Sermon
Sunday, August 31,
2008
“A FAILURE
TO COMMUNICATE!”
The Reverend Dr. E. Neil Hunt
The United Church of Marco Island
“A FAILURE
TO COMMUNICATE!”
The Reverend Dr. E. Neil Hunt
Sunday, August 31, 2008
HEBREWS 1:1-4
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
LET
US PRAY: May the words of my mouth and
the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to You O God, our rock and our
redeemer. Amen.
The
following notice appeared in an East Coast newspaper sometime ago:
To those of you who bought our book, Skydiving Made
Easy, please enter the following correction on page 12, paragraph 3, line
2; the words ‘state zip code’ should say
‘pull rip cord.’ We regret any
inconvenience this mistake may have caused you.
It
would be my guess that yes indeed, that little mistake might well have caused
someone a major inconvenience!
A
husband who was not used to doing housework decided to wash his own dirty
sweatshirt. After going into the laundry
room, he shouted to his wife for help.
“What setting do I use on the washing machine?” he
asked.
“It depends,” his wife replied. “What does it say on your shirt?”
From the laundry room, he shouted back, “
Sounds
to me as through they might have a small problem of a failure to communicate!
How
many times have you heard that expression, “What we have here is a failure to
communicate”?
Pollster
Sydney Harris once said” “The two words
‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they
signify two very different things.
Information
is giving out;
communication
is getting through.”
Perhaps
that is one of the problems in our society today!
We
live in the information age, but not in the communication age.
There
is a lot of giving out, but very little getting through.
A
man once wrote to Reader’s Digest to tell about an unusual occurrence in his
office. As they were all working away,
the telephone system suddenly went dead.
Soon there was an announcement made that a work crew had accidentally
cut the telecommunication lines while digging a hole for a new sign pole
outside.
Upon
leaving the office, he stopped to see what new sign they were talking about. He
was surprised to see what the sign said: “Dig with caution, buried
communication cables below.”
Just
because you are “giving out” does not mean that you are “getting through.”
Someone
sent me the following story from the internet.
A
priest, a minister and a rabbi stood by the side of the road holding up a sign
that said, “The End is Near! Turn
yourself around now before it is too late!”
A
driver sped past them and yelled, “Leave us alone you religious nuts!”
From
around the curve the three men heard the screeching of tires and then a big
splash.
The
rabbi looked at the others and said, “Do you think we should just put up a sign
that says ‘Bridge out ahead’?
A
failure to communicate.
In
our scripture reading this morning, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews
tells us: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the
prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he
appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.”
In
other words, says the writer of Hebrews, God has been seeking to communicate
with humanity since the earliest days of our time on earth. God was giving out, but somehow we were not
receiving. We just couldn’t get it
right.
We
kept making the same mistakes time and time again.
We
hated people we should love,
We
killed people we should have been introducing to God,
We
majored in legalism and minored in love.
So,
in a figurative sense, God finally threw up God’s hands and chose to speak to
humanity in the only way that would work, through the life and ministry of
God’s Son, Jesus of Nazareth.
When
there was no other way, God embodied God’s message in human flesh.
Jesus
the Christ came in response to a failure in communication, communication from
the heart of God to God’s children.
In
Jesus the Christ, we find God’s perfect revelation.
This
is the overarching message of the entire New Testament.
The
writer of Hebrews said it this way: Jesus the Christ is the reflection of God’s
glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by
his powerful word…
In
other words, everything we need to know about God we find in Jesus the Christ!
Back
in May of 1997, a powerful tornado swept through parts of
Shoppers
at the Albertson’s supermarket in
Larry
Fore, the manager of Albertson’s, was directing shoppers to safety. This is what he said:
“Don’t
leave the store or you will die… Your
only chance of survival is to do exactly what I tell you.”
He
then directed all the shoppers to enter the nearest meat locker. They did just
as he said, and all the shoppers survived the tornado without incident.
Why
did Larry Fore speak to the shoppers with such authority?
Because
some 18 years before, he had survived a more devastating tornado. He had been through the danger before, and he
knew how to bring others through safely.
The
writers of the New Testament vowed that Jesus spoke with that kind of
authority.
Jesus
the Christ is the perfect revelation of God.
“He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very
being….
You
want to know what God is like,
You
want to know what God desires,
You
want to know what God’s purpose is for creating the heavens and the earth, look
to Jesus the Christ.
At
the epic center of Jesus the Christ’s revelation is God’s love for all
humanity!
What
Jesus continues to tell each one of us is that WE ARE THE VERY REASON FOR EVERYTHING GOD DOES!
What
we don’t get is just how much God really loves us.
The
book “The Little Prince” wonderfully illustrates that kind of love. I am sure you remember the story, but let me
just highlight it for you this morning.
The Little Prince visits earth from a distant planet.
On his home planet he has a special rose, which he
leaves behind while he explores the vast universe. During his adventure on
earth he discovers an entire field full of roses and, for a minute, doubts that
his rose is special at all since there are more roses here than he has ever
seen.
But eventually, he understands the difference.
“You aren’t like my rose,” he finally tells the earth
roses.
”As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You
are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred
thousand other foxes. But I have made
him my friend, so now he is unique.”
The earth roses were very embarrassed. ‘You are beautiful, but empty,” he
continues. “No one would die for
you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby
would think that my rose looked just like you, the rose that belongs to me. But
she alone is more important than all of you other roses because I have watered
her, and she is the one that I have put under a glass globe. She is the one
that I have killed the caterpillars for (except the ones that we save to become
butterflies); she is the one that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or
boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she
is my rose.”
Here
is what gives our lives value,
God loves us!
That
is what God wants to get through to us.
Our
lives matter.
It
may be true that we are but one of billions of people on this earth, but our
relationship with God resembles the Little Prince’s relationship with his rose.
Here
is the ultimate answer to all human dilemmas.
WE
ARE LOVED!
When
we are feeling down, we might say to ourselves, “It doesn’t matter what I do
with my life. I’m nobody.
Who
cares whether I destroy myself or not?
Who
cares whether I am responsible or not?
Who
cares whether I live of die?
And
a voice comes from out of the heart of the universe and says,
I CARE!
But
we are a hard lot to get through to, even for God.
I
was given a story the other day that illustrates this very well. Let me share
that story with you this morning. It is
simply called “The Brick.”
A young and successful executive was traveling down a
neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from
between parked cars and slowed down, when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side
door!
He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to
the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of
the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car
shouting, ‘What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you
doing? That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of
money. Why did you do it?
The young boy was apologetic. ‘Please, mister…please,
I’m sorry but I didn’t know what else to do, ’He pleaded. ‘I threw that brick
because no one else would stop…’
With tears dripping down his face and off his chin,
the young boy pointed to a spot just around a parked car. ‘it’s my brother,’ he
said ‘He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift
him up.’
Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive,
‘Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s
too heavy for me.’
Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the
rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy
back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the
fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look
told him everything was going to be okay. ‘Thank you and may God bless you,’
the grateful child told the stranger.
Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy push his
wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar.
The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the
dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: Don’t
go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your
attention.!
God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts.
Sometimes when we don’t have time to listen, God has to throw a brick at us!
No
matter how you tell the scripture story,
And
no matter how you hear the scripture story, the basic meaning of it all is that
God is love.
And
that God loves each one of us!
It
is just that simple.
That
is the message that God is seeking so desperately to communicate to our
hearts!
We
are loved!
AND
OUR LIFE MATTERS! Amen.