Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, June 25, 2006
The grace of our Master Teacher — the love of God in the unity of Spirit — be with you all.
Creator of the Cosmos: We marvel at the manifestation of your mighty power displayed through the heavens. Yet even more wonderful is your intimate presence in us and around us and as us. Wise women and men of old have called your presence forth in us. Jesus called you Abba, Divine Parent, making both he and us members of the family, radiations of your glory.
Yet we don’t often affirm our birthright. Lord, have mercy.
Then we are reluctant to act like your sons and daughters. Christ, have mercy.
We are afraid to reach out, to share. Lord, have mercy.
This morning we claim our heritage as your offspring, as manifestations of Who You Are. We speak it, we feel it, we move in it. We are the sons and daughters of all that is Divine, as was Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
The Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23
14‘To be!’ That’s why God created humanity, indeed, all the Cosmos. Life is filled with health, not poison. Death doesn’t reign on earth; virtue and vitality are undying. 23But God created humanity for immortality, in the very image and nature of God.
Primary Speech (Ann and Barry Ulanov)
We are, all of us, creatures of parts, used to beginnings, middles, and ends because our lives are divided that way, and our language… follows the same logic… But the spirit is one and undivided, without parts, not chained to beginnings or middles or ends, and thus not dependent upon sequential reasoning… Its province, its everything, is wholeness.
Mark 5:21-24a; 35-42
22Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, came up to Jesus, falling on his knees. 23He humbly begged Jesus, “Please; my little daughter is dying. Come and lay hands on her so she’ll be healed and live.” 24aSo Jesus went with him.
35They hadn’t gone far when some men came from Jairus’ house with bad news. “Your daughter’s dead,” they told him. “Why bother the Teacher any more?”
36Jesus overheard their conversation, and went over to the synagogue leader, saying, “Don’t listen to them. Trust me!”
37He didn’t let anyone else come with him but Peter, James and his brother John. 38They arrived at Jairus’ home, and people were already gathering for the period of mourning. Some were crying quietly; some were wailing out loud. 39He pushed his way through the crowd. “What’s with this commotion? Why this wailing. The child’s not dead; she’s only asleep.” 40They just laughed at the very idea! So he quickly cleared them out of the house. Then his took the mother and father — and his students who accompanied him — into the room where the child was. 41He took the twelve-year-old girl by the hand and said to her, “Little girl, get up!” 42And she did!
Todd
Wiley, our Canon Musician, likes to compare me to Sophia Petrillo, the
character played by Estelle Getty in Golden Girls. “Picture it.
Sicily. 1912.” Every time I start telling a story, that’s what he says.
So
Todd: Picture it. Dayton. 1969. I had just left my position as Minister of
Music in Brightmoor Tabernacle, the largest Assemblies of God church in the
United States. They were pushing me to become a pastor, and here I was in
Dayton, scared to death. I knew this was wrong. I hadn’t even figured out my
own life!
That’s when I read an article in Time magazine,
October 1969. It was about a young, Pentecostal minister in Los Angeles,
starting a church for gay people. I found his address and wrote to him,
telling him that I, too, was a young Pentecostal minister and I just knew I
would be discovered. They would somehow know I was holding this deep, dark
secret…and he was the only person I could tell: I was gay.
His
letter back to me was full of compassion and some good advice. I kept that
letter hidden away until it was sadly destroyed in a fire a year later.
Troy Perry, founder of MCC, reached out a hand to me when I couldn’t even believe in myself. “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” I just needed a lifeline so I could learn to believe in myself again. Troy was my lifeline.
It would be ten more years before I would enter
ministry in MCC. During that time, when I was founder and publisher of
GayLife in Chicago, I got to interview Troy. For years after I came into
MCC, Troy would ask me how the newspaper was doing. Then he would remember
that I wasn’t a publisher any longer; I was an MCC minister.
Thank
you, Troy, for being there for me, for being my lifeline when I needed you
the most. I love you, dear friend.
Speaking of dear friends in MCC: I am so thrilled to be working with Don Eastman, our Vice Moderator, on a project that will be our new identity when he retires next year and I hopefully become Dean of this Cathedral. It’s called the Ministry Excellence Center, helping good churches find their greatness. MinX is our dream, putting our years of experience to work for the benefit of other churches and creating networks of caring clergy and lay leaders. Of course, the Sunshine Cathedral will be our laboratory to test our theories, so we’ll benefit right here at home.
But there’s more about Don. Picture it. Mexico City. 1984. I was there with Don and others on the Board of World Church Extension. We were charting the course for expansion of MCC into Latin America. And all the time I was thinking, “What am I doing with these crazy MCC people? I could be doing so much more with my life.”
Then Don would join me for cocktails and tell me all the wonderful things MCC was doing around the world. He had a sparkle in his eye that belied his calm, cool exterior. And I would be inspired again to go home to my church in Hinsdale, Illinois, and get back to work.
Don did this so many times over these last 25 years, and he keeps doing it. He’s often been my lifeline, keeping me focused on my calling and challenging me to reach out for my personal best. He made me read the book Good to Great, along with about a hundred others, encouraging me to keep reaching for the ‘great’ in me.
Thank you, Don, for being my lifeline. I love you, dear friend.
Here we go again, Todd: Picture it. Hammond, Oregon, population 400. 1954. I was at Youth for Christ on a Saturday night, there in that auditorium converted from a building at the old lumber mill. They were singing (for the 100th time, I think) “Just As I Am, Without One Plea.” They had told me and the other teenagers what sinners we were. Nobody could love us in that condition, not even God…that is, unless we came forward, confessed our sins, and prayed with a counselor.
I
knew I was a sinner. I was a teenager, for heaven’s sake!! Believe me, they
didn’t know how much of a sinner I was. They didn’t know my thoughts. They
didn’t know what I did when the lights went out…though I thought they might.
They didn’t know that when I was dating Roberta, it was her brother Robert
that stole my heart. They didn’t know that when Bobby and I later on
double-dated with sisters Judy and Jenny, we would ‘look’ at each other,
wondering, questioning, longing. I remember writing a paper for my sophomore
English class where I wrote about my confused feeling for both Judy and
Bobby. Judy was solo trumpet; I was first trumpet first chair; Bobby was
first trumpet second chair. But we were not all playing the same tune. Thank
God the English teacher was also the girls’ PE teacher. She understood!
So
you can see why I was buying into that Youth for Christ nonsense
about being such a wicked sinner. In the midst of it, a hand reached out for
me. My lifeline came to the rescue. My friend Jesus let me know that I was
loved, no matter who I was or what I did. He loved me. And he assured me
that God loved me, completely, without reservation, without hesitation…just
as I am.
Thank you, Jesus, for being my lifeline. I love you, dear friend.
I’m reminded of the words of the Psalmist, who felt the same feelings I felt: “He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay; He was my lifeline, my solid rock, steadying me back on my feet, and giving me a new song to sing: ‘Praise to our God’.” [Psalm 40:2-3]
I’m sure that was the way Jairus felt. He daughter was
sick, and they’d just come and told him that she had died. But Jesus came
with him to his house, despite what people were saying. When they got to the
house, the mourners were already there, weeping and wailing. How do those
who relish bad news show up so fast, and in such large numbers?
Jesus walked into her room, and, according to the story, “he took the twelve-year-old girl by the hand and said to her, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And she did!”
Another teenager. Another lifeline. Jesus took her by the hand. He was always reaching out to others, taking them by the hand when it was appropriate. Sometimes he just let them touch him. Two people making a connection, two people sharing a loving, healing touch. One stronger, one weaker, both better because of that healing moment when they are both one in Spirit and their universe rights itself, a body restored, a spirit renewed.
That’s what Jesus offers right now. He wants to be your best friend, to help you reconnect with your Divine Source. He wants to be your lifeline, to steady you on your feet and give you a new song to sing.
And we are all here to be lifelines for you, to help you find sanity in a crazy world and love in a lonely society. We’re not perfect yet; we’re all under construction, “every day, in every way, getting better and better.” And we’re doing this together, helping and healing one another, with our friend Jesus leading the way, challenging us, teaching us, encouraging us to be healed…and then to be healers, reaching out a hand to others.
That’s what it’s all about: being healed and healing others. That’s what we’re being called to do. And that’s the truth.
God is my Omnipresent Source.
There’s not a spot where God is not!
Jesus is my lifeline,
helping me reconnect…
to be renewed by my Source.My lifeline to health.
My lifeline to abundance.
My lifeline to happiness…
and to a life well lived.And I like it like that!
And so it is! Amen!
