
4. Domestic support
5. Admiration

Churches need to be mission oriented but often fall into maintenance behavior and many times they don't know they've slipped from mission into maintenance. Let's look at the following to gauge how much mission vs. maintenance exist in our congregation:

1. In measuring the effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, "How many pastoral visits are being made? The mission congregation asks, "How many disciples are being made?"

2. When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, "If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won't do it." The mission congregation says, "If this will help us reach someone on the outside, we will take the risk and do it."

3. When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, "How will this affect me?" The majority of members in the mission congregation ask, "Will this increase our ability to reach those outside?"

4. When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, "We have to be faithful to our past." The mission congregation says, "We have to be faithful to our future."

5. The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, "I'd like to introduce you to some of our members." In the mission congregation the members say, "We'd like to introduce you to our pastor."

6. When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern, the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, "How can I meet this need?" The pastor in the mission congregation asks, "How can this need be met?"

7. The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds). The mission congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress, and is willing to pay the price. It understands that it cannot take everyone with it. This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done.

8. The leadership style in the maintenance congregation is primarily managerial, where leaders try to keep everything in order and running smoothly. The leadership style in a mission congregation is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map in order to bring the vision into reality.

9. The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees. The mission congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick. It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel.

10. When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, "How many Lutherans live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?" The mission congregation asks, "How many unchurched people live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?"

11. The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, "How can we get these people to support our congregation?" The mission congregation asks, "How can the Church support these people?"

12. The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation. The mission congregation thinks about how to reach the world.

There’s a clever young guy named Somebody Else,
There’s nothing this guy can’t do.
He is busy from morning till way late at night,
Just substituting for you.

You’re asked to do this or you’re asked to do that
And what is your ready reply?
Get Somebody Else to do that job,
He’ll do it much better than I.

So much to do in this weary old world—
So much and workers so few,
And Somebody Else, all weary and worn,
Is still substituting for you.

The next time you’re asked to do something worthwhile,
Just give this ready reply:
If Somebody Else can give time and support,
My goodness, so can I!

The large tractor-trailer trucks that travel the highways of the nation are subjected to a load limit. This means that there is a limit as to how much weight each truck is allowed to carry. There is a good reason for establishing such limits. If the trucks were allowed to exceed their weight limit, the roads would eventually fall apart, because a given road is designed to support vehicles only up to a certain weight.

Likewise, God knows how much we can bear when he allows us to be tested. He has assigned a definite “load limit” to each of us and never exceeds it.

In England in the 1940s a young woman entered Oxford University with little focus. She had no idea what to do with her life. But she soon came under the influence of a colorful professor of English, a writer with a gift, named C.S. Lewis. She became a Christian through much of his influence.

She left Oxford, against the advice of friends and family, and began to study nursing. After five more years of rigorous training, she was certified as a nurse.

But her story doesn't end there, for her questing, Christian spirit would not let her rest with the way things were. You see, she ended up working on a cancer ward in a London hospital. Gradually, she came to realize that most of the doctors ignored the patients who were deemed terminally ill. As a result she watched many of them die virtually alone.

Greatly troubled she felt that Christian compassion needed to be expressed to these patients in a visible way. She approached the hospital administration with an idea she had for surrounding those dying of cancer with friends and loved ones during their last days, rather than isolating them in sterile rooms with strangers. Her radical ideas were quickly rejected.

But undaunted, she decided to enroll in medical school to try to make a difference even though she was already 33 years old and would not graduate until she was 39. This she did and later a movement soon grew around her ideas that made it possible for dying patients to live their days in a setting of love and support.

Cicely Saunders, out of Christian compassion and a sense of calling to help in a specific way, began this movement in England in the 1950s. It later moved to the Americas and is now used everywhere and in every town. It is called the Hospice Movement, and it draws its inspiration from Jesus' own passion and compassion for his children -- "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings."

My prayer is that God will continually come to us in new ways and in fresh images, so that more Cicely Saunderses among us can be moved and inspired to take risks to join in God's compassion for his children. Amen.

