Sermons from the Pulpit

Preached to Exeter Congregational United Church of Christ on the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 12, 1999, by E. George Hangen, retired pastor and a member of our church.

Text:
Zechariah 7,
Matthew 25:31-45

     The word "Home"... what warm images come to mind: Family gatherings at holidays-Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July; Pictures in magazines; Paintings by Norman Rockwell; Songs-"When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again", "Keep The Home Fires Burning", "Back Home In Indiana", and the most popular of all, "Home, Sweet Home."

     Our scriptures, Old and New Testaments, equally impress upon us the value a good home has for the development and nurturing of one's very soul. Recall, if you will, the story of Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt and ending up as treasury-assistant to the Pharaoh. When his brothers came to Egypt seeking help during a time of famine in Israel, they had no idea in the world that the one they were talking to was one of their own family, their own flesh and blood! As they presented their case, hoping against hope that they would receive aid, Joseph listened to his brothers and wept to himself as he recalled his parents and his home:

"When Joseph came home (his home in Egypt), they brought into the house to him the present which they had with them, and bowed down to him to the ground. And he inquired about their welfare, and said, 'Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive? ' They said, 'Your servant our father is well, he is still alive.' And they bowed their heads and made obeisance, And he (Joseph) lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, 'Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son!' Then Joseph made haste, for his heart yearned for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there."
(Genesis 43:26-30)

     One of the most familiar and most beloved parables of Jesus, The Prodigal Son, tells of that great rejoicing when the son comes to himself, realizes who he is and where he has come from and returns to the warming embrace of his father and his home!

     Noting all this, I would rather focus today on the other side of the coin... on what it means for those who do not have a home to look forward to: the refugee, the migrant, the wanderer today, and, yes, those for whom the very word "home" strikes terror in their hearts... the battered wife, the abused and molested child, the unwanted, un-loved infant who grows up to become the problem teenager.

     What does our faith say to us as members and friends of this particular assembly of faith in Exeter, New Hampshire, gathered here this morning and who assemble on Sunday mornings throughout the years, representatives, for the most part, of an affluent and comfortable society. And for whom the dark side of the coin I have just pictured is seemingly so removed and so mysterious that one can react only as from a distance?

     The Old Testament is filled with references to the "sojourner", the "stranger" in our midst. The Israelites saw the sojourner as the stranger, who though not an Israelite, lived permanently among them. It was a tenet of their faith to treat the stranger kindly, for they only needed to remind themselves of that time when they had no permanent dwelling place to call home, when their forefather, Abraham, led his people up out of Ur in Chaldees along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and eventually to the Promised Land, when the Israelites were captive and held bondage in Babylon, never to see Jerusalem, their "happy" home again....

     The prophet Zechariah encouraged his people to "render true judgments, to show kindness and mercy each to his brother, to not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner or the poor; and to let none of them devise evil against their brother in their heart." Hearing these words today we may feel they are somewhat chauvinistic in tone, but, as we ought to know, that was not their original intention, for "brother" meant anyone beside one's self!

     The "Parable of the Last Judgment", our New Testament reading for this morning, Jesus hammers out that if we are truly disciples of his and truly love God, then we will be responsible to and responsive for all those in need: the naked, the hungry, the sick, the prisoner, the outcast.

     These two scriptures speak to our times in ways we can not escape their very intent for us. The stranger, the sojourner, is a continual ever-present person in our midst, but we, too often, would choose to ignore his or her being there: Possibly, just possibly, they might go away?!...We have so many other concerns that take higher priority: the maintenance of our own family life, the education of our children, the very preservation of our faith. The media may disturb us for a moment with news and pictures about the less fortunate in society, those in our own nation and around the world... the migrant, boat people, Serbs... .We may contribute a few dollars or thousands to relief agencies geared to help and then we quickly turn back to more pressing concerns and issues.

     I would be so bold as to suggest that a certain pervasive sense of personal greed has infiltrated our society and has taken over the thinking of citizen and national leadership alike! The effects are taking their toll. The mood of government has been, for much of the recent past and right up through the present, that everyone can be a Horatio Alger, that everyone can raise up one's self by one's own shoestrings, to make it in the world today. Haven't we in our own nation given everyone this golden opportunity? Those who can't or haven't been able to do this...well; it is just too bad. Think through, if you will, what really lies behind all the hue and cry over taxes and the very thought of raising them: "It will take away from me, the one who sweated and labored so hard to get where I am today and to get what I have to support now the shiftless, leeches, welfare clients among us..."

