Scripture Psalm
84 and Mark 14:3-9
Laura,
Alex, and I had the privilege of spending the week with forty Young Adult
Volunteers. These people are between the
ages of nineteen and thirty-one, they have agreed to serve in mission for a
year, and are traveling tomorrow to their new city or village.
They are
headed to far away places like Kenya, Guatemala, Northern Ireland and closer to
home places like Tucson, Hollywood, San Antonio, Atlanta, and Denver. Some are heading across the world while
others are moving to another part of the same city.
They
will work with food banks, the homeless, afterschool programs, orphanages, and
refugees.
In some
people’s eyes these young people are foolish for doing something like this with
student loans to pay and car payments that are due. It does not seem as useful as getting a job
to start paying for expenses. Yet
serving God in this way is important enough to them that they are willing to commit
a year of their lives to do this – to put their own plans on hold to see and
serve the larger world.
Others
criticize their length of service by asking, “What can possibly be accomplished
in a year?”
To these
people it seems like it is a waste of time, a waste of a year of work, and
perhaps thinking that their first job out of school is so important that
spending a year in service will leave them at a disadvantage when they do enter
the job market that they will never catch up with their peers.
Isn’t it
striking that this woman’s gift anointing Jesus was worth about a year’s worth
of work. And those who saw this lavish
gift criticized her for the way she spent or wasted her money – the way that
she decided to honor Jesus her king, by offering him a essentially a year of
her life, a year’s worth of work.
Indeed it
is a costly gift, given that the average household income in the United States
is $40,000, this is an extravagant act of generosity.
Whether
they realize it or not these young people are offering a costly gift to honor
Jesus with a year of service.
The
ministry they are engaging in is relational rather than task oriented, while
they will have jobs and volunteer work to do, much of what they do is not
easily measured. For they will be building
relationships with people they are working with and serving.
Where
they are headed, Relationships are going to be their only currency. It is the relationships they build that may
help protect them from the rough neighborhoods and placements they find
themselves in.
As an
example, one former volunteer shared that a nun he worked with was in the
process of being mugged and the perpetrator was stopped not by the police but
by the nun’s neighbor who happened to be a drug dealer.
From my
experience as a volunteer I discovered the importance of learning the stories
of where I was and sharing them with other people to raise awareness.
In Miami
I learned how halfway houses worked. How
they provided both structure and freedom to enable a person to overcome
addiction by providing a safe environment and stability needed to work and save
money for a deposit for an apartment and make a new start.
I
learned how similar I was to the guests of the program I was serving – I
learned that we all have addictive tendencies.
But that some addictions are more socially acceptable than others –
addictions like consuming information, TV, video games, or shopping are often
times less destructive than alcohol and drugs.
In my
time there I realized that I was only a few decisions or circumstances away
from their place in life. I was only
making $200 a month yet I had a social safety net in place to support me while
most of their relationships and social support had been destroyed because of
their addiction.
Some of
us are only one car accident, one fire, job termination or few bad decisions or
events away from being homeless. And
this is scary. Money is helpful and even
necessary but it is the relationships we build that sustain us.
This is because we are relational people, Descartes was wrong when he said, “I
think therefore I Am.” When he came up
with his famous revelation he was snowbound in a cabin by himself, trying to
figure out how he could know that he actually existed.
If we accept
his words as truth we set ourselves apart isolating ourselves from one
another. We should correct Descartes by
saying, “I relate therefore I am.”
God created
us to be in relationship.
First, we
are created to be in relationship with God.
Our primary purpose in life is to serve and give praise to GOD our
creator through our thoughts, words, and actions.
Second, we
are in relationship with our SELF. We
all have inherent worth and dignity because we are created in the image of God and
being made in God’s image, we are called to reflect God’s being.
Third, OTHERS. We are created to live in loving
relationships; we are to know, love, and encourage one another, to use our
gifts from God to fulfill our calling.
Fourth, we
were created to live in relation to God’s CREATION. We are called to be Stewards of the earth, to
protect, understand, and manage the world.
BUT because
of SIN all of these relationships are broken causing discord and
injustice. The reason that the poor will
always be among us is because of sin – not necessarily their sin but the sin of
our world.
Despite our
sin we are still called to live following the example of Jesus Christ.
As
Presbyterians we are part of a relational church, because the Presbyterian
Church(USA) is a connectional denomination.
And because of this we are connected to those leaving tomorrow for their
year of service.
Our
mission giving to the presbytery and larger church goes to support programs
like this. So by contributing to our
weekly offering you all are participating in this ministry in this mission
work. As your pastor I spent the week
supporting them and helping them prepare for service: this creates a direct
link between our church and mission taking place across the world and right
here in the United States.
In other
words our church has a relationship with mission going on out in the
world.
The
slogan of the Young Adult Volunteer Program is, “A year of service, for a
lifetime of change.”
This
program changes lives. People are
exposed to different worlds, neighborhoods that you don’t see on vacations to
foreign countries or even in a bigger city like Nashville or Denver – they are
faced with victims of poverty and violence who suffer as the result of the
systemic sin of our world. It is truly
an eye opening experience.
Ten
years ago I began my journey as one of these volunteers. At the end of August I loaded up my white Geo
Metro with everything I thought I would need for the year and headed to
Tucson. This led me to a year in Miami,
then a year in Louisville helping lead the program, which took me to seminary
in Chicago, and ultimately here to East Bethany.
Ten
years ago I could not have imagined that I would be living in Western New York,
married to a woman I met as a young adult volunteer, but here we are with Alex
and a dog.
Here I am. Here we are in relationship with one another,
in ministry together.
Praise
God that we have been brought together in this time and in this place!
Rev. Michael Fry preaching
at East Bethany PC
August 26, 2012
This WEEK at East Bethany Presbyterian Church 
