Second Pentecost, Proper 4, 2005:

A fellow, who was something of a mountain man, long hair, full beard, and none too familiar with regular bathing, happened to be in town one Saturday morning.  He saw this beautiful woman, fell madly in love on the spot, and asked her for a date that evening.  She refused and walked on holding her nose.  The man rushed to a barber shop, got a haircut, a shave, bought a bottle of expensive cologne, a suit and tie, new shoes and every-thing.  He got all dressed up, found the woman again in town and asked for a date.  This time she agreed.  He drove his pickup to her house, went to the front door, ushered her out to the truck, opened the door on the passenger side for her, and as he walked around the truck to get in, lightning struck him.  As he lay in the street, dazed, unable to move, he asked in a weak voice, “Why me, Lord, and why now?”

A voice came down from the sky: “Is that you, Sam?  Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

I would suggest that everyone hopes to be recognized by the Lord, even those who are not sure there is one.  Then, every so often, a Gospel reading like the one appointed for today comes along.  Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  The thing, then, that must be of ultimate concern for each one of us is that we do God’s will.  It is reasonable to ask, “What is God’s will for me?”  And my answer must be, “I don’t really know.”  I know a little bit about God’s will for me.  I strive to see it a little more clearly every day, to live by it, one day at a time.  I do believe that God’s will for me would have me ask certain questions before I do anything.  Is what I am doing or think about doing something that builds me up and builds up others?  Is what I am doing or thinking about doing something that I would invite everyone else in the world to do?  Is what I am doing or thinking about doing something that I can invite God to tag along with me?  If I answer “no” to any of those questions, I have to conclude that if cannot be God’s will for me.  I don’t know what questions you might want to ask yourself in determining God’s will.  You’re welcome to use mine, if you think that might be helpful.

I do believe we enter God’s will best when we remember our model for living.  The one after whom we are to model our lives is Jesus the Christ, who said that he came not to be served but to serve.  How are we to serve?  Who are we to serve?  I’ve shared this story with you one other time.

A schoolteacher had a student in the fifth grade that she found very difficult to like.  His name was Teddy Stallard.  He was distant, not very motivated, and mostly poorly dressed every day.  She usually gave him poor grades, since he did so poorly on homework and hardly ever contributed in class.  The teacher knew that his home situation was poor and that his mother had died just before school began for the year.

Christmas time came and with it the usual presents from the students to their teacher.  Teddy’s was inside a poorly wrapped brown paper bag.  As she opened it, a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing fell out on the desk, along with a half-bottle of cheap perfume.  As the other children began to giggle, the teacher had the good sense to say of the perfume, “Doesn’t it smell lovely?”

Afterwards, Teddy came up and said, “Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother, and her bracelet looks good on you, too.  I’m glad you liked my presents.”

At home that evening, the teacher got down on her knees and asked God’s forgiveness.  And in the days that followed, a marked change came about in her teaching and in Teddy’s work at home and in class.  Teddy Stallard made the honor roll the last two six-weeks that year. 

Some years after he left her class, she received a note from Teddy saying that he was graduating near the top of his high school class.  She had almost forgotten about Teddy Stallard after another period of seven years.  Then, one day, she received another letter saying, “Dear Miss Thompson, as of today I am Theodore Stallard, M.D.  How about that?  I wanted you to be the first to know.  I am getting married next month, the 27^th to be exact.  I would like to invite you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive.  You are the only family I have now.  Dad died last year.  Love, Teddy Stallard.”

Miss Thompson went to the wedding, sat where Teddy’s mother would have sat, and said it was the greatest honor she had ever received in forty years of teaching.  She had built her house on the rock.

Service to others is never easy.  It is often an eye-opener for many of us that those who need our help turn out to be sinners, like the rest of us.  We are to reach out anyway because the one called Jesus the Christ has commissioned us to do so, in his name.  There are certain truths about our service as Christian people.  Our call to serve cannot be based on the response of those served.  Jesus commissioned his disciples to go forth to those in need, not just to those who are nice, or smell good, and not just to those who might say, “Thank you.”  We are to serve precisely because we have been served.

Secondly, service is a response on our part to God’s love that is always greater than human ingratitude.  Not all people are nice.  Not all people are loveable.  But, remember, in God’s eyes and maybe in the eyes of certain other people who know us well, we are not always nice and loveable either.

Last of all, our service cannot put people in neat little categories.  Christian people can never serve “clients, derelicts, ingrates, or the truly needy.”  We serve all those whom God in Christ places in our path and we recognize the truth of the Christ in us reaching out to the Christ in the other.  The awful “objectifying” of people opens the trap door down which otherwise well-intentioned Christian folk may fall.  We are not allowed to do selective service only to the appreciative.

The King described Camelot as a place where, “The rain may never fall ‘til after sundown; by eight the morning fog must disappear.  The snow must never slush upon the hillside; by nine P.M. the moonlight must appear.”  We serve not in Camelot but in an imperfect world.  We serve not because it is our will but because it is God’s will.  Service to God’s children will always make a difference, perhaps especially to those who bring us bracelets with stones missing and loud smelling perfume.  We are to make a difference in this world; otherwise God may not recognize us.  Amen.