Save the Shoes

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Micah 6:1-8, Hebrews 2:14-18

For those of you who are married, or in any sort of relationship with another human being…and really, that would be all of you…you have I’m sure experienced what Torin and I experienced the other week.  Miscommunication (do you about that?  Maybe it’s just us).  We miscommunicated and he thought he was to preach last week and I thought I was to and we were both looking at the same texts and what do we do…

Well what we do is we worked with that.  After all, Micah’s text to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God is not one, I believe, that you can hear too often.  Once a week, if not more, would be just right, because if we’re honest, every day we are faced with new situations, new opportunities that ask us to respond.  How will we respond with justice, kindness, and humility? And every day we can grow from that question and find new insights about ourselves and our God.

But, alas, I decided not to preach on Micah and went, with fear and trembling, to the scripture from Hebrews.  And while I am usually put off by texts with references to the devil in them, I realized this scripture isn’t about the devil at all.  It’s about the power of God.  It’s about the power of Christ.  It’s about how light will permeate the darkness and darkness will not be able to overcome the light.  This scripture is an insight into who Jesus is, why he has come to humanity, and how he lives among us today.  What this scripture comes down to, I believe, is to highlight what Jesus’ purpose was, and is.

What is Jesus’ purpose?  Well it is clear that it is not to help the angels, but to help us, children of God.

When Torin and I were in seminary, we took an introduction to preaching course.  This is, indeed, one of the most terrifying courses most seminarians feared.  This is where you learn the art and craft of reading biblical text, writing something that is 12-20 minutes long (depending on your congregation) and then delivering it with good eye contact, paying attention to your voice, your body language, your emphasis, speed, volume….all while having someone take a video of you.  And then… watching it.  Terrifying.

Early on in the class we learned a technique for structuring our sermons.  Once we read the scripture, prayed, read the scripture again, asked questions of it…we were told to come up with a “focus” and a “function” of the sermon.  What is the “focus” and the “function” of what we are going to present.  Now the focus is the point of the sermon.  This is a one sentence (God forbid if you must have two sentences) explanation about what it is your are going to try to get across. 

So, for example, looking back on a recent Advent sermon of mine the focus was “We experience what Advent waiting is when we simply sit with others who are in pain.”  And then we come up with the function.  The function is what we hope those hearing the sermon will do because of hearing it.  Therefore, the function of that sermon was “To encourage people not to be afraid of simply sitting with others when they are in pain because their presence helps bring healing.”

The focus and function. Now you have just had your first homiletics session.

But if we think about it, identifying the focus and function isn’t just about sermon writing.  It is something we should be doing with our lives.  What is the focus and function of my life?  Now this isn’t exactly the existential question of “What is the meaning of life” but it is a very vulnerable, exciting, examination of our own lives.  We might even call it…discernment.  What is it that I am to be doing in this world and what affect do I want to have on this world?

This is what the author of Hebrews is doing when he or she speaks of Jesus.  According to Hebrews, the focus of Jesus’ life was to help the descendants of Abraham by redeeming their suffering.  His function was to empower those he touched to extend that grace to all they encounter—to meet others in their suffering and offer hope and healing.

When we accept the call to faith, when we step into the baptismal waters or have them flow down our head, we are accepting a life that continually asks that question: what is your focus and function?  What are you here to do, and how are you going to do it?  And once we have accepted the call to faith, we recognize that all we do, all we say, is rooted in the love and grace of Jesus Christ.  And from there, it is simply a matter of joyfully discovering what it is that gives us joy and passion.

We were all created with unique abilities and talents and circumstances and challenges that make us perfectly ripe for having a unique impact on this world.  But it seems to me, that if we don’t examine what that might be, we likely wander around thinking there is nothing we can do in a world that so desperately needs people engaging with it.  Loving it.  Changing it.

So, what is your focus and function?  As I have thought about this for myself, I have come to admit that what my focus and function was ten years ago is not what it is now.  I remember a few years back talking with our beloved neighbor Kitty Lozier.  Many of you know Kitty.  She is a good friend, a friend with a little “f” and with a big “F” meaning she is a Quaker, a member of the Religious Society of Friends.  She and her husband John haves become like the grandparents in abstentia of our own.  Like us, issues of peace and justice, reconciliation and service are close to their hearts. 