     It is simply amazing the kind of assumptions we are able to make from secure, comfortable lives about those who are less fortunate! I served as Chair of the Advisory Board for the Haverhill-Newburyport Mass Office of Public Welfare and all the facts and information documented to the nth degree was of little avail in convincing many who had already made up their minds that those on welfare really didn't have to be if they would only put their hearts and minds toward bettering themselves and their status in society!

     This conclusion was subscribed to by people of faith or no faith, by many in my own congregation of Belleville and by many up and down the corridors of the land. It is but only one example to cite out of many. On the national level, we have those pressing Congress to enact even stronger immigration laws thereby making it even more difficult for the political oppressed to seek asylum and haven in our own land: Vietnamese, Cambodians, Haitians, Cubans, Mexicans, San Salvadorans; for this will lead to flooding the job market and in turn will threaten the stability and economic status of our nation. "Give me your tired, huddled masses yearning to be free"; a noble sentiment inscribed on the Statue of Liberty swept away by the contingency of the moment!

     Those of us who are members of communities of faith do not, sad to say come across all that well in all of these matters. When I served a church in Southern California in the San Fernando Valley in the early 60's, Cesar Chavez achieved national publicity in his drive and concern to bring fair and decent wages and living conditions for the Chicanos and Philippinos slaving in the rich agricultural valleys of Southern California and Texas. The people in my church gladly brought canned goods and food staples and clothing to help in all of this, but when my wife and I went to spend some time with the migrant workers to learn first-hand about their working conditions, to stand on the picket lines with them in Delano, the congregation had conniption fits! Charity from a distance was all right!

     Within many local churches and denominations today there has been a growing tendency for believers to draw back into themselves and into the confines of their particular understanding of faith. There are times within our own denomination, the United Church of Christ, when I cry out for a Valerie Russell to be resurrected and be among us once again, for a Bill Coffin to be young and healthy. Instead, I find too often those who would have us spend our time and energy debating where we must be "born-again" to be true Christians; whether one who does not believe in virgin birth or bodily-resurrection can be a real member of our denomination or any other body that calls itself "Christian"!

     Time, energy are directed away from facing the ills that afflict society, be one a believer or a down-right atheist: hunger, poverty, nuclear destruction, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia. For the past few years, the U.C.C. leadership and now General Synod have wrestled with and finally come up with a new restructure for how we are to operate as a United Church of Christ. God forbid, I am one of the first to underline the importance of efficiency and the perils when it does not exist, but too often the pursuit for it results in the putting on the back shelf those things that are disturbing and difficult to confront. The "Good News" that impels one to act in response to need, to do all that one can to alleviate the care of the less fortunate has too often been over-ridden by the "Moral Majority", "Promise Keepers", "Christian Coalition" with their kind of litmus-test that if one answers the ultimate questions in the only accepted way, this only will determine if one is a true follower of the Way.

     Lots of things are said and done in the name of Jesus Christ that fly in the face of all that Jesus taught and represented in his life and ministry and it is well past time when the Church in all of its various and sundry branches comes to its senses and realizes this. Zechariah did not ask his hearers how they interpreted the Torah or Mosaic Law, but, instead, commanded them to hear the Word of the Lord: to respond to all, Jews and non-Jew alike, with compassion, showing kindness and mercy, not oppressing and not devising evil. Jesus says that the question at the end of all times will not be: "How did you understand what my death on the cross signifies?" or "How is your level of faith?--Did I really walk on water or change water into wine?" but "How did you minister or not minister unto the least of one of these, for if you did not, then you did not minister unto me." The criterion for final accountability in God's sight is not: "Do you know the Creeds, how often do you pray, are you careful about Sabbath observances, do you mention my name in your constitution and on your coins, do you have the Ten Commandments posted in every class-room, do you allow prayer in your public schools?" but rather "What have you done for those in need?" The test is not knowing, but doing, (or rather, it is recognizing that the only true knowing comes through doing, through living out one's faith!)

     George Webber, once President of New York Theological School, Board member of "Christians For Justice Action", personal friend and author, in his "God's Colony In Man's World" underlines that

"We do not love in order to convert. Love loves for its own sake. It loves in order to help the other person. How right it is for a church to find that it is giving far more of its time to those who show little sign of committing their lives to Jesus Christ than to those who are already members of the church. Christ's love is always freely offered." (P.92)