I am a teacher, and a drama critic and even a
poet, but I am not a theologian and I am not a pastor. However, I've been coming here for
all of my nearly 44 years, and all the Sunday schools, Bible studies, sermons, small
groups, officers, committee meetings and mentors I have encountered have shaped my belief.
Now it's time to give back, I guess, and tell you what I've learned. Okay. Here goes:
"If I perish, I perish," or, in the words of a favorite translation of mine,
"if I die, I die."
I like that story of Esther, as she girds her spiritual support around her, and goes
off to do the right thing. Of course, there's more to the story. Esther is human, after
all. In the middle, it takes one more message from Mordechai reminding her that she's
Jewish, too, and that her own family will be in peril if she does nothing. But then she
does do something - the right thing. It's the most fundamental image I have of what it is
to be faithful -- to be part of God's family - this sometimes overwhelming desire,
Mordechai's insistence aside, to try to do the right thing. But how does one apply this to
the modern world?
Perhaps first I should define what I mean by the right thing. In simplistic terms it
would be that phrase many of us learned in Sunday school: I am third. You know, God comes
first, others come second, I come third. It's doing what your soul tells you is necessary
to the well-being of others even when it's not necessarily personally expedient, or in
line with convention, or even safe. It's doing what Christians are told is what being
Christian is really all about.
I don't mean that we get to God through works. God chose us long before we had a say in
the matter. But understanding that we are already God's beloved, how do we respond? At its
best, that way of responding is what I refer to as simply "doing the right
thing." Yeah, I know it may seem excessively simple: sort of a "well, duh"
moment, but if you back off from it, it's a complex and powerful challenge.
In the mid 1970s there was a spectacular plane crash. Perhaps some of you remember it.
A large airliner skimmed a bridge and plunged into the Potomac River in the middle of a
winter rush hour. There are numerous tales of heroism from that day as commuters pulled
over and dove into the freezing river to rescue many who managed to escape the fuselage
and get to the surface. But of all the stories, one stays in my mind. As a helicopter
hovered over the water again and again, a man, obviously a passenger, kept helping others
into the harness the helicopter dangled. Over and over again, the copter returned, and the
man helped yet another innocent to safety. When the helicopter returned for him,
hypothermia had taken its toll, and he had sunk beneath the water.
The following week, an essay in Time Magazine became one of the most memorable I've
ever read. In essence, what the writer said was that every time he began to get
discouraged about the ugliness, the petty inhumanity of the human race, there was suddenly
a man in the water, someone who went beyond good sense and expediency and personal
self-interest and simply did what was right, no matter the cost. Yet another case of
"If I die, I die."
I took that to heart, and since then, when crisis or horror strikes, or even when
looking back at the ugliness of history (I'm a history teacher, after all ... I do that
all the time), I have looked over and over for the man or woman in the water.
And there's always one there. During the L.A. riots, while attention was focused on
Reginald Denny, who was being beaten with bricks for the single crime of being white and
in the wrong place at the wrong time, there was the African-American woman only a few
blocks away who found a wounded white journalist on her front lawn, put him in her car
under a blanket and drove him through the worst of the violence to a hospital.
And, of course, there was the junior high teacher in Oklahoma who dove in front of
three of her students, pushing them out of the way of two young shooters, at the cost of
her own life. That one hit fairly close to home, since I am a teacher. I keep hoping I'd
have both the guts and the presence of mind to do what she did. I have no death wish, but
I have an even greater abhorrence to seeing someone else disappear without trying to stop
it. But I am also human, and down deep wonder if I'd be able to react in a way which would
be brave enough to help anyone.
I've met bravery close to home in the form of Jimmy Cetina. He was the handsome,
occasionally flighty, charming ASB President at Blair High School here in Pasadena,
shortly after I joined its faculty. He was proud of his first job as a clerk at the Ole's
Home Improvement Center in South Pasadena. When the store caught on fire - a fire which
was only recently ascribed to an infamous arsonist - Jimmy got out just fine, but he heard
that customers (an older woman and her grandson) had not. He and another employee
immediately reentered the burning store. None of the four made it out alive.
In Jimmy's case, doing the right thing accomplished nothing immediate. Yet, on the day
of his funeral, hundreds of public high school students, often unfairly maligned in this
society, listened to one of their own be described as a hero, and worthy of great honor.
It changed lives, and Jimmy's death was far from in vane. Heroism rarely is.
Classic heroism, of course, came with the fight against the Holocaust: ordinary people
like Corrie Ten Boom, as well as such folk as King Christian of Denmark, Otto Schindler,
even Cardinal Roncalli - a Cardinal going against the instructions of the Catholic church,
a Cardinal who would one day be Pope John XVIII - could not stand idly by and allow
inhumanity to continue, particularly in the name of religion.