A few years back I was perhaps lamenting a bit.  I felt as though the life that I had led in my twenties, actively involved in all sorts of activist-type organization…I felt that I somehow let that life go.  I wasn’t involved as much in issues I felt passionately about.  I wasn’t going to marches or demonstrations or going to my congressperson’s office.  I didn’t feel like the change agent I thought I was before.  I just felt…tired.

And  I remember Kitty looked at me with wide eyes, and said in her best Wisconsin born accent “Oh…Carrie!  You are raising two boys [there were only two at the time].  You are teaching them so many things.  You are a cultural change agent.” (I swear, those are the exact words she said.  She said that I am changing the world by what I am teaching the next generation.”

[pause]

Now I don’t know if that’ s true or she said it to make me feel better.  But what it did was show me that when we ground the very depths of our being in the love and grace of the divine being, every phase of our lives will shift and modify what our purpose is.  The focus and function of our lives do not remain static.  They change and shift and morph and transform, as we grow and deepen and learn.

Which is to say…just because you’re old doesn’t let you off the hook.  Just because you’re young doesn’t mean your work isn’t needed for the world.  Stepping into those baptismal waters, being a child of God, means we have a purpose beyond merely existing.  The challenge is, through prayer, discernment, and in community…discovering and claiming God’s call in our lives.

And if you are like me, you may feel that what you are doing isn’t so significant.  Maybe you’re mourning a shift, like I was when I talked to Kitty.  If that is the case, then let me leave you with the story of Mark Bezos.  Bezos shared this story at a TED Talk in 2011.

Back in New York, I am the head of development for a non-profit called Robin Hood.  When I’m not fighting poverty, I’m fighting fires as the assistant captain of a volunteer fire company.  Now in our town, where the volunteers supplement a highly skilled career staff, you have to get to the fire scene pretty early to get in on any action.

I remember my first fire.  I was the second volunteer on the scene, so there was a pretty good chance I was going to get in….When I found the captain in charge [to find out my assignment] he was having a very engaging conversation with the homeowner who was surely having one of the worst days of her life.  Here it was, the middle of the night, she was standing outside in the pour rain, under an umbrella, in her pajamas, barefoot, while her house was in flames.

The other volunteer who had arrived just before me…got to the captain first and was asked to go inside and save the homeowner’s dog.  The dog!  I was stunned with jealousy.  Here was some lawyer or money manager who, for the rest of his life, gets to tell people tha the went into a burning building to save a living creature, just because he beat me by five seconds.  Well, I was next.  The captain waved me over . He said, “Bezos, I need you to go into the house.  I need you to go upstairs, past the fire, and I need you to get this woman a pair of shoes.”  So, not exactly what I was hoping for, but off I went—up the stairs, down the hall, past the ‘real’ firefighters, who were pretty much done putting gout the fire at this point, into the master bedroom to get a pair of shoes.

I carried my payload back downstairs where I met my nemesis and the precious dog by the front door.  We took our treasures outside to the homeowner, where, not surprisingly, his received much more attention than mine. 

A few weeks later, the department received a letter from the homeowner thanking us for the valiant effort displayed in saving her home.  The act of kindness she noted above all others: someone had even gotten her a pair of shoes.

In both my vocation at Robin Hood [the anti-poverty non-profit] and my avocation as a volunteer firefighter, I am witness to acts of generosity and kindness on a monumental scale, but I’m also witness to acts of grace and courage on an individual basis.  And you know what I’ve learned?  They all matter.  So as I look around this room…I would offer this reminder: don’t wait.  Don’t wait [until you’ve done something amazing] to make a difference in somebody’s life.  If you have something to give, give it now.  Serve food at a soup kitchen.  Clean up a neighborhood park.  Be a mentor. 

Not every day is going to offer us a chance to save somebody’s life, but every day offers us an opportunity to affect one.  So get in the game.  Save the shoes.

Christ has come into our suffering and met us in our pain, turning despair into hope.  Now, it’s our turn to decide…how will we do the same?  And as Mark Bezos reflected in a follow up interview after this TED talk—don’t wait to do something great, or you miss all the opportunities to do something good.

My friends, there is a world on fire.  And there are shoes to save.  May you discover what is yours to do and the strength to go and do it.  And my God’s grace and help go with you. Amen.