One of the early church fathers, a man named Origen, suggested that when Jesus said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan," what he actually meant was, "Peter, your place is behind me, not in front of me. It's your job to follow me in the way I choose, not to try to lead me in the way YOU would like me to go." Certainly what Jesus said immediately after his rebuke of Peter would support that interpretation. He told all of his disciples, including Peter, that not only did HE have a task that was set before him by God, but that THEY also had work to do. "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me," Jesus said. "Get on this new thrill ride with me. There will be many dangerous twists and turns in the tracks, but I promise you it will never be dull. It will mean putting someone other than yourself first, being concerned not so much with what YOU want, but what God wants for you. It won't be easy and sometimes it won't be much fun, but it will never be boring."

Back in the year 1174, an Italian architect by the name of Bonnano Pisano began work on what would become his most famous project: a bell tower to beautify the Cathedral of the city of Pisa. The tower was to be a cylindrical, eight-story, 185-foot-tall building with arcaded stories, a fine example of Tuscan Romanesque architecture. There was just one "little" problem. During construction, the builders discovered that the soil around the Pisa Cathedral was much softer than they had anticipated. The foundation Pisano had designed for the building was far too shallow to adequately support the structure. Before long, the whole building had begun to tilt, and continued to tilt, until finally the architect and the builders realized that nothing could be done to make the Leaning Tower of Pisa straight again.

It would take 176 years in all to complete construction on the Tower of Pisa, and throughout that time, the builders tried many different ways to compensate for the "tilt" of the Tower. The foundations were shored up and reinforced; the upper levels of the tower were built on at an angle to try to at least make the top of the tower look straight. Nothing worked. The Tower of Pisa has continued to stand for over 800 years now; it now leans more than 18 feet away from center position. Even with all our modern technology, this building can never be made perfectly straight. Architectural specialists predict that eventually the structure will fall down because Bonnano Pisano didn't do enough research into the soil composition around the building site.

How's the foundation of your life doing this morning? Is it rock?

This week's text challenges individuals and your church community to examine how they respond to the persistent voice of God in their lives.

From Presbyterian author and editor John C. Purdy comes the title and story that inspired this week's sermon ideas. Purdy recalls that in The Blue Mountains of China (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), Canadian Mennonite/English Professor/author Rudy Wiebe tells the story of a Mennonite farmer named Sam Reimer. One night Sam hears a voice saying to him, "Samuel, Samuel ... I am the God of your fathers, the Lord your God. Go and proclaim peace in Vietnam." In perplexity, Sam goes to his pastor, who tells him to listen for the voice a second time. The next night the call comes again, but Sam cannot get anyone to believe that he has truly heard God's voice. His pastor won't believe it; neither will his wife or his fellow Mennonites. The Canadian government won't give him a visa to Vietnam; the inter-Mennonite Church Service Society won't help him. Sam's reaction to these rebuffs is to give up hope and die. On his deathbed he says to his wife, "When I heard the voice, I should of gone. Left a note and gone. When you know like that, are chosen, you shouldn't wait, talk. Go." (Returning God's Call [Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989], 10).

Sam Reimer heard the same call that came to Samuel the prophet. But Sam Reimer's call never materialized into a prophetic mission because the community of faith surrounding him failed to support him. If old Eli, despite his shortsightedness and personal failures, had not counseled the young Samuel on recognizing and responding to God's call, how could the fledgling prophet have learned to open his mind and heart to receive God's words?

C.S. Lewis said there are two kinds of people in the world: those who respond to God saying, "Thy will be done" and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way." It might also be said that there are two kinds of people who return God's call: those who say to God "Thy will be done" and those who respond to God by saying "All right, then, have it your way." As you return God's call this week, may you so stand in the stream of God's consciousness, that the waters of God's love and the waves of God's will may carry you in the directions the Spirit would have you go - toward the people God would have you meet and minister unto.

When we think of threats we usually think of terrorism, disease or lack of employment. But, Jesus says our greatest threat is divisiveness or disunity. Without "oneness" we will perish or become "worldly." In other words he reminds his followers to maintain a relationship with God, with Christ and with one another. Relationships are the key to survival. Just as those with addictions need a support group, people of faith need to stay connected to the church.