One could go on and on. In every ugly place, in every awful time, there is a man or
woman in the water, so to speak: a Tutsi woman hiding her Hutu neighbor from the massacres
in Rwanda, a Serbian who helps Albanian Kosovars away from the murderous troops headed
toward their village, the student in front of the tank outside Tiananmen Square. And we
are called to join them.
But giving or risking one's life isn't the only way to do the right thing, or this
would be a matter of preaching to a very small, elite crowd. Any time you can see yourself
going past what is expedient, or what has always been done, to stand up for the human race
and its individuals, you are on the right track. What Christianity has to offer - is
expected to offer - is love and acceptance and a care which goes far beyond what is safe.
As has been said from this pulpit only recently, the rightest thing one can do is see
Jesus in every face one meets. And doing that, really reaching out with the love of God,
being the human hands answering prayers to God, is to be doing what is quintessentially
the right thing.
I saw this at work in Louisville, during the Triennial Gathering of Presbyterian Women
this summer. In a workshop I met a group of remarkable older ladies from a tiny town in
Kentucky who have lived out this concept with remarkable clarity. Inspired by the reaction
of an admired friend to the news that her son was gay, they had worked tirelessly to push
through a major antidiscrimination ordinance in their small community. It has not been
without cost. One woman admitted she can no longer go out of her house at night, because
there's always someone in a strange car parked in front. Yet, none would change a thing
about what they felt called to do. It had been, they said, the right thing.
Which is all well and good, but if you are sitting there, poised to start this
"right thing" business, where do you begin? Surely, one mustn't have to go where
bullets are flying or planes are falling out of the sky, or rush into a burning building
to become a part of the good, though it must be said that some have.
This church has a tradition of doing the right thing, whether it has been fighting for
the desegregation of the Brookside Pool, ordaining women as elders as soon as the
Presbyterian church laws would allow it (something some churches, three quarters of a
century later, have yet to do), or embracing Katie Morrison as she fights her uphill
battle for ordination. On this last, I remember Katie describing, to a large forum at the
Presbyterian Women's Triennial Gathering six years ago, the reaction this individual
institution had when she as a young seminary student came out of the closet. I was so
proud to be able to say I was a member of her church, as she talked of the open
acceptance, the hugs and the care she received from people of all age groups who insisted
on living the Christian creed. As a result she has put a face on what might otherwise be,
for many people here, a purely philosophical issue, both for this congregation and for the
national church. Some day soon - thanks to people like Katie, supported by people like you
- we will hopefully be able to consign the verses in Leviticus which condemn gays to a
spot right next to the verses in Leviticus which tell us not to eat shellfish, as
antiquated and silly.
So, what can you do?
Think of the people you shook hands with during the passing of the peace. If some of
them were people you don't know, make an effort after the service to change that. Put a
roof on a church in Tijuana, yes, but also make certain you are welcoming to the Hogar
Christiano members in the chapel right here. Listen to someone of a totally different
generation. Allow them to listen to you. Sit down with the members of the Korean Christian
Fellowship, and find out why they have chosen their unique path to Presbyterian
Christianity. Accept all people who walk through the door as children of God, and let them
know you think so, regardless of what they are wearing, or how they speak, or where they
come from. That alone can make you a "man or woman in the water", in this modern
world.
This year's Presbyterian Gathering in Louisville had as its central theme the concept
of Jubilee. It's a truly "right thing" kind of concept, though unfortunately,
many people have a very muddy view of what Jubilee means. It refers to an ancient practice
that, on certain significant years, all debts would be forgiven. Such is not an idle
concept to much of the world. Large portions of Africa, for example, labor under herculean
debts, sometimes incurred by nefarious governments which have long since disappeared. In
some of Africa's poorest nations people cannot grow enough to eat because so much of the
farmable land must be devoted to cash crops, to pay off huge, ancient international loans.
So, the year 2000 is a year of Jubilee. One way to celebrate this, and to become a part
of doing the right thing is to lobby our federal government for the forgiveness of these
debts. It may not be expedient, or seen as financially sound, for the nation to forgive
the debts of countries too burdened by the amount owed, but it is right. And, frankly, we
can afford it.
Fortunately, doing the right thing can lift you up as well. I remember as a child my
mother pointing out that the old phrase "it's better to give than to receive"
was indeed true, as one felt so darned warm inside making someone else happy. So, work to
make good things happen for others. You'll feel good if you do. Remember that nobody is
perfect, and there are times when you need to be selfish, but aim to make service, rather
than those selfish moments, become the defining part of your life. And, when it becomes
crucial, remember that the response God expects of us, in return for unconditional love,
is the ability to love others enough to make sacrifices - to do what needs doing even when
it isn't easy.
It's a creed I try to follow. I wish I was better at it. I don't claim to live up to
all the ideals of Christianity. Nor do I expect it of others. But, as I learned long ago,
right here, the striving is a goal unto itself.
And I must thank you all. My way of approaching the world, my attempts at open
mindedness and the sense I find of God's presence in my students, my friends and my
family, was learned at your collective feet. Every time I tell a classroom full of high
school students, on the first day of school, that I liked them the moment they walked in
the door, I am thriving on what I learned here:
"I am third."
