Sermon: The Power of Love -- Smith Memorial at 115

The Power of Love: Smith Memorial at 115

Cynthia O’Brien

Micah 6:6-8 and Luke 4:14-30

January 29, 2006

Micah 6:6-8

^{MIC 6:6} With what shall I come before the LORD

and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

^{MIC 6:7} Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

^{MIC 6:8} He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Luke 4:14-30

^{LK 4:14} Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵ He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. ^{LK 4:16} He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. ¹⁷ The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

^{LK 4:18} "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed,

^{LK 4:19} to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

^{LK 4:20} Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, ²¹ and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

^{LK 4:22} All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

^{LK 4:23} Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: `Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "

^{LK 4:24} "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷ And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian."

^{LK 4:28} All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. ³⁰ But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Good news to the poor. Freedom for prisoners. Recovery of sight to the blind. Release the oppressed. It was Jesus’ mission statement more than 2,000 years ago. But could it be a mission statement for today as well?

Imagine, women, that your husband has been arrested and imprisoned. You and your family are confused and frightened. No one knows where he is and whether he is even still alive. The government won’t tell you anything.

Many families are in that position today. They had no one to help them, until Anita and Beth came along and offered to help them find their loved ones. Anita and Beth are part of a team that is helping hundreds of families.

Anita David hails from Lakeview Presbyterian Church in Chicago. Beth Pyles is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Fairmont, WV

Beth and Anita work with the international Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) from an apartment in Baghdad. Anita has been there since October 13. Beth arrived in Baghdad three weeks ago. They are working to help the families of Iraqi detainees find their family members who have been imprisoned. They call attention to prisoner abuse and try to reunite families.

You would think everyone would agree that this is charitable work. You would think that even Iraqi militants would give the peace team room to work.

But on November 26, unidentified militants abducted four members of the CPT: Jim Loney, Norman Kember, Tom Fox and Harmeet Sooden. The four men had come to the Christian Peacemaker Team from Canada, Britain and the United States. The kidnappers threatened to kill them unless Iraqi prisoners were realsed from jails.

Since the kidnapping, the Baghdad team has limited its travel in the city and focused solely on the hostages. Then last week, a videotape was released which shows the four men alive, which the team says is an answer to their prayers.

Now the CPT is resuming its work of helping the families of Iraqi detainees find imprisoned family members. In a statement issued Thursday, the CPT said: "Today, 26 January 2006, marks two months since our brothers - Jim Loney, Norman Kember, Tom Fox and Harmeet Sooden - were pulled away from their work in Iraq. Although we cannot have them with us right now, we choose to continue the work they are doing."

Anita was scheduled to return to the United States this month, but has chosen to stay. She told the Presbyterian News Service, "There's work to do. "We've decided to get back to work again."

Last week Anita accompanied an Iraqi human-rights worker to a military compound to seek the release of two female detainees, both of whom were later freed. She is also helping a family with a child who needs medical treatment not available in Iraq.

She said, "People are contacting us, and we're accompanying them," she said. But she hasn’t forgotten her abducted colleagues. "We're still on high alert. We want our friends back." Anita and her team members light candles during worship each morning for the missing men.

In yesterday's release, the team said: "Those of us in CPT and the families of Jim, Norman, Tom and Harmeet continue to feel their absence acutely. We worry about their physical and emotional wellbeing and long to see them, speak to them and be with them again. We know that thousands of Iraqi families share our grief and yearning as they wait for loved ones caught in a prison system over which they have no control.”

In this sanctuary today there is a wide diversity of opinions on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but you cannot doubt the courage and calling of these Christian women and their fellow team members. For them, “good news to the poor” and “freedom for the prisoners” are not just a Biblical foundation for the ministry of Jesus long ago. It drives them to work in one of the most dangerous places on earth. Along with journalists and other charity workers, they are putting their lives on the line to try to ease the suffering of the native people there.

Good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, sight for the blind, release for the oppressed. None of us is working in a war-torn country, but we are following Christ. Consider how Jesus’ mission is being carried out right here at Smith Memorial :

1. Good news to the poor. We give hope for people around the world by praying and giving. The general mission money that we give to the Presbyterian Church each year and the One Great Hour of Sharing offering is being used to help victims of natural disasters and war. We supported the Christian radio ministry in Pakistan again last year. Right here at home, we help the needy. When you bring mittens for elementary school kids and food for SnowCap, you are bringing good news to the poor. I recently learned that for every dollar you would spend on groceries, Snow Cap can buy $10 worth of groceries, so I sent them $50 so they could buy $500 worth of food. I thought that was a pretty good investment.