"If I die, I die."
"Even as you do this unto the least of these, my brethren..."
"Go thou and do likewise." Amen.
Our sermon today is about the fear of God,
which is foundational for the Christian faith and which I hold dear in my heart.
The fear of God is the main point of the book of Proverbs. There are verses in which
the writer of the proverbs tells precisely about fear of God. The fear of God is the
beginning of knowledge (1:7). It adds length to life (10:27). It has secure fortress
(14:26). It is the fountain of life (14:27). It teaches wisdom (15:33). It helps people
avoid evil (16:6). It leads to life (19:23).
In chapter 31:10-31, which was read in the first lesson, is a special poem for a woman
who fears God. The writer makes the meaning meticulously with an acrostic style. That
means the initial letters starting each verse are the 22 couplets of the normal order of
the Hebrew alphabet. He expresses his impression about the importance and results of the
woman's fear of God. Bible translators tried to describe that by different titles, such
as: the perfect wife, the capable wife, the ideal housewife, the strong woman, the wife of
noble character, or other similar descriptions.
If we summarize the chapter 31, the fear of God gives to woman the strong character,
great wisdom, many skills, and great compassion. These qualities lead to enjoyments,
success, honor and worth. A famous Malagasy poem which highlights the importance of
women's having wisdom says: "Give me a wise wife with whom I will build a great
nation."
A God-fearing woman is worth far more than precious jewels. The people who fear God
need time to be fashioned like precious stones being formed within an oyster. The Today's
English version translates the verse 27 as "She is always busy ..." Wisdom does
not come easily, nor does it come without pain. Jesus gives us an example of hard work:
"He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (Phil 27a) for our salvation.
He also tells the parable of The Good Samaritan. The Samaritan took pity on the man half
dead on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. He went to the victim, bandaged his wounds,
poured on oil and wine, put him on his donkey, took care of him and spent his money for
the treatment (Luke 10:30-36). Many people may stumble across the passage about the
God-fearing woman in the Proverbs 31 because no one wants to be busy all the time, or to
work nonstop for other's benefit. People would take the easy way. Instead of working, they
prefer robbery. Instead of learning, many students prefer cheating. That seems to be the
reason of the rarity of God-fearing people. It is hard to find God-fearing person ... Who
can find one?
I grew up in a family which has different religions. My father, who died three years
ago, was not a Christian. My mother was converted into Christianity after she had a very
bad experience with her animism or traditional religion. That happened two years before
she gave me birth. At the age of 20, I decided to serve God and become a pastor. At that
time, I did not know the Bible very well. I did not have even enough acquaintance of the
church life and its history. For example, I did not know that there were female pastors.
But what I had deep in my heart was a desire to become a pastor. From the place where I
come from, nobody wanted to be a pastor. As a matter of fact, at that time, my home church
was 100 years old, but I was the first person interested in the pastoral ministry.
When I told my family about my plan to go to the seminary, one of my older sisters said
to me, "Why do you want to be a pastor; don't you know that the pastors look like
beggars? They work very hard but get little money. You are still young and you can
continue your studies of mathematics in the university, which would give you, in the
future, a chance to get a nice job and make a lot of money."
However, that did not change my mind because I was so determined to respond to my fear
of God, though I knew that the pastoral ministry was not easy and was not a work to make
money. I knew that my family was disappointed as many of my teachers and friends who
thought that I was crazy. I found that the fear of God was more important in life than
anything else.
I agree with the writer of the Proverbs that it is rare to find women who fear God.
However, I thank God because he allows me to find God-fearing women in his history, in his
word, in the Malagasy church and in the church around the world, and in myself. And I
believe that you too can find.
I found out that in God's history, his Son, Jesus Christ, was born to Mary, a humble
God-fearing woman. I found in the Bible, God's word, many God-fearing women whom I admire
so much, such as Rahab, Ruth, Esther, and others.
I found in the Malagasy church history that the first Malagasy martyr was a woman,
whose name was Rasalama.
I found out that there were many wonderful and influential female pastors in my
denomination: the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar.
I found out that there were many God-fearing women in the world, such as Mother Theresa
who spent her life to work hard sharing and bringing joy for the weak, and the
Presbyterian women in the USA who gather together every three years to value their fear of
God.
The theme of the last gathering of the Presbyterian women was Jubilee. The idea of
jubilee has to do with fear of God. It cannot be admitted by selfish and abusive people,
as the Egyptians who enslaved the Israelites, and as what the colonists did to the
colonized.
I found out the fear of God in myself through my response to God's call. You too, you
can have that experience in yourself.
God-fearing people... Who can find? We can find them in ourselves, if we accept to
serve diligently for God's honor, to bring joy, peace, reconciliation for our community.
We, then, need to renew every day our commitment to live and follow God's will. Amen.