2 Freedom for the prisoners. One of the ways Smith Memorial cares for prisoners is buying presents for their children. We find out what their kids would like for Christmas, we go buy it, then we put a tag on it that says, Merry Christmas, Love, Dad (or Mom if the mom is incarcerated). We also offer to send those kids to Christian summer camp. We are doing what we can for the prisoners.

Whether in a physical prison or captive to illness, addicted to drugs, if drinking is the way you cope with life, if you are in an intimate relationship with someone other than your spouse, if you can’t seem to stop stealing things or lying, God has freedom for you. You can tell someone in this church about it. We don’t care about maintaining the appearance of everything being OK if it’s not. We want you to be free. You can tell.

3. Sight for the blind. There are some who are physically blind who have been miraculously healed. Many with eye problems have been healed by divine intervention and surgery. But blindness also refers to spiritual blindness, to the person who lives in darkness and doesn’t see God. God will give new sight to understand God’s perspective. In our church, education is a top priority, and not just for children. We offer an introduction to Christianity called “Alpha” which will begin just after Easter on Sunday nights. There are Bible studies on Sundays and Wednesdays and all kinds of home groups. If you are looking for meaning and insight, that’s where you want to be.

Here in our church, we have been carrying out the ministry of Jesus Christ for 115 years.

Over these 115 years, we have had good times and hard times. Right now is a good time.

When you read our Annual Report, you will probably find out something that you didn’t know before about the many good things that our church is involved in. Our members are hauling bread from the supermarket to Snow Cap, cooking lunch for a hundred homeless or needy people, delivering meals on wheels, and doing yardwork for a disabled person. They are serving on citizen’s advisory committees, looking out for their neighbors. They are thinking of ways to provide everything an elementary school student needs to start the school year if his family doesn’t have the money for things like school supplies.

.There is a lot of creative ministry going on here, and you can thank your leaders for that. I talked the last few weeks about our elders and deacons, who work very hard for you on a volunteer basis. Where you put actual dollars is into your staff members, and they are terrific. Donna has been here for about 25 years, Marcia and Marti 15 years each, and I’m in my tenth year. Our bookkeeper, Ann, has just been here a year but she was already known as one of the best church bookkeepers in the Presbytery. Bette Carroll came to us with 17 years experience in youth ministry; she has taken our youth to new depths of spirituality and new heights of ministry in just a few years. You see the growth of the music program, and as for Marilyn Robinson’s years of musical experience, well, she didn’t know Bach personally but she and Mozart were like this, and you’ll have to read her report to understand the full range of work she’s doing, building the choirs and developing musicians of all ages.

You have invested in your church staff, and we are continually grateful for the confidence you place in us. We love the work that we do and we love who we’re doing it with. There may not be a lot of dollars to do it with, but that’s where our creativity comes in, until giving can pick up again.

We all understand that the time we are in now is an economic lean time, as most of our members have modest incomes and several of our families are really struggling.

But this isn’t the first time our church has weathered financial difficulty. There have been several. You know of the crash of 1929. It was shortly after that that the Methodist Episcopal Church, just down the street from us, decided to close, and we might have been the same, except that there was a hopeful spirit here. The new minister, Charles Fleming, was one of those especially optimistic people. His attitude was, “Why worry about physical wealth? We shall make our riches spiritual.” It was in that economic lean time that the Sunday School grew so much they had to partition the sanctuary with curtains to keep the large classes from spilling into each other. By the church’s 50^th anniversary, the fireside room was added, and everyone was amazed at the church’s growth during the Depression.

Life inside the church today may have the same vital spirit, but Rev. Fleming wouldn’t recognize the community outside. It’s a new world out there.

So we are seeking God’s guidance for creative ways that we can carry out Jesus’ mission statement of preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, release of the oppressed. That’s the leaders’ ministry to you, the congregation. It is also our congregation’s ministry to the people outside our church.

I have a twofold goal for this year. The first is to strengthen the foundation of this church as a platform that you can rest your life on. As a member of this church, you have a place to worship God, to be loved, to have friends, to learn and to grow. There’s a lot to take advantage of, and it’s your choice how you become involved. I want you to be strengthened when you walk out of this building, whether it’s from a service where we sang your favorite hymn or a tough session meeting where you had to be reconciled with someone you disagreed with. You should be a stronger, better person because you are a member of Smith Memorial. The sermons in February and March are designed to build up the individual person, and that’s why I’m recommending them as a good time to bring a friend to church.

The second goal is to see you become a renewed force for good in East Multnomah County. I’ll be explaining more about it in the April and May sermons, but I’m already working on ways to help our church become more connected in our community, through other community organizations and meeting with city leaders.

Now, more than ever, people need to hear the good words of Jesus – good news to the poor, release to the captives – that this is the year of the Lord’s favor. May it be a favorable year for us